We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the ANC for their invaluable assistance in the fight against Zimbabwean sanctions. Without their support, our efforts would have been significantly more challenging.
In 2019, members of the ANC National Working Committee joined us, ZASM, in a meeting to plan our first SADC anti-sanctions march in South Africa. This was an initiative proposed to the Zimbabwean government by the ZUAUWS -which later became the ZASM- in January of 2019.
The ANC’s participation in this first SADC march, played a crucial role in galvanizing South Africa and African support against Western sanctions on Zimbabwe.
It led to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Naledi Pando championing an international campaign against Western sanctions on Zimbabwe at every multilateral forum, and the rejection of mass deportation of undocumented Zimbabwean refugees (sanctions by other means, which the west pressured the South African government to undertake), a sacrifice which may have cost the ANC its majority in the 2024 elections.
Moreover, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) played an instrumental role in serving ZASM’s court papers to the U.S. President, Nancy Pelosi, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and other U.S. government officials in the ZASM vs. South African Banks, U.S. President, and others court case in South Africa’s Gauteng High Court.
DIRCO also pressured these same U.S. officials to respond to ZASM’s papers, which the U.S. government did in March 2023.
Written by Rutendo Matinyarare, Chairman of ZASM.
