Zimbabwe has good relations with its neighbours, including Zambia, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Jenfan Muswere, has said.
Addressing the media after last week’s Cabinet meeting, Muswere dismissed reports that relations between Zimbabwe and Zambia were strained. He said:
Our international relations are governed by our engagement and re-engagement policy and we are a friend to all and enemy to none.
Zambia is our neighbour and a geographical reality with a long history from the days of the Federation all the way to the liberation struggle when we worked together. We are Siamese twins.
Muswere’s comments came after President Emmerson Mnangagwa criticised Zambia and Malawi’s relations with Western countries during a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
In a recent meeting with Putin at Konstantino Palace ahead of the 27th St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Mnangagwa claimed Zambia and Malawi have accepted the West’s alleged machinations to isolate Zimbabwe.
Mnangagwa also accused Zambia of allowing the United States of America to establish a military base in the country, a claim that Lusaka has dismissed as false. He said:
You see, the West has just begun consolidating its power in Zambia, our next neighbour. You know, there was a time when Zambia and Zimbabwe were one; it was called Northern and Southern Rhodesia.
It was made one by the British, but they are now separate. And the Americans are consolidating their power in that country, both in terms of security and in terms of financial support to Zambia to make sure that we feel lonely.
But that will not change us, because we have taken a course as a people that we feel we want to be independent and we will choose our friends ourselves…
We cannot go to the West; we have to come here because the West would want to see us down. They support our neighbours, Zambia and Malawi, very heavily.
But in spite of that, Zimbabwe’s economic growth is the fastest growing economy in the region, in spite of us being isolated by the Americans.
