Operation Accept the Kariba Draft
We got this report yesterday from a subscriber in Harare. If you have witnessed similar harassment, or know others who have, please email info [at] kubatana [dot] net.
This afternoon at about 2.30pm I saw vendors scattering in all directions dropping their vegetables and running for their lives. The scene was just off 7th Avenue in Harare next to Greenwood Park. All but one vendor got away. I pulled up next to the plain clothes men who called themselves “policemen” and asked them what they thought they were doing handcuffing this obviously terrified young man still holding a packet of carrots. He knows his fate. He will be taken to the Police station where they will beat the hell out of him.
We have 90% unemployment and now the police (?) militia (?) are hell bent on depriving people from earning an honest living.
The “police” told me it had nothing to do with me and that “according to the Kariba Draft constitution no one is allowed to sell anything without a licence”. They were rude, arrogant and threatening and typical of what we in Zimbabwe have now come to expect from the so called “law makers”.
I mean, hello. It’s okay for state agents and the so called law enforcers to overtly steal the country’s diamond wealth, loot the reserve bank, steal farms and farm equipment, but it’s illegal to attempt to make an honest living vending vegetables. We are right back into the 2005 Operation Murambastvina. Note the timing.
This is the beginning of what Zanu PF will no doubt dub “Operation Accept the Kariba Draft” – and it will be done in the only way that Zanu PF know how, through violence, torture and abuse.
Perhaps we need to counteract it with VOZU – Vendors of Zimbabwe Unite! Stand up for your rights, this is your last chance!