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A man who was caught on video pushing an ox-drawn plough that he had stolen from a shop at Entumbane Shopping Centre in Bulawayo during the recent opposition protests started serving a five-year jail sentence for the crime on Friday.

Polite Weza (35) was part of the gang of hooligans that looted the shopping mall and other places in the city and Harare and was captured in a video that went viral on social media.

Apart from the plough, Weza also stole 20kg of seed maize, a flat screen television set, radio speakers and a generator all valued at $2 920. He pleaded guilty.

Sending him away, Bulawayo magistrate Ms Sithembiso Ncube said:
“The accused person engaged in acts of violence which should not be condoned. Sending such people to jail would deter would be offenders.”

Two days earlier three Bulawayo men Liberty Moyo (28), Clarence Mudavanhu (34) and Witness Ndlovu (42) who also looted in the protests were sentenced to a combined seven years in jail.

Regional magistrates Messrs Trynos Utawashe and Chrispen Mberewere convicted them of public violence and theft charges.

Moyo and Mudavanhu were convicted of public violence and sentenced to an effective two years in jail each after one year from their sentences was suspended for five years on condition that they do not within that period commit similar offences.

Ndlovu was convicted of theft and sentenced to 12 months of which six months were conditionally suspended for five years.

In Harare four people who took part in the mayhem were on Friday jailed for a combined five years at the Mbare magistrates’ courts.

Johannes Sigauke (42) was jailed for three years for stealing a solar battery and torching Southlea Park police station and two police vehicles while the other three were sentenced to two years apiece in jail for impersonating members of the Zimbabwe National Army and assaulting a Harare businesswoman who they tried to rob.

The jailed men are among the 1 100 people who had, by Monday last week, been arrested in connection with the violence and mass thefts that occurred during the January 14 to 16 violent protests.

Official statistics show that the suspects were arrested in all the 10 provinces, with Bulawayo topping the list with 441 arrests.

The suspects were arrested for looting, malicious damage to property, assault, public violence, obstruction of movement of traffic among other offences.

Two were arrested for allegedly murdering a policeman in Bulawayo. Scores more are languishing in remand prison.

The so-called shut-down prejudiced the economy of more than $800 million with millers losing goods worth at least $3 million.

Thousands of jobs may have been lost too.

The destruction of property, physical harm on law-abiding citizens, the cost to the economy and public anxiety occasioned by the opposition hoodlums was enormous, thoroughly needless and must not be allowed to happen again.

We are therefore very pleased by the strong response by the security sector to bring the country back to normal. They have arrested hundreds with more arrests expected.

However, arrests alone without the complementary role by the courts would not have sent the right message to the criminals who abused their rights to peaceful protest by blocking roads, breaking into private property, looting and threatening other people who refused to take part in their criminality.

Indeed, the courts have been doing the needful, handling the looters’ cases with a firm but very fair hand.

They have remanded dozens in custody after observing that the suspects were facing serious charges and that the risk of them continuing with their unlawful protests or fleeing was high.

These two are very reasonable factors that any serious court would consider before giving a suspect bail or remanding them in custody.

We note with dismay that the opposition appear to have taken the democratic space that the new dispensation has been according citizens since November 2017 for granted.

They seem to think that they can demonstrate at any time, engage in violence at any time with no regard to the law.

They indeed deserve the democratic space they are enjoying; the constitution guarantees that they enjoy it, but there is a world of difference between a peaceful protest on one hand and, on the other, breaking into shops and looting, blocking roads and disrupting the normal flow of business.

When such infractions occur, police and other law enforcement agents are mandated to act within the limits of the law to bring offenders to book.

The courts would then be required to carefully consider the cases that are brought before them and punish convicts or release those who would have been found not guilty.

The country expects the courts to continue on that line.

Police are urged to intensify their chase for the suspects who are still at large, among them MDC Alliance legislators, Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions leaders and common opposition activists masquerading as human rights defenders.

They must face the music so that they are not tempted to be wayward again in future, or for would-be offenders to get the deterrent message beforehand.