An anti-sanctions petition to be signed by two million Zimbabweans and spearheaded by “war veterans” is Zanu-PF’s latest attempt to pressure Western countries into lifting the financial and travel restrictions imposed on President Robert Mugabe and members of Zanu-PF’s top brass.
A European Union meeting next week in Brussels is expected to review the “targeted sanctions” in place since 2002. EU sanctions involve the freezing of assets and a travel ban on Mugabe and more than 100 members of his inner circle.
Zanu-PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo said this week that “preparations for the launch of the two-million petition are going on well. It will involve everyone from the presidium to ordinary people, businesses and churches”.
Ahead of elections widely expected to be held this year, the petition is also seen as early election campaigning by Zanu-PF, which has repeatedly tried to blame Zimbabwe’s economic collapse on Western sanctions.
Pamphlets now being distributed weekly in state media continue to bang this deceitful drum. “Sanctions are real, they exist — why are jobs, medicines, goods and services in short supply? Sanctions have brought untold suffering to every Zimbabwean,” they read.
At its December congress, Mugabe hinted that foreign companies operating in Zimbabwe with headquarters in Western countries that supported sanctions risked “counter-sanctions” and the takeover of their businesses. That placed multinationals such as Nestlé, Anglo American, Rio Tinto and British American Tobacco, which have vast operations in Zimbabwe, in the spotlight.
‘Restrictive measures’
The unity government remains divided over sanctions. In spite of Zanu-PF pressure, the Movement for Democratic Change has refused to publicly back the lifting of what it calls “restrictive measures”.
Also likely to stoke tensions in the coalition government are recent revelations in diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks that Tendai Biti, the finance minister and MDC secretary general, played a role last year in the lifting of EU sanctions imposed on Dumiso Dabengwa, the Zapu leader and a former Zanu-PF politburo member.
Zanu-PF responded to the revelations by accusing its coalition partner of “duplicity”. Meanwhile, the MDC has dismissed Zanu-PF’s anti-sanctions petition as “bogus” and has claimed that war veterans are forcing people to sign it.
MDC legislator Tabitha Khumalo told the Mail & Guardian: “The petition Zanu-PF should be drafting is one that promotes human rights, democracy and a restoration of the rule of law, rather than self-serving interests.”
This is not the first time war veterans have been mobilised to drive Zanu-PF’s election campaign agenda. In 2000 hundreds spearheaded the invasion of white-owned farms and in the 2008 presidential elections the group garnered support for Mugabe.