The moves by the United States Congress to ease the sanctions on Zimbabwe are welcome because the embargo has become a convenient excuse by the Zanu PF government not to deliver on the economy while allowing corruption to fester.
Zimbabwe has been under sanctions from the US since 2001 after the regime of the late Robert Mugabe seized commercial farms from the minority white population for redistribution to landless blacks.
Over 5 000 white Zimbabweans lost their farms in the often violent repossessions led by veterans of the country’s 1970s liberation war.
Washington and other Western capitals at the time said Zimbabwe was being isolated for violation of property rights and voter fraud.
The farm takeovers led to the collapse of the agriculture-based economy.
Successive US presidents renewed the long-standing Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (Zdera) every year like a ritual, but there are indications that President Donald Trump’s administration is ready to change course.
The US Congress’ house foreign affairs committee chairman Brian Mast, a Republican from Florida, last week introduced an omnibus Bill proposing the Department of State Policy Provisions Act.
Congressman Mast’s Bill proposed several changes to US foreign policy and it proposes to repeal Zdera on condition that Zimbabwe compensates the former farmers.
Five years ago, Zimbabwe reached an agreement with the white farmers to pay them compensation worth US$3,5 billion for improvements on the seized farms, and not the land itself.
In April this year the government approved payment for the first group of 378 farmers who are set to receive US$311 million, but only one percent of the compensation was to be paid in cash.
The rest of the compensation would be paid through Treasury bonds, whose maturities range from between two to 10 years.
If Mast’s proposed law is passed, Zimbabwe will have to pay the white farmers within a year for the US not to bar such loans from being extended to the country.
Zdera barred US officials at institutions such as the World Bank and IMF from approving any new lending or debt relief to Zimbabwe “until property rights and democracy were restored.”
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government and Mugabe’s administration before him used the sanctions to explain away their incompetence and failure to deal with corruption.
Some politically exposed people have become super rich through government tenders that are said to be for busting sanctions, but we know it is just naked looting.
The removal of the sanctions in toto will give Zimbabweans an opportunity to disentangle themselves from this vicious cycle.