United States' New Sanctions On Zimbabwean Officials Ineffective - Analysts
Political analysts say the United States government’s new regime of sanctions against Zimbabwe’s top government officials and their enablers will not stop rampant corruption and the abuse of human rights in the country.
On March 4, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa, his wife Auxilia, Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga, businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei along with his wife, Sandra Mpunga, and several other senior government officials and alleged business partners, for corruption and human rights abuses.
U.S. President, Joe Biden, scrapped the old executive sanction order introduced in 2003 and replaced it with the Global Magnitsky sanctions.
The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act is a significant piece of legislation enacted in December 2016. It empowers the President of the United States to take specific actions against foreign individuals or entities engaged in human rights violations or corruption.
Sanctions under the Global Magnitsky programme aim to target systemic corruption and human rights abuse, including the networks that engage in, facilitate, or perpetuate sustained patterns of such illicit behaviour rather than incidental acts by individual targets.
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Speaking to CITE, Future Msebele, a political analyst, said that the new sanctions regime will not bring an end to the suffering of Zimbabweans. Said Msebele:
We, the downtrodden masses, believe that the targeted sanctions have not worked against the Regime. In reality, sanctions have been used by the corrupt and failing government as an excuse for its failures.
There are many loopholes, weak enforcement of the sanctions, no clear strategy, and weak communication of the political objectives have undermined the effectiveness of the sanctions.
We are still at the same point, if not worse off. We still have human rights abuses, we are still calling for political and electoral reforms.
It is time to think of alternative ways to deal with corrupt regimes. Sanctions have proven to be ineffective, and the achievement of primary political objectives has remained elusive.
Another political analyst, Bernard Magugu, told CITE that “nothing has changed except that the sanctions were updated”. He said:
The sanctions were lifted from several people who were in power before, and there is now a distinction between these small fish from the past, and top targets who are leading now.
Another point to factor in is the removal of the 2003 Executive Order, which was repeatedly renewed in subsequent years highlighting human rights and democratic reforms, showing that the influence of civic society organisations, activists, or opposition politicians is dwindling, which is a setback for the country. This may mean that human rights violations will continue unabated.
More: Pindula News
