Crackdown on student leaders intensifies as unrest grows

By Lance Guma
20 June 2007

A state sponsored crackdown directed at student leaders and their relatives intensified with reports that police have mounted an aggressive manhunt for Zimbabwe National Student Union president Promise Mkwananzi. His relatives in Waterfalls and Glen Norah were beaten up with clenched fists and baton sticks after they told police Mkwananzi did not live with them anymore.

In an interview with Newsreel from South Africa Mkwananzi said police broke down doors at the Waterfalls property in Harare, accusing his relatives of hiding him in a particular room. No one was arrested in the incident. He says he finds it strange the state is trying to resuscitate a manhunt he thought they had dropped. The raid on the two homes comes in the wake of a similar raid on the home of Lawrence Mashungu, Vice-Chairperson the Students Christian Movement of Zimbabwe. Police assaulted Mashungu’s brother.

Drawing comparisons with the seizure of Arthur Mutambara’s passport, Mkwananzi suspects the regime was trying to block his participation in a Save Zimbabwe Campaign trip to Europe. The ZINASU leader, who is a third year law student, has been deregistered from his faculty at the University of Zimbabwe. Authorities at the campus have so far refused to disclose the reasons for the de-registration. Mkwananzi says he got a High Court order overturning the decision but Vice Chancellor Levi Nyagura told, ‘to go and learn at the judges house.’

Students countrywide are said to be restless over a variety of issues. Top up fees are high on the agenda, power cuts and what the students describe as deteriorating food standards have set up a cocktail of unsuitable learning conditions. The state is aware of the simmering tensions and has responded by deploying soldiers and other security guards, disguised as campus security guards. It’s these security agents who are carrying out most of the assaults on the students before they hand them over to the police.

Another student leader, Witlaw Mugwiji, is said to have been admitted at Masvingo Central Hospital after Masvingo University security officers attacked him in the examination room. Mugwiji, the President of the Students Representative Council (SRC), and Edison Hlatshwayo the Secretary General were both barred from writing their examinations.

ZINASU say Mugwiji has so far been denied a fair trial before a disciplinary hearing. Meanwhile the Secretary General of the UZ SRC, Kudakwashe Mapundu and Caesar Sitiya were released Monday evening after being arrested and detained over charges of malicious injury to property last week Friday. The police allege the two student leaders smashed windows on a bus at the university campus on 10th May.