Feature Zimbabwe
President Robert Mugabe was the first to sign the anti-sanctions petition. Presidential spokesman George Charamba (below right) responded hard and strong to objections by the US ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Ray (below left)
Southern African Development Commu- nity (SADC), which will in turn forward them to the African Union, which will in turn transfer them to the United Nations for discussion and a vote by members of the General Assembly and eventually by the Security Council, as a form of pressure for the removal of the sanctions. Te UN Security Council Sanctions
Committee has noted that “a great number of states and humanitarian organisations have expressed concerns at the possible adverse impact of sanctions on the most vulnerable segments of the population”. But the EU insists that its sanctions tar- get solely those judged responsible for human rights violations and preventing free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. Te EU sanctions were recently renewed be- cause of what it calls “a lack of progress in democratic reforms”, despite the 2-year-old power-sharing Inclusive Government run by Zanu-PF and the two formations of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). But speaking at the launch of the anti-
sanctions campaign, the president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), Joseph Kanyekanye, said that the sanctions were hurting Zimbabwe’s econ- omy and preventing many local businesses from marketing their products in Europe and the USA. He told the crowd that apart from the sanctions denying Zimbabwean companies access to lines of credit from multilateral lending institutions, British firms, like the leading supermarket chain Tesco, have also refused to buy farm pro- duce from Zimbabwe. “I have come here voluntarily to say no
to sanctions,” Kanyekanye said. “It is part of our 2010 resolution where more than 300 businesspeople said sanctions were not appropriate for Zimbabwe. We believe that sanctions have nothing to do with the human rights situation in the country... As Zimbabweans, we must fight the sanc- tions; and as CZI we had already taken a position a year ago against the sanctions
30 | April 2011 New African
unpaid debts put a stop to lending long before there were sanctions, claims US ambassador Charles Ray”
“ Zimbabwe’s
because they have caused unnecessary disunity in the country.” Brian Tengwa, 44, from Harare, be-
lieves he was laid off from his job at a car assembly plant in 2005 as a result of the sanctions. “We were told that the company could not import necessary parts for the assembling of cars because it was linked to influential people in Zanu-PF.” Innocent Makwiramiti, a Harare-based
economist and former chief executive of- ficer of the Zimbabwe National Chamber
of Commerce (ZNCC), agrees: “Many problems that Zimbabweans have suffered and still experience are direct and indirect offshoots of the sanctions.” According to him, the restrictions on the operations of some local businesses and the withholding of financial aid contributed to the collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy after 2001, which was followed by a collapse in social services and severe food insecurity. “Zimbabwe receives no budget- ary support from donors,” Priscilla
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