admin
internal affairs.
Zanu-PF party spokesman Cde Rugare Gumbo said the lifting of illegal sanctions must be unconditional and total.
“Australians should just keep their sanctions as long as they are removing them conditionally,” he said.
“The lifting of these illegal sanctions must be unconditional and total. As long as President Mugabe is not removed from the list, Australia has done nothing, they can keep them and we will still survive.”
Australia’s Foreign Minister Bob Carr announced the further lifting of illegal sanctions early this week against 65 Zimbabwean individuals, including politicians, Government officials and military personnel and three entities.
He warned that the illegal sanctions would be “reimposed” should political reforms be derailed, something that political analysts said was tantamount to interfering with the country’s own internal affairs.
Australia said it was easing the illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe after the conclusion of constitutional reforms.
“There is no genuine desire by the Western countries to lift illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe because they always have conditions attached,” said Mr Goodson Nguni, a political commentator.
“MDC works with the Australian government, and now they want reforms that will make them win the elections. What Carr is saying here is that the illegal sanctions will be re-imposed if Zanu-PF wins the forthcoming elections.”
He said this decision was illegitimate and a strategy to undermine the country’s sovereignty.
Political analyst Mr Gabriel Chaibva said Australia had no right to interfere in Zimbabwe’s own internal issues.
“As much as we do not interfere in the abuse of Aboriginal people in Australia where human rights for these indigenous people are violated by the dominant white European settlers, we do not want them to interfere in our own internal issues,” he said.
“These sanctions are illegal and they should remove them totally without any conditions tied to them.”
Said University of Zimbabwe political analyst, Dr Charity Manyeruke: “We might have relations with these countries but that does not mean they should determine what reforms we should undertake in our country.
“Australia should remove the sanctions totally without taking a piecemeal approach. Zimbabwe is a sovereign country whose people would like to shape their destiny in an independent way that is why we managed to come up with a home grown constitution.”
In what has become sort of ritual every year, the European Union also eased sanctions on Zimbabwe in February as a “reward” for carrying out political reforms that ended with the adoption of a new constitution.
Dr Manyeruke said Zimbabweans voted for the reforms they wanted in the constitution, which were later assented by the President.
“So there is no need for Australia to interfere on the issue of reforms. It’s an internal matter for Zimbabweans alone,” she said.
The EU, Australia and the US imposed illegal sanctions in 2002 in an alleged protest over human rights abuses and violations of democracy in the country.
Online Reporter