Zimpapers Logo

terrorism, a senior Government official has said.
In his address at the just-ended international conference on the global fight against terrorism held in Tehran, Iran, Minister of State for Presidential Affairs Didymus Mutasa called for the immediate removal of the embargo.

“Zimbabwe has been savaged by declared, undeclared and illegal sanctions unilaterally imposed on it by the US, European Union and the white Commonwealth countries at Britain’s instigation, for well over a decade.

“These illegal sanctions are in retaliation to our land reform programme and other indigenisation policies that are part and parcel of our protracted revolution against colonial occupation and imperial domination.
“These sanctions constitute the highest form of economic terrorism against the people of Zimbabwe.”
Minister Mutasa said Zimbabwe was running a cash economy without any support from the West and international financial institutions like the IMF because of the sanctions.

He said sanctions also led to sustained disinvestment and de-industrialisation resulting in soaring unemployment.
“Zimbabwe is even denied access to HIV and TB support from multi-lateral institutions like the Global Fund.

“Where such support does trickle in, Zimbabwe gets only US$4 per capita per annum compared to between US$20-US$25 per capita per annum that is given to its neighbours,” he said.
The illegal sanctions were against UN tenets as they were causing increasing poverty, he said.

“The West’s grand design in imposing these sanctions is to starve the people of Zimbabwe into revolting against their Government either through so-called revolutions like the recent ones in North Africa or by voting out the revolutionary leadership of Cde Robert Mugabe.”

Minister Mutasa, who is also Zanu-PF secretary for administration, said Zimbabwe viewed the illegal sanctions as “a form of racist punitive action against a black government for wanting to reclaim black people’s rights over their land and natural resources”.

“It follows that, since the sanctions seek to negate the aspirations and gains of our revolution through illegal regime change, they constitute an unprovoked declaration of war against Zimbabwe,” he added.
Minister Mutasa urged the conference to holistically examine global terrorism and its many facets and to look at appropriate measures to combat the scourge including the transformation of international institutions like the UN, particularly the Security Council.

He called for the strengthening of other international bodies like the Non-Aligned Movement.
“Let me conclude by putting the solemn request of my delegation for this august conference to include illegal economic sanctions in its definition of terrorism and to specifically condemn in the strongest terms and call for the removal of all sanctions against Zimbabwe and other countries like the Islamic Republic of Iran and Cuba which have been visited with similar measures,” he said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad officially opened the conference attended by delegates from 60 countries.
Heads of State from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan as well as the Republic of Sudan, Tajikistan and Mauritania also attended the conference.
Participants condemned all acts of terrorism in all forms including State terrorism and economic terrorism.