France has pledged to rehabilitate the Great Zimbabwe monument in Masvingo and the National Archives of Zimbabwe (NAZ).
The move by the Western country is expected to foster re-engagement efforts by the Second Republic led by President ED Mnangagwa.
Great Zimbabwe monument will have its facilities refurbished while NAZ will be digitalised to preserve data stored by the institution in a collaboration aimed at deepening the two countries’ bilateral relations.
French Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Laurent Chevallier paid a courtesy call on Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister, Kazembe Kazembe where the two discussed the intended facelift of the two facilities.
Briefing journalists after the meeting, Minister Kazembe said the French embassy had pledged to upgrade facilities at Great Zimbabwe while digitalising NAZ.
He said work on these two sites by France was part of a number of developmental projects that they have been collaborating as part of enhancing bilateral relations.
Minister Kazembe said the two countries have been collaborating for a while now in the area of culture for the mutual benefit of the two countries.
“We have had discussions around areas of cooperation. We have a long standing mutually beneficial relationship with France. Discussions we had are in areas within the purview of the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage. The ambassador brought good news that they want to assist us with regard to the promotion and upgrading of Great Zimbabwe. They have also extended assistance with National Archives of Zimbabwe where they are willing to assist with training and digitalization,” said Minister Kazembe.
Meanwhile Ambassador Chevallier said his country took pride in collaborating with Zimbabwe.
“We have had a fruitful partnership with Zimbabwe. We want to develop and strengthen our relationship. We are committed to help this important historical site,” he said.
Despite that France says it is willing to work with Zimbabwe some European countries like America and Britain have continuously put Zimbabwe under economic sanctions citing gross human rights violations in the country.
Moreover, On Monday 1 February 2021, the United Kingdom (UK) announced that it had designated four security bosses under sanctions for human rights violations.
The travel bans and asset freezes were targeting four key officials who are Owen Ncube, who is the state security minister, Issac Moyo who is the Central Intelligence Organisation Director General and Godwin Matanga who is the Police Commissioner General.
Furthermore, the UK sanctions came two weeks after then foreign minister Sibusiso Moyo died of Covid-19 and these sanctions were the first of the UK’s major foreign policy measures outside the European Union after Brexit on 31 January.
Currently Zimbabwe is having bilateral relations with Asian countries including China, Russia and many more which date back to the liberation struggle. These relationships emanated after Zimbabwe’s 1980 independence as relations with the West got worse.
However, America imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe under the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001. It restricts US support for multilateral financing to Zimbabwe, following the controversial land reform programme under Mugabe in 2000 that saw blacks taking back their land from about 4,500 white commercial farmers.
