Global Magnitsky: New, dirty economic war on Zimbabwe
WITHOUT repealing the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA) of 2001, the US is conveniently embarking on a change-without-progress exercise.
A definitive position that should guide discourses on whether the US is sincere or not about the lifting of illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe relates to the repeal of the legislative framework guiding the imposition of these sanctions.
The quasi lifting of illegal economic sanctions announced this week through an executive order by US President Joe Biden and their relationship in the transition to invoking a new sanctions regime under the Global Magnitsky Act shows an elaborate asymmetrical reproduction of dirty economic tactics on Zimbabwe.
Without talking about repealing ZIDERA, the Global Magnitsky programme signals further attempts by the US on conflict initiation and escalation on the economic front making US gestures logically inconsistent, empirically inaccurate and prescriptively deficient.
The evidence deduced is that US foreign policy does not stop being militaristic in nature, coercive in form and disruptive in character.
This new sanctions regime is marking the continuous proliferation of threats to Zimbabwe-US bilateral relations as being theoretically and practically enabled or advanced by the US.
To a greater degree, it is becoming clearer that the US is having increased misperceptions about Zimbabwe and that it is magnifying its gesture, which is not an extremely generous offer, after all!
Squaring the circle
As a reminder, Biden and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were the two leading proponents that drafted and ferocious pushed for ZIDERA’s enactment on December 21, 2001.
Serious questions have to be asked on the actions by the Biden administration. The US under Biden has made foreign policy blunders and nationally an accelerated moral decline leading to a diminished global public opinion about the status of the US as a global power.
Could this executive order by Biden, ahead of this year’s November elections, be serving as a tool to remake his legacy after the failure of sanctions he drafted failed to effect regime change in Zimbabwe?
Zimbabweans need to be cautious and not to be too excited or optimistic over this manoeuvre by the US.
There is need to have something that is conceptually compatible with what the US has done to have mutually projected beneficial outcomes.
The position of Zimbabwe, the SADC bloc, the AU as a continental body and other progressive sovereign states is that sanctions must be removed in actuality and totality.
This can only be achieved by repealing ZIDERA (2001 and the 2018 amendment), and not effected by a mere executive order. Executive orders have frailties.
The greatest weakness in executive orders is that those issued by a previous president can be revoked by the president in office and an executive order may also be overturned by the Congress by enacting laws that nullify it.
However, in this regard, Biden may veto such Congress legislation; nevertheless, a two-thirds majority in Congress may override the veto.
Therefore, an executive order with legal and political inferences, is a risk element in its attempt to overturn the contents of an act, nor can it be used to effect acceptable changes without repealing an entire act.
President Biden used an executive order to discontinue orders 13288 of 2003; 13391 of 2005; and 13469 of 2008. However, this does not convincingly hold, for believing the current order without repudiating the base act of sanctions abandons any meaningful, logical political consistencies.
Political pressure Economic sanctions are becoming a risk considering how frequently they are being utilised. Whatever the case, their operationalisation should be understood from a point of view that they remain instruments to achieve political goals.
Even so, their removal or suspension is also one meant to meet political goals.
The US wants Zimbabwe to pay a heavy political and economic price to achieve substantial normalisation of relations to the former’s favour, and in exchange, it reaps the rewards of this process arrived at through economic force.
There is precedence to this type of political pressure.
Libya’s decision in 2003 to renounce its nuclear programme and the country’s decision to remove its stockpile of ballistic missiles has been the case. We know how the US and her allies dealt with Col Muammar Gaddafi’s administration in 2011.
In 2018 the US also lifted sanctions against Sudan under president Omar Al-Bashir. However, the sanction’s relief neither mitigated nor minimised the economic damage that Sudan had gone through for nearly two decades.
What followed were demonstrations against unhealthy political developments that were also initiated by the US’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the culmination to the prevailing chaos on Sudan.
Exiting negotiations
In January, the US government decided to exit from Zimbabwe’s Africa Development Bank (AfDB) led debt restructuring negotiations with the Paris Club, World Bank and other stakeholders.
The decision was priming the watchers and giving them a heads up on what was likely to come.
This is in contradistinction with amendments to the ZIDERA Act (of 2018). Relating to multilateral debt relief and financial assistance, in Section 4(b) (2) of the amendment, the US government committed ‘‘to support efforts to re-evaluate plans to restructure, rebuild, reschedule, or eliminate Zimbabwe’s sovereign debt.”
Actions by the US are contradicting the legal commitments it made, hence this makes it unfathomable to regard its commitment to “supporting the people of Zimbabwe” when it is not committed to fulfilling some legal pledges.
What the US is saying Before highlighting what the US is trying to say, it ought to be emphasised that Zimbabwe lost over $100 billion in revenue since the arrival of ZIDERA. These figures are only conservative estimates.
There is however need to understand the interlink existing in Biden’s executive order, the ZIDERA law and the Global Magnitsky Act.
The weaknesses of the executive orders and the ZIDERA Act is they both fail to highlight the US’ clean intentions on engaging Zimbabwe. The Global Magnitsky Act can be seen as an escalating tool.
The current promise is that entities and individuals targeted by sanctions under EOs 13288; 13391 and 13469 had their ‘sins’ remitted and that entities like the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) and ZISCOSTEEL can freely engage in business with any other player.
What Zimbabwe needs to reject uprightly and challenging the futility of piecemeal sanctions adjustments is having President Mnangagwa, the country’s chief executive officer, targeted under the Global Magnitsky Act. He becomes the first sitting leader to be targeted under this act.
What the US is now doing using the Global Magnitsky Act is leading in the demonisation of Zimbabwe by attacking the architect of its policies on economic renaissance and transformation, President Mnangagwa.
With this demonisation, the US alternatively wants Zimbabwe to be a high risk destination for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
This is how dirty the sanctions game by the US has become. Whatever explanation, on this matter, Zimbabweans ought to remain resolute ideologically and with a nationalist duty to ensure the country is neither robbed nor manipulated of its sovereign right.