JOHANNESBURG—President Joe Biden has replaced a 21-year-old set of sanctions against Zimbabwe with new measures targeted more narrowly at key ruling party officials in the crisis-racked southern African nation.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa, 81, who was speaker of the Zimbabwean parliament at the time, was among the officials affected by the measures. Washington is again targeting the former army commander known in Zimbabwe as “The Crocodile,” apparently because he’s so ruthless.
The new sanctions would be imposed on 11 individuals, including Mr. Mnangagwa and his wife, Auxillia, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, retired Brig. Gen. Walter Tapfumaneyi, and businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei, “for their involvement in corruption or serious human rights abuse,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
The new sanctions are aimed at “blocking their assets” and bar U.S. financial institutions from engaging in transactions with them; they’re also barred from holding financial interests in the United States.
Ms. Watson added that the “egregious behavior of some of the most powerful people and companies in Zimbabwe matches the actions of the worst human rights abusers and corrupt actors globally.”
While Zimbabwe holds vast reserves of precious metals and minerals, including gold, diamonds, and lithium, everything’s controlled by the elites of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front party (ZANU-PF) who live in luxury.
At the same time, Harare owes billions of dollars in debt.
The United States, and others, have accused Mr. Mnangagwa of being part of a cabal smuggling the country’s minerals and metals, much of which ends up shipped to China.
ZANU-PF maintains close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP supported the party’s liberation war against a white minority government with money and guns through the 1970s.
Mr. Mnangagwa is a frequent visitor to Beijing.
“Mnangagwa provides a protective shield to smugglers to operate in Zimbabwe and has directed Zimbabwean officials to facilitate the sale of gold and diamonds in illicit markets, taking bribes in exchange for his services,” Ms. Watson said.
“Mnangagwa also oversees Zimbabwe’s security services, which have violently repressed political opponents and civil society groups.”
ZANU-PF described the United States’ allegations as “ridiculous.”
Zimbabwe imploded in the early 2000s under Mr. Mugabe’s leadership, sending millions fleeing to neighboring South Africa.
His ZANU-PF government, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, and threatened by the increasing popularity of a democratic opposition party, launched a brutal campaign against dissenters that’s yet to end, according to human rights organizations.
Thousands have been killed and jailed since elections in 2002, widely regarded as stolen by Mr. Mugabe.
During the same period, ZANU-PF “war veterans” drove hundreds of white farmers from their land, murdering scores. The Mugabe administration gave much of the land to party officials and supporters.
Hunger soon followed.
“That one‐year loss exceeded by $5.3 billion all the foreign aid given by the World Bank to Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.”
ZANU-PF has for the past two decades blamed “Western sanctions” for the suffering of ordinary Zimbabweans.
The Office of Foreign Assets Controls (OFAC) at the U.S. Treasury says sanctions use trade restrictions and the blocking of assets to accomplish foreign policy and national security goals.
Ms. Demarais, who previously worked on sanctions for the French government and was a senior policy adviser to the U.S. Treasury, reviewed all of Washington’s sanctions since 1970.
She found that targeted governments changed their behavior in a way that the U.S. government hoped they would just 13 percent of the time.
“Sanctions have such limited effects because often the people targeted by them easily avoid them,” South African economist and sanctions expert Iraj Abedian told The Epoch Times.
“The ZANU-PF regime has always thumbed its nose at the American sanctions, saying: ‘Well, we don’t care what America does to us because we’re doing business with China anyway.
“We don’t have American bank accounts; we have Chinese bank accounts.’”
Ms. Demarais points to Russia as another example of the ineffectiveness of sanctions.
“Russia has overcome sanctions imposed on it because of its invasion of Ukraine by finding new markets for its most important exports. India and China are buying its oil, and it’s smuggling other goods with the help of allies,” she said.
She also highlighted increased trade between Russia and Turkey.
“It appears that some smuggling could be taking place via Turkey, which doesn’t impose sanctions on Moscow, even though it’s a NATO member.”
Ms. Demarais said those seeking to dodge sanctions have come up with innovative ways to insulate their economies.
“Russia, for example, kept half its reserves in non-Western currencies, in rupees, rubles, and renminbi, so that it could continue to trade.”
Mr. Abedian said Zimbabwe is doing the same.
Ms. Demarais said sanctioned regimes have also found alternatives to SWIFT, the financial system that links banks around the world.
“China’s taking the lead here,” she said.
Xi Jinping’s government has developed a system it calls the “Cross-Border Interbank Payment System” (CIPS).
“If China’s ever cut off from SWIFT, it has a plan B. That also gives China an advantage because in the future it could tell other countries, ‘If you want to transact with Chinese companies, then you need to use CIPS.’
“It could feasibly use CIPS to cut off entire countries and companies from its market,” said Ms. Demarais.
“China’s actually created a financial realm that’s completely disconnected from the U.S. dollar and from international currency markets. Its aim is to be totally immune to American influence and leverage.”
The CCP regime had achieved this, she said, by developing digital central bank currencies.
“They’re not cryptocurrencies,” she said. “They’re digital currencies stored on the mobile phones of more than 300 million Chinese people. Western sanctions have zero effect on these currencies because they’re completely under the control of the Central Bank of China.”
Mr. Abedian says Western powers knew that sanctions were generally ineffective, yet chose to implement them anyway.
“They can be implemented very easily and they cost almost nothing,” he said. “They carry little risk for the implementer.
“On top of that, the implementer can be seen as a ‘good guy,’ as taking action to prevent human rights abuses and corruption, but not having to take direct military action against atrocities and risk political blowback domestically.”
So, he said, the Mnangagwa administration has “little to fear” from President Biden’s new sanctions.
“When Mnangagwa and his lackeys scoff at the United States, that’s not false courage. They know they’re untouchable. Until the next coup, at least.”
