Nationwide strike over fuel prices

Shops and factories were closed and riot police patrolled townships on Tuesday as Zimbabwean workers began a two-day general strike to protest against fuel prices, agencies reported. President Robert Mugabe’s government urged workers to ignore the strike, sparked by a recent fuel price hike of nearly 70 percent, denouncing it as a challenge to its authority by unions aligned to the country’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Harare’s central business district was partly paralysed by the strike, with some banks and building societies closed. But the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange was open and trading normally, officials said. Teachers at some Harare schools said students had not turned up for classes, and some schools closed for the day. Reports from Mutare in the east, Masvingo in the south and second city Bulawayo in the southwest said many businesses were shut, although government offices were functioning.

The government declared the strike illegal and promised protection to workers who ignored it, while self-styled war veterans threatened to evict foreign companies closing during the strike. “We want to identify such people and if they are not citizens of this country we are going to deal with them... (make) them evacuate our country within a day,” war veterans’ leader Joseph Chinotimba said in remarks on state radio. In April and May, war veterans stormed private firms and aid agencies, forcing them to either reinstate sacked workers or award them compensation deals.