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The African National Congress does not condone the idea of regime change in Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom and its Western allies should shoulder the blame for the challenges afflicting the Southern African country, an official said on Monday.
Angered by Zimbabwe’s land reform under which the Government compulsorily acquired farmland from the minority white farmers to resettle landless blacks, some Western countries imposed sweeping economic and other sanctions on the country, and drove efforts to diplomatically isolate it in the world.
The sanctions, meant to cause regime change, crippled the country, causing economic damage estimated by the Government at around US$100 billion, and forcing emigration of Zimbabweans to neighbouring countries and abroad.
Promising to use experience gained in previous assignments to foster closer ties with the ANC’s “sister parties,” newly elected ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula voiced concern over the sanctions and their impact on Zimbabwe and the entire Southern African region.
“We must be very much concerned about what is happening in Zimbabwe and what role we need to play to solve what is happening in Zimbabwe because we do not subscribe to the idea of a regime change in Zimbabwe,” he told a press conference at the close of the ANC’s elective congress on Monday.
“We need to campaign very hard to get things right because Zimbabweans are coming to our country in their numbers because something is not right in their own country. Once that country becomes what it was there will be no Zimbabweans here.
“So, the British must think very hard about what they have done and the Americans. They must lift the sanctions so that Zimbabwe can grow as an economy and (they must) not use sanctions to deepen the pain and the impoverishment of Zimbabwe.”
Just last week, the United States added more Zimbabwean individuals and companies to its sanctions list, despite re-engagement overtures and spirited campaigns by Zimbabwe and African leaders to have the embargoes lifted.
Mbalula said; “The British know what they agreed to in Lancaster.”
“They must come to the party and invest in the compensation of the Zimbabweans in the programme of land redistribution. The 40 or something billion pounds they promised (former President) Mugabe and Zanu PF they must come to the party and not use the issue of the land reform programme as a scapegoat to run away.”
“So they must come to the party and Zimbabwe will be a better country.
“Zimbabweans never came to this country when it was a breadbasket of the African continent, it was an economy that was alive, and people were working in Zimbabwe.
“Now you have got Zimbabweans crossing, facing life and death, crocodiles, coming into our country because there is no life and life is here in South Africa, and that has burdened our economy but as the ANC we will not agree in ideological terms that Zimbabwe must be turned into a client state next to us.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa was re-elected to lead the ANC during voting at the end of the party leadership conference on Monday, garnering 2 476 votes against 1 897 for his rival, former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize. – New Ziana.
Online Reporter