Own Correspondent

President of the South Africa Mining Forum Blessings Ramoba says he doesn’t understand why the South African government and African Union is supporting Zimbabwe.

Ramoba says former President Thabo Mbeki should have listened to then British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to assist Britain government to remove the late former President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe.

In 2013 President Mbeki alleged that the former British prime minister pressured him to join a “regime change scheme” as Zimbabwe plunged into a political and economic crisis in the early 2000s. But the claim was strongly denied by Blair’s office.

Taking it to Twitter the President of SAMF, Ramoba tweets with his official Twitter account,

“I don’t understand why the South African @GovernmentZA and the African Union are supporting the Zimbabwean Zanu PF regime. If President Thabo Mbeki had listened to Prime Minister Tony Blair and intervened during the Robert Mugabe era,Zimbabwe would have been a better place today. Tony Blair had asked President Thabo Mbeki to intervene through military and to remove Mugabe,” says Ramoba.

Ramoba added that Zimbabwe is suffering because of the consequences of former President Mugabe.

“This was a justified cause, today is evident Robert Mugabe is dead, Zimbabwe is still suffering the consequences of his rule and the same people who were with him are in power today. The consequences of Zimbabwe’s ZanuPF regime impacts the South African economy very negatively.Six million Zimbabweans have fled the country and many fled to South Africa illegally.The humanitarian crisis has deepened in Zimbabwe.The land they grabbed from Whites is lying fallow,” adds Ramoba.

Mbeki later helped broker a power sharing agreement between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) following a violent election in 2008 that cost at least 200 lives. But he was strongly criticised by the MDC for siding with Mugabe and devising a “conspiracy” to divide and weaken the opposition.

Mugabe remained the only leader Zimbabwe has known since it gained independence from Britain in 1980. In 2017 the Zimbabwean army led a coup that saw Mugabe forced to resign as President of Zimbabwe.