US Imposes Fresh Sanctions on Zimbabwe President and Other Leaders
The US has imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa for corruption and human rights abuses.
As well as Mr. Mnangagwa, the US also sanctioned 10 other people and three businesses.
Those on the list include First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, and Defence Minister Oppah Muchinguri.
Various other senior security officials, including members of Zimbabwe’s National Police and Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), are also targeted – as are businesspeople found to have facilitated state corruption.
The new sanctions replace a broader program that was introduced two decades ago.
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A spokesman for the Zimbabwean Government, Nick Mnangagwa, described the lifting of the old sanctions program as a great vindication of President Mnangagwa’s foreign policy and called the new tariffs illegal.
Farai Muroiwa Marapira, a spokesman for Mr Mnangagwa’s ruling Zanu PF party said the president’s policy of being a friend to all and an enemy to none and having our doors open to all has yielded bittersweet results.
If the president, the first lady, and senior officials remain sanctioned then Zimbabwe remains sanctioned and burdened by this illegality, he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The US first imposed economic and travel sanctions on Zimbabwe in the early 1990s – targeting then President Robert Mugabe and dozens of other high-ranking government officials, whom Washington accused of undermining democracy in the country.
Various countries including the UK and European Union members have also placed sanctions on Zimbabwe.
President Mnangagwa, who was sworn in for a second term as the country’s last year, has in the past blamed the economic tariffs for crippling development in the country.
