Zimpapers Logo

Herald Reporter
Outgoing Canadian ambassador to Zimbabwe Lisa Stadelbauer, yesterday bade farewell to Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa at his Munhumutapa Offices after serving four years as Ottawa’s chief diplomat in Zimbabwe. Speaking to journalists after meeting Cde Mnangagwa, ambassador Stadelbauer said she had a good experience during her tenure although Government to Government relations remained frosty.

“I am finishing my assignment here in Zimbabwe almost after four years,” she said.

“At personal level my stay in Zimbabwe has been well, the people of Zimbabwe have been warm and welcome to myself and my family.

“Government to Government relations remain difficult, country to country relations I think are substantial and improving and people to people relations are very strong.”

She said from a cultural and social perspective, relations had been improving adding that a delegation of Canadian doctors visited Zimbabwe recently.

“There is good cultural exchange between the Canadian people and Zimbabwe,” she said.

Although Zimbabwe has been making efforts to engage the West including Canada, little headway has been made.

Canada and other countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand imposed illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe after Britain internationalised its bilateral tiff with Zimbabwe on land redistribution.

President Mugabe has on several occasions condemned the heinous sanctions and called on the West to lift them unconditionally.

Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York last year, President Mugabe said: “Because Zimbabwe has thus been pre-occupied with the empowerment of its people economically, she has become a victim of the evil machinations of Western countries that continually apply unilateral and illegal sanctions as a foreign policy tool to achieve short-term political objectives, particularly regime change.”

The President argued that the illegal sanctions violated the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter.

However, the decade long embargo is already losing steam as the country had embarked on a Look East Policy which is already yielding positive fruits.

Last year Zimbabwe and China signed multi-million dollar economic deals, which are now at the implementation stage.

A team of Chinese experts was in Zimbabwe last week to discuss on the bankability of the projects agreed under the broad Memorandum of Understanding signed by President Mugabe and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.