MONITORING DESK
ANKARA: The United States (US) imposed sanctions on four Zimbabweans nationals, including President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s son.
In a statement, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury said that the department had designated two Zimbabwean entities and four Zimbabwean individuals and removed 17 Zimbabweans from the Blocked Persons and Specially Designated Nationals List.
The Zimbabwe President’s son’s name was placed on the sanctions list, as was the immediate family member of the Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Corruption charges against Zimbabwe’s president
The recent sanctions targets “abusers of human rights and those who facilitate corruption or undermine democratic processes,” the statement said. It said that the US sanctions do not target the Zimbabwean people, the country of Zimbabwe, or Zimbabwe’s banking sector.
“We ask the government of Zimbabwe to take realistic and meaningful measures towards creating a politically vibrant, peaceful, and prosperous Zimbabwe and to address the basic causes of several ills of Zimbabwe: corrupt elites and how they abuse the country’s institutions for their own personal benefit,” Treasury Brian Nelson, US Under Secretary said in the statement.
“The goal of sanctions is behavior change. These actions show our support for a prosperous and transparent Zimbabwe,” Nelson said. The announcement came a day before some fifty African leaders were due to meet in Washington for a summit.
