Mugabe Urges The West to End Sanctions.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has called for the lift of financial sanctions and travel bans imposed on him and his ZANU-PF party officials by Western countries. These are efforts to sustain the unity government.

President Mugabe was addressing a United Nations (UN) summit on food in Rome this week where he urged for lift of sanctions by the ‘neo-colonialist enemies’ who are holding Zimbabwe’s economy hostage with sanctions.

Mugabe blamed the rich countries, lack of access to market and western subsidies for low crop production in developing nations which he said were ‘suffocating’ farmers in poor states among like climatic changes and high costs of inputs that have led to a reduction in global food security.

The Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party recently ended their three-week unity government boycott following regional bloc mediated talks that saw signing of an agreement on equal sharing of key posts with President Mugabe.

Tsvangirai’s disengagement from the unity government was in protest of Mugabe’s failure to honour the power-sharing agreement and continued intimidation of his party members by ZANU-PF.

Western powers are reluctant to end the sanctions until Mugabe implements fully the Global Political Agreement aimed at bringing major reforms in government institutions and accent to the power-sharing deal.

The parliament this week passed unanimously a bill to reforms the reserve bank aimed at reducing powers of the bank’s governor. The central bank has been highly blamed for the country’s financial crisis with inflation hitting a record of seventy nine billion percent.

Ongoing talks between the European Union (EU) special envoys and the government are expected to reinstate back development aid into its economy upon achievement. [ER].