A critical look at the revocation of US sanctions on Zimbabwe while maintaining ZDERA- By Jonathan Moyo

The heading of the third part is “Security Officials” and it starts with Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga, first sanctioned on 6 March 2003; Defence Minister Oppah Muchinguri, also first sanctioned on 6 March 2003; Commissioner-General of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Godwin Matanga, first sanctioned on 23 November 2005; Deputy Commissioner-General of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Stephen Mutamba, first sanctioned on 15 September 2022; Deputy Director General of the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), Brigadier General [Rtd] Walter Tapfumaneyi, sanctioned for the first time, last week; and Owen Ncube, Minister of State for Provincial Affairs in the Midlands province, first sanctioned on 11 March 2020.

In putting President Mnangagwa in a sanctions basket it called “Sanctions Transition Under the Global Magnitsky Program”, the US Treasury Department said it was sanctioning him allegedly because he “is involved in corrupt activities, in particular those relating to gold and diamond smuggling networks. 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. Mnangagwa also oversees Zimbabwe’s security services, which have violently repressed political opponents and civil society groups”

It is clear from this that the US Treasury is principally but not only relying on Al Jazeera’s documentary, “Africa’s Gold Mafia screened between March and April in 2023”; and, notably, the Department is going by the unchallenged or un rebutted claims made in the documentary by Uebert Angel, who damagingly featured as a “senior diplomat’ and therefore a “senior official” of the government of Zimbabwe; as well as of Ewan Macmillan and Kamlesh Pattni who claimed throughout the documentary – without being challenged – to be the President’s ‘close’ business partners.

There are three serious due-process issues about this.

First, while it is apparently relying mainly on claims made in Al Jazeera’s ‘Africa’s Gold Mafia documentary screened between March 2023 and April 2023, the fact is that the claims were boastfully, opportunistically and scandalously made by Uebert Angel, Ewan Macmillan and Kamlesh Pattni; all of whom were too eager to name drop, some of them doing so apparently under the influence of whiskey. Al Jazeera did not test or corroborate the claims to establish their veracity, before the documentary was broadcast.

Second, and aware that the veracity of the claims was not established by Al Jazeera in its documentary, and further aware that no other third party has done so since the documentary’s broadcast, the US Treasury Department has proceeded put oxygen onto the claims and light a fire purely on the strength of untested and unproven allegations – to the detriment of due process of the law – by merely regurgitating the claims and citing them as if the claims are now nothing but the truth beyond any doubt, without putting forward any independent corroboration of the claims. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2154

Third, and last but not least, despite the self-evident fact that the claims in question were damaging and despite the manifest fact that the Al Jazeera documentary was obviously meant to make a case for the sanctioning of the implicated individuals and entities, the Zimbabwean authorities in government perhaps inadvertently but nevertheless surprisingly gave hostage to fortune by not providing robust and factually persuasive rebuttals to counter the Al Jazeera claims, when they were broadcast.

The lesson from this is clear.

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