from johannesburg, piers pigou, international crisis group senior consultant for southern africa. also from harare, ibbo mandaza, director of the southern africa political economy series trust. thanks to you all for joining us today. appreciate your time here. in the past, you have apologized for being part of opposition party politicians in zimbabwe who repeatedly called on the west to impose and maintain sanctions on zimbabwe. why did you apologize? obert: yes. i had to apologize because i had deep introspection and self inflection and thought analysis. and i was very naive to run along with the sanctions on zimbabwe narrative. the politicians then. i thought then the sanctions were too little. the sanctions now are bigger. on reflection, no, my conceptualization of these so-called targeted sanctions was not exactly what happened. that was naive and perhaps too -- if anyone who has been targeted it is the poor men and poor women in theout in the very urb. it is millions of poverty-stricken and toiling masses of zimbabwe who are targeted by these sanctions. with time, i then real