60 Fish vendors arrested

By Violet Gonda
15 May 2007

It’s reported that about 60 fish vendors were arrested this past weekend for allegedly disrespecting Robert Mugabe when he passed with his motorcade on his way to Harare from his rural home in Zvimba. Our correspondent Simon Muchemwa said: “On Saturday at around 4pm, soon after President Mugabe and his motorcade passed along Bulawayo Road towards Harare Stands, a lorry full of soldiers and police pounced on the fishmongers and fish vendors who were at the place called Fish Corner.”

He said several vendors were beaten and there were running battles between the vendors and the security forces. Muchemwa said: “During that time, when the soldiers and police were pouncing on people, others actually risked being run over by speeding cars along the Bulawayo Road and fish and buckets were thrown all over the place as if there was a war.”

Eyewitnesses said the soldiers indicated that the vendors disrespected Mugabe when he passed them. According to the website Zimonline the soldiers, who were armed with rifles and truncheons, accused the hapless
vendors of insulting Mugabe after they displayed their "smelling fish" to
the President.

Muchemwa said when the police were called in to arrest the people, they were charged under the Wildlife and Parks Act for the illegal vending of fish. But he said most of the people are licensed vendors who buy their fish from the fisheries in Norton. Selling fish is fast becoming a lucrative business as it has become the cheapest source of food compared to beef. He said you can buy enough fish to feed a family of five for Z$20 000.

Kuwadzana and Warren Park police confirmed to our reporter the arrests of the vendors. It’s reported they were made to pay admission of guilt fines of Z$20 000 each.

This is not the first time in recent weeks of reports of civilians being harassed for failing to respect Mugabe’s motorcade. The Zimbabwean newspaper reported last week that Mugabe’s “bodyguards smashed the car windscreen of an elderly woman, pulled her out of the vehicle, damaged her dashboard with a barrel of a gun and severely assaulted her for allegedly blocking the way for the ageing leader's motorcade in a leafy Harare suburb.”

The UK based newspaper said the woman had pulled her car over to answer her cell phone along Borrowdale Road when she was accosted by bodyguards and outriders from the Presidential convoy, and the beating started. She claimed she heard no warning sirens. The paper said another driver was assaulted near Borrowdale Junior School the previous week.