POLITICS-ZIMBABWE: ‘After Suharto, Mugabe Must Go’, Students Say

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Lewis Machipisa

HARARE, May 29 1998 (IPS) - Indonesia is thousands of kilometres away from Zimbabwe, but recent events in the troubled Asian country have provided Zimbabwe’s tertiary students with ammunition to push for change at home.

The Indonesian wind of change seems to have blown to this Southern African nation with university students Friday locked in running battles with the riot police near the Zimbabwean Parliament.

Thousands of university and college students Friday entered their second consecutive day of demonstrations calling for an end to government corruption, and for the resignation of President Robert Mugabe and non-performing cabinet ministers.

In a move somewhat similar to what happened in Indonesia when that country’s university students temporarily took over the parliament and chanted against the corrupt regime of Suharto demanding his resignation, thousands of Zimbabwean students from tertiary institutions besieged Parliament Thursday to protest against corruption and proposed reforms by the Ministry of Higher Education.

About 200 students slept outside the Parliament building in the capital, Harare, overnight on Thursday. “We are not in a hurry. We will sit here,” declared the President of the Zimbabwe National Students’ Union (ZINASU), Learnmore Jongwe.

Jongwe told students that President Mugabe “should learn a lesson from the disturbances in Indonesia where his colleague, General Suharto, has been removed by a popular uprising”.

The students had vowed not to leave the Parliament area until the Minister of Higher Education, Ignatius Chombo, or Mugabe, addressed them. But they were removed from the area Friday, following clashes with the police, when they tried to march to President Mugabe’s office near the Parliament building.

ZINASU says the government should give priority to the people’s plight or prepare itself for a national revolution.

“The students have for the past five years been complaining of corruption in the government, but nothing has been done about it,” said Jongwe. If nothing is done to resolve their grievances, Jongwe warned that that the protests will spread to all schools.

The students are demanding that Mugabe must take measures to end the country’s nagging economic difficulties or resign. They are also demanding an inquiry into allegations of corruption, and for full government support for their studies.

Only last month, thousands of students from the University of Zimbabwe took to the streets to protest against the proposed privatisation of non-academic services at the campus, a move which they argue, will see prices of food at the campus rise by 500 percent and hundreds of jobs lost.

During the April demonstrations, one student was seriously injured when a Zimbabwean policeman opened fire as students ran away from the chaos that erupted when armed riot police stormed the campus and randomly teargassed and beat up the students.

“The police have become a law unto themselves. They have become murderers, hooligans and chief sponsors of anarchy, violence and disrespect for the laws of the land. It has become a culture among the police to employ heavy-handed means when dealing with demonstrations which are not violent,” the students said in a petition in April.

The April shooting of a university student came barely a week after five people died in a stampede after police had allegedly used excessive force to control a large crowd that had gathered for a soccer game at the National Sports Stadium to commemorate Independence Day (Apr. 18).

This time around, the students have vowed to go all the way. “We are tired of making petitions and demonstrations as a routine,” said Jongwe