WOZA protestors and babies arrested in Kuwadzana

By Violet Gonda
23 April 2007

There were warning shots and arrests in Harare’s Kuwadzana high-density area when riot police used force to disperse a WOZA protest on Monday. About 60 people from the Women of Zimbabwe Arise and Men of Zimbabwe Arise were arrested as the pressure group continued with demonstrations demanding ‘power to the people’ at the offices of the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA). WOZA said 36 women, 20 men and 10 babies were arrested.

At least 80 people were arrested during similar protests in Bulawayo last Thursday.

In Harare members are said to have assembled at three different ZESA offices in Harare – Kuwadzana, Warren Park and Zengeza – holding simultaneous ‘tough love’ protests. The group said over 470 members from 10 different areas of Harare took part in the community-level protests.

Our Harare correspondent Simon Muchemwa, who witnessed the Kuwadzana incident, said the peaceful protesters held a sit-in within the ZESA power sub station in. He said: “During that time police officers from Kuwadzana police station came running and armed. They were about seven armed police officers and about five police officers on bicycles. They rounded up everyone who was seated protesting and they were made to march to the police station which is about 200 metres away.”

Muchemwa said the police also fired warning shots in the air causing a commotion that frightened even the ZESA officials who ran away from their offices.

Members of the pressure group were rounded up and force marched in a line, holding each other’s hands. “And they were being beaten all the way from the ZESA offices to the police station,” Muchemwa said. He said the police had not been provoked and the women and men who were protesting at the premises did not even make any noise. “They were not even singing but they were letting their banners and the flyers do the talking.”

The pressure group said lawyers failed to get access to the detainees “and members trying to take in food were also turned away so the group of 56 and 10 babies will go hungry tonight.”

The group recently launched its ‘power to the people’ campaign which includes holding sit-ins to demand better service delivery from the electricity supplier. Power cuts are so common in Zimbabwe that they have become a part of daily life. In some areas people go for 10 hours a day without power while in other cases it can be a week or longer with no electricity. ZESA blames it on a shortage of foreign currency but many believe, like the general status of the country, it’s more to do with corruption and mis-management.

Meanwhile, there is growing concern over the manner in which the authorities are dealing with peaceful protestors. It emerged last week that some of the WOZA members who were arrested in Bulawayo “were made to strip naked, spending the whole day in a state of undress.” The pressure group also reported that police assaulted several women including two who had delivered food to the detainees. They were charged under the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act for allegedly ‘causing a criminal nuisance.’

The South Africa based Zimbabwe Exiles Forum has criticised the authorities for failing to uphold human rights standards. Executive director and human rights lawyer Gabriel Shumba said arresting women and forcing them to strip naked is a most gross and inhumane act, by any standard.

Shumba said the conduct by the security officials is completely unacceptable: “It is someone’s mother who spent hours naked in front of police officials and other prisoners, some young enough to be her sons. The rights of women, the most vulnerable members of our society, are continuously violated in soaring proportions, by the Zimbabwean government, a country once known and admired for its national customary moral values.”

Both Bulawayo and Harare police refused to comment.