(HERALD) Sanctions must go — Ncube

Sanctions must go — Ncube
By Tendai Mugabe
Sunday, 09 January 2011 20:32

NEWLY-ELECTED MDC leader Professor Welshman Ncube has called for the immediate removal of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by some Western countries, saying the illegal embargo was hindering economic revival.

In his acceptance speech as incoming MDC leader at the close of the party’s third congress in Harare yesterday, Prof Ncube said parties in the inclusive Government should unanimously call for the lifting of the widely discredited embargo.
He slammed political parties and some sections of the media that advocate the continuation of illegal sanctions.

“All forms of sanctions against Zimbabwe must be removed forthwith.

We will continue to speak about it. In the GPA we agreed to work together for the lifting of sanctions for us to prosper as a nation.

“Sanctions continue to impede democratic processes in Zimbabwe . . . and at the heart of the liberation struggle was freedom of all Zimbabweans regardless of their race. Free-dom fighters fought so that every Zimbabwean would be freed from hunger and poverty.

“We cannot be politically indepe-ndent without economic independence, neither will we have economic independence without political independence,” he said.

Prof Ncube’s condemnation of illegal sanctions is in stark contrast to the view of the other MDC formation led by Mr Morgan Tsvangirai which has skirted the issue despite committing itself in the GPA to fighting the embargo. MDC-T calls the sanctions “restrictive measures”.

Prof Ncube also took a swipe at some Western countries interfering in Zimbabwe’s politics.

“We will not be enemies to anyone but we only have conditions that you must respect; the primary rule of international law — respect the sovereign right of Zimbabweans. It is the right of the people of Zimbabwe to choose who should lead them at any given time,” he said.

After the congress, Prof Ncube immediately met with the party’s new executive.

He told journalists after the meeting that the party had no intention of recalling Prof Mutambara from Government soon although he could be affected by a reshuffle as and when the party saw the need for it.

“All the people we have deployed to Government will remain as they are until such a time we think that there is need for a reshuffle. We are happy with those deployments. As a party we don’t have the language of recall,” he said.

The party’s new chairperson for the Women’s Assembly Thandiwe Mlilo said the robotics professor had only been invited to manage the crisis after the 2005 split.

She said after the party discovered that it was highly dominated by people from Matabeleland, it decided to invite Prof Mutambara as a unifying force.