By Tawanda Chenana
WE, in the village, are very much alive to the call for the removal of the illegal economic sanctions imposed on the country by the US, the UK and their allies.
We might be from the village, but we know that the West has failed dismally to prove their allegations of violation of human rights and mismanagement of the economy over the years which has prompted SADC to declare October 25 as Anti-Sanctions Day during its 39th Summit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in August 2019.
The US and the UK continue to deny that they have imposed illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, preferring to call them ‘restrictive measures’ or ‘targeted sanctions’.
For more than two decades, we have laboured under the yoke of these punitive measures.
The embargo is outdated and should be lifted.
Western countries have tried to downplay the impact of sanctions.
For all their political ‘brilliance’, the West has yet to come to terms with the reality that there will be no reversal of land reform, the source of the imposition of sanctions.
We are a united people and a few malcontents among us cannot defeat the power of unity the people of Zimbabwe have exhibited in the fight against sanctions over the years.
The Second Republic is open for business but our efforts at genuine reengagement have been rebuffed by the so-called ‘superpowers’ that prefer to engage on terms they impose that are not mutually beneficial, hence the continued renewal of sanctions.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has made great strides in forging good relations with all the nations of the world guided by the mantra: ‘Friend to all and enemy to none.’
At the commencement of the Second Republic, President Mnangagwa sent Special Envoys to a number of Western countries like the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, with messages of the Government’s willingness to start a new chapter and normalise relations, but sanctions still linger.
It is so because economic sanctions have become the instrument of choice for Western nations seeking regime change so they can install puppets.
The US and the UK have promised to remove sanctions but still maintain them as they present a litany of other demands for ‘reforms’.
We know that mending relations between Zimbabwe and its erstwhile coloniser will be a herculean task because of the country’s assertive land redistribution that was ‘disruptive and contrary’ to the colonial discourse.
Successive Western ambassadors have, since December 21 2001 and February 18 2002, when the US and the EU, having been waylaid by Britain, slapped Zimbabwe with illegal economic sanctions, been under strict instructions from their countries to deny both the existence and impact of the widely discredited embargo.
However, that lie has since become unsustainable as the devastating effects of the sanctions continue to play out very much in the open.
As has already been widely noted, since the imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe, preferential procurement agreements for Zimbabwean products across the world, EU and the US were cancelled.
The Government lost its right to buy fuel directly from the Middle East as using the US dollar as payments would be blocked, while shipping agents carrying fuel for Zimbabwe under a Government manifest risked being confiscated or sanctioned.
And this has had an impact on the entire Zimbabwean economy and all Zimbabweans.
In the financial matrix, sanctions impact on key economic enablers, such as access to foreign finance and exchanges and foreign direct investment (FDI), but these aspects are not mentioned when the ‘big brothers’ argue that sanctions are not harmful to the general populace of Zimbabwe.
All the while we are presented as evil and the likes of the UK and the US are then justified to impose sanctions.
In 2002, the EU cut €132 million/year in aid to Zimbabwe, affecting social development and humanitarian aid for fighting HIV, climate change, water challenges and droughts.
It should be noted that such aid was a pledge by the EU and the West, in lieu of the West paying reparations in Africa for colonisation — they were not doing us any favours.
It has been correctly observed and shown that sanctions were also imposed on the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe to stop it from fulfilling its mandate of building and maintaining electricity, road, rail, water, sanitation and telecommunications infrastructure, hence collapse of the infrastructure which now requires at least US$20 billion to upgrade.
Sanctions are being maintained in the hope that, as people ‘suffer’, they will protest and vote for the opposition.
But what the West forgets is that during the liberation struggle, no amount of bombing would create a wedge between the masses and the cause of the struggle.
However, no sovereign State can be expected to tolerate those who deliberately betray national interest; we have our kith and kin working with the West to maintain these diabolic sanctions.
We, therefore, unreservedly support the proposed Patriotic Act, which will criminalise treacherous acts.
We will not be alone in fighting traitors.
The US, through the Logan Act, criminalises those who connive with hostile foreign governments to harm the nation.
In the same vein, we fully back the proposed Private Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Amendment Bill.
This is a Bill intended to stop civil society organisations, trusts and NGOs from meddling in politics.
We are not against PVOs per se; we expect them to fulfil their humanitarian mission.
Regrettably, they have become an appendage of the opposition and are at the forefront of the regime change drive.
The illegal sanctions which we are under are no different from a declaration of war.
But we must remain resolute.
As a nation, we must leverage on our resources to create a sound economy as is the case now where Government has been using local resources to embark on infrastructural development.
And the results are there for all to see.
The roads, dams, mining as well as the rebound in agriculture speak to this fact.
That does not, however, mean that we should waver in our calling for the complete removal of those sanctions.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the Coercive Measures on the Enjoyment of Human Rights, Alena Douhan, could not have put it across more clearly: “The time is ripe for sanctioning States and key national stakeholders to engage in a meaningful structured dialogue…sanctions have had an insidious ripple effect on the economy of Zimbabwe and on the enjoyment of fundamental human rights, including access to health, food, safe drinking water and sanitation, education and employment.
This situation also limits Zimbabwe’s ability to guarantee the functioning of public institutions, delivery of services and maintenance of essential infrastructure and undermines the right to development of the Zimbabwean people and impedes the achievement of the sustainable development goals.”
Sanctions must go, in their totality!