Police should probe vandalism, looting

Whenever the bulls fight it is always the grass that suffers.

The aforementioned adage is true as witnessed by the recent destruction of ordinary people's properties, including retail shops which were looted throughout the country.

Most of the looted shops are domiciled in the high density shops and owned by black Zimbabweans who are struggling to make ends meet.

From the looting and destruction, most of the small businesses will never rise to operate again and this reminds many of those businesses that shut down in 2008. Most of those small businesses have never recovered at all.

While it is every Zimbabwean's right to demonstrate, the destruction of property and looting from the poor should not be entertained at all.

We hope that the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) will investigate and apprehend most of the looters who were captured on CCTV.

Instead of demonstrating or protesting in peace, there has been a tendency by other spoilers to engage in violence and destruction of ordinary people's properties.

While the ZRP and the army have managed to restrict people to their respective suburbs, this has not at all helped local communities as most of the recent violence was concentrated in the neighbourhood that was responded by the brutality of the army.

Now that the three days called by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) for the demonstrations have lapsed, we hope normalcy will return to the country. We also hope that the ZRP will do a thorough job to investigate the disturbances and looting, but we advise them against targeting members of the MDC and civil society.

In press conferences held by government and the ruling Zanu-PF, both institutions seem to be pointing fingers at the MDC Alliance and civil society organisations like Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition as the instigators of the mayhem that followed.

We hope this will not be a witch-hunt that will lead to the arbitrary arrest of opposition party activists and outspoken members of civil society.

It is our hope that the recent protests will not trigger more conflict and hatred among Zimbabweans who are already divided politically.

We would like to advise President Emmerson Mnangagwa to immediately cut short his foreign trip so that he can come back home and attend to the crisis we have otherwise Zimbabweans will think he is insensitive to their plight.

The president should be reminded that his fuel hike announcement is the one that triggered the recent uprisings; hence he should come back and solve it.