Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi has urged the United States of America, the United Kingdom and their allies to remove sanctions they imposed on Zimbabwe.
Masisi arrived in Zimbabwe on Thursday where he is expected to officially open the 112th Zimbabwe Agricultural Show, reported The Herald.
Addressing ZANU PF supporters who were bussed to Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport to welcome him, Masisi said:
Botswana continues to call for the removal of sanctions against Zimbabwe. These sanctions must go. They must go forever.
They are also sanctions against Botswana. If Zimbabwe is sanctioned, Botswana is sanctioned and we cannot like that. So tell your friends that we don’t like the sanctions.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa and First Lady Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa were also at the airport to welcome Masisi and Botswana’s First Lady.
Later on, Mnangagwa and Masisi held a closed-door meeting at State House. Speaking after the meeting, Masisi reiterated his call for the removal of sanctions on Zimbabwe. He said:
We once had the jargon of targeted sanctions. There are no targeted sanctions. These sanctions are targeting Zimbabwe and they are targeting Zimbabweans.
I had an intimate discussion with the leaders of the EU (European Union). I said to them, if you have complaints about what Zimbabwe is doing, you need to sit around a table and talk to Zimbabweans.
We are calling on the international community to remove sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe, they are hurtful, they even mitigate against the realisation of our UN targets of 2030.
Western powers imposed targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe more than two decades ago ostensibly to force Harare to address the human rights situation and a breakdown in the rule of law.
However, ZANU PF insists that sanctions are a form of economic warfare, to effect regime change and force the government to reverse the land reform programme.