Rudolph
11-30-2008, 09:27 AM
Angry Zim soldiers run amok (http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=vn20081130100256833C280276)
November 30 2008
Zimbabwe soldiers ran amok on the streets of Harare last week as banks ran out of cash for their November salaries and Christmas bonuses.
They, like the rest of the population, are prevented by the central bank from withdrawing more than R7.50 a day, but they couldn't even withdraw that at the end of the week as the mint failed to produce enough cash.
The daily cash withdrawal limit is enough to buy one banana or a quarter of a loaf of bread. In supermarkets the average price of mealie meal is about R90 for 10kg.
At least 14 soldiers were arrested on Thursday after scores of junior members of the Zimbabwe National Army attacked foreign currency dealers in the streets. The rampaging soldiers claimed they were due to be paid their annual bonuses in cash but that the central bank was only able to give them half what they had been promised and that they would have to withdraw the remainder from their own banks.
The soldiers' targets on Thursday and Friday in central Harare were foreign currency traders who do a brisk business buying US dollars for Zimbabwe dollars with a street cash exchange rate on Friday of Z$170 000 for R1. Most supermarkets in Harare no longer accept Zimbabwean dollars. "They (soldiers) went mad and started beating people up all over the place," said a foreign exchange dealer.
Well-placed sources inside the army say the vast majority of soldiers are "extremely dissatisfied, hungry and sick of Mugabe".
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Shame. All that raping, torture and pillaging, and now there's nothing left - not even for them. Shame.
November 30 2008
Zimbabwe soldiers ran amok on the streets of Harare last week as banks ran out of cash for their November salaries and Christmas bonuses.
They, like the rest of the population, are prevented by the central bank from withdrawing more than R7.50 a day, but they couldn't even withdraw that at the end of the week as the mint failed to produce enough cash.
The daily cash withdrawal limit is enough to buy one banana or a quarter of a loaf of bread. In supermarkets the average price of mealie meal is about R90 for 10kg.
At least 14 soldiers were arrested on Thursday after scores of junior members of the Zimbabwe National Army attacked foreign currency dealers in the streets. The rampaging soldiers claimed they were due to be paid their annual bonuses in cash but that the central bank was only able to give them half what they had been promised and that they would have to withdraw the remainder from their own banks.
The soldiers' targets on Thursday and Friday in central Harare were foreign currency traders who do a brisk business buying US dollars for Zimbabwe dollars with a street cash exchange rate on Friday of Z$170 000 for R1. Most supermarkets in Harare no longer accept Zimbabwean dollars. "They (soldiers) went mad and started beating people up all over the place," said a foreign exchange dealer.
Well-placed sources inside the army say the vast majority of soldiers are "extremely dissatisfied, hungry and sick of Mugabe".
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Shame. All that raping, torture and pillaging, and now there's nothing left - not even for them. Shame.