THE country’s busiest border post, Beitbridge, was yesterday forced to shut down for the first time ever following ugly street protests during which angry citizens burnt tyres and destroyed transport infrastructure following the government’s decision to ban imports as a way of curtailing currency leakages in the face of cash shortages.
BY RICHARD CHIDZA
This was the first time that the border, established over a century ago, had to be shut down.
Sources in the town told NewsDay Weekender yesterday that heavily-armed police details had to be called in to man the customs yard and they had to throw teargas to disperse the crowds amid fears that thousands of vehicles awaiting customs clearance could be destroyed in the melee.
“Crowds stretching for more than a kilometre have been driven from getting onto the Zimbabwean Customs yard where heavily-armed police and army personnel have been deployed,” unconfirmed reports claimed.
A Zimra warehouse located about 200m from the border post and over 30 vehicles were set alight as police details were outnumbered by the rioters who also forced shop owners to close and join the demonstrations. The rowdy crowd stoned a house belonging to a police officer accused of confiscating goods belonging to traders whenever they passed through the border from South Africa.
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Police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba confirmed the developments.
“Early this morning some people on the South African side were barricading roads and denying Zimbabweans entry into that country and exit. However, they were dispersed by authorities from that country. The same was happening on the Zimbabwean side and police also dispersed them. Three people were arrested after they resorted to burning tyres,” Charamba said.
Unconfirmed reports claimed a Zimbabwean bus driver had been shot, but Charamba could neither confirm nor deny the report.
It is understood that last night police were firing rubber bullets to disperse protesters in the residential areas. Pictures showed smoke billowing in the eastern parts of the town and boulders strewn along the Harare-Beitbridge Highway that was closed to traffic all day.
“The demonstrators have destroyed traffic lights at an intersection near the Zesa Pension Fund Complex and have blocked the roads with large stones. They are fighting running battles with the police,” an eyewitness said.
South Africans from just across the border joined in the picketing.
As part of measures to deal with a sinking economy and crippling cash shortages as well as dwindling exports, President Robert Mugabe’s government announced, through Statutory Instrument (SI 64/2016), a ban on a range of products mainly imported from South Africa.
Industry and Commerce minister Mike Bimha, who is attending the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce annual congress in Victoria Falls, professed ignorance of the protests.
“I am not aware, but as a government when we introduce a policy that will support eight people there are always two who are not happy and ready to make noise about it. We cannot make all people happy,” Bimha said.
He said South Africans who had joined in the violent protests needed to find a better way of airing their grievances.
“We have bilateral meetings even at ministerial level and some of them technical with our counterparts. It is important that when people are not happy, they should look for the right channels to show their disquiet at government policies than resort to protests,” Bimha said.
Mugabe is facing growing discontent with protests erupting all over the country against his rule amid an unprecedented economic crisis.
The Beitbridge Cross-Border Transporters’ Association said in a statement the police had refused to sanction the demonstration.
“Police in Beitbridge have refused to clear a demonstration planned by residents to protest over the recently introduced ban of importation of a wide range of goods, including groceries and building material, from South Africa without permits,” information and publicity secretary Tapiwa Tabheni said in the statement.
He said residents resolved to take to the streets to voice their anger as the ban was likely to leave thousands of families in the border town without any source of income.
He, however, insisted that the move was not driven by any political party, but was merely action by ordinary citizens.