Media Statement
December 10, 2024
Following intensified campaigning by the people of Zimbabwe against the economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe, peaking on the SADC Anti-Sanctions Day on October 25, 2024, the US Ambassador to Zimbabwe issued a major statement saying that there are no sanctions, and posted on social media about meeting with a delegation from the Illinois Black Chamber of Commerce “to discuss how Americans can support Zimbabwe’s investment climate.”
“The Zimbabwe Information Centre in Australia (ZIC) has been campaigning for two years for an end to the ‘smart sanctions’ hitting Zimbabwe, and we welcome US Ambassador Tremont’s acknowledgement of the many efforts to achieve change,” said ZIC spokesperson Peter Murphy on Human Rights Day. “Technically, the Ambassador is correct to say ‘there are no sanctions on the country of Zimbabwe’, but this is not the whole story,” Murphy said. “There are US sanctions on individuals in Zimbabwe which have the effect of a blanket US banking ban on the country. That has to stop.”
On March 4, 2024, US President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order to terminate Executive Orders from 2003, 2005 and 2008 which had placed sanctions on a large number of individuals and companies by declaring that there was a state of emergency in Zimbabwe. But at the same time the US Treasury Department placed new sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act on the President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, his wife Auxilia, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, eight other individuals, and three entities. “In effect, out-dated sanctions were replaced with more active sanctions,” Murphy said.
These are alleged to be engaged in corrupt smuggling of gold and diamonds, and of violations of human rights. One perverse effect is that individuals closely associated with the now-deceased dictator Robert Mugabe were taken off the sanctions list, and people who removed the Mugabe group from power in November 2017 are placed on the list. While this move is broadly welcome as a step in the right direction, it has not changed the risk assessment of US banks that any transaction with a person or company in Zimbabwe may breach the sanctions and lead to a heavy fine. And so there is no practical improvement in the economic situation for Zimbabwe.
The sanctions are supposed to be “targeted” and not aimed at the broad population, but the effect has been the opposite, to cut off all Zimbabweans from the mainstream financial world. Ambassador Tremont’s statement concedes this point when she said, “Since the sanctions transition in March, the U.S. government has encouraged American financial institutions to consider engaging with the Zimbabwean private sector, but they remain concerned about the cost of doing business in Zimbabwe.
“ZIC believes that this perverse ongoing sanctions regime against Zimbabwe is motivated by US geopolitical concerns about China and Russia, and not about human rights and corruption. We continue to urge the US government to normalise relations with the people of Zimbabwe,” concluded Murphy.
