Maravi

ZANU-PF, MDC differ anew over removal of sanctions

COMMENT - The cowards of the MDC are still calling the economic and financial sanctions against the people and government of Zimbabwe 'restrictive measures', so they can pretend that there are only travel restrictions against individuals in the ZANU-PF. The truth is that in the year 2002, the Zimbabwean government was put on a credit freeze, that froze it's credit lines, including all lines needed to do business. That year, the year 2002, what was the Zimbabwean rising trade surplus of $322 million in 2001 collapsed into a trade deficit of $18 million.

ZANU-PF, MDC differ anew over removal of sanctions
By Kingsley Kaswende in Harare, Zimbabwe
Sat 30 Jan. 2010, 04:00 CAT

ZANU-PF and MDC, the two major political parties that make up Zimbabwe’s inclusive government have renewed their differences over the removal of sanctions slapped on the country by the West.

Their renewed fight is likely to distract the resumption of talks aimed at stabilising the volatile situation in the shaky unity government that was formed last year after a violent election in 2008.

While ZANU-PF maintains that the MDC should cause the lifting of sanctions that it asked Western countries to impose on Zimbabwe before it can fully implement the Global Political Agreement (GPA), the MDC insists that ZANU-PF should first implement the GPA fully before MDC can call for the lifting of sanctions.

The ZANU-PF politburo, the party’s highest decision making body, which sat on Wednesday declared that the party would not make any more concessions in talks with the two MDC formations on issues outstanding in the full implementation of the GPA until the economic sanctions are lifted.

Addressing the media on Wednesday afternoon, ZANU-PF deputy secretary for information and publicity Ephraim Masawi said the removal of sanctions had become imperative.

He said recent revelations by British foreign and Commonwealth secretary David Miliband that London would remove sanctions at MDC’s request exposed MDC-T’s "treacherous role" in the initiation and drafting of the illegal sanctions against Zimbabweans saying the party was "a tool" of Western imperialism.

"The people of Zimbabwe, as the victims of the MDC and Western murderous collusion, now demand that Mr Tsvangirai and his Western allies remove their evil sanctions so that children can go to school, the sick can be attended to in hospitals, people can find jobs and farmers produce,” Masawi said.

“The Politburo therefore instructs its negotiators on the GPA to desist from making concessions in the negotiations until the sanctions are removed and the pirate radio stations cease to pollute airwaves.”

But MDC secretary for international affairs, Professor Eliphas Mukonoweshuro, said the sanctions could not be lifted because the conditions that brought them about were still in existence.

"Most of the issues that led to the imposition of the restrictive measures still remain unresolved," Prof Mukonoweshuro told The Changing Times, a newsletter from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s office, on Wednesday.

"The issues of violence, human rights abuses and violent farm disruptions are still taking place. These are outstanding issues that need to be eradicated.”

Meanwhile, the British Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mark Canning, said the EU would not lift the sanctions until there was reform in Zimbabwe.

”As the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, made clear in the British Parliament on 19 January, the most important factor influencing the United Kingdom's views on lifting EU restrictive measures will be evidence of actual change and reform on the ground in Zimbabwe,” said Ambassador Canning.

”These are not MDC measures. These are not ZANU-PF measures. They are the EU’s, and we will make our own judgments as to when they should be reinforced or eased. But the key to having restrictive measures eased, or lifted, is for those in Zimbabwe who are currently resisting progress to implement the commitments to reform they agreed to in the Global Political Agreement."

Labels: DAVID MILIBRAND, GLOBAL POLITICAL AGREEMENT, MDC, SANCTIONS, ZANU-PF, ZDERA

posted by MrK @ 8:19 AM