adminAfrican court that wanted Pretoria to investigate Zimbabwean officials for alleged human rights abuses.
In handing out the judgment in Pretoria, Judge Hans Fabricius claimed the suit would stem the flood of “economic and political refugees” into South Africa.
One Nicole Fritz of the South African Litigation Centre joined the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum in filing the lawsuit ahead of Ms Pillay’s visit in a bid to put Zimbabwe in the spotlight.
Rightwing local and international media have also been in overdrive over the past few years trashing our human rights record.
And having nothing to hide, the Government received and hosted three UN envoys prior to Ms Pillay’s visit.
The first to arrive was UN special envoy for humanitarian issues James Morris in January 2003 who came to assess the food security situation, and was followed by UN Habitat chief Anna Tibaijuka Kajumulo in July 2005, who came to assess Operation Murambatsvina.
When Tibaijuka produced a report at variance with what was obtaining on the ground, the Government invited John Egeland, the UN emergency relief co-ordinator in December that same year.
However, while these envoys were given open access to Zimbabwe so that they could really assess the situation on the ground, they all ended up misrepresenting their findings to abet the cause of Western powers that wanted Zimbabwe tarred and feathered as a pariah state.
It is not a secret that some Western countries led by Britain and the United States have tried to influence the UN to adopt the so-called ‘‘responsibility to protect’’
measure as a prelude to having an open sesame on Zimbabwe.
We hope Ms Pillay’s findings will go a long way in giving the world the true picture. Zimbabwe is a member of the UN Human Rights Commission, and is party to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and relevant protocols.
We have done nothing more than assert our economic rights to our land and all other resources that we were dispossessed off and denied by successive settler regimes.
Addressing colonial injustices was the raison d’être of the liberation struggle that saw us fight for our political, social and cultural rights as well and the same forces that abetted the Smith regime to deny us our rights are at it again, opposing our drive for economic independence.
As part of that subversive campaign, the Western powers have imposed a ruinous economic sanctions regime, a sustained assault on our people’s basic rights, that culminated in the collapse of our currency in 2008 and the loss of livelihoods, pensions and savings that were rendered worthless by hyperinflation.
We hope the UN human rights boss will note this and communicate to her employers.
Western sanctions are illegal as they were imposed outside the purview of the UN, and as a blatant attempt to stop us from asserting our rights.
We hope Ms Pillay, a distinguished practitioner of jurisprudence, will help us undo the ruinous albatross and see through the West’s machinations as far as our human rights record is concerned.
Online Reporter