It is therefore much more complicated to lift them than the EU measures. Diplomats in Harare have urged SADC to take action to halt Zimbabwe’s slide towards despotism, and again rejected accusations that the targeted measures touted as sanctions ad nauseum by the state-controlled media and Zanu (PF) acolytes – have hurt the economy.
MDC secretary general Tendai Biti (who is also Minister of Finance) last week briefed diplomats in Harare on the importance of sending observer missions to Harare well in advance of any future election. But SADC could not confirm this week whether such a team would be sent.
Diplomatic sources said Harare was “not keen” on an observer mission from the UN or Western countries. A senior Western diplomat said: “The US measures are there to support a transition to democracy and economic recovery – including financial support, should a transition begin in earnest.”
He said the legislation that created the targeted measures against Zanu (PF) officials and corporate entities linked to the regime was offered in recognition that the future stability of Zimbabwe would profoundly impact the entire region and that stability and recovery is in the US national interest.
“That future is dependent on the viability of the democratic legal and economic institutions in Zimbabwe which are currently under assault,” he said. Last week the US’s key ally, the European Union dropped 35 people from a list of those affected by
asset freezes and visa bans, including the wife of Mugabe’s loyal central bank chief Gideon Gono, accused of bankrolling and oiling Zanu (PF)’s terror campaign and vandalising the economy.
Gono has reacted furiously to the gesture. If anyone out there thinks that there will be celebrations in the governor’s family arising from the recent EU gesture, then they are very wrong. What’s there to celebrate over?” he asked.
“The strategy to divide families and their countrymen is doomed to failure, now and in future. My wife doesn’t shop in London or New York. She shops here in Zimbabwe and if she needs to go abroad, there is the ‘Look East’ policy to take care of that. China today is officially the second largest economy in the world. Why should my wife worry about London or New York?” Gono said.
The President of the Chiefs Council Fortune Charumbira, who has also been removed from the roll, has reacted outrageously, demanding that the EU return him back on the list.
“Why did they remove me?” he asked, amid a cloud of questions what had prompted the decision to drop the almost three dozen officials on the list. Observers say being listed on the sanctions list was a badge of honour in Zanu (PF).
President Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba, whose estranged former wife Rudo, has also been dropped, boasted that he posed a clear and present danger to the US.
“I suppose the closest I got to the hall of fame was when America put me on the fourth place in its first ever list of persons guilty of ‘posing continuing,
extraordinary threats to American interests,” Charamba said in an article that appeared in the Herald.
Rudo Charamba wrote to the EU addvising that she was no longer the Presidential spokesman’s wife. The wife of the CIO director general, Willia Bonyongwe has also been removed, together the wife of the police commissioner general, Isobel Halima Chihuri and other spouses of listed officials.
The move by the EU leaves the 87-year-old President in a quandary, leaving little wiggle room to blame the measures for his wholesome refusal to implement the GPA. Mugabe has introduced a concept he calls “reciprocity” in the negotiations that have deadlocked the GPA talks, saying he will only make concessions once there is movement on the measures.
Now the measures – a response to the political and human rights situation – have been re-examined and several officials, have been dropped from the list, it is hoped this could lead to the unlocking of more reforms.
An EU review noted that with more political reforms, more people will be removed, in an apparent carrot and stick approach. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said earlier this month “economic and social developments have not been matched by equivalent progress on the political front.”
Post published in: News