Ramaphosa must come clean on SA’s financial assistance to Zimbabwe

12 March 2019

The Democratic Alliance (DA) supports the call from opposition parties in Zimbabwe for President Cyril Ramaphosa to use the current bilateral talks to reinforce the pressure on the country to cease its repression of dissenting voices and political opposition.

Ramaphosa cannot continue to align South Africa with despots such as Presidents Emmerson Mnangagwa and Nicolas Maduro of Zimbabwe and Venezuela respectively, and simultaneously purport to have a human rights focused foreign policy.

We hope that President Ramaphosa will make no financial commitments to Zimbabwe during these talks in light of the failure of the Mnangagwa government’s continued campaign of political repression, as well as the escalating debt burden South Africa faces as a result of the failing ANC’s corruption.

South Africa cannot afford to compound our own fiscal problems by draining our fiscus to prop up the state repression in Zimbabwe. Economic prosperity in Zimbabwe depends on a solid foundation of good governance in the country, and the Ramaphosa-administration must therefore support efforts to strengthen democracy in that country.

The choice of Ramaphosa to throw his administration’s lot in with the world’s worst depots at a time when their brutality and oppression is in full view of the world is a disgrace to Nelson Mandela’s legacy as an African and global leader in human rights, and at odds with our Constitution.

The lives and the freedom of a nation hang in the balance. The Democratic Alliance stands firmly behind the people of Zimbabwe and supports the continuation of sanctions against members of the brutal military regime until democracy is restored in Zimbabwe, and its people are freed from state violence and political repression.

Issued by Sandy Kalyan, DA Shadow Minister of International Relations & Co-operation, 12 March 2019