I will go through a few headings of the briefing paper. On its heading, it actually presents a question on whether the U.S should change its stance of sanctions against Zimbabwe. On its introduction, the briefing paper states that Zimbabwe is a country of about 15 million people located in the Southern African region. It is a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and African Union (AU). Zimbabwe has formally been a British colony named Rhodesia from 1965 to 1979 sharing the border with South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia.
Its successive leaders since 1965, Ian Douglas Smith, 1965 to 1979, Robert Mugabe, 1980 to 2017 and Emmerson Mnangagwa, 2017 to date. Rhodesia first existed as Southern Rhodesia in 1923 when it was annexed at the British colony at the request of Cecil John Rhodes, a British imperialist. It was part of the British Monarch between 1965 and 1970 with Queen Elizabeth reigning as the Head of State. Between 1963 and 1980, there was war in Zimbabwe in which the black majority population fought for the independence of Zimbabwe from Britain in order to remove a white minority government led by Ian Douglas Smith and to install a majority rule.
The main grievances by the black nationalist leaders led by Mr. Robert Mugabe included racial discrimination which gave whites more rights than blacks including the right to vote, the right to education among other rights, land distribution imbalances where whites who constituted 4% of the population on the 90% of productive land and forced labour as blacks worked on the whites farms and factories for very low wages. The war, mainly a gorilla warfare ended in 1979 following a cease fire agreement for the Lancaster House Agreement where it was agreed that Britain would fund Zimbabwe’s land reform exercise.
Zimbabwe therefore gained independence on 18th April, 1980 with Robert Mugabe elected as Prime Minister and it initiated a land redistribution exercise using the willing buyer willing seller system until the black population became restless due to the ineffectiveness of this system as the whites left were not prepared to dispose their land. Between 2000 and 2002, there were widespread farm invasions mainly by former liberation war fighters targeting white owned commercial farms. At last 4 000 white farmers of British, Germany, South African and American origin were dispossessed of their land and they were alleged human rights abuses on the farms during the compulsory acquisition of land during the period mentioned.
On the issue of sanctions, the briefing paper states that the United States Government, under President George W. Bush’s administration, imposed unilateral sanctions against Zimbabwe in 2001, following human rights abuses against some White farmers which allegedly happened on farms. Some White farmers were reportedly killed in cold blood, while others were allegedly assaulted or forcefully removed from their farms. There were allegations that some crops were destroyed and some investments were destroyed as well.
So, this forms part of the background situation that then called for the sanctions. Then the United States Government responded to this situation through what is called ZIDERA. It was passed into law by congress in 2001, to promote allegedly democracy and economic recovery of Zimbabwe. Following the Land Reform Exercise, the Zimbabwean economy suffered major viability challenges including unstable currency, hyperinflation, high unemployment levels of over 90% coupled with a growing informal sector due to the retrenchment of skilled personnel, high levels of poverty and prostitution as well as high levels of HIV and AIDS.
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