[Another big MDC flop. It looks like they should have seized the moment back in 2003. Well, Mugabe is clearly outwitting them all once more.

If the Blacks don’t get serious about getting weapons of war, then they will never get rid of him. So much for “democracy” in Zimbabwe eh? What a joke it all is. South Africa and Nambia will end up like that too – just give it time. Jan]

Harare – A mass strike call by Zimbabwean civic and opposition groups to denounce the razing by police of shacks and roadside kiosks which has made tens of thousands homeless and destitute in mid-winter flopped again on its final day on Friday, with most people heading to work.

Most shops and factories opened on time while some waited awhile to assess the security situation before they opened their shutters.

Residents in Harare’s most populous suburb, Mbare, where the greatest impact of the controversial government clean-up campaign was felt, milled around their belongings dumped on the roadside in despair, saying the loss of their livelihood had rendered the protest meaningless for them.

Dunmore Chipindu said: “You can talk of a strike only if you have a got a job. I have got no job anymore after my tuck shop was destroyed and this is my new home.”

People need food, fuel

Chipindu was sitting on a pavement near a heap of concrete rubble – all that remained of where he used to live.

The second and last day of the protest also evoked little response from other Zimbabweans, who were battling economic hardship, food and fuel shortages and high inflation.

A long queue of people looking for sugar had formed early in the morning at a retail shop in downtown, Harare, while buses and trucks continued to line at gas stations.

An analyst blamed the flopped strike on the failure by the organisers to organise effective mass protests and underlined that threats by the state could have cowed many people.

“Given the massive disruption caused by the clean-up drive it’s very difficult to organise people to stage any form of mass protest.

State-controlled media

Political scientist Joseph Kurebwa said: “Ironically, people who would have been mobilised … are struggling to get accommodation, their possessions to the rural areas.”

Kurebwa also said the strike call was “poorly publicised,” especially as Zimbabwe’s predominantly state-controlled media had almost ignored it.

He said: “I think also the strong position taken by the state that it was going to deal viciously with whoever took part in any form of protest threatened a lot of people.”

Organisers, meanwhile, claimed the strike was partially successful, saying half the country’s workforce had stayed home on Thursday, the first day of the two-day strike.

Creating better infrastructure

The urban clean-up drive had left between 200 000 and 1.5 million homeless.

President Robert Mugabe said the campaign, which had spread across the country, would improve people’s lives and was “meant to create a better infrastructure for the ordinary man.”

Speaking at the opening of parliament on Thursday, Mugabe said: “The current chaotic state of affairs, where small to medium scale enterprises operated outside the regulatory framework and in undesignated crime-ridden areas could not be countenanced much longer.”

Edited by Andiswa Mesatywa

Source: News24.Com
URL: http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/Zimbabwe/…/p>