BULAWAYO – Zimbabwe and Botswana last week displayed rare solidarity when Gaborone officials supported Harare’s call on Western countries to lift sanctions imposed on President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party top brass eight years ago.

The show of solidarity follows a Zimbabwe/Botswana Joint Permanent Commission (ZBJPC) meeting which ended in the resort town of Victoria Falls late last week.

In a communiqué the commission called for “the removal of all illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe, whose effects were constraining and impeding the efforts of the inclusive government to effectively tackle the economic, political and social difficulties affecting the people of Zimbabwe".

The European Union which imposed sanctions against Mugabe in 2002 as punishment for failure to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law on Monday extended the targeted sanctions for another 12 months.

The commission attended by senior government ministers and security commanders from the two countries called on the two neighbours to improve bilateral relations and  “step up economic co-operation at all levels”.

The announcement by ZBJPC comes a few weeks after the two countries were embroiled in a diplomatic row following the arrest of Botswana game rangers who had strayed into Zimbabwe while tracking wildlife and spent weeks in jail before they were prosecuted for entering the country illegally.

The tension led to Botswana’s foreign affairs minister Phandu Skelemani threatening to recall the country’s diplomats from Harare.

Relations between Harare and Gaborone hit an all time low after Botswana’s President Ian Khama openly criticised Mugabe for clinging to after losing elections to the then opposition Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) party’s Morgan Tsvangirai in 2008.

Khama, who was one of a few regional leaders to openly speak against Mugabe, refused to recognise the ageing leader as president only relenting after the Zimbabwean leader agreed to form a power-sharing government with Tsvangirai. – ZimOnline