Zimbabwe students burn down classrooms in fee protest

Reuters:

University students burned down a computer laboratory and classroom block in northeast Zimbabwe in the first major violent protests over sharp rises in college fees, police said on Friday.

President Robert Mugabe's government put its security services on high alert early this year over fears that bitter wage disputes, school and consumer price hikes and a general deepening economic crisis might spark street demonstrations.

On Friday police confirmed state media reports that 13 student leaders had been arrested and 39 others were "helping police with investigations" after a group of rowdy students torched some buildings at Bindura University on Tuesday night.

Zimbabwe Television (ZTV) quoted two government ministers as blaming the student protests at Bindura University -- 100 km (65 miles) northeast of Harare -- on a smaller faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Arthur Mutambara.

There was no immediate comment from the MDC faction.

Police have kept a close eye on universities and colleges around the southern African country to stifle plans by students to protest a recent 1,000 percent rise in school fees and inadequate state allowances.

The government has also been rattled by threats by main MDC faction leader Morgan Tsvangirai that he plans to stage peaceful mass protests against Mugabe in the coming months, saying life has become politically and economically unbearable under his rule.

Rampaging inflation hit a record 1,042.9 percent in April, the highest in the world, according to official figures released on Friday.

The economy is in its eighth year of recession, marked by chronic shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food widely blamed on Mugabe's government.

Mugabe has outlawed labour and street protests under tough security legislation critics say are meant to entrench his 26-year rule over the country.

Critics say a once thriving economy has been brought to its knees by skewed government policies, including the seizure of land from white commercial farmers to redistribute among blacks, a programme they say has destroyed the key agriculture sector.

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