US concedes pressure over sanctions on Zimbabwe

Zim Now Writer

At a briefing with a select group of African journalists on Wednesday, US Department of State sanctions coordinator, Ambassador James O'Brien, admitted that the US is feeling the heat from the heightened opposition to its stance against Zimbabwe

"SADC has spoken out, the AU, and several African governments have spoken about what the right approach is to Zimbabwe, and my colleagues who work on policy towards Zimbabwe are in regular conversation with them,” O'Brien said.

SADC designated 25 October as an anti-sanctions solidarity day in 2019 and has been ramping up its protest as a body since then.

African Union chairperson Macky Sall took a hardline stance against the sanctions in his uncompromising speech at the 77th United Nations General Assembly in September.

South Africa’s Cyril Ramaposa bluntly told Joe Biden the whole southern Africa region economic ecosystem is being affected by ripple effects of the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe and that the US must remove them.

“So we keep looking at our programme, as we do with all our sanctions programmes, but we've been actively reviewing this, and we're also consulting closely with our partners in the region,” said O’Brien at his press briefing.

For the first time ever, this year the US invited Zimbabwe to its US-Africa summit slotted for December, albeit snubbing Zimbabwe president ED Mnangagwa by extending the invitation to Foreign Minister Fredrick Shava only.

O'Brien tried to save face with the usual feeble rhetoric of the sanctions on Zimbabwe being targeted against "the people who are responsible for and profit from human rights abuses, corruption and anti-democratic actions".

As usual, they sounded hollow in the face of glaring contradictions like US’s continued cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia after investigation showed top leadership as having been directly involved in the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi in that country’s Instanbul consulate.

The US foreign office has only now started to speak against Saudi Arabia after Riyadh refused to bow down to US pressure to cut oil prices to protect the American economy and those of its NATO allies reeling under the boomerang of their own sanctions against Russia.

About 30 countries across the world face targeted sanctions from the US.

Ironically the US itself has gross human rights abuse at home including shootings of blacks by police and the imprisonment without trial of political prisoners on Guantanamo.