HARARE: Streets were mostly quiet on Tuesday in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare and second city Bulawayo as banks, schools and businesses stayed shut, a day after deadly protests over economic hardship and a sharp increase in the price of fuel.
The closures followed a call by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions for a three-day stay-at-home protest over the sharp drop in living standards caused by a dollar crunch that has sent prices soaring and caused shortages of fuel and drugs.
Several people were killed and some 200 arrested during Monday’s protests, which followed President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s decision to hike the price of fuel in an attempt to tackle the southern African country’s worst economic crisis in a decade.
A human rights lawyers group said it had received reports of soldiers and police officers breaking into homes in Harare townships overnight and assaulting suspected demonstrators.
“Even if I wanted to go to work, where do I get the $8 to go to and from work? It is better to tend to my field,” said Malvin Chigora, a 36-year-old father of two, on his small maize field in Kuwadzana township on the outskirts of the capital.
In central Harare, banks, shops and offices were closed with few people on the streets. Most public taxis were off the road. Two local journalists told Reuters the situation was similar in Bulawayo.
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZHLR), which provides free legal services, said it had received distress calls from residents in Mabvuku and Chitungwiza who were forcibly taken from their homes and made to remove barricades from roads.
That tactic was used by security agents during the rule of long-time leader Robert Mugabe, who was ousted by his one-time ally Mnangagwa in a bloodless coup in November.
“Of concern is the involvement of soldiers in these illegal acts who are actively participating in the cruel and inhuman treatment of residents,” ZLHR said in a statement.
Six people were killed in post-election violence in August after the army intervened.
Zimbabwe Defense Forces spokesman Overson Mugwisi and police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said they did not have sufficient information to comment.
The government has blamed the opposition and rights groups for Monday’s violence.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Information said it was looking for a man who was seen on videos posted on social media brandishing an assault rifle in Harare and giving orders to motorists.
“Where did he obtain the assault weapon ... He is suspected of shooting some innocent civilians,” the ministry said.
Harare shuttered as Zimbabweans join stay-at-home protest
Harare shuttered as Zimbabweans join stay-at-home protest
- Several people were killed and some 200 arrested during Monday’s protests
- The government has blamed the opposition and rights groups for the violence
Rubio says technical talks with Denmark, Greenland officials over Arctic security have begun
- US Secretary of State on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland
WASHINGTON: Technical talks between the US, Denmark and Greenland over hatching an Arctic security deal are now underway, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland agreed to create a working group aimed at addressing differences with the US during a Washington meeting earlier this month with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio.
The group was created after President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for the US to take over Greenland, a Danish territory, in the name of countering threats from Russia and China — calls that Greenland, Denmark and European allies forcefully rejected.
“It begins today and it will be a regular process,” Rubio said of the working group, as he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We’re going to try to do it in a way that isn’t like a media circus every time these conversations happen, because we think that creates more flexibility on both sides to arrive at a positive outcome.”
The Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday’s talks focused on “how we can address US concerns about security in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom.” Red lines refers to the sovereignty of Greenland.
Trump’s renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of a NATO ally, has roiled US-European relations.
Trump this month announced he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after a “framework” for a deal over access to the mineral-rich island was reached, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s help. Few details of the agreement have emerged.
After stiff pushback from European allies to his Greenland rhetoric, Trump also announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that he would take off the table the possibility of using American military force to acquire Greenland.
The president backed off his tariff threats and softened his language after Wall Street suffered its biggest losses in months over concerns that Trump’s Greenland ambitions could spur a trade war and fundamentally rupture NATO, a 32-member transatlantic military alliance that’s been a linchpin of post-World War II security.
Rubio on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland.
“We’ve got a little bit of work to do, but I think we’re going to wind up in a good place, and I think you’ll hear the same from our colleagues in Europe very shortly,” Rubio said.
Rubio during Wednesday’s hearing also had a pointed exchange with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, about Trump repeatedly referring to Greenland as Iceland while at Davos.
“Yeah, he meant to say Greenland, but I think we’re all familiar with presidents that have verbal stumbles,” Rubio said in responding to Kaine’s questions about Trump’s flub — taking a veiled dig at former President Joe Biden. “We’ve had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.”
