Police used batons and fired tear gas to break up an anti-government march in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, the latest protest against President Robert Mugabe’s handling of the country’s economic crisis and alleged corruption.
Hundreds of activists gathered outside the finance minister’s office on Wednesday to demand that he abandons plans to introduce local bank notes that will be used alongside the US dollar, a hard currency that is in seriously short supply.
Zimbabwe abandoned its own currency in 2009 following hyperinflation, adopting a multi-currency system dominated by the dollar.
“We don’t want bond notes because they will wipe out the few US dollars left. They have come to destroy the country. We do not want them,” protester Wesley Chawada said.
Former vice president Joice Mujuru on Tuesday launched a Constitutional Court challenge against the planned introduction of the bond notes, saying it was unconstitutional.
Another group of protesters, calling themselves unemployed university graduates, marched to parliament wearing their graduation gowns.
