Harsh police crackdown on union protests in Zimbabwe

Riot police quashed labour union protests across Zimbabwe yesterday, arresting union leaders and dozens of other protesters in a national show of force by President Robert Mugabe's government.

The leaders of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) were forced to call off the protests after being bundled into police vans as workers had begun assembling for the marches.

Lovemore Matombo, the ZCTU President, said on his mobile phone from jail that he feared for the safety of himself and his colleagues as the police were not in a compromising mood.

He said the labour leaders had been severely beaten with button sticks and rifle butts.

"This is a determined assault on our basic freedoms. It's as if we are being ruled by a military junta," said Matombo before his mobile phone went off.

Eyewitnesses said the police had virtually made it impossible for the protests, planned to kick off from mid day yesterday, to proceed.

"Hundreds of people who pretended to be coming to join the protests were in fact soldiers in plain clothes. They easily coordinated with uniformed and heavily armed police to ensure nothing took off," said Allan Zhuwao who had tried to join the protests.

The ZCTU had called the protests to, among other things, demand realistic minimum wages, tax cuts, and economic and political reforms to halt Zimbabwe's economic meltdown underscored by about 1,000 per cent inflation, 80 per cent unemployment and widespread hunger and malnutrition.

- INDEPENDENT