The ‘sanctions’ as they call them have frozen foreign bank accounts and prevented foreign travel by less than 300 men and women who took Zimbabwe from being a thriving, exporting nation to a destitute beggar’s bowl in less than nine years. Ninety nine percent of ordinary Zimbabwean do not have foreign bank accounts and have never been on an aeroplane, let alone to a foreign country, and so it is hard to feel empathy for the less than 300 people in Zanu (PF) who are on the targeted sanctions list. Sanctions! What sanctions? is the question ordinary Zimbabweans ask as they pay bills and buy groceries with American dollars and eat food, even everyday basics like maize meal, that has had to be imported.
Sanctions! What sanctions we ask as we drive into filling stations and buy imported petrol and diesel and pay in US dollars or South African Rand and not even in our own money.
Sanctions! What sanctions when international organizations are providing the money to pay our teachers, nurses, doctors and civil servants. Sanctions! What sanctions when the IMF are again lending money to Zimbabwe and the World Bank are providing financial support to the government. Sanctions! What sanctions when the country is awash with international organisations who are feeding our hungry, treating our sick, looking after our orphans and vulnerable children, providing chemicals to treat our water and even fixing our blocked toilets. They are everywhere: Unicef, UNDP, WFP, Care, Concern, Goal and so many more.
And now, to add to the tired litany of less than 300 Zanu (PF) men and women in a country of 10 million, SADC have called for “sanctions” to be removed.How very disappointing that SADC has again chosen to stand up for the perpetrators who crippled our land and not the people who have been helpless victims for a decade.
Until next week, thanks for reading, Ndini shamwari yenyu.
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