PRETORIA – International Relations Minister, Naledi Pandor, on Monday, said Pretoria strongly believes that Zimbabwe’s challenges can only be fixed by the country’s millions of citizens, aided by friendly neighbours like South Africa and countries in the region.
Delivering a keynote address at a symposium hosted by the department of international relations and cooperation (Dirco) at the University of South Africa in Pretoria, under the theme: “Best path to prosperous Zimbabwe”, Pandor said South Africa is ready to assist but without imposing on Harare.
“I think it’s important to begin by saying the social, political and economic situation that is confronting Zimbabwe is one of the most challenging facing us in this southern Africa region. I think this is a stark fact, a reality that all of us can agree upon. This symposium, we regard it as our modest contribution to [the] beginning of a process of finding solutions to the many complex challenges which we believe will be resolved primarily by the people of Zimbabwe with the assistance of all the countries in the [Southern African Development Community] SADC region,” she said.
“There is no sense of arrogance that as South Africa we have the solution. The real, sustainable solutions will come from the people of Zimbabwe and we should not fool ourselves [to think] we have the solution. We would like to be a party to assisting and finding a way of resolving the problems as they confront our brotherly and sisterly country.”
Pandor said South Africa supported the resolution of the August SADC summit which set aside October 25 as a day for calling for the end to sanctions against Zimbabwe. She said, however, the regional bloc may have to approach the institutions and nations which slapped Zimbabwe with the embargos.
