The MDC, after its congress, made it clear that it wanted to be, it was going to be an effective but responsible opposition. As a result, when the UN envoy came to this country, we led a delegation to the United Nations to see the special envoy. The very first thing that we did when we saw the envoy was to apologise on behalf of Zimbabwe. She had been abused on the social media. She had been called names; she had been treated to racialism by Black Zimbabweans and we think that was irresponsible. So we apologised on behalf of the nation. As a result of our efforts and efforts of others, the Special Envoy produced a preliminary report. In that preliminary report, she is calling for the removal of the sanctions, on the basis that they are affecting the unintended. They are affecting the poor.
If you go to Highfield today, you may not find a house under construction but if you go to Borrowdale, Glenlorne, Mount Pleasant, you will see skyscrapers being erected every day. The rich are getting richer; the poor are getting poorer and we need to redress that.
So this envoy says, the sanctions must go but she did not end there. She said Zimbabweans must engage in meaningful serious dialogue. As the MDC-T, we have said we must engage in dialogue, not for our sake. We must engage in dialogue to redress the issues of the Zimbabwean people. We must dialogue in the best interest of our people. We are fortified that dialogue is the way to go because of three things. The liberation war, which I take judicial notice that you were an active participant there at Lancaster House with a negotiation at Lancaster House. Yes, it came through the barrel of the gun but it also came through the mouth as well. People spoke at Lancaster House and negotiated the peace settlement, which culminated in independence; success of dialogue number one.
After independence, there was, to quote President of Mugabe, “moments of madness”, people were butchered in Matabeleland and the Midlands. Some innocent people lost their lives but at the end of the day, the protagonists sat down and concluded a peace treaty called the Unity Accord. It ended the bloodletting in Matabeleland, success of dialogue number two. Number three, in 2008, there is no secret that Morgan Tsvangirai won the elections overwhelmingly but we went to the run-off election and there was a lot of senseless bloodletting. In the MDC, we lost 300 of our finest youngsters because of political violence. After all that madness was said and done, people sat down and concluded a peace agreement called the Global Political Agreement Therefore, dialogue has worked in this country, hence dialogue has to be pursued with seriousness. This dialogue must not result in an elite pact where people reward one another because they are political leaders. We are not interested in the dialogue like that. We are interested in the dialogue that leads to the betterment of the lives of the Zimbabwean person. Every Zimbabwean must have a change in their lives and they have seen it before. It has worked before and it must be pursued. Among other things that we must dialogue upon is reduction of poverty; elimination of poverty. We must have policies that remove this endemic poverty. Zimbabweans were not created to be poor. That is why they have every mineral conceivable on this earth. You find it on this tournament called Zimbabwe. That is why it is endowed with hardworking men and women. It has a fine climate. It has a good road infrastructure, not to be confused with the quality of the road Mr. President but the road network is good. So we need to take our people out of poverty. This dialogue must lead to investment coming to Zimbabwe. We must neither look east, west, south nor north, Zimbabwe should be a friend of the world. People with their money must bring it to this country so that industries are revived, mines are revived, businesses thrive so that our people are employed and the quality of the lives of our people must change.
Through dialogue, we need to have an answer to uneven development, devolution. It is unfair for people who are living in Tongaland and along the Zambezi River. They are called poachers in the land of their birth, while fishing licences are given to people from outside their region. That is unfair, unjust and unconscionable and it has to be redressed – [HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear.] – We have to look at the issues of equal access to national resources. Mr. President, if the Government is issuing mining licences, it must issue mining licences to every person who qualifies, irrespective of their political opinion or inclination. If you are giving mining licences to ZANU PF youths, please give to Ndonga youths, ZAPU youths and MDC T youths. There must not be discrimination in this country. In this country, we cannot tolerate black apartheid, discrimination of black on black. It defeats the whole purpose of fighting for liberation.
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