President Mugabe says the illegal Western sanctions will not achieve their intended objective of dividing the inclusive Government.
He said the European Union’s decision this week to extend the embargo was designed to offset unity between Zimbabwe’s political parties.
In an interview with ZTV ahead of his 86th birthday tomorrow, President Mugabe said the inclusive Government had achieved more and it would be “foolish” for the parties to break it over issues outside of the Global Political Agreement.
“Why should they impose sanctions, take a negative step where we have taken a very positive step? They want to negate and obviously undermine the GPA. They want to undermine the unity of the people of Zimbabwe. They would want to see us fight each other much more.”
President Mugabe said the people of Zimbabwe decided that quarrelling would hinder development. He said only a handful of the 27 members of the EU were maintaining the sanctions.
“It’s Britain and perhaps France, Germany, Italy and a few others . . . together with the United States.
“But we belong to the Third World and we say, in spite of their sanctions, we will continue to look East where there is greater friendship,” he said.
On the issue of national unity he said: “The getting together of political parties that yesterday were fighting each other and that today they are working together is worth celebrating over.
“Just that phenomenon of unity and under that unity or using that phenomenon of unity comes the fact of the arrangement that is within the global agreement; the leaders must work together in accordance with the apportionment of functions and which meant of course that each party was given a number of posts, ministerial posts.
“This Government comes from the various parties which were quarrelling yesterday and have ceased to quarrel now and are pursuing the various functions as per the global agreement.
“I think just that arrangement, the fact of that arrangement is worth celebrating. But of course we would want to celebrate more when we look at the functions, the performance now of the Government as a whole.”
The Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces said the inclusive Government should acknowledge its inadequacies.
On negotiations on the full implementation of the GPA, President Mugabe said everything had been fulfilled as per the agreement.
“We are negotiating about nothing. It is the nothings that are holding us back. All that was important is enshrined in the global agreement and there is hardly anything we are now discussing which falls within the global agreement.
“All the matters that have to do with Tomana and so on and so forth don’t come into the global agreement. There is no mention of Tomana, there is no mention of the Governor of the Reserve Bank, there is no mention of Bennett. There is a need for a post of deputy minister of agriculture, which needs to be filled by a candidate from the MDC-T, not necessarily by Bennett, by anyone else.”
He said the only pending issue was for the parties to call for the lifting of sanctions.
“And that one, naturally, needs greater attention, much greater attention and one wonders whether we all are at one in regards to it.”
However, President Mugabe said even a deadlock on the issue of sanctions would not break the inclusive Government. “We won’t breach the agreement because of that. I mean, from our point of view, it would be stupid for us to do so.
“I mean, we have gained much more by way of working together than what we might lose by way of our failure to perform in respect of what we are expected to perform at the moment,” he said.
President Mugabe defended the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act.
“This issue of indigenisation is an ongoing process. We indigenised land, it was in the hands of outsiders, European farmers, some British, some South African, some Germany and we decided, we had agreed with Britain that there would be a land redistribution programme and we proceeded accordingly.
“We are still proceeding in respect with the land acquisition programme. But we are now, after the land, dealing with our ownership of resources in other areas with regard to mining, with regards to raw materials that we want to turn into finished goods, the manufacturing sector . . .”
On the land audit, he said: “I think it’s necessary for us to have the audit. Varimi chaivo ngavaregere kuvhunduka, vasiri varimi ngavavhunduke. Vasiri varimi, ndiri kuzvitaura, nekuti pane vamwe vasiri varimi iye zvino kune mirwi yevanhu, perhaps its an exaggeration, asi kune vazhinji vasina kurima vakandoshevedza mabhunu zvakare kuti huyai murime. Mabhunu achiti tokupayi 10 percent or 15 percent of value of the harvest.
“Vamwe vachitokoka, inviting them. Vakadaro ndivo vatisingade. Tinovatorera. Hatimbomira! And I happen to know quite several kunana Mash West and Mash Central,” he said.

By VOA