ZIMBABWE is among other developing countries whose people will remain second-class citizens as America intensifies economic sanctions, Palestine ambassador to Zimbabwe Tamer Almassri has said.
This comes as Zimbabwe last week held the Anti-Sanctions Day with other Sadc countries to demand the lifting of sanctions on the country.
Zimbabwe has been under United States sanctions since 2001, initially imposed in response to human rights violations and the land reform programme.
However, the West has over the years mantained its stance that the country was not under sanctions save for a few selected corrupt individuals.
Last week, the United States ambassador to Zimbabwe Pamela Tremont reiterated that the country’s struggle to secure new credit lines was driven by its failure to honour debt obligations and pervasive corruption, not Western-imposed sanctions.
However, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been on record saying sanctions are affecting his government’s Vision 2030 agenda by restricting access to international financial support.
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Speaking during the launch of Anti-Sanctions book by the Zimbabwe Anti-Sanctions Trust president and founder Norbert Hosho in Harare last week, Almassri said the continued imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe by the West indicated the lack of care and democracy.
“You should open your eyes, open your mind very well to understand that as Africa, as Zimbabwe, you actually are second class human beings,” he said.
“The same is said of the Palestinians because if you impose sanctions for 22 years now and more, you don’t care about the children, women, patients and the needs of the people.”
Almassri reiterated Palestine’s commitment to its friendship with Zimbabwe in the fight against sanctions.
“We consider ourselves partners of the Zimbabwean revolution and the Zimbabwean victory that achieved in 1980 because it does not come or it did not come for free,” the envoy said.
“It came with mountains of bodies and rivers of blood, so the struggle of the Republic of Zimbabwe did not end in 1980, but it’s continuous.
“I think the Zimbabwean narrative should be spread everywhere and now everyone from your side can advocate the Zimbabwean story and the Zimbabwean dream and the Zimbabwean independence.”
Almassri said the West was wasting its time by imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe as there was no space for re-colonisation.
“By the way, as a comrade now I speak, not as ambassador, I tell all the time that even if you continue with your sanctions another 20 years nothing will change in Zimbabwe.
“This is just to be very clear because we know the leadership here and we know our comrades. We were fighting together before 1980 and we know each other and we trust the principles and the revolutionary soul of the Republic of Zimbabwe,” he said.