Zimbabwe: Australia Softens Zimbabwe Stance

27 January, 2010 in Zimbabwe

source: allAfrica
Business Day (Johannesburg)
Hopewell Radebe
27 January 2010

Pretoria — The Australian government, a vocal critic of Harare and one of the governments instrumental in getting it kicked out of the Commonwealth, has softened its approach and will now provide assistance to Zimbabwe.

“We have agreed on projects to help Zimbabwe with taxation laws as well as water and sanitation technical expertise,” Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told reporters yesterday.

He said Zimbabwe needed technical expertise to reform its tax laws and build the economy.

Smith said Australia’s longstanding view about Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was that he ought to leave office. But he said that political developments in the country were encouraging.

He said Australia was keen to step up trilateral co-operation in support of recovery efforts in Zimbabwe. Since the establishment of the all-party government, Australia had provided more than [continue reading]

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