By Tichaona Sibanda
25 February 2010
South African President Jacob Zuma will use his state visit to the UK next week to plead with the British government to remove targeted sanctions against Robert Mugabe and his allies.
Speaking in an interview with the UK Financial Times in Pretoria, Zuma suggested he would be happy even if conditions were set for the removal of the sanctions. He said he was baffled that the targeted sanctions have remained despite there being an inclusive government in place.
“If we were in the shoes of the big countries, I would have said 'here is an agreement, we are in support of this agreement and lifting sanctions, even conditionally, even for six months to a year, give a chance for this agreement,” Zuma said.
A number of demonstrations against Zuma’s soft stance towards Robert Mugabe have been lined up by Zimbabwean groups during his visit. The South African President will be a guest at Buckingham Palace, the Queen’s official residence in London.
Zuma said he believed the sanction against Mugabe and his ZANU PF officials made it more difficult to establish a ‘viable coalition government’ in Zimbabwe .
“ZANU PF says they’re in a cabinet of a unity government. But part of the cabinet can go anywhere in the world for their work and part (ZANU PF members) can't go out of the country. This unity government is being suffocated. It is not being allowed to do its job by the big countries,” he said.
Last week, the European Union extended their targeted sanctions on Mugabe and his henchmen to punish them for lack of progress in implementing the Global Political Agreement.
Political analyst Clifford Mashiri told us he strongly deplored Zuma’s plans to use his forthcoming state visit to the UK as an opportunity to campaign for the lifting of the EU and US targeted sanctions on Mugabe and his inner circle.
“Ironically, the South African President who is expected to be a neutral facilitator on the stalled negotiations between MDC and ZANU PF has taken sides by behaving like Mugabe’s election manager. Zuma should remain neutral and stick to his mandate as a facilitator or handover that role to the United Nations,” Mashiri said.
Analysts point out that the inclusive government has made no real progress in implementing political reforms and ending human rights abuses after a year in office.
In addition, incessant bickering between Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai over how to equally share executive power, the appointment of senior officials in government like Gideon Gono, Johannes Tomana and Roy Bennett threaten to cripple the operations of the government.
Commenting on Mugabe and Tsvangirai’s long drawn out battle to settle their differences Reverend Lameck Mutete, an exiled clergyman said he thought the two leaders should first forgive each other.
“In the bible there are many verses about forgiving one another. If the two leaders were to do the same, we will definitely see a different approach to how they handle these so called contentious issues,” Reverend Mutete said.
The Reverend said he believed it was ill-advised for Zuma to seek the removal of sanctions without first sorting out the dispute between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
“In life you can’t advance to step 2 without solving issues in step 1. Zuma is ignoring that basic rule. Why and how he’s ignoring to push the two sides to resolve the outstanding issues remains a mystery to many. He’s wasting his time trying to have sanctions removed when there is no movement towards the full implementation of the GPA,” the Reverend added.
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