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Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
Youths and businesses were the most affected in last week’s demonstrations that resulted in massive looting, destruction to property and forced schools and other public institutions to suspend operations. Statistics show that youths constitute a majority of the over 700 people who have so far been arrested in connection with the protests.

The protests were organised by MDC-Alliance, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and opposition-aligned civic groups under the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition banner, ostensibly against a rise in the price of fuel. But ordinary businesses became the biggest targets of attack, resulting in the loss of goods, income, jobs and shops themselves, which were vandalised.

In an interview with The Herald yesterday, political analyst Mr Gabriel Chaibva said Zimbabwe was the biggest loser from last week’s anarchy.

“Of course, there is no doubt that the biggest loser are the people of Zimbabwe who lost property, valuable time and their businesses to the bunch of power hungry individuals bent on causing chaos, and in the process derail the efforts to turn around the economy. The intentions of the organisers were to cause the suffering of ordinary Zimbabweans as seen by the massive destruction and looting that happened last week,” said Mr Chaibva.

Another analyst, Mr Goodwine Mureriwa said: “It is obvious that ordinary law-abiding citizens were the worst affected by the so-called stayaway.

“Business did not only lose property to looting and vandalism but also lost valuable trading time. Schools were also affected as most of them could not open for the whole of last week, and the same can be said of other institutions that offer services to the public.”

“So it is obvious that ordinary people and the economy as a whole were badly affected by last week’s violence.”

Mr Richard Mahomva, another political analyst, said the stayaway was characterised by looting that showed the opposition had no policy alternative.

“The shutdown was characterised by unprecedented looting, gross vandalism and massive violence. It is now clear that the opposition has no non-violent policy alternative. It is clear that the opposition will deploy plunder to reconstruction efforts made by Government.

“It brought collapse to several business entities, consequently showed the opposition’s desperate propensity to anarchy to secure its interests,” said Mr Mahomva.

Last week the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries indicated the economy could

have lost $300 million during the three-day so-called stayaway.

“The only way we can measure the loss is through GPD. We record about US$100 million per day and given that some companies operated on skeletal staff in the last three days, the economy lost between US$70 million and US$100 million per day,” said CZI President Mr Sifelani Jabangwe.

He said solving economic challenges facing the country required tough measures.

“Solutions to the economic challenges will not be easy and we believe that the general conduct of demonstrators may cost the nation in a big way. You see, the investors we want will not come because they will say ‘Zimbabwe is not a safe investor destination’. The economic challenges will not be solved by burning down property. It is easy to blame Government for the economic challenges but we are also to blame as citizens due to our actions,” he said.