War veterans threaten to invade factories

Chenjerai Hunzvi, the leaders of Zimbabwe's war veterans, on Friday threatened to take over any companies found locked during mass action planned by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the independent 'Daily News' reported. Addressing journalists in the capital Harare, Hunzvi said: "We are already setting up committees to move around the industrial areas. If we find any companies locked, we will break in and take them over. We will take them, just as we have done with the commercial farms." Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC president, told the newspaper that Hunzvi did not own any industries and had no right to take them over.

MDC deputy president Gibson Sibanda told a public meeting in Bulawayo last week that the party would go ahead with mass action initially planned for last month. The action was postponed but he said this was a mere strategic retreat. Sibanda said: "Now that the factories are opening, we will be back in the industries and we will start mobilising." Tendai Biti, MDC lawmaker for Harare East, last month said his party had shelved plans for nationwide mass protests because it feared demonstrators would be killed. In an apparent threat to the MDC, Hunzvi warned that the war veterans were now the army's reserve force and would meet next week in towns and cities throughout the country to come up with strategies to counter the mass action. He said the planned mass action was a strategy by the MDC to gain power through violence.