The economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe’s leaders come under the US National Security Act 1948. The statute allows the Security Council to act covertly, if necessary.
In the prelude to the overthrow of Egyptian leader Muhammad Morsi (2013) sanctions were imposed on him and his wife Sister Nagla. In the background were 350 news correspondents employed to cook up stories about Morsi.
Mukuru and his wife, Sister Auxilia have been singled out as perpetrators, accomplices and implicated in aiding and abating the commission of human rights abuses. For good measure, nine other Zimbabweans, fairly and unfairly, have been added to the list.
The aim is to provoke a debate and draw international attention to actors mentioned in the sanctions list.
Sanctions publicise the atrocities and paint the image of the victim as an enemy of his people while a platform for covert action is being prepared.
What are they accused of?
I am sorry to say, people placed under US sanctions are often put there for wrong reasons. Robert Mugabe was not placed on the sanctions list for oppression of blacks and the atrocities committed in Matabeleland. Nor was his wife, Sister Gucci placed there for buying Korean hair weaves valued at US$1 000 or for making a scene at Harolds shopping store in London.
Mugabe was placed on the sanctions list, and his knighthood withdrawn for the corrupt land reform programme and the overthrow of the Anglo-American regime in the Congo 1997.
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The first affects me as a citizen of Zimbabwe and US sanctions are aimed at asking me to make common cause with them in the overthrow of Mukuru and his associates.
Twenty years after the imposition of sanctions Mugabe’s government has been replaced, but sanctions remain in place. The hope of forcing a change of direction (regime change) has failed.
In a statement by the US National Security Spokesperson, March 12, in Zimbabwe, “ we continue to witness gross abuses of political, economic, and human rights.”
It was time to change course.
While Mugabe has been replaced by a more vigorous and rambunctious regime, it remains fragile.
Enormous Chinese investments in mining seem to have worsened the wellbeing of the natives, land evictions, beatings and miscarriages are an everyday affair.
Yet Zimbabwe the leading producer of lithium in the world. Migration has taken one in four of its most able men and women.
Zimbabwe’s Achilles heel is its failure to make life economically tolerable for Zimbabweans despite the economic progress that has taken place.
An oppressive government does not need to be economically blind.
The main issue is the impoverishment of the 6 000 white farmers placed in a situation like that of Gaza Arabs-refugees, poverty stricken in a land of milk and honey and without recourse. That was unforgivable.
That is sin number one in the Anglo-American view.
The accusations against Mukuru are repetitive of those levelled against Mugabe. The Murambatsvina pogrom of 2005 which saw 600 000 urbanites lose their homes to police bulldozers was an act of sheer wickedness. This act was repeated in 2024. The stupidity of the act is that top of the line road building caterpillars, (X-10 models) were used to bull doze human habitation when potholes in inter-state roads were crying out for repair.
Police roadblocks, instituted by Mugabe, remain to terrorise motorists while fleecing their hard-earned money through trumped out charges.
The allegations made by the US sanctions regime against our government are all over the place.
These can be found in United Nations reports addressed to the Secretary General. A second batch can be found in US Foreign Relations Committee reports on Zimbabwe. These are sometimes juicy.
For instance, Brother Owen Mudha Ncube, Provincial Minister in the Midlands is mentioned in various reports as a carrier and runner for higher ups in the underground gold mafia trade. The Senators seem to enjoy picking on the brother. He is accused of running a machete gang and destroying the equipment of Gaika Mines, a 100-year-old mining outfit.
I came across a letter by former vice president Joice Mujuru in which she says that the Chiadzwa Diamond fields concessions were allocated three ways, one to Mugabe who employed a Chinese Company, the second concession to General Mujuru and the third concession to the police.
Since these three groups make up the totality of Zimbabwe’s law enforcement and given the fact that there was an airport there, this explains the missing US$10 billion in tax revenues.
In the Zimbabwe parliamentary reports under the Committee on Mines led by Edward Chindori Chininga (1955-2013) a cheque of US$100 million is mentioned by the Chinese Diamond Company. That cheque was intercepted and did not reach Ministry of Finance.
Chindori-Chininga was told in no uncertain terms- “Iwe Edward, things will not go well for you if you continue to pursue this matter.”
Chininga’s death was attributed to a vehicle accident. The vehicle shown by police was not the one in which he was traveling.
In a letter by the United Nations General Secretary, April 2001, among others, certain Zimbabweans are mentioned in the looting of precious minerals in the Congo.
Mukuru, then Minister of Justice is mentioned by name, as are General Vitalis Zvinavashe, Job Wabira in the transfer of “two of MIBA;s richest concessions, the kimberlite deposits in Tshishuba and the alluvial deposits in the Senga Senga River to (Zimbabwean companies) Orynx, Zimcom, and Cosleg together creating Sengamines.” ( Para 160-161)
Billy Rautenbach and John Bredenkamp (d 2020) were the facilitators in the Congo looting.
While these facts may be correct, the report seems to underplay the role in the looting of minerals by the mother of and father of these mafia companies, Glencoe, and Anglo-American.
Therefore, the information is cooked to make blacks more evil than their counterparts.
Brother Kuda Tagwirei is mentioned as the sanction’s buster par excellence. Nothing can be further from the truth. Note that Nick Oppenheimer of Anglo American is missing from the narrative.
In any case, his righteous acts of mercy, kindness and grace among the saints in Zimbabwe and in his Seventh Day Church are never mentioned. This applies to Uganda and Rwanda whose complicity in mineral looting in the Congo gold is mentioned in passing.
- Ken Mufuka is a Zimbabwean patriot. His book, Life and Tikes of Robert Mugabe, 1980-2017: A dream betrayed: is available from Innov Bookstores in Zimbabwe.
