Tsvangirai should be sentenced to life in prison for treason - Chinotimba

MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai should be sentenced to life in prison for committing treason after he called for the imposition of illegal sanctions on the country, Parliamentarians heard yesterday.

Buhera South MP, Joseph Chinotimba said anyone who called for foreigners to harm the interests of the country were undesirable elements in Zimbabwe.

Debating in the National Assembly the motion calling on the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America to lift all forms of sanctions against Zimbabwe, Chinotimba said inviting the illegal sanctions was akin to supporting Renamo dissident operations in Mozambique spearheaded by Afonso Dhlakama.

"We have to be unite here on the issue of sanctions and come up with a resolution that whoever calls for sanctions on the country must be sentenced to life imprisonment," said Chinotimba.

"It would be good if we are united for the country to move forward. But they (MDC-T) are denying what they did. I am not the only one who suffers (because of the sanctions) contrary to their claims that they were targeted."

Chinotimba said Mr Tsvangirai was captured on video calling for imposition of the illegal sanctions.
"I wanted to show Honourable members the video clip of how the sanctions were imposed on this country," he said.

"I have evidence of who invited the sanctions so I wanted to play that video clip here so that all honourable members would know the architect of these sanctions and who must call for their removal. However, I was told it was not necessary (to bring the video clip).

"We had one of our sons saying the country must not have fuel and electricity. You see the criminality of that person. Not only criminality but treasonous. We cannot just watch those people (walking scot-free) while our children are dying because of lack of medicine. We are dealing with a criminal in our country."

Chinotimba said Mr Tsvangirai did not only invite the sanctions but he wanted the country to embrace homosexuality as well adding that such people have no place in Zimbabwe.

"Calling for the imposition of sanctions on your country is not different from Dhlakama," said the MP. It's not different from what the rebels in Mozambique are doing. If you ask them what they are fighting for they don't have an answer. It's criminality, brutal, murder and treasonous."

Chinotimba said the effects of the illegal sanctions were also evident in his constituency where Mr Tsvangirai also hails from.

He said the roads were in a deplorable state as a result of the sanctions. Chinotimba said some MDC-T legislators were hallucinating every time the issue of illegal sanctions was raised in the National Assembly because their party leader has not called for their removal.

Contributing to the same motion, Chegutu West legislator Dexter Nduna said the heinous sanctions hit hard on all sectors of the country.

"Some of the people here (MPs) were educated when there were no sanctions but now those sanctions are affecting our education system.

"We would have wanted to have children with minds that were not impeded by sanctions. We can no longer have text book rations that we had before the illegal sanctions.

"Industries in my constituency, Chegutu West were also affected by the sanctions. We used to have David Whitehead that used to employ 1 500 people but to date it employs none," said Nduna.

He said most of the machinery that was used was from the West and when the illegal sanctions were imposed it became difficult to get spare parts.

He said other sectors like mining, agriculture and sport were not spared.
Nduna said there was need for the country to adopt mechanisms that would bust the illegal embargo.