Zimpapers Logo

Nduduzo Tshuma, Political Editor 

THE Government has hailed the courageous stance taken by Sadc in taking the United States head on in the call for the immediate removal of illegal sanctions imposed against Zimbabwe by Washington and its allies.

Sadc executive secretary Dr Stergomena Tax on Tuesday met the United States Ambassador to Botswana, Mr Craig Cloud, and reiterated the regional bloc’s calls for the removal of the embargo.

In an interview yesterday, the Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Monica Mutsvangwa, said the move by Dr Tax emboldened the regional bloc’s stance after a resolution by Sadc heads of State last August to stand united against sanctions on Zimbabwe.

“Sadc executive secretary Dr Tax has wholeheartedly embraced the sub-regional fight. Her engagement with the US ambassador in Gaborone, the Sadc capital is testament to her courageous fight for a better and promising Zimbabwe economy,” she said. 

“It also marks a high-water point in the revival of the erstwhile spirit of redoubtable Frontlines States that confronted and won against the evil crimes of colonialism, racism and apartheid.”

Minister Mutsvangwa said Sadc is once again waving the weapon of unity and collective security in defying and facing off the perfidy of Washington directed at tiny and landlocked Zimbabwe. 

“The sanctions have now been imposed for nearly two decades by successive Congressional resolutions. These are in turn buttressed by repetitive Presidential Orders that get enforced by stringent surveillance by the bureaucrats from the Office of Assets Control (OFAC) at the American Treasury Department. 

“Zimbabwe’s economy has of consequence been eviscerated by the wrath and hostility of the overbearing economic and financial might of the global superpower USA,” she said. 

“The results are everywhere to see. Capital flight that accentuates lack of inward Foreign Direct Investment. There is wholesale degradation of all enabling socio-economic services like water, energy, transport and all.”

In August last year, Sadc set aside October 25 as the solidarity day against illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe and resolved to conduct various activities in their respective countries on the day to call for the immediate removal of the economic embargo. 

The regional campaign widened beyond the regional bloc to the entire continent when the African Union (AU) voiced its objections to the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe calling for their immediate removal. 

Internationally, China, Cuba and the Non-Aligned Movement made strong calls for the removal of sanctions.

In November last year, South Africa, Zimbabwe’s biggest trade partner, called on Sadc to engage Western countries to lift sanctions imposed on the country to ensure its economic recovery.

This week, Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo called for the immediate removal of sanctions placed on Zimbabwe saying they are “unacceptable and unjustifiable” and hindering efforts to grow the country’s economy.

“We will continue to call on our peers on the continent to do everything we can to see that the sanctions are lifted as soon as possible so that Zimbabwe will have the freedom to develop to its full potential.

“Hopefully, soon, rather than later, we all should hear the good news from the collective efforts of all the African people,” President Akufo-Addo said while receiving Zimbabwe’s new Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Kufa Edward Chinoza, at the Jubilee House in Ghana’s capital city Accra.