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IT was refreshing to read that Government has engaged a high-powered legal team to challenge the West’s illegal sanctions regime in court. Our sister paper, The Sunday Mail, revealed that Government has engaged a high-powered legal team led by London barrister David Vaughan QC – who has appeared in over 100 cases before the European Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance of the European Communities – to challenge the legality of “restrictive measures” imposed on 112 individuals and 11 corporate entities associated with the Government of Zimbabwe as well as Zanu-PF.
It was about time we hit back.

This is because where the sanctions are concerned, we have not measured up to Murenga, the legendary fighter, in whose honour we have christened our three revolutions the First, Second and Third Chimurengas.

Yes we have talked, and our President, Cde Robert Mugabe, has gained a reputation as the most outspoken and fervent critic of neo-colonialism in the world today, but can we say we have done enough particularly as our adversaries, coincidentally, the powerhouses of the Western hemisphere, have virtually declared war on us by deploying their full arsenal comprising of economic sanctions, a proxy political opposition and several quasi-political groupings, all of which were funded from London, Washington and Canberra?

To top it all they also unleashed their weapons of mass deception in the form of rightwing and reactionary media like BBC, SkyTV, CNN and France24, to mention just a few, to not only give us a bad name but to hang us as well.

In all this they have been complemented by their surrogates in Zimbabwe and South Africa who have redefined news values to mean anything that bashes Zimbabwe and its people.

While our response to the economic warfare in the form of the progressive Look East Policy was providential and has been paying dividends as evinced by increased forex inflows and trade with our all weather friends in the East; while on the diplomatic front the support we continue getting from our allies in the developing world has been phenomenal, we feel more could have been done.

We believe we have been rather content to sit back and revel in the justness of our cause instead of returning fire with fire. It is a fact that we are at war with the West, which economic war, the warmongers have indicated on numerous occasions they would not hesitate to upgrade to arms at the drop of a hat.

It is with this in mind that we hail the legal challenge being mounted on the sanctions that  are estimated to have cost the country over US$42billion in revenue since the turn of the millennium. The sanctions need that robust response since those who imposed them continue showing utter disregard for Zimbabwean opinion, no matter how overwhelming it is.

Over 2,2 million Zimbabweans participated in the National Anti-Sanctions Petition Campaign in 2011 where they made it clear that the sanctions had to go in toto, and again last year over 2 million Zimbabweans overwhelmingly endorsed President Mugabe and Zanu-PF who campaigned on the back of the pro-people policies of indigenisation and economic empowerment of which land reform and redistribution are an integral part but still the European Union and the United States renewed their sanctions regimes regardless.

It is now time to fight back. And it is no longer enough just to remove the sanctions whose scrapping should now be tied to restitution to make up for the damage wrought by the unwarranted economic warfare over the past 14 years.