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(From left) Zimpapers chief executive Mr Justin Mutasa, ZBC acting CEO Mr Allan Chiweshe, chief moderator Air Commodore Brian Chikonzo, Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Deputy Minister Cde Supa Mandiwanzira, Modus Publications CEO Mr Jacob Chisese and Alpha Media Holdings founder Mr Trevor Ncube during a media debate at the National Defence College in Harare yesterday

Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
NEWSPAPER executives from different media houses in Zimbabwe yesterday bemoaned the effects of the West’s illegal sanctions regime, calling on Western countries to lift the embargo because it is causing untold suffering to ordinary Zimbabweans. The executives said this during a discussion forum with senior members of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces at the National Defence College in Harare.

Zimpapers group chief executive Mr Justin Mutasa said the biggest, and only integrated newspaper group in the country would continue to challenge sanctions as illegal, unjust and racist.

“We did not take these sanctions lying down,” he said. “The illegal sanctions have wreaked havoc on our economy and caused untold suffering to our people. They are estimated to have cost the country over US$42 billion in potential revenue over the last 13 years.

“They are not in the national interest. They are an instrument of illegal regime change. We are unflinching in our support for the land and agrarian reform programme to the extent that some of us were put on the sanctions list by our Western detractors. This is a price we are ready to pay in defence of our motherland.”

Mr Jacob Chisese, the chief executive of Modus Publications, which publishes the Financial Gazette, said sanctions were making the business environment difficult.

“I say sanctions are wrong, they should be removed. We need to be careful on who is really suffering.
“I don’t believe these sanctions are targeted, who is suffering? Is it the Deputy Minister of (Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Supa Mandiwanzira) and his family or it is my grandmother in the rural areas?”

Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube added: “Sanctions have not been helpful, they are working against business.”
He said when he attended a workshop in the United States recently, many media houses had booked interviews with him, but when he denounced sanctions he was only interviewed for two minutes by one television station.

Britain, the United States and their allies illegally imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, outside the purview of the United Nations, at the turn of the millennium in retaliation to the Zanu-PF led Government’s decision to compulsorily acquire land from white former farmers without compensation.