JOHANNESBURG – Zimbabwean police on Thursday ruthlessly broke up a protest by women against the continued stalemate between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders over sharing of Cabinet posts to form a government of national unity.

Activists from a civil rights movement – Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) – demonstrated in the country’s southern city of Bulawayo denouncing political leaders of failing to deliver their promise, on the signing of a power-sharing deal a month ago, to quickly form a government that would work to alleviate people’s suffering.

"How many more Zimbabweans must die before you act?" read a statement the women carried. "This is a national disaster and we demand food for all Zimbabweans now."

WOZA said riot police arrested two of its leaders, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu, and dispersed the other protesters sitting outside local government offices in the city as they waited for officials to come and hear their demands.

The women's group said at least one activist required medical attention, after police beat them with baton sticks.

Efforts to get a comment from the police were unsuccessful.

Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF party, the Morgan Tsvangirai-led main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and its rebel faction led by Arthur Mutambara agreed to form a unity government under a power-sharing agreement brokered by former South African President Thabo Mbeki on September 15.

Crisis-weary Zimbabweans had hoped a power-sharing government would immediately begin work to reverse an economic crisis that plumbed new lows last week when the government Central Statistical Office released fresh figures showing annual inflation at 231 million percent, the highest such rate in the world.

But the deal hit a stalemate over Cabinet posts, shattering people’s hopes amid a deepening economic crisis with the UN saying 45 percent of Zimbabwe's population, or 5,1-million people, will need food help by early 2009.

In addition to hyperinflation, Zimbabweans also have to also grapple with acute shortages of every basic survival commodity and eight in 10 people are out of employment. Shortages of water and electricity are common, burst sewers flow unchecked in the country’s cities while roads are littered with potholes. – ZimOnline