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

There’s more to the fact that Zdera remains intact after the revocation of the mentioned Executive Orders, than meets the eye.

Only fools will be fooled by this. If the alleged ‘national emergency’ which lasted for 21 years “should no longer be in effect” and “is no longer needed”, as determined by Biden on 4 March 2024, why is Zdera – the mother law of the revoked national emergency national –still needed?

4. Whereas Biden’s Executive Order 14118 stated that it was a “termination of Emergency With Respect to the Situation in Zimbabwe”; it is telling that the US Treasury Department framed and cast it as “termination of the Zimbabwe sanctions program”.

Even more telling is that the Department’s press statement announced that the terminated ‘national emergency’, which it presented as the ‘Zimbabwe Sanctions Program’, would be under a new rubric, ‘Sanctions Transition Under the Global Magnitsky Program’.

Helpfully, and this is important to note and to welcome, the Department confirmed that:

• All persons blocked solely pursuant to E.O. 13288, E.O. 13391, or E.O. 13469 (the authorities of the Zimbabwe Sanctions Program) will be removed today from OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List;
• All property and interests in property blocked solely pursuant to the Zimbabwe Sanctions Program will be unblocked today; and
• OFAC will remove the Zimbabwe Sanctions Regulations from the Code of Federal Regulations.

Clearly, what this means is that the sanctions are not and have never been about individuals. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2154

5. It’s notable that, because they were about regime change in Zimbabwe, the revoked Executive Orders, and indeed all of the coercive US economic measures taken against the country thus far, were enforced after a general election of one sort or another. In other words, during the period covered by the orders, every general election in Zimbabwe was followed by US sanctions; starting with Zdera itself.

Zdera followed the 2000 parliamentary election; the 4 March 2002 Presidential Proclamation sanctioning designated individuals followed the 2002 presidential election, as did Executive Order 13288 of 6 March 2003; while Executive Order 13391 of 23 November 2005 followed the 2005 parliamentary election and Executive Order 13469 of 25 July 2008 – the most destructive – was a direct response to Zimbabwe’s first harmonised general election held on 29 March 2009, and particularly the 27 June 2008 presidential runoff election.

6. The use of cacophonic propaganda about 11 individuals, who include the country’s top leadership in government, said to have been sanctioned for alleged human rights abuses and corruption together with three private commercial entities – tellingly on the same day that Biden issued his termination of the ‘national emergency’ in Executive Order 14118, is clearly intended to distract attention from Biden’s embarrassing order which, as already pointed out, is a de facto acknowledgment of catastrophic failure of the US policy of regime change in Zimbabwe, over the last 21 years of the three Executive Orders; and the last 23 years of their enabling law, Zdera, which remains intact.

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