South Africa’s Minister for International Relations and Cooperation Lindiwe Sisulu said that President Cyril Ramaphosa will be coming to Zimbabwe for a bi-national on the 12th of March.
She reiterated South Africa’ position that the sanctions imposed on the country by western countries should be removed. Said Sisulu:
We are preparing for a bi-national with Zimbabwe, on March 12th. Our President [Ramaphosa] will lead the delegation to Harare.
I think sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe will be top of our agenda and we are putting them across in the world because we believe that for as long as Zimbabwe has sanctions imposed on it, the possibility of recovering from its economic woes will remain very glim and dim.
Sisulu said that South Africa is concerned with the human rights situation in Zimbabwe just as the rest of the world:
Human rights are central. We say them in the same way that religious people say “amen” at the end of a prayer. Human rights are very central to our foreign policy. They are also very central to our interaction with other countries.
We used the opportunity of the SADC meeting we had on the sidelines of the African Union to ask the President of Zimbabwe to explain to us, as SADC members, what is happening in Zimbabwe. That should indicate to you the extent of our concern to understand what is happening in Zimbabwe, and what we as a sub-region can do to assist, to ensure that there is normality there