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Wallace Ruzvidzo and Mutsawashe Mashandure

THE Broad Alliance Against Sanctions (BAAS) yesterday made an application to the High Court seeking the United States Embassy in Harare to inform citizens why America continues to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe.

BAAS has been camped outside the American Embassy in Harare calling for the removal of the punitive measures for the last four years.

Part of the application read: “This is a court application to compel the respondents to give us a written response giving a detailed account off the reason why they have refused to either negotiate with their government and also give us the actual reasons why the US government has imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe and has refused to remove the illegal sanctions that they imposed against Zimbabwe.”

In an interview after submitting the application, BAAS co-founder and spokesperson Ms Sally Ngoni said in addition, they were also pushing for legislation that brings the country’s detractors to book.

“Broad Alliance Against Sanctions was formed in 2018 and were camped outside the US embassy on March 2019 and we have been there for four years now.

“We have had several engagements with US embassy and their staffers and we have engaged in a lot of activities outside the US embassy considering that we petitioned the Parliament of Zimbabwe to enact what we call the Zimbabwe Patriotic Act,”                                                                         she said.

Ms Ngoni said the sanctions were a detriment to Zimbabwe’s economic growth prospects hence they should be removed unconditionally.

“And actually the sanctions that we have in Zimbabwe are actually bad for Zimbabweans.

“That’’s why we petitioned the Parliament of Zimbabwe, to put it to a patriotic note so that in future we won’t have people who will be asking for sanctions, people who will be going out there demanding what will harm us, all the things that will affect ordinary citizens of Zimbabwe.

“We want all Zimbabweans to know how these sanctions are affecting them because a lot of people believed that these sanctions are targeted and that they are not affecting them as well,” she said.

In a separate interview, BAAS’ co-founder and chairman Mr Calvern Chitsunge said they would soon start awareness campaigns to educate the public on the punitive measures.

“Soon we are going to engage on our awareness campaign programmes where we are going to go around the country telling people because the must be knowledgeable about the situation today because of the sanctions.

“We are towards elections and people must vote knowing we are in this situation,” he said.