Sokwanele earlier reported on the signs then emerging of a popular uprising in protest against the patently false election results being announced from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission in Harare, through Friday and Saturday (April 1st and 2nd). Readers may have wondered what happened to that uprising, or had we got our facts wrong? Today we are able to bring you a report about life on the streets in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo, through the extremely tense hours following the vote, which helps to explain and put that story into context. Our informants are a number of eyewitnesses, whose individual stories we have combined into one summarised account.

Zimbabwean policemen

No one is surprised when an autocratic, dictatorial or totalitarian government introduces oppressive measures to facilitate its continuing hold on power. Thus it was expected that Rhodesian governments, illegitimate settler conquerors in the eyes of black Zimbabweans, would use a variety of laws to prevent any activity which might lead to African majority rule. The laws they utilised included the Law and Order Maintenance Act and a State of Emergency, which gave government wide powers to deal with both non-violent political protest and armed resistance.

On Thursday, 24 July Zimbabwe's police force once again exposed the Zanu-PF government's determination to repress any freedom of speech in the country.

Approximately 50 women gathered at a pedestrian mall in the Bulawayo city center to stage a peaceful march to the nearby government offices. Their intention was to hand over a petition to protest the country's repressive Public Order and Security Act (POSA), containing laws designed to suffocate any voice raised in opposition to the ruling party.

Close to the government offices a group of primary school children were in the playground and ran to the fence to watch what they thought was a "peace march". These young children and a worker at the school were witness to a scene which has left them both traumatized and terrified.