(TALKZIMBABWE) President Mugabe launches National Anti-Sanctions Petition Campaign

COMMENT - And Susan Rice is courting Zimbabwe over the Kimberley Process too. Hmmm...

President Mugabe launches National Anti-Sanctions Petition Campaign
By: Our reporter
Posted: Monday, February 28, 2011 9:38 am

THOUSANDS of Zimbabweans will throng the Harare Agricultural Show Open Car Park on Wednesday as President Mugabe launches the National Anti-Sanctions Petition Campaign.

Britain and the US and their allies have imposed illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe. President Mugabe said Britain internationalised a bilateral conflict with Zimbabwe and mobilised western nations to impose the embargo.

The president says the sanctions regime, which was Britain's response to the land reform programme, has ruined Zimbabwe's economy.

A recent report by the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University showed that Zimbabwe's land reform programme had been a success and that much of the land had gone to ordinary Zimbabweans, not to President Mugabe's chronies as alleged by Britain and international media.

Basing its findings on a 10-year study of the situation in Masvingo Province, the lead author of the research, Ian Scoones, said the land reform was not the unmitigated disaster that is sometimes portrayed.

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Ninety-five percent of Zimbabwe's productive farming land (commercial farming land) was held by five percent of the white population before the land reform programme.

The campaign would be launched under the theme "Sanctions do kill."

In a statement, the Zanu-PF Information and Publicity Department said Zimbabweans across the political divide should sign the anti-sanctions petition because the embargo was affecting people indiscriminately.

Chairperson of the Anti-Sanctions Campaign and Petition Vice President John Nkomo said all parties in the inclusive Government had agreed in the Global Political Agreement that sanctions should be removed.

He said the campaign was a process and that there was no limited number of signatures to be gathered.

Zanu-PF's information and publicity department has outlined 10 reasons why Zimbabweans should sign the petition.

The party stresses that the embargo is not targeted on its senior officials as claimed by Western countries and their media.

It also points out that the illegal sanctions are a challenge to national sovereignty as Zimbabwe's detractors are using them as a tool for regime change.

"Sanctions are an attack on all Zimbabweans. They are wholesale. They are not personalised or targeted.

"Sanctions are an attack on our economy, our jobs, our search for total empowerment and they are an attack on our business, on workers and on consumers.

"Sanctions are an attack on our land and our land rights. They aim to create conditions for the reversal of land reforms," reads the statement.

"Sanctions are a challenge to our National Sovereignty. They are an illegal measure by foreigners working on challenging a sovereign peo-ple.

"They are an outsider's law and/or policy set against an independent country and people with its own legislature."

The party notes that the illegal sanctions are racist and an attack on the African people because they were unilaterally imposed outside the United Nations mandate by a British-led coalition defending minority rights in Zimbabwe.