Online Reporter
Elliot Ziwira
At the Bookstore
The heritage manual “Fulfilling the Promise: Zimbabwe from Munhumutapa to the Second Republic” goes beyond recounting history, becoming a mirror in which Zimbabweans can see the full sweep of their past and reimagine their future.
The book merges precolonial statecraft, colonial displacement, land reforms, and post-colonial challenges. It places special emphasis on the devastating impact of economic sanctions imposed by Western powers, particularly through instruments like the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA), and charts how Zimbabwe has worked to deliver in spite of isolation.
In light of recent moves in the United States Congress, the themes of the book have gained new meaning.
With a foreword by President Mnangagwa, the book traces Zimbabwe’s history from Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe, through the Mutapa State, the First and Second Chimurengas, the Fast Track Land Reform Programme of the 2000s, and post-colonial achievements under the Second Republic.
What makes it stand out, however, is its interrogation of sanctions—their genealogy, their impact, and Zimbabwe’s determination to rise above them.
It opens with an Afrocentric restoration of memory, countering narratives that Africa was “pre¬-history” until European intervention. It brings back the grandeur of Munhumutapa, Great Zimbabwe, the Rozvi, Torwa, and Mutapa states, not only as relics but as living legacies of statecraft, morality, land as material and spiritual foundation, and communal values.
Land emerges as central for its productive value, and how it embodies heritage. Tangibles of heritage, like property and the means of production, and intangibles such as spiritual connection, moral codes, and ancestral memory are all embodied in the land.
Colonial and neocolonial structures—Lippert and Rudd Concessions, the Lancaster House Constitution—sought to alienate land and heritage from its rightful owners. The post-2000 Fast Track Land Reform Programme is the dramatic rupture meant to reclaim that heritage, even as it triggered a severe reaction in sanctions.
“Fulfilling the Promise” traces Zimbabwe’s exposure to sanctions from the 1960s onwards; sanctions under Rhodesia, later US and EU measures after 2000, especially following the land reform programme.
ZDERA (2001) becomes the structural frame through which the US sought to block credits, loans, foreign investment, all in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.
The consequences, as the manual and scholars like Dr Geoffrey Chada and Chidiebere C. Ogbonna emphasise, are severe.
These include loss of billions in revenue, donor flows, commercial and multilateral loans; degraded access to foreign exchange and markets. On social welfare, healthcare, education, potable water, quality standards of living, were all hampered by constraints on funds, trade, and investment.
On the economic front, inflation, economic instability, exclusion from many other forms of financial support were major setbacks.
Yet, despite all that, Zimbabwe has achieved noteworthy milestones.
Over the last five years, especially under Second Republic, the Government pressed forward with policies aimed at infrastructure, agriculture, reindustrialisation, and social programmes—even while facing diplomatic isolation and restricted financial flows.
This resilience is central to the book’s message that external pressure cannot permanently suppress a people determined to own their future.
Curiously, earlier in 2024, the US made a significant shift. It terminated a broad Zimbabwe-specific sanctions programme under emergency powers but reimposed targeted sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, focusing on individuals alleged to be responsible for corruption or human rights abuses; key officials, and certain business entities.
This stance reflected acknowledgment that blanket sanctions had often harmed ordinary Zimbabweans more than reform-minded actors. It also anchored US policy more explicitly in human rights enforcement rather than wholesale economic coercion.
The book’s narrative of how sanctions “rob the citizen of dignity” comes alive here. While policy modalities are shifting, the question of impact remains.
Recently, the US Congress, more specifically Republicans, has introduced a bill to amend US foreign policy toward Zimbabwe, proposing the removal of longstanding targeted sanctions under ZDERA. The bill is part of the Department of State Policy Provisions Act, among other legislative initiatives.
Key provisions of this proposed act include immediate removal of targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe, which have been in place for over 20 years; and enabling Zimbabwe to borrow from international financial institutions, like the World Bank, if certain conditions are met.
One such condition is settlement of the country’s debt under the Global Compensation Deed, that is, payments owed to white former commercial farmers displaced by land reform, with inflation adjustment, and within a specified timeframe.
There are also conditions against using “Zimbabwe‐issued securities” for those payments, which the bill rejects.
The Global Compensation Deed, negotiated by the Second Republic with the former landowners, recognises that full compensation will be paid for all improvements on land, and not for the land itself.
If Zimbabwe fails to meet these obligations after the lifting of sanctions, the bill allows US support for lending to be withdrawn.
If passed, this bill would represent a significant turn, which is moving from punitive sanctions toward conditional engagement, tied to reparations and reform, especially around the land compensation question.
It is here that the new motion aligns with and challenges “Fulfilling the Promise”.
The Congressional motion aligns with several of the book’s foundational claims. First, the motion admits that land and reparations matter.
One of the biggest sticking points since independence, and highlighted in “Fulfilling the Promise”, is the question of land, its ownership, and compensation. The new bill anchors the removal of sanctions on settling the Global Compensation Deed. This legitimises the displaced farmers’ claims and gives legal weight to what the manual frames as ancestral heritage and injustice.
Second, the issue of targeted versus blanket sanctions also arises.
The book criticises sanctions for being “collective punishment.” On the other hand, the newer US policy and Congressional proposals reflect a move toward more narrowly aimed sanctions, rather than sweeping economic isolation.
This shift tends to vindicate the book’s argument that sanctions should not target ordinary citizens. The third point refers to reform and accountability.
The bill proposes that after sanctions removal, failure to follow through will cost Zimbabwe access to international lending. This puts stakes on accountability, echoing the insistence by “Fulfilling the Promise” that heritage and sovereignty are bound up with transparent institutions, justice, and good governance—not just land holding.
Fourth, historical continuity of external interference also matters for both the bill and the book.
The manual suggests that colonial-era treaties and conventions, like the Lancaster House Agreement, and modern sanctions are part of the same continuum of interference.
The Congressional motion arguably recognises that the old paradigm of withholding access to credit, loans, and international financial institutions, constrained Zimbabwe’s sovereignty. Hence, in this sense, the new proposal is a corrective.
However, the motion still leaves a lot unresolved. The proposed bill is not without its limitations and risks.
The book’s critique helps us see where gaps remain.
What immediately comes up is the issue of conditionality. Tying the lifting of sanctions to payment under the Global Compensation Deed may satisfy one justice demand, but not all.
It has to be realised that legality is not always just. It falters where social justice is concerned. Other spaces of freedom remain closed. The proposed bill appears to be vague on what constitute legality and justice.
Also, settling decades-old compensation, especially adjusted for inflation, is a heavy financial weight on Zimbabwe.
Two sticking questions remain: Does Zimbabwe have the fiscal space? Is the system in place to handle this fairly and effectively?
Furthermore, the bill includes a mechanism for withdrawing support if obligations are not met.
However, enforcement often proves tricky in diplomacy.
There’s a risk that reneging becomes politicised or used rhetorically.
Interestingly, sanctions, or their removal, are always leveraged domestically, both in the US and in Zimbabwe. There is a risk that political actors will use this motion for internal power struggles, or that non-governmental voices may become a factor, depending on how “reform” is defined or enforced.
While “Fulfilling the Promise” frames Zimbabwe’s story as one of reclaiming heritage — land, dignity, and home — from colonial and neocolonial hands, the new US Congressional motion marks a potential inflection point in that journey.
If enacted, the motion would signal that external forces are finally recognising that targeting citizens through trade, credit, and investment restrictions does more harm than good, and that reparations; material and symbolic, must be part of any equitable normalisation of international relations.
It also stresses that Zimbabwe’s challenge is not just to survive sanctions, but to use these openings to reinforce sovereignty, build accountable institutions, deliver on social welfare, and ensure that heritage is not merely reclaimed for the sake of politics but for the people’s livelihoods.
A close reading of “Fulfilling the Promise” reveals that the past is more than a historical fact. Indeed, the book is more than a historical training manual. Rather, it is a challenge; a call to understand how the past shapes the present, policy, and future.
The recent changes in American policy, particularly the Congressional motion to remove sanctions tethered to meaningful obligations, give fresh wind to this promise.
Nonetheless, fulfilment depends on more than external decisions.
It depends on Zimbabwe’s internal dynamics as well, considering the political genesis of the sanctions. The past, its wrongs, thefts, and dispossessions must be addressed, and not glossed over.
Yes, the sanctions story may be shifting. Whether it shifts enough, and in the right direction, remains to be seen. But now, at least, there is a moment, an opening, to align the promise with practice.
