An example of Mugabe's propaganda machine

Peter Mavunga
Harare

THE British government and Western media campaign against Zimbabwe is notable for its rabid bias; what is said or written has no concern for the truth or balance, that is getting the other side's point of view. It has a single-minded pre-occupation with demonising Zimbabwe and propping up the opposition, especially Morgan Tsvangirai, well above his station.

All this is at variance with the age-old notion of British fair play, if ever it existed. When I was studying journalism in London, my tutor was at pains to emphasise that there were always two sides to a story and the views of both sides ought to be reported....

Ah, there are indeed two, if not more sides to a story.
But calling names and twisting the truth has a different name: Deception. Lies.
And Satan, the Father of lies, is also the father of violence.

Abductions continue

The propaganda campaign that began last week to instil fear in Zimbabwe’s workers continued on Wednesday as the job stay-away organised by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) went into its second and final day. State controlled media reports warned people to go to work and patrols in many areas maintained a fearful atmosphere.

The daily abductions of opposition officials and supporters continued with the kidnapping of Raymond Majongwe, the secretary general of the Progressive Teachers Union (PTUZ). Witnesses said he was abducted at gunpoint on Tuesday by suspected CIO agents in Milton Park, Harare. It turns out Majongwe is also a member of the ZCTU general council and the PTUZ is an affiliate of the national labour body.
Our contacts on the ground said some more shops and businesses that were closed Tuesday opened on Wednesday after tight security was deployed in the industrial areas. They said many people who went back to work on this second day did so out of fear of losing their jobs in a country where unemployment is above 80%. The few who were brave enough stayed home. In solidarity with the ZCTU, protesters demonstrated in Johannesburg and Pretoria in South Africa and at the Zimbabwe Embassy in London.

In South Africa solidarity with the ZCTU stay-away continued with a second day of protests organised by the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (Cosatu). One was in Johannesburg at the Zimbabwean Consulate and the other in Pretoria at the High Commission. There were no top union leaders at either venue as it was on Tuesday when COSATU’s general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi addressed the crowds. Craven said Vavi spoke out about the appalling economic situation in Zimbabwe and the attacks on opposition leaders. He also handed a memorandum about these issues to the Zimbabwe Embassy. Craven said the memo was accepted by a junior officer who angered the crowd with his dismissive attitude.

The ZCTU stay-away was also supported across the oceans in the U.K. where the Trade Union Council (TUC) and Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) held a protest demonstration at the Zimbabwe Embassy in London. Alois Mbawara and his colleagues from the FreeZim pressure group were there in solidarity with the workers back home. Mbawara said although about 50-60 people turned up, the event was a success because it was a weekday at lunch time when no-one would normally be there. Protesters held placards with clear messages, including “Power to the working classes” and “Poverty Datum Line for Zim working class”.

Analysts have said businesses are the key to the success of mass action stay-aways. Employers should assure their workers that they would not lose their jobs and should support protests. In the end companies can only benefit if a democratic society can be created and the econo

Zim journalist murdered over leaked photos

A local journalist suspected of having links to Zimbabwe's opposition has been found murdered following an escalation of the government's campaign of violence and intimidation.

Edward Chikombo, a part-time cameraman for the state broadcaster ZBC, was abducted from his home in the Glenview township outside Harare last week. His body was discovered at the weekend near the village of Darwendale, 50 miles west of the capital, The Independent has learnt.

There are concerns in Harare that the killing may be linked to the smuggling out of the country of television pictures of the badly injured opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai after he was beaten up by police on 11 March.

A former colleague of Mr Chikombo said: "It's not clear whether the murder was a message to the media or a political killing." The footage of Mr Tsvangirai leaving a Harare courthouse with a suspected fractured skull, and then lying in a hospital bed, provoked a storm of international criticism of Robert Mugabe's regime. Journalists for the state broadcaster routinely film news as it happens in the country but cannot use the footage in heavily censored bulletins. Some pictures do find a way out of the country and in the past staff at ZBC have been sacked or harassed under suspicion of selling it to foreign broadcasters.

The government has banned both the BBC and CNN from reporting from Zimbabwe and any unacc-redited journalist faces a two-year prison sentence.

Since taking power in 1980, Mr Mugabe has nationalised media outlets and the last independent voice disappeared with the recent closure of the Daily News. Local journalists are forced to work undercover for international outlets while accreditation papers are routinely refused to organisations seen as hostile.

Eyewitnesses saw a group of armed men abduct Mr Chikombo last Thursday. His captors drove a silver pick-up truck of the same make used in numerous similar abductions during a sustained three-week terror campaign targeting government opponents.

The pattern of abductions and punishment beatings has become a terrifying nightly ritual in Zimbabwe, where scores of opposition activists and their relatives have been attacked by gangs using unmarked cars and police-issue weapons. The government has refused to confirm or deny its involvement in these "hit squads" but Mr Mugabe has spoken of the police's right to "bash" the opposition and of "terrorist acts" by opponents.

Another local journalist, Gift Phiri, a senior reporter for the exiled The Zimbabwean newspaper, was detained and beaten by police on Sunday. Mr Phiri was picked up near his home in Sunningdale, in Harare. His lawyer, Rangu Nyamurundira, said his client had been badly beaten while in custody. "When I saw him, Gift could not sit down as he had been very badly beaten on his back and his buttocks. He told me four policemen, including the chief superintendent, had tortured him for hours......

You think Zim's 1500% inflation is bad? Think again

..."Between October 1, 1993 and January 24, 1995 prices increased by 5 quadrillion percent. This number is a 5 with 15 zeroes after it. The social structure began to collapse. Thieves robbed hospitals and clinics of scarce pharmaceuticals and then sold them in front of the same places they robbed. The railway workers went on strike and closed down Yugoslavia's rail system.

The government set the level of pensions. The pensions were to be paid at the post office but the government did not give the post offices enough funds to pay these pensions. The pensioners lined up in long lines outside the post office. When the post office ran out of state funds to pay the pensions the employees would pay the next pensioner in line whatever money they received when someone came in to mail a letter or package. With inflation being what it was, the value of the pension would decrease drastically if the pensioners went home and came back the next day. So they waited in line knowing that the value of their pension payment was decreasing with each minute they had to wait.

Many Yugoslavian businesses refused to take the Yugoslavian currency, and the German Deutsche Mark effectively became the currency of Yugoslavia. ...

(headsup from Improbable research)

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In The Balance

Catholic bishops condemn Mugabe

.......

The pastoral letter, read out in churches yesterday, denounces "overtly corrupt" leaders for using "ever harsher oppression through arrests, detentions, banning orders, beatings and torture", days after Mr Mugabe said that his opponents deserved to be "bashed".

The Catholic bishops' conference letter warns that Zimbabwe is heading towards a "flashpoint" but appeals for "peace and restraint" in protests ahead of a two-day general strike called from tomorrow. The letter said young Zimbabweans "see their leaders habitually engaging in acts and words which are hateful, disrespectful, racist, corrupt, lawless, unjust, greedy, dishonest and violent in order to cling to the privileges of power and wealth".

The bishops say the seizure and redistribution of white-owned farms over recent years, the centrepiece of what Mr Mugabe portrays as his campaign to liberate Zimbabwe from the vestiges of colonialism, has enriched the elite but done little to help the poor. They conclude that the white settlers who once exploited what was Rhodesia have been supplanted by a black elite that is just as abusive.

After the almost terminal cowardice shown by the rest of Africa's political leadership, it is a breath of fresh air to see a group openly condemning Mugabe for his disgraceful practices. And the Catholic Bishops are a very powerful group in Zimbabwe and their words will carry great weight.

And they wasted no time in portraying Mugabe's actions as in no great sense dissimilar to the white's who held power in former Rhodesia:

"It is the same conflict between those who possess power and wealth in abundance, and those who do not; between those who are determined to maintain their privileges of power and wealth at any cost, even at the cost of bloodshed, and those who demand their democratic rights and a share in the fruits of independence; between those who continue to benefit from the present system of inequality and injustice, because it favours them and enables them to maintain an exceptionally high standard of living, and those who go to bed hungry at night and wake up in the morning to another day without work and without income; between those who only know the language of violence and intimidation, and those who feel they have nothing more to lose because their constitutional rights have been abrogated and their votes rigged," the letter says.

The bishops back calls for a new constitution "that will guide a democratic leadership chosen in free and fair elections".

It's a stunning intervention and their words carry all the more weight because of who they come from. And by portraying Mugabe as little better than the whites of former Rhodesia, who also used violence to try and hold on to their privileges, they rob Mugabe of his most powerful rhetoric, as he always likes to portray anyone who opposes him as somehow representing colonialists. The Bishops have very cleverly pointed out that the person who most resembles the colonialists is Mugabe himself.

The bishops have been anxious to stay out of politics until now, but the pressure from their congregations, as Mugabe's thugs tour the townships beating up and branding opponents, has proven too strong to resist....
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headsup Zimprayer blogspot

SW Africa broadcasts

If you prefer to listen rather than read, SWAfrica radio has their radio programs on line.

For example, today I can listen to the Tuesday afternoon/evening newscasts.

Harare denies VP resignation

HARARE – The Zimbabwean government last night rejected as “false and malicious” media reports that Vice-President Joice Mujuru had resigned.

In its lead story yesterday, the United Kingdom-based The Zimbabwean newspaper said Mujuru tendered her resignation letter to President Robert Mugabe about two weeks ago.

The newspaper said Mugabe had however turned down Mujur’s resignation.

Mujuru, who was until last month considered among the front-runners to succeed Mugabe, is said to have fallen out with the veteran President following Mugabe’s statement that he would seek re-election next year.

Zimbabwe struggles for freedom

Last week there was hope in Zimbabwe.

For years after independence, there was hope. After all, despite the wish of small farmers to obtain land taken years before and sold to white farmers, the fact was that the larger farms could produce a surplus that fed the cities. In the meanwhile, export from farms and the various mining industries fed the economy, and with one of the highest literacy rates in Africa, it was hoped that Zimbabwe would become a modern society like South Africa.

Then things changed. HIV began to decimate the population, partly spread because many young men worked away from home to earn a “bride price”, but also spread through the breakdown of traditional restraints on sexuality that came with urbanization. And HIV tended to hit the young, the educated urban dwellers, and the workers and families. The result is young people being cared for by the extended families in the villages, often by grandparents as father then the mother die of HIV.

The second disaster has been periodic droughts. Like Kansas, which was once dubbed the “Great American desert” but is now recognized as part of America’s breadbasket, so too Zimbabwe has potential to feed Africa. The need is for irrigation and specialized crops, fertilizer, and tractors or handplows. Although there are many productive small farms, the country tended to have two type of farms: The small communal fields owned by clans, using traditional methods and producing only enough to feed the farmers, and the large commercial farmers, mainly white from Europe or South Africa.

There was a need for land reform, but instead of selling part of the excess land from large farms to the workers, as Mugabe became less popular, he decided to throw out the white farmers and “redistribute the land”. Alas, he often redistributed it to cronies who didn’t know how to run larger farms, and often the workers, without the organization or capital to get fertilizer etc. merely ended up again as small traditional farmers, able to feed only their own families.

The confiscation of the farms resulted in economic collapse and the unwillingness of outside (mainly South African) investors to invest in other sectors such as mines, for fear that they too would be confiscated, or that with inflation that they could not rely on electricity and basic needs to run factories.

As the economy collapsed, instead of changing economic policies, the Mugabe government merely printed more money, which of course quickly became worthless. This week the inflation rate is 1700 percent.

As Mugabe became less popular, he became more dictatorial. So the last election was won by Mugabe, and indeed even if it was fair he would have won. But Mugabe essentially went out of his way to get votes with a combination of intimidation of voters by youth squads and threats of withholding food aid to villages that voted wrong resulted in repeat elections of Mugabe.

This intimidation worked in rural areas, where people tend to bend with the wind and survive. But some urban areas voted for the opposition.

To “punish” them, Mugabe ordered “Operation Clean up”, which he claimed was slum clearance. But in reality many of the houses and shops were middle class housing, and many displaced had no other place to go. It has been estimated 70 000 people were displaced by the operation, which continued despite protests from the UN, NGO’s and most western countries.

The opposition to that point remained divided and squabbling. However, despite a ban on political gatherings, the churches sponsored a prayer rally. The rally was broken up by Mugabe’s police, but photos of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangarai, face swollen from being beaten and denied medical care in jail for several days, resulted in publicity on international networks and outcry from western nations.

Alas, the only one in position to force Mugabe to change is the South African president, but despite pressure from churches and trade unions, he refused to do so, and Mugabe emerged triumphant from a meeting of local African states.

Since then, Mugabe has pressured his own party to let him run again for president. Those who hoped to succeed Mugabe had opposed it, and the latest rumor is that the vice president might resign.

In the next few weeks, look for more protests and strikes, but also for increased intimidation and jailing of opposition leaders on trumped up charges of arranging bombings or owing weapons.

Where this leads it is unsure. Several scenerios come to mind.

One: Bishop Ncube takes a page from Cardinal Sin and mounts a “people power” revolution. Like Marcos’ thugs, one doubts even Zimbabwean police could stop a peaceful march of tens of thousands of people praying and singing hymns.

Two: Mugabe is assasinated. Traditionally in Africa when kings or tribal elders oppress their people, they are poisoned by persons unknown. Even the great Shaka Zulu was killed when he became delusional. I do not support such an outcome, both because it is wrong but also because it would likely lead to anarchy or civil war as various factions fight for power, as happened in Liberia.

Three; South Africa sends in some troops and removes Mugabe. This is what has just happened in Somalia, and is how the notorious Idi Amin was removed from power.

Four: Mugabe is pressured by Mbeki of South Africa and his own party to resign and allow someone else from the ZANU PF to take over. This would be the best result, but has become less likely in the last week.

The real danger is that Mugabe is aging, and without a clear successor, when he dies, the power vaccum could result in anarchy.

When people say: What could be worse than Mugabe? I say: Charles Taylor of Liberia, or Idi Amin of Uganda, or the civil wars of the central African lake region.

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SAfrican unions vow to press Mbeki about Mugabe

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — The country's largest labor federation, which has lambasted Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for "attacks on democracy and human rights," says it will keep up pressure on Zimbabwe, in contrast to the quiet diplomacy advocated by the South African president.

President Thabo Mbeki, leader of the African National Congress, said Saturday that he was confident new mediation could help resolve the political crisis in Zimbabwe, on South Africa's northern border.

But after meeting with Mbeki in Cape Town, the general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions said it would go ahead with demonstrations set for this week.

"We are proceeding with the protests. We are not going to let go because there is a promise of dialogue," said Zwelinzima Vavi, whose group is a member of the ruling alliance with the ANC.

"We're having demonstrations on Tuesday and Wednesday, we're having marches in Johannesburg and we'll be marching to the Zimbabwean high commissioner's office."
.....

Vavi said the labor federation's responsibility was to make sure the unions exerted pressure to force the parties involved to engage in serious negotiations for a solution to the crisis. He said the group hoped for a breakthrough.

Zim urges youth groups to "silence opposition"

ZANU PF has relied on party youths and militia to crush the opposition during key elections

By Chenai Maramba

KAROI – Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU PF party political commissar Elliot Manyika has called on party youths and war veterans to prepare for a campaign of violence against the opposition, which he said had to be “silenced at all costs”.

Zimbabwe holds a presidential election as scheduled next year as well as early elections for Parliament after President Robert Mugabe abandoned plans to postpone the presidential poll to 2010.

The 83-year old Mugabe expects ZANU PF’s central committee meeting today to endorse him as candidate for the party in the presidential poll although some senior officials in the party are pushing for him to quit at the expiry of his term in March 2008.

Manyika, who spoke on Wednesday night at a hotel in the farming town of Karoi about 180km north-west of Harare, said the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had to be taught that Zimbabwe’s independence “was won through blood”.

The youths and veterans of the country’s 1970s independence war would spearhead ZANU PF’s campaign for next year’s election while the army and police would back the ruling party, according to Manyika.

He said: "We have to gear up for violence against the opposition and we have to silence them at all costs especially here in the home province of our President (Karoi is in Mugabe’s home province of Mashonaland West). We have the army, police on our side and let’s teach them lessons that this country was won through blood."

War veterans and the youth militias have been the centrepiece of Mugabe and ZANU PF’s electioneering machine since 2000, unleashing violence, terror and murder against MDC supporters to ensure victory for the ruling party.

On the other hand, the army and police have been accused of either aiding ZANU PF youth militias or war veterans in committing violence against government opponents or simply turning a blind eye.

At least a hundred MDC activists have been killed during political violence since 2000.

Africa gives Mugabe OK on fighting sanctions

Zimbabwe’s neighbours fell in behind the brutal regime of Robert Mugabe yesterday and demanded that the West lift all sanctions on his country.

With opposition growing at home and a crumbling economy, pressure was mounting on the heads of surrounding states to urge their friend and comrade to reconsider his position. But in a communiqué issued at the end of what was billed as a make-or-break summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), 14 leaders reaffirmed their solidarity with the veteran President of Zimbabwe.

Their words will come as a crushing blow to campaigners who believed the tide to be turning against his increasingly autocratic 27-year rule.

Mr Mugabe smiled as he pushed past rorters in the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam, and declared himself satisfied. “Excellent meeting,” he cried, clapping his hands gleefully, before climbing into a waiting limousine. ...

ZimPundit on getting news despite censorship

"....In Zimbabwe, a nation dominated by government owned media, keeping up with the political realities is an impossible and risky undertaking. Media in Zimbabwe is dominated by a state owned daily newspaper, and state owned radio and television. All reports carried by state media are unsurprisingly partial to the government. There’s a vacuum for balanced reportage on the country. Western media on the hand, seem too eager to demonize the Mugabe regime. They seem to always go back to their all too old mantra of showing our nation and our people as undercivilized meanwhile ignoring our unprecedent fortitude.

The best opportunity to escape the barrage of propaganda is available to those who live in the cities. Urban residents, because they can receive text messages on their cell phones with news the government represses, are somewhat better off than their rural counterparts . Further, if you have the money you can also go to an internet café in. The second best thing is attempting to tune into foreign radio broadcasts which are dodgy at best. Other than that, word of mouth is the next best way to keep a finger on what is really going in the country. Cell phones and email have been a boon in this regard...."

Protests in Zimbabwe
To follow events as they unfold, visit our index page on Strikes and Protests in Zimbabwe in 2007.

View an animation of photographs (500kb) taken on March 13 when activists, arrested for gathering for the Save Zimbabwe Campaign Prayer Meeting in Highfields on March 11th, were brought to the Magistrates Court. Right click the link and save the file onto your computer to share with others.

ZANU-PF endorses Mugabe Reelection

HARARE – Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU PF party on Friday nominated President Robert Mugabe as candidate for a national presidential election expected next year.

If Mugabe wins the 2008 poll as many political analysts predict he most likely will do, he will rule until 2014 to complete 34 years at the helm.

With the United Nations estimating the average life span of Zimbabweans at 34 years, many of Mugabe’s compatriots born around 1980 when he first assumed power would probably die with him the only leader they will have ever known.

Senior ZANU PF officials who attended the party’s central committee meeting that endorsed Mugabe as presidential candidate said political commissar Elliot Manyika nominated the President saying he was the “only candidate and there was no one else”.

“Immediately, without anyone seconding the nomination, the whole room erupted into song, dance and ululating with many delegates repeatedly chanting Gushungo! Gushungo! (Mugabe’s totem),” said a central committee member who spoke to ZimOnline on condition he was not named.

“There was not even debate on the matter, it was well choreographed so much that whoever may have wanted to oppose Mugabe’s nomination did not stand a chance,” added the central committee member.

While the delegates were working themselves into a frenzy singing praises to Mugabe, the 83-year old President then rose to his feet and clapping hands to acknowledge the boisterous support from the floor, he then victoriously marched out of the conference room - on his way to lunch!

A current and future Zimbabwe

"...Two powerful factions within the ruling party want Mugabe out of office. These factions take credit for defeating Mugabe’s 2010 project. The more powerful of the two is led by retired general Solomon Mujuru, whose wife, Joyce, is one of Mugabe’s vice-presidents. A year ago, this faction was on the ascendancy, but has clearly fallen out of favour, as evidenced by Mugabe’s attack on the Mujurus’ ambitions.

The flavour of the moment is the Emmerson Mnangagwa-led faction, which suffered a major reversal of fortunes following the Tsolotsho incident in 2004. Now Mugabe, as part of a divide and rule tactic, is making this faction believe it is his preferred heir. It would be political folly for the Mnangagwa camp to derive a false sense of comfort from Mugabe’s political embrace. He will dump them as soon as they become a real threat and once he is secure again. Make no mistake, politics in Zimbabwe is about Mugabe and nothing else.

And Mugabe has his own faction fighting for his survival, in the top echelons of the army, the police and the intelligence services. It must be noted, however, that there are deep divisions within the middle and lower ranks of the uniformed forces which mirror the three factions in the party.

Two things are instructive as Zimbabweans ponder the way forward. The first of these is that the defeat of Mugabe’s 2010 project was delivered by forces for change within Zanu-PF and had little to do with pressure from the opposition or the international community. Secondly, the weakness of the opposition MDC, unfortunate as it is, removed an outside threat for Zanu-PF, focusing the party on internal dynamics and causing deep divisions and the realisation that Mugabe is the problem. This points to the fact that Zanu-PF’s internal dynamics might be key in finding a way out of Zimbabwe’s crisis and that the MDC might not be the place to look for relief. While this is an unpopular view it is a pragmatic one, informed by the current weakness of the MDC and the potential offered by reformers in the ruling party.

Equally important is the evidence that Zimbabwe’s problems are far bigger than Zanu-PF and the MDC put together. We need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that talks between the MDC and Zanu-PF will solve Zimbabwe’s problems. A durable solution requires getting a broad section of Zimbabweans talking to each other about their problems and structuring the future together. This is clearly not a winner-takes-all strategy, but a process of negotiating how Zimbabwe’s future is going to be ordered. For this project to have wider purchase, trade unions, the churches, business and all other civil society players will have to be involved..."

An outpost of tyranny

..."



Amid his country’s economic ruin, Mugabe celebrated his birthday this year with a party that cost more than $2.3 million while most Zimbabweans are forced to skip meals. Oblivious to the suffering and poverty in his own country, Mugabe must be eons away from reality. I have to give him credit for being obstinate because he has never taken any responsibility for his country’s problems and he has never stopped blaming the West for the economic and political turmoil.



To call Mugabe, iron-willed is an understatement the more he is criticized the more stubborn he becomes. Leaders from neighboring countries like South Africa and Zambia and members of the African Union have tried to talk some sense into him but he’s not hearing it. Lately some African leaders have even taken to criticizing him, but that hasn’t worked either. Mugabe has steadfastly refused to step down and name a successor. He is flirting with disaster especially if he dies before his term ends, Zimbabwe could end up in a civil war.



‘African leaders run amok’ always create a power vacuum when they die because they share power with no one. They die and all of those simmering conflicts that were kept under control eventually erupt into some kind of violence. We’ve seen this scenario played out all over sub-Saharan Africa between ethnic groups, political parties and neighboring countries. The last thing the continent needs is another civil war. I truly hope this can be avoided because the only people who will suffer will be the Zimbabwean people and they’ve suffered enough under Mugabe’s rule..."

Bloggers turn up the heat on Zim

Mugabe gives police license to kill

"...Police officers throughout Zimbabwe have now been authorised to use firearms against civilians whenever violence erupts on the streets. They have been told that if they shoot a civilian dead they will not face a murder charge....

Each police officer is to have a daily allocation of five rounds of ammunition, and stocks are sufficient for the entire Zimbabwe force.

"Authorities fear that if the police do not adopt a hard stance against the growing number of violent activities, the situation might get out of hand," said the source.

He referred to the petrol bombing last week of a crowded passenger train.."
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Of course, the bad news is that the police lack training with such weapons, and there is no money for bullets, but the money part is easy to fix: They just print money.

Supermarket petrobombed in Harare

Unknown attackers hurled two petrol bombs at a supermarket in a suburb of the Zimbabwe capital Harare, causing structural damage but no injuries, the official Herald newspaper reported Monday.

The attack on Muchada Supermarket in Harare's low-income Warren Park suburb occurred late Saturday, the Herald said.



Three police stations have been attacked with petrol bombs since then, all blamed on suspected MDC activists. But unconfirmed reports have suggested that one of the incidents - which left two policewomen badly burned - may in fact have been caused by the explosion of a paraffin stove which the women were using to prepare a meal.

In another attack, five people were injured when a passenger train was petrol bombed in Harare on Friday night.


Criminals could also manipulate the situation to carry out criminal activities under the guise of political activity, the prominent church grouping has warned.

Police spokesman Bvudzijena said police have increased patrols in Harare's sprawling low-income suburbs and warned police would use firearms to deal with violent attacks.

"Police have increased patrols in most areas and we are now allowed to use firearms in cases of this nature," Bvudzijena was quoted as saying.