STAFF WRITER
Government has challenged the United States of America to present evidence on human rights violations and corruption it claimed were committed by the Southern African nation’s leadership.
The challenge is being made just three days after Washington rescinded Executive orders passed on March 6, 2003 but imposed specific sanctions on the county’s leadership.
However, Harare is piling pressure on Joseph Biden, the US President, to remove all sanctions against Zimbabwe.
In a statement, President Emmerson Mnangagwa reminded the US that Harare has a right to choose whatever path it wants to follow, no matter how small.
“We demand that the Biden Administration provides evidence in support of these gratuitous accusations, failure which the Administration must, without any further delay, withdraw unconditionally. It cannot be right, let alone a healthy basis for conducting international relations or building friendship, for a country, however mightily it views itself, to slander innocent souls of other nations, while also misaligning those same nations for daring to be independent and sovereign, and for reversing a baneful legacy of settler colonialism, in line with the United Nations Charter,” President Mnangagwa said.
He added: “Further, Zimbabwe takes great exception to gratuitous slander, and defamatory remarks by officials of the Biden Administration against Zimbabwe leadership and its nationals. This slander has been repeated here on Zimbabwean soil by local staff of the United States Embassy.
“What adds to the outrage is that these bald and damaging accusations, coldly and mechanically made through a predrafted standard text of high-handed pillory by the US, are not backed by any iota of evidence, nor do they follow any internationally recognised show of due process in competent courts,” the President said.
Harare condemned these malicious statements as completely uncalled for, as defamatory, provocative and as a continuation of wanton hostilities against Zimbabwe by the US government.
He said Washington has remained obdurate and indifferent hence Harare cannot thank the former for the rescinding of the Corrective order after two decades of suffering.
