Who do sanctions serve?

ONE may wonder why some Zimbabweans deny the existence of sanctions against Zimbabwe or why they support their imposition against the country. We have this situation probably because the media has not fully explained the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA).

The media, therefore, has a duty to continually and tirelessly try and explain it to ordinary people. In 2001, the United States Senate and House of Representatives agreed to pass ZDERA. The Act has been revised, with the most recent amendment in 2019.

This Act is short, so it is possible and preferable for one to read it and not rely on hearsay and opinions of other people. Social media influencers, whose opinions are relied upon by their followers, have different agendas and motivations for the content they put out.

ZDERA imposes economic and financial sanctions on both the Government of Zimbabwe and certain named Zimbabwean individuals and companies. It was crafted after intense lobbying and campaigning by some Zimbabweans from opposition political parties and civil society and American lobbyists who had a keen interest in Zimbabwean political and economic affairs. Many meetings and consultations were held in the late 90s and in 2000 at various local and foreign locations for this purpose.

Former US President George W. Bush signed ZDERA into law in December 2001.

What was the purpose of ZDERA?

The US government said its purpose was

“to support the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle to effect peaceful democratic change, achieve broad-based and equitable economic growth and restore the rule of law’’.

In 2001, Zimbabwe was at a volatile political, social and economic crossroads.

Zimbabwe was in the midst of one of the world’s most daring land reform programmes ever undertaken. Despite international pressure, Zimbabwe had gone ahead with its plan of repossessing vast tracts of land from mostly white farmers and redistributing it to black people. The land reform programme was marked by alleged human rights violations, in addition to breach of international agreements and treaties that got the world’s attention.

The US also said it was unhappy with the way the then-President Robert Mugabe’s Government was running the country and the involvement of Zimbabwe in the DRC war of the 90s. Congolese people had not known any real peace since King Leopold of Belgium usurped their land for himself in the 19th Century.

In 1998, President Mugabe had unilaterally sent the Zimbabwe National Army to help newly ascended Congolese leader President Laurent Kabila ward off forces marching onto Kinshasa to dislodge him. President Kabila had only recently removed Mobutu Sese Seko from power. Mobutu loyalists, among others, marched in Kinshasa to drive President Kabila out. Zimbabwe joined other African forces like Chad, Namibia and Angola to fight in the DRC.

The US and other critics of the Congo war argued that Zimbabwe’s involvement was just a smokescreen for Zimbabwean bigwig army generals and politicians to get their hands on Congolese diamonds.

The Zimbabwe Government maintains the US instituted ZDERA to punish it for the land reform programme and for passing the Land Acquisition Act of 1985.

The land redistribution programme saw an estimated 3 500 white farmers dispossessed of their farms to make way for a new crop of black agriculturalists. It did not matter to the US and the West that the ancestors of black Zimbabweans had been violently removed from the same land they now possessed by ancestors of the white farmers who were now dispossessed.

For this and other mentioned reasons, the US Congress decreed the Zimbabwe Government unfit and ineligible to benefit from international funds and programmes that would help its economy recover and modernise. ZDERA specifically bars the Zimbabwe Government from accessing International Monetary Fund (IMF) financial assistance.

Other institutions from which the Zimbabwe Government is barred from applying for financial support for its developmental programmes include the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Development Association, the International Finance Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Investment Corporation, the African Development Bank, the African Development Fund, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency.

The IMF and all the other listed funders suspended all financial support to the Zimbabwe Government for economic adjustment and reform in 1999. They suspended funds for all structural adjustment loans, new loans, credits and guarantees. The US president annually renews the executive order that gives effect to the ZDERA and it can only be repealed if he alone certifies that the Zimbabwe Government has fulfilled all the conditions set in the Act.

Therefore, the question that has to be asked is: Can these conditions ever be realistically fulfilled by any government and, 23 years later, has ZDERA, just like the Russian-Ukrainian war, become a real objective or just custom?

◆ Miriam Tose Majome is a commissioner with the Zimbabwe Media Commission.