War vets boss lashes Look-East policy

via War vets boss lashes Look-East policy 12 October 2014

WAR veterans’ leader, Jabulani Sibanda, has issued a thinly veiled attack at President Robert Mugabe’s Look-East policy saying Zimbabweans should learn to resolve their own problems.

Sibanda said Zimbabweans should also not look in any direction to solve their problems but should instead look to God for divine intervention.

The war veterans’ leader made the remarks while delivering a public lecture at the Midlands State University in Gweru on Wednesday.

“Now is not the time to look to the west, east, north or south to solve our problems but we should turn to God and to ourselves and activate our mental faculties to solve our problems,” Sibanda said.

Mugabe’s Zanu PF party has often touted its Look-East policy as the panacea to Zimbabwe’s economic woes.

The southern African country has since 2000 cultivated closer ties with China and other eastern countries after western governments imposed targeted sanctions on Mugabe and his top lieutenants for stealing elections and human rights violations.

Critics however say the Look-East policy has resulted in very small economic gains for Zimbabwe.

Sibanda said the country was under siege from western countries that imposed sanctions after the land reform exercise. The liberation fighters’ boss said people should work hard and at the same time turn to God for economic emancipation.

This is not the first time that Sibanda has urged people to look to God for economic independence. In July this year, while addressing a lecture at Bulawayo Polytechnic, Sibanda said students should be patriotic and look to God for a stable future as Africans.