(HERALD) Coltart in sanctions U-turn
Coltart in sanctions U-turnSaturday, 09 June 2012 21:07
Sunday Mail Reporter
Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Senator David Coltart has called for the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe in a major climb-down by the MDC-N legal affairs secretary who reportedly helped the United States to craft the heinous Zimbabwe Democracy Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) in 2001.
Senator Coltart was in the US a fortnight ago where he urged that country’s government to mend relations with Zimbabwe and is confident that the call for the removal of the illegal embargo will yield results.
“My main mission was to meet with senators and congressmen in the American government as part of a drive aimed at seeing them engage the inclusive Government on the removal of sanctions.
“On the other hand, I also met money-lending institutions and international education organisations as I sought support for the country’s education sector,” he said.
Among other senior US officials, Sen Coltart met the Deputy Secretary for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson, and the Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, Michael Posner. He also met Senator Jim Inhofe, who recently told his fellow congressmen that sanctions were affecting ordinary citizens in Zimbabwe and stalling economic development.
“The overall reaction to my call for the removal of sanctions was positive. As for the education support for Zimbabwe, I met officials from the World Bank, Unicef and the Global Partnership for Education,” he said.
Asked whether he had assisted the US government to craft ZDERA, Senator Coltart’s response was ambiguous.
“That allegation is totally without foundation because if I had that power, I would go to Washington and ask the US to remove the sanctions right now.
[That makes no sense. Whether he had anything to do with drawing up ZDERA has nothing to dow with whether he has the power to revoke it. It is an evasive answer, to say the least. - MrK]
“However, there were gross human rights violations in 2001 and what we merely said to the US government was that the perpetrators of such abuses should be punished,” he said.
[There were gross human rights violations upto 1980, for which YOU have not been punished. - MrK]
Finance Minister Tendai Biti, who is also believed to have worked with Sen Coltart in assisting the US in crafting ZDERA, recently made a U-turn on sanctions when he told delegates at a World Bank meeting in Washington last month that the West should immediately lift the embargo.
A fortnight ago UN Human Rights chief Ms Navanethem Pillay also added her voice to the lifting of sanctions.
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COMMENTS FROM THE WEBSITE:
TruthHurts! - Sunday, June 10, 2012 at 02:44 PMThis bastard went to America as part of a group comprising of himself, Tendayi mBiti and Welshman Ncube in 2000 before the MDshit split to beg for sanctions hoping that they will catapult them into power and rape us all. He must NEVER EVER try to lie his way out of this one.
Many Zimbabweans died from curable diseases just because there was no medicine in hospitals for their treatment and fuel at service stations to ferry them to hospitals in cases of medical emergency. This was a situation that was a direct result of the sanctions that these murderers had invited upon their own people. The sanctions must not be seen as if it is a game of football where there is a winner and a loser or the teams draw and everyone goes home to celebrate or moan about the missed chances by their strikers if their team had lost or has drawn.
This is about people like them who ultimately died because these egotistical morons thought they are better than other people and that power is their entitlement. They wanted power to abuse and use us all in a humiliating way under the guidance and control of the people they met in America when they went to beg for these sanctions.
Coltart cannot wriggle his way out of this one and when you report about things like this you demean the dead by saying that ''Coltart makes U-turn on sanctions'' as if their effect on people has been harmless (I am not saying that you, Editor or your Reporter say sanctions are harmless but when perceived holistically in the general scheme of things, the whole Coltart thingy in your article seems to imply that sanctions are harmless). When little boys and girls without shoes walk in the depths of sewage spewing in Mbare streets and contracting diseases that cannot be said to be harmless. When students at our Universities and schools are studying under a very difficult environment that never existed when some of those who invited these sanctions went school we cannot say the sanctions are harmless.
When generally the whole economy has had to operate on a cash basis that nearly slid us into being a failed State unlike other countries that are trading openly we cannot say sanctions are harmless. Sanctions and the nightmare that Coltart, mBiti and Welshman Ncube invited cause a lot of untold hardships that have rendered us subjects of ridicule and abuse by people from other nations - some of whom like Lindiwe Zulu who are in govt but not in power - you can not say that is harmless to the dented confidence and pride we have had to endure.
They have had an effect on most of us Zimbabweans in those places that we travel to, the people we meet and in the things we do, the way we do them and how we do them. A Coltart u-turn is therefore for himself, not us. These three bastards are the kind that if we were still living in Shakespearean times we would demand that they reverse all the damage their sanctions have caused us or we demand our pound of flesh to be paid with their lives. We would want to see his u-turn blowing life back into those that perished because of his set Rhodesian ways that sees the death of black people as acceptable ''collateral damage'' to their wars against other races and therefore nothing to think or worry about.
I think there is still need to talk about this today, tomorrow and in the foreseeable future. Its not over. We cannot continue reconciling with people that we pardoned for their heinous crimes in 1980 and then in 2000 they do it again, piss on our heads and tell us it is raining heavily and there is a hailstorm! No-o ways! This time we looked up and saw that the weather is fine and it is them pissing on us and WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!!
This is us and this time someone has to be held answerable for the many orphans the sanctions created. And it is those three and their leader who went to invite them.
Labels: DAVID COLTART, JIM INHOFE, SANCTIONS, ZDERA
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