Letwin Mubonesi
The United States of America has admitted that illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe are affecting ordinary Zimbabweans and not the few individuals and companies they were intended to target and this has emerged following the visit of US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Brian Nichols with the Zanu PF Secretary for Information and Publicity Simon Khaya Moyo.
The US Ambassador visited the Zanu-PF Secretary and revealed that the Zanu-PF leadership raised their concerns on illegal sanctions imposed by Washington.
“We exchanged views with the ruling party and want to understand what Zanu-PF’s perspective on events currently taking place in the country as well as to talk about the importance of continued reforms; political and economic, the fight against corruption and to have a frank conversation about United States of America and Zimbabwean policies.
“Clearly, the Government of Zimbabwe has its concerns about the USA policy on sanctions and ZIDERA, the way they implement those reforms, that is the way to change in those policies Zimbabwe is concerned about,” said Ambassador Nichols.
Government has described the extension of sanctions on Zimbabwe by the United States as a mockery of justice saying Zimbabwe has embarked on a path of reconciliation and expected a reciprocal gesture from Washington.
He said, “We have a continued discussion about reforms, human rights, freedom of speech and clearly the Government of Zimbabwe has its concerns about the USA policy on sanctions and Zidera.”
SADC, the African Union and other progressive forces have repeatedly called for the unconditional lifting of sanctions imposed against Zimbabwe and it has since declared October 25 as Anti-Sanctions Day. On this day countries will be engaging on various activities raising awareness and calling for the removal of sanctions.
Ambassador Nichols commended the Government on its fight against corruption which have witnessed high profile figures implicated on corruption activities being arrested.
“We talked about continued reforms political and economic the fight against corruption and come up with a linkage between USA and Zimbabwean policies. We want to see this country succeed,” he said.
However, Khaya Moyo said that it was a matter of exchanging views on current developments taking place in the country.
“We want to make him understand that Government is a product of the party and it is important that whatever Government implements originate from the party policy. As far as we know our relationship with the USA has always been excellent since independence until we embarked on our land reform programme which was a matter between us and the British.
“America never colonized us, and we wondered when the British started imposing sanctions on us with all their friends in Europe, America joined them. We had no quarrels with them, but we had a quarrel with British because they had reneged on the Lancaster House agreement in terms of land redistribution for resettlements.”
“The new government of Tony Blair then said they were not involved in the Lancaster House conference therefore they had nothing to do with what was agreed upon our effort to take back our land that was the basis of the liberation struggle.”
“We did remind him of that and thanked him also for the assistance America tried to give to the British to help raise more money to purchase this land and in terms of relations now we were very clear that America is not our enemy,” said Moyo.
Meanwhile Zimbabwe continues to raise concerns over the rule of law and respect of human rights. Recently the police obstructed justice and the command by the High Court to let Dr Peter Magombeyi free to access medical attention in South Africa.
There has been continued reports on abductions of citizens who participate in holding the government accountable. In dealing with corruption, it seems targeted on the individuals who may seem not to be in good favour of the President while those who are surrounding him have been claimed to be corrupt for a long time, but seem to go scot-free.
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