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Republic
of Zimbabwe statement on
the Occasion of the 38th Ordinary Session of the African
Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR), Banjul, The Gambia
Government of the Republic of Zimbabwe
November
28, 2005
Zimbabwe is
a democratic state which upholds the rule of law and all fundamental
freedoms including human rights. It has a vibrant law-making authority
which interacts exceedingly well with such other organs of the State
as the Executive and the Judiciary. The three organs compliment
each other’s efforts in a beautiful manner for the good governance
of the people of Zimbabwe.
The once much
talked about land issue has recently been democratically resolved
by the Constitutional Amendment Act (No.17). Parliament passed this
Act in September of this year. The amendment put to rest all the
bickering which has hitherto been taking place on the land question.
It allows government to legally acquire all land which she had gazetted
from 2002 todate as well as all the land which she will gazette
in the future. The acquired land has been equitably distributed
amongst the landless black majority and, in the process, all historical
imbalances of the colonial past where a few white farmers used to
own tracts and tracts of under-utilised and derelict prime land
have been corrected much to the pleasure of the people of Zimbabwe.
Government’s thrust currently centres on production of food, as
well as cash, crops with a view to improving the people’s standard
of living. The resolution of the land question has empowered the
people of Zimbabwe economically.
The amendment
to the Constitution has seen the re-introduction of the Senate as
a component of Zimbabwe’s law-making authority. Consequently, on
26 November 2005, the electorate will yet again go to the polls
to elect those who will represent them in the Senate. The elected
Senators are expected to, first and foremost, work with members
of Parliament to spearhead development in their areas of operation.
They will, at all material times, remain accountable to those who
will have elected them into office and they will compete with members
of Parliament in their quest to take the people’s concerns and/or
desires to Government as well as to bring tangible results to the
electorate. They will, together with the House of Assembly, make
laws for the good governance of Zimbabwe and will, in the process,
act as a check and balance to the work of the Lower House of Parliament.
In June of this
year, Government introduced Operation Murambatsvina wherein persons
who had erected illegal structures and shanties in the cities and
towns were encouraged to demolish such. The exercise which Government
embarked upon in the interest and welfare of the affected persons
who, at the time, were leading a sub-human form of life was hijacked
by the country’s detractors. They purported to be speaking in the
name of human rights and they raised unwarranted hue and cry when,
as we discovered later, they had seized the opportunity to ventilate
their own long-drawn hidden agenda which they have always espoused
from as far back as the time of the Land Reform Programme.
We, as a Government
and people, remained unperturbed by such pretentious conduct. We,
instead, forged ahead with what we had set ourselves upon to accomplish
and, in no time, we launched yet another programme code named Operation
Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle/Better Life. This programme saw Government
pour into the scheme a lot of resources which we used to construct
houses for all persons who were staying in squalid shacks which
had been demolished. The first phase of the exercise saw many Zimbabweans
of little, or no income, being proud owners of houses which their
Government had constructed for them. Resources continue to be poured
into the second phase of the programme. Government’s aim is to ensure
that all persons who drifted from the rural areas to the country’s
cities and towns and were living in squalid conditions are provided
with decent accommodation.
Zimbabwe has
a number of challenges which she is grappling with. The majority
of those challenges centre on her bilateral dispute with her former
colonial master, Britain, who has left no stone unturned in her
quest to isolate the country not only from countries of the Western
world but also from her own kith and kin in Africa. Zimbabwe continues
to define the problem as a bilateral one and she remains grateful,
first to the SADC States and also to Africa as a whole for their
principled stance on the matter and their refusal to be persuaded
otherwise on a matter where the people of Zimbabwe are only asserting
their right to their heritage – the land – which is at the centre
of the dispute.
Britain, America
and their allies in the Western world have waged a relentless economic,
psychological and verbal war on Zimbabwe. They have imposed sanctions
on her, have called her all sorts of names and have imputed to her
all sorts of actions in the name of regime change. But their machinations
have met with stiff resistance by the people much to their disappointment.
Zimbabwe’s scoring successes on the mentioned matters are attributable
to her principled stance which the so-called democratic states of
the west have failed to break in their effort to put a puppet type
of Government which would allow them to plunder, at ease, the country’s
rich natural resources as they have done to Zimbabwe and to her
other African States in the past.
Zimbabwe’s many
challenges have been shared by her neighbours and, indeed, by the
whole of Africa. For that she remains thoroughly grateful to those
of her own kind. The land issue having been concluded as it was
Zimbabwe will, in due course, be out of her man-made problems and
she will proudly assist any of her sister states who may, in future,
be visited by this ignominious appetite of the West to plunder other
nations’ God given resources to the total exclusion of those who
own them.
I rest my case.
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