Harare – Visiting Venezuelan Vice Minister for Africa in the Ministry of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs Yuri Pimentel on Thursday met Acting President Kembo Mohadi to convey the
commitment of the South American country to work with Zimbabwe to
counter negative propaganda being churned by some Western media.

Caracas, like Harare, has in recent years come under a negative western media blitz in support of a US-led regime change plot by the West, which coverts the country’s huge oil reserves, the largest in the world.

And like Zimbabwe, Venezuela has been slapped with western sanctions
which have badly affected its economy, leading to hyperinflation and
mass emigration of its citizens to neighbouring countries.

Speaking to the media after meeting Acting President Mohadi, Pimentel said Zimbabwe and Venezuela should collaborate to counter the negative western media onslaught.

“Venezuelans and Zimbabweans are suffering the same kind of aggression and it is because of the same reasons where foreign countries try to control the resources of our countries. And the only way they find is the aggression to attack with sanctions which are illegal and criminal,” he said.

“We have first of all to understand the aggression. This is because
sometimes they try to hide it with a speech of human rights when the
interests behind all of that is the control of the natural resources of our countries.”

“We have to work closer and this is the purpose of this visit,” he
added. Pimentel said the two countries had for years worked together at the United Nations, hence now was time to upgrade relations.

“We have been working together on different levels of cooperation,
especially on the multilateral agenda at the UN. But now as His
Excellency said, we have to work much more on bilateral agenda.

“There are lots of sectors such as mining where Zimbabwe has lots of
experience, in the case of Venezuela it’s the energy sector, education and other areas such as communication,” he said.

He added: “We are very glad to be here and I am sure after the meetings we will have here, our cooperation will increase very much.”

Some Western embassies in Zimbabwe recently issued a joint statement
accusing the government of violating human rights by refusing to
sanction street marches by opposition supporters, which in the past
turned violent.

Responding to the criticism while in Japan where he is attending the
Tokyo International Conference on African Development, President
Emmerson Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe would not bend the law to please the opposition and its sympathisers who are supporting the recent attempts to embark on illegal protests. New Ziana