HARARE, Zimbabwe
The United States has said Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration is unwilling to improve its relations with the international community and end the southern African country’s isolation.
On Wednesday, the US State
Department’s Head of the Office of Sanctions Coordination Jim O’Brien told
journalists during a briefing on Washington’s sanctions policy and recent
changes to the Zimbabwe embargo that President Mnangagwa’s government was not
showing any appetite for reforms.
Mr O’Brien, whose office was
recently created to integrate US sanctions into its foreign policy, cited a
recent incident — where US Senate staff members were allegedly harassed by
Zimbabwe’s state security agents — as a sign of Harare’s unwillingness to
re-engage.
According to US media, the
state security agents secretly filmed the two US Senate officials who were
having a meeting with a civil society activist at a café in Harare, leading to
a dramatic car chase.
“These are public servants who
are deeply committed to a stronger US relationship to Africa, and so the idea
that a group of thugs in some cars would try to intimidate visiting US
officials resonates incredibly poorly across Washington.
“Those are the acts of a government
that doesn’t want to be engaged. They are not the acts of a government that’s
looking to improve its relationship with the United States [and] also with the
wider international community.
“So things like that need to
stop, but mostly we want to see changes in the behaviour related to human
rights abuses, anti-democratic behaviour and corruption,” Mr O’Brien said.
Zimbabwe’s relations with the
US have been frosty since 2003 when Washington imposed targeted sanctions
against the regime of the late former president Robert Mugabe on allegations of
voter fraud and human rights abuses.
The European Union and
countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia as well as New Zealand
also imposed their own set of sanctions against the country, which resulted in
Zimbabwe’s international isolation.
After coming into power
following a 2017 military coup that toppled Mr Mugabe, President Mnangagwa made
re-engagement with the West a priority for his administration but the policy
has seen little traction as his government is accused of not keeping its
promises to introduce reforms.
African leaders used last
month’s 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly to call for the
lifting of sanctions on Zimbabwe, which they said affected ordinary people the
most.
Mr O’Brien said sanctions
against Zimbabwe will only be removed after genuine reforms are enacted and
there is an end to human rights violations.
“What we are asking is that
the Zimbabwean government takes meaningful, noticeable, material actions that
strengthen the democratic processes, build the institutions and respect its
constitution,” he added.
“We’d also like to see
condemnation and prosecution for corruption and human rights abuses. Those are
the things that will lead to people coming off the sanctions list, but they are
also the actions that make it much easier for a broader engagement.
“The point of sanctions is to
be part of broader policy, and the behaviours we want to see change are the
ones that lead to sanctions, but they are also the behaviours that impede the
ability of the governments to coordinate well.”
The US insists that its
sanctions regime on Zimbabwe does not target the economy or ordinary people,
but security, business and government figures linked to corruption and human
rights abuses. - Nation
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