US sanctions coordinator says they are not hurting ordinary Zimbabweans but admits he has not read the UN special rapporteur report which says they are

QUESTION: Thank you very much, Ambassador O’Brien, and I really appreciate your availability. I am actually here in Washington, D.C. My question is this. I’ve been – I’ve done a close reading of the recent UN special rapporteur’s report at the end of the 51st session. So the work of the UN special rapporteur to Zimbabwe claims that sanctions are in overcompliance. Her report applauds the Government of Zimbabwe. Instead, she makes accusations against civil society and indeed the Zimbabwean population in the entirety of the report. Some might say it’s tantamount to conspiracy or disparate levels of credulity. The narcotics problem is not sanctions, right to life is not because of sanctions when you compare the lack of investigation into the disappearance, for example, of Itai Dzamara.

So my question for you is this. While your colleagues at the foreign mission in Harare have put a stellar explainer effort to the Zimbabwean society at large, clearly more needs to be done. So what efforts and how might you be planning to work interagency or intra-agency with, say, for example, public diplomacy teams to counter all forms of smoke-and-mirrors campaigns and guard against how sanctions have been discharged? Sanctions doesn’t stop Zimbabwe’s comedians, researchers, innovators from participating in the global community. So – and also, is there a red line with Zimbabwe on sanctions?

Thank you, Ambassador, and I appreciate you both, your take on that. Thanks.

AMBASSADOR O’BRIEN: Thank you. I’m not familiar with the special rapporteur report, but it sounds like I need to learn more. So thank you for calling attention to that. I completely agree with you that the problems that are identified have to do with choices made by those in power in Zimbabwe, and we would love to see those improved. So to the extent there’s a red line, it’s begin to prosecute for human rights abuses; stop the corruption; reform the governmental systems; respect the democratic institutions and build them up. That’s what we’re looking to see.

I think your point on engagement is absolutely right. It is – we are making efforts to reach out more and more, but I think it’s a point that we never do enough. And as you said, there are a lot of channels for engaging in a wider public debate. It’s a sad fact that bureaucrats and diplomats are not often that great at engaging with comedians or others who really sort of get to the heart of issues in a way that points out a greater truth, but we are going to try to work on a variety of ways of reaching people.

So on that one, I think check back in a bit. We’re going to see our Global Engagement Center and some of our global public diplomacy tools put to use, and let’s see if we’re doing better. And I’ll expect the kind of fearless and clear commentary on how well we’re doing that you just directed to this report, because I think with scrutiny we’ll get better. So I appreciate the spirit of the question.

MR MULLINAX: If I could just add one more point to yours, Ambassador O’Brien. This is Jim Mullinax again. I really appreciate, Pearl, your raising the point about civil society, and there are a lot of myths out there about U.S. sanctions, some of them being propagated through different channels. But let me just say one thing very, very clearly, and that is that our sanctions do not target the Zimbabwean people. Our sanctions are very closely targeted to specific acts of corruption, human rights abuses, and undermining democracy. And these are, I think, values that are widely shared – support for these values are widely shared around the world.

And we really do appreciate the tremendous work that’s being done within Zimbabwe to highlight these abuses and, as I mentioned earlier, we’re going to continue to review our Zimbabwe-related designations to make sure that they are current. That’s going to mean taking some people off of the list, but I fully expect as well that as human rights abuses or corruption or other measures that are undermining democracy are happening in Zimbabwe that there will be additional interest in expanding the list as well to address some of those behaviors.

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