Arrest Mugabe & Chinamasa for inciting violence says Biti

PDP leader, Tendai Biti, has called for the arrest of President Robert Mugabe and finance minister Patrick Chinamasa after #ThisFlag pastor's arrest.

If there was anyone to be arrested for inciting public violence in Zimbabwe, then it should be President Robert Mugabe and Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, and not activists who were being persecuted by the government, opposition PDP leader Tendai Biti said Tuesday.

Biti was responding to the arrest on allegations of inciting public violence of #ThisFlag Pastor Evan Mawarire by the police in Harare after he handed himself over on Tuesday afternoon. Several other activists were also arrested on similar charges.

"The person who should be arrested for inciting public violence in Zimbabwe is Patrick Chinamasa who has deliberately failed to pay civil servants their dues and therefore created anger and disaffection," Biti said.

"The person who should be arrested for causing public violence or creating the potential for public violence is Robert Mugabe who for 36 years has presided over what essentially is a carcass, a corpse of an economy where four million of our people left the country to look for greener pastures," Biti said during a press conference at his party offices in Harare.

Biti said 76% of Zimbabweans were living in abject poverty, surviving on less than a dollar a day.

"Robert Mugabe is responsible for thousands of school leavers graduating from polytechnics and universities without jobs. The person who should be arrested for causing public disaffection is Zanu PF which has created a multitude of homeless people, 60% of our people who are homeless or are living in ill built homes," he added.

Biti called for the unconditional release of all the activists arrested as a result of the July 6 protests, saying they had not engaged in any acts of violence as alleged by the police.

"There must be an unconditional release of activists who are organising peaceful activities, and as far as I am concerned there was no incident of violence on the 6th of July.

"If there was any violence, it was the much publicised violence when we saw fascist police elements beating citizens, including women and children. There can't be selective application of the rule of law. There can't be rule by the law," he said.

He said it was not acceptable that for the first time in the history of the country, the government had failed to pay its workers, which was the elementary responsibility of the minister of finance.

"Where workers provide labour and are not paid, that is classical definition of slavery and we find it unacceptable that Patrick Chinamasa and Robert Mugabe are subjecting the workers of Zimbabwe to slavery in this century and in this day and age," he said.

Biti said that as the PDP, they did not believe that the government did not have money to pay its workers, saying the government was simply not getting its priorities right.

"We do not accept that the government has no money. The basic challenge here is we are dealing with a profligate, indisciplined government that has no respect of the basic rule of economics that say you do not eat that you do not have and that you should live within your means," he said.

He added that the government was a rogue regime that had no fiscal discipline, as evidenced by the millions of dollars spent on travels by the first family and the purchase of top of the range vehicles for ministers worth more than $400 million.

"It is ironic that a government as poor as this one has government ministers driving some of the most expensive SUVs across the continent," he said.