MDC slams ‘rogue regime’

Riot police in Zimbabwe on Friday fired teargas and beat demonstrators who defied a protest ban, as the opposition accused President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Government of surpassing Robert Mugabe’s regime in terms of brutality. A report on The Citizen site notes that thousands of people gathered in central Harare to demonstrate against the country’s worsening economy, despite massive police deployment and a ban upheld by a court the same morning. Police said they arrested 91 people for various offences, but rights groups said 128 people were detained. Numerous police were deployed in running battles with protesters, many of them from the opposition MDC. ‘We not only have an illegitimate regime in this country, we have a rogue regime,’ said MDC leader Nelson Chamisa. He added that ‘we jumped from the frying pan into the fire after the November coup’.

At least six opposition and rights activists were abducted and tortured by unidentified assailants ahead of the protests. ‘We note with regret that six people so far were abducted by suspected state agents in the evening of 13 and 14 August, and they have been severely tortured and left for dead,’ said a statement released by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, a coalition of 21 human rights groups. In an apparent rebuttal of the accusations, government spokesman Nick Mangwana said it ‘noted with concern and distress reports of alleged abductions and torture of citizens by unknown assailants'. ‘These allegations and any other will be professionally investigated to their final conclusion and the outcomes shared with the public,’ Mangwana said. A report on the News24 site notes that he claimed there were ‘discharged and disgruntled former members of the old establishment’ who were trying to ‘impair President Emmerson Mnangagwa's image as a reformer’. Reports of the abductions come as the new administration has prioritised normalising relations with western governments following two decades of isolation over alleged human rights abuses.

A group of 16 African countries has called on the US and EU to ‘immediately lift’ economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe. Tanzania President John Magufuli, who is also SADC chairman, says they are impacting on the economy in the region. BBC News reports that President Emmerson Mnangagwa says removing them would attract Western investors to Zimbabwe after close to two decades of economic isolation. Zimbabwe is reeling from high inflation and shortages of basic supplies such as fuel, power and water and inflation is at a 10-year high.