For the record, the U.S. Zimbabwe Sanctions Program was terminated by the U.S. President on March 4, 2024. This means Zimbabwe as a nation is no longer under U.S. sanctions. However, eight individuals, including Zimbabwe’s President, officials, businesspeople, and three companies, remain illegitimately under Magnitsky sanctions, which are targeted and distinct from national sanctions.
These illegal sanctions, imposed without due process, can be challenged by engaging leading law firms that specialize in sanctions and are willing to assist in pressuring or suing the U.S. to remove them.
It’s crucial to distinguish between individual and national sanctions. The latter [national sanctions] constitute collective punishment of civilians, a crime against humanity, hence U.S. was pressured to lift its national sanctions on Zimbabwe as a nation, in March 2024.
Additionally, ZDERA is not a sanction but an act enacted in 2001, requesting the U.S. President in section 6, to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, using executive order powers. Why would ZDERA ask the U.S. President to use his executive orders to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, if ZDERA itself was a sanction or had power to sanction?
The reason Zimbabwe is being denied multilateral loans is because as a nation we are owing multilateral lending institutions billions in unpaid debt and penalities and not ZDERA.
Additionally, ZDERA also isn’t administered by the Department of State, Treasury, OFAC or any U.S. emergency instrument or legal instruments that are used to implement U.S. sanctions, illustrating that it’s not a sanction.
Now that national sanctions are lifted off Zimbabwe, our government must employ competent people to manage the economy, Reserve Bank, revenue services, and currency more effectively, to lift the country out of 23 years of sanctions and refrain from using sanctions as an excuse.
Various leading global law firms are ready to help the individuals under targeted sanctions to fight and have them removed.
Written by Rutendo Matinyarare, Chairman of ZASM.
