THE Nelson Chamisa-led opposition MDC has sensationally
claimed that soldiers and graduates of Zanu PF’s notorious National Youth
Service, also known as Green Bombers, were on Friday dressed up in riot police
gear and deployed to crush an anti-government protest organised by the
opposition party in Harare.
Party organising secretary Amos Chibaya told NewsDay
yesterday that the party was concerned after it emerged that some people
wearing police uniform, but not attested to the security sector, were used to
beat up demonstrators who took to the streets to protest against the
skyrocketing cost of living, souring inflation and shortages of critical basic
commodities.
“The police must account. There must be an audit of who was
deployed to deal with that demonstration. This is because we have received
information that some of the people deployed on the streets were not actually
police, but party youths. This is a gross violation of the Constitution and,
therefore, there should be an audit,” he said.
The MDC demanded names of all officers deployed to crush the
Friday demonstration to be made public for accountability, and vowed they were
going ahead with their planned protest in Bulawayo today despite another police
ban.
“The conduct of the police must not invite debate among the
citizens. The authority of the police is applied based on trust and fairness
outside that the police have no authority, people should have confidence in
them, but their actions have greatly invited doubt and to restore confidence
they should publish (names of) all the officers who were deployed,” he said.
But national police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner
Paul Nyathi dismissed the allegations, saying real police officers were
deployed on Friday.
“As far as we are concerned, all the people deployed for
any police duty, including for the demonstrations, were police officers. Anyone
who has concerns about our conduct should approach the Commissioner-General
(Godwin Matanga) of the police for answers,” he said.
Addressing journalists in the aftermath of the foiled
protest march, Chamisa denied reports that the protesters were armed with
stones and catapults to fight the police.
“Why would we gather catapults? For what? And to confront
with people who have guns? Are we that naive that we would want to wedge a war
against the police."Newsday
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