USA pretends to remove sanctions

ZimTimes Political Editor

Washington D. C. continues to deal with Harare in bad faith as President Joe Biden maintained the draconian Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA) sanctions, despite attempting to portray a “lenient” gesture in reversing George W. Bush’s presidential Executive Orders on Monday.

For clarity on the dynamics of these sanctions, ZimTimes takes the reader down the memory lane to 2001 when sanctions were initially imposed on Zimbabwe.

Understand ZIDERA is the ‘mother sanction’ imposed earlier than any other later set of sanctions. ZIDERA is the only law passed jointly by the US Senate and the House of Representatives to specifically ‘deal’ with Zimbabwe. All other sets of sanctions that followed were only general manifestations of the already existing American laws with no original specific ties to Zimbabwe.

The recently “removed” Executive Order sanctions are a typical example of ‘peripheral’ sanctions that were not specifically created for Zimbabwe. When President Bush imposed the Executive Order 13288 sanctions on Zimbabwe on 6 March 2003, he acknowledged that his authority to execute the orders came from already existing American laws. In his sanctions-declaration, he cited the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977 and the National Emergencies Act (NEA) of 1976.

These two laws were enacted in USA before Zimbabwe became independent. The IEEPA was enacted to give the US President overall authority to dictate economic foreign policy in times of national emergencies whilst the NEA laid out one hundred and thirty-six (136) executive powers to be exercised by the President during these emergency-times.

The President derives his authority to impose Executive Order sanctions from these NEA emergency executive powers. In other words, the Executive Order sanctions were designed to protect US foreign policy interests in times of emergencies. They were not specifically designed to help Zimbabweans.

Contextually, the recently “lifted” Executive Order sanctions were imposed by President Bush in 2003 when there was an emergency in DRC which led to the invocation of IEEPA & NEA for the US President to do whatever was necessary to protect US foreign policy interests. On 8 March 2003 the NewYorkTimes quoted President Bush saying, “the Mugabe government not only harmed the people of Zimbabwe but posed an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy interests of the United States.”

The Executive Order sanctions document itself accused President Mugabe of destabilizing the region through his participation in DRC. The Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) took a leading role in helping President Kabila defeat western proxies in DRC which prompted USA to impose the Executive Order sanctions on the Zimbabwe Defence Industries to punish and weaken Zimbabwe’s army.

The Executive Order sanctions also included ZISCO steel, one of the major manufacturing industries that were still functioning even under ZIDERA sanctions. Many other individuals loyal to President Mugabe were also sanctioned, including media practitioners like the then Permanent Secretary of Information George Charamba and his minister Jonathan Moyo who were known for neutralizing US foreign policy propaganda. USA could not tolerate counter-propaganda.

ZimTimes also discovered that IEEPA and NEA have been invoked by the US government for at least eighty-two (82) times in different countries to protect US foreign policy in emergency-times but ZIDERA was only imposed on Zimbabwe because ZIDERA was ‘tailor-made’ for Zimbabwe. This implies that many countries are victims Uncle Sam’s IEEPA & NEA but only Zimbabwe is a victim of ZIDERA.

Therefore, whoever is concerned with amplifying Zimbabwe’s call for the removal of sanctions should focus on ZIDERA. Any other fight against sanctions that excludes ZIDERA is superficial and meaningless.

On the other hand, USA is playing to the gallery. Instead of removing the ‘real’ ZIDERA sanctions, Joe Biden is busy with IEEPA and NEA ‘sideshows’. ZimTimes is worried about USA’s unseen diversion tactics. Even the “new” Global Magnitsky sanctions are just a diversion because the added individual restrictions won’t help or affect the ordinary Zimbabwean but ZIDERA is the real deal.

This was echoed by the renowned Human Rights Defender and Political Scientist Abigale Mupambi who told ZimTimes that, “There is nothing much that deserves the celebrations of the masses. ZIDERA is still in effect. Remember, through ZIDERA, USA weakened the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe by freezing its credit lines and isolating Zimbabwe’s banking system.

The same incapacitated RBZ is expected to process salaries of civil servants and to annually provide funds to every ministry through the national budget. What help does it give to remove ZISCO from Executive Order sanctions while the RBZ responsible for funding the same ZISCO is still under sanctions? Our economy is not free as long as our banking system is still under ZIDERA sanctions.”

Even so, ZimTimes does not understand why the Government of Zimbabwe is still spending so much effort in trying to befriend USA when the western world continues to prove that they are unrepentant since the slave trade era.

Homegrown solutions are always best and it is always advisable to stay where you are appreciated. China and other friendly nations are readily available. Why not focus on them and leave the arrogant West alone, instead of wasting time and resources chasing impossible love.