13/01/2009 10:17 - (SA)
Zim soldiers on rampage again?
By Tangai Chipangura in Harare
UNIFORMED Zimbabwean soldiers went on a rampage again Thursday morning raiding shops and informal markets beating up traders, stealing their wares and robbing them of huge sums of foreign currency.
According to eye-witnesses, the soldiers arrived mid-morning at an open market popularly known as Jambanja in Unit M of Chitungwiza, a dormitory town of Harare, some 20 km south of the capital. They were packed in a Kombi with civilian registration numbers.
All of a sudden they jumped out and started grabbing goods, particularly groceries like mealie-meal, cooking oil, sugar, rice and soap. They beat up people at random, searching and taking away people's money, especially foreign currency. There was pandemonium as traders fled leaving their wares.
"We have never seen anything like this," said 55-year old Miriam Mwaunza who lost everything she had at the market.
Tendayi Madiro said the soldiers were accusing traders of illegally selling goods in foreign currency which they did not have.
They were saying they did not earn foreign currency so it was criminal for us to be selling goods in US dollars and Rands. They loaded as much loot as they could carry into the Kombi before driving away.
"We still do not know whether they had been sent to do this or not, but the soldier who was driving had the rank of a major," Madiro said.
There were reports of similar raids the same morning at Unit L Shopping Centre in the same town where soldiers were said to have looted shops selling goods in foreign currency.
Army spokesperson Lieutenant Simon Tsatsi said in a telephone interview Thursday afternoon that he was not aware of the raids but insisted the army was not in the business of enforcing price controls and was never sanctioned to raid businesses.
"I have not yet received those reports but obviously that is the work of indiscipline members of the force. Investigations will certainly be carried out if the reports are confirmed," Tsatsi said.
Zimbabwean soldiers struggling to survive on paltry salaries, about Z$15 billion equivalent to US$0.90 at Thursdays parallel market rates have lately taken to looting and daylight robbery to register their disquiet and also to make a living.
In late November last year uniformed soldiers poured onto the streets of Harare and, in scenes never seen before in Zimbabwe, ran amok, beating up foreign currency dealers, destroying property, looting and plundering.
This happened for almost a week and military experts described the apparent mutiny as low-level anarchy.
The soldiers said they were disgruntled over failure to access their salaries during the time the country faced critical cash shortages. They said they were also expressing their discontent over the country's endless economic maladies which had reduced them to paupers and scavengers.
Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi had to make an apology to the nation over the behaviour of his men blaming it on mere indiscipline by a few rowdy members of the uniformed forces.
A massive witch-hunt to flash out perpetrators and the instigators was launched and reports said about six soldiers died in the ensuing investigations while no less that 20 were locked up in cells awaiting court marshal.
The matter was then kept under wraps and the fate of the arrested soldiers remains unknown.
Meanwhile, the police and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe agents are engaged in similar raids in the capital, except they are confiscating cash and not goods.
More than 300 businesses have been raided in a swoop to clear the city of businesses illegally trading in foreign currency.
Government allows only forex license holders to trade in hard currency. The licenses cost between US$20 000 and US$150 000.
Most traders can not afford the licenses but they also can not continue to trade in the worthless local currency which, despite being in short supply, has become so valueless it has been abandoned by both traders and the general public.
The monthly maximum that Zimbabweans can withdraw from the bank is Z$20 billion, equivalent to just US$1 at Thursdays rates.
"Very soon 90 percent of the shops in Harare will have closed if government does not stop all this nonsense. Everybody now wants to buy in foreign currency and it makes no sense for any business to continue trading in the worthless local currency which is not available anywhere.
Who ever came up with this stupid idea is crazy. They should just monitor the foreign currency prices so that they are kept realistic," said Levison Magura who runs a small grocery shop in the capital.
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