The Sunday Mail
Nobleman Runyanga
The Southern African Development Community (Sadc) bloc is observing the Anti-Sanctions Day today.
The day came about when the Sadc leadership agreed in August last year to set aside October 25 every year to press for the removal of illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the United States of America (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) at the turn of the century. Zimbabwe’s crime: Reclaiming her own land from a few white former farmers.
For 20 years, the US has lied to the world that the sanctions, which are not backed by a United Nations (UN) resolution, are targeted at individuals in Government, ZANU PF and some businesses.
It has continued to deny its part in the continued suffering of millions of Zimbabweans by shamelessly claiming that its sanctions are “smart” in that they only affect targeted individuals and companies. This, however, is not true. Far from the US government’s outright lies, the majority of Zimbabweans, especially the poor and the vulnerable, are suffering the effects of sanctions. This is more pronounced among those that live in the country’s rural areas where 67,72 percent of the population reside. In 2017, the World Bank estimated Zimbabwe’s population to be 16,53 million people.
This means that 11,19 million people of Zimbabwe live in rural areas and are on the receiving end of the painful brunt of the West’s brutal and unjustified sanctions regime.
The rural economy
Traditionally the rural population depended largely on subsistence farming and on crafts such as basket weaving, selling one’s labour as communal farming hands (maricho) or on skills such as carving cooking sticks, hoe handles, among other implements. While these undertakings did not bring much to one’s table, people survived and even managed to send their children to school because of a stable economy. Higher up the rural economic ladder were civil servants such as teachers, agricultural extension workers, veterinary officers and health officers.
These are the people who earned salaries and could afford some comfortable life. Store owners, who occupied the highest economic rank in the rural economic set up, were more prepared to give credit facilities to civil servants than anyone else.
This was because of their assured and higher income.
Most civil servants were among those rural dwellers who could afford agricultural inputs to farm meaningfully enough to sell something to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) through local shop owners who acted as GMB agencies.
The coming on stream of the rural resettlement schemes as early as 1981 also saw the emergence of a new type of a rural economic player — the resettled farmer, who prospered until the onset of the sanctions.
The rural dweller has been reduced to a survivalist. The rural civil servant is struggling and the shop owner of the bygone era has closed shop as no one buys anything because of lack of liquidity.
The store has been replaced by tuckshops operating mostly from homes as most cannot afford licence fees due to rural local authorities. This has far-reaching socio-economic consequences on the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans.
Education
While the poorest of the poor in the rural area could hire out their unskilled labour for a living, today there is no one to hire it out to.
This means that more children of school-going age are dropping out. Government has the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) initiative in place which came in as a social safety net but sometimes it cannot pay on time because of reduced revenue following the closing of companies and the resultant unemployment.
In January 2018, the then Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Patrick Chinamasa, indicated that 50 percent of children in districts surveyed by the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (Zimvac) in 2017, were not attending school due to financial challenges and that the national non-attendance stood at 34 percent.
And the US and its allies claim that their sanctions are smart and targeted. The last two agricultural seasons were characterised by droughts. This means that by now, the figure has ballooned, given that rural people depend largely on agriculture for their livelihood.
Health
Since independence in 1980, Government invested heavily in the health sector in terms of human resources and infrastructure — it ensured that every province had a hospital. District hospitals were put up to complement mission hospitals, which served rural communities as referral hospitals during the colonial era.
Most rural areas now have clinics within walking distances but sadly Government can no longer adequately equip them with necessary resources such as drugs and consumables owing to the ongoing sanctions-induced economic challenges.
This has affected health services delivery in the rural areas with some health institutions having to ask patients such as pregnant women to bring some of the items needed, including water.
Despite an impressive roll out of health infrastructure in line with Government’s “Health for all by the year 2000” campaign, it is sad that a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report has noted that 50 percent of rural pregnant women deliver at home, endangering the mothers and contributing to the country’s high maternal mortality ratio of 458 deaths per 100 000 live births in 2017. And the US claims that its sanctions are smart and targeted.
Agriculture
Prior to 2000, most rural dwellers, except those in arid and semi-arid regions of Masvingo and Matabeleland provinces, were able to sustain themselves in terms of food.
They were able to go back to their plots of land and farm again successfully even after debilitating droughts such as those experienced in 1982 and 1992.
Even in good seasons, most rural farmers can no longer farm as successfully as they did before. They can no longer afford inputs. Their children and relatives in cities and towns, who used to support their farming efforts, are struggling due to the economic hardships brought about by the sanctions imposed against Zimbabweans.
The land reform programme of 2000 saw over 300 000 families being resettled amid expectations that this would boost food production and improve their livelihoods but not so with the effects of the ongoing sanctions. With the exception of tobacco and cotton contract farmers, most rural dwellers now depend on the routine food handouts from the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare as if they do not have land, thanks to the sanctions.
According to the 2019 ZIMVAC, an estimated 5,5 million rural Zimbabweans were food insecure during the peak of the 2019/20 agricultural season and 3,8 million people needed food assistance.
Zimbabwe has the capacity to irrigate over two million hectares of land using the thousands of water bodies which the country has built over the years.
This would enable it to ensure food security for its people especially the poor and the vulnerable.
In August last year, the World Food Programme (WFP) said over five million people were facing hunger.
Sanctions must to go
The EU and the US government have removed the sanctions from some individuals and companies such as ZB Bank, Agribank and Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and retained the measures on others.
Sanctions removal should not be effected piecemeal and in half measures.
Given their illegal and unfair nature, they should just go to allow the new dispensation the opportunity to serve Zimbabweans without hindrance.
This is the reason why both Sadc and the African Union (AU) have taken a stand on Zimbabwe’s side in fighting the anti-people measures.
This calls for all Zimbabweans to stand together irrespective of creed and political affiliation in pushing for their emancipation from the West.
