Vusumuzi Dube
THE country marked the Anti-Sanctions Day last Tuesday, backed by the Sadc region and like-minded countries across the globe. The message was loud and clear that the sanctions regime undermines tenets of the “human factor approach” of nations in pursuit of sustainable socio-economic development. They are an attack on the freedoms and on the sovereignty of Zimbabwe.
Furthermore, the illegal sanctions defy the fundamentals and principles of international law; they challenge the notion of equality of nations, and the values of global governance enshrined in the United Nations Charter.
For about two decades, the country has been under illegal sanctions imposed by America and its partners in the West. The “sin” that Zimbabwe committed was to institute the noble Agrarian Land Reform Exercise which fixed the imbalance in terms of land ownership that had been engineered by the colonial government, where the white minority owned vast tracks of fertile land, while the black majority were crammed in small dry lands.
The calls for the lifting of sanctions have been heard from far and wide. And as President Mnangagwa said; “We call, press and reiterate that these illegal Sanctions Must Go. The people and Government of Zimbabwe deserve a chance. We are not and will never yield to the sanctions conditioning and strangulating effect. We will never give up on sacred ideals and goals of our protracted armed liberation struggle.”
Nonetheless, we salute the Government of Zimbabwe and citizens in general for their resilience under harsh conditions brought about by the illegal sanctions.
The Government, led by President Mnangagwa, has maintained that the country will push forward in terms of development, using locally available resources. And that approach has been a success, with a lot of infrastructural development taking place, and social safety nets, among other success stories, being availed by the Government to its citizens.
President Mnangagwa was unequivocal on that score. “Be that as it may, these sanctions cannot sanction our minds, our original thinking, our skill sets, our energies and, most importantly, our God-given land as well as our natural endowments.
“We must therefore, fully utilise all our creativity and endowments to insulate our economy from these sanctions, and to implement with great vigour our local development prescriptions, programmes and projects to improve the quality of life of our people.
We have a duty to lift our people out of poverty to prosperity. It is only through self-generated development, determination, focus, perseverance and resilience, across all the ten provinces of our country, that we shall conquer the illegal sanctions.
“Going forward, I challenge fellow citizens: young and old, from the Zambezi to the Limpopo and from Plumtree to Mutare, to remain alive to the fact that it is our collective responsibility to build a prosperous Zimbabwe we all want, brick by brick, stone upon stone.
Our development mantra: ‘Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo/ Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabaninilo’ is instructive and should guide and inspire us. There is no looking back, no retreat or surrender.”
Thus the onus is on us the masses. We must own and drive the development agenda, not just the leadership. We all must work for the motherland and not shy away from duty and our obligations.
Beyond doubt the country’s leadership is committed and will relentlessly pursue policies that empower our people.
And as the cliché goes, all hands must be on deck.
derick.khumalo