By Derick Tsimba
South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) has called for the total removal of sanctions imposed against Zimbabwe, the Harare Post reports.
South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Naledi Pandor hosted the symposium held today in Pretoria `under the theme, “The best path to a prosperous Zimbabwe,” at UNISA Kgorong Hall in Pretoria.
“The theme of this meeting indicates our belief that we will have to find ways of acting in solidarity with Zimbabwe, it reflects our posture that multilateral solidarity and practical informed action are the best means toward resolving international problems,” said DIRCO.
During the recent SADC summit, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation said they all supported the resolution for 25th October as a day for calling for an end to sanctions against Zimbabwe.
“At the August SADC summit, we all supported a resolution proposing October the 25th as a day for calling for an end to sanctions against Zimbabwe.
“As DIRCO, we acted on the SADC decision, but we felt that we may need to go one step beyond such a call and begin a process on reflecting on the solutions that could be considered to actively address the challenges,” said the Minister.
Minister Pandor also said SADC should go ahead and engage those who have imposed the sanctions to agree on uplifting them to enable economic sectors in Zimbabwe such as health to recover.
“SADC may need to go beyond the resolution we adopted and engage those who have imposed sanctions to agree on lifting sanctions to support the recovery of sectors such as health, agriculture and education. We do not have the answers as DIRCO and we hope to benefit from this. The imposed sanctions have not resulted in an end to the problems. We need a move beyond describing the problems and the identification of steps toward change, growth and stability in Zimbabwe,” said the Minister.
