Rutendo Benson Matinyarare is a renowned Zimbabwean anti-sanctions strategist who is the Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Anti-Sanctions Movement (ZASM) and founder of Zimbabweans Unite Against US War Sanctions (ZUAUWS).

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His anti-sanctions work is driven by his position as a brand architect, marketing strategist, and CEO of a through-the-line marketing and brand consultancy known as Frontline Strat Marketing Consultancy.

 

Rutendo has been in marketing for over 25 years and has developed the knack of telling a good story to nullify negative sentiment and to raise awareness for complex issues. He is a fellow of the Institute of Marketing Management of South Africa alongside the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK), and a PRINCE2 Project Management Practitioner who can make unpopular issues mainstream, without a budget, as he has done with sanctions on Zimbabwe.

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Over the past 3 years, this patriotic Zimbabwean has been an integral part of Zimbabwe’s fight against US, UK, and EU sanctions on the country, after convincing the government to depoliticize its fight against this economic war by launching a national, regional, and continental legal, multilateral, and publicity campaign against these crimes against humanity.

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Through an aggressive social media drive and endless proposals to the government, he also pressured the Parliament of Zimbabwe to enact the Patriotic Act, or the recent amendment to the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Act in 2023, to punish unpatriotic citizens who collaborate with foreign governments to call for sanctions and attack their country, in contravention of their constitutional responsibilities.

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Additionally, his public narrative on how US, EU, and UK sanctions are persecution—and thus crimes against humanity that should be challenged in multilateral bodies and international courts—saw the US Congress Senior Advisor contacting him in May 2021 to seek clarity on his organisation’s position. Rutendo gladly articulated the illegality of the sanctions and the culpability of the US government for not undertaking any impact assessments of their sanctions on human rights in Zimbabwe over the 20 years since their inception, to mitigate the impact of their sanctions on civilians.

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A month after Rutendo speaking to Congress [in July 2021], for the first time in 20 years [since imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe], the US Congress Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Global Human Rights, Health and Organization, led by Karen Bass, approached POLAD (Political Actors Dialogue) to inform them that they would be undertaking an impact assessment of their sanctions to see how they were impacting civilian human rights and health, not only in Zimbabwe but across Africa. The intention of the subcommittee was to mitigate and eliminate the impact of sanctions on civilians, as Rutendo had requested.

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The same day that POLAD received the communiqué from Congress, members of their anti-sanctions committee contacted Rutendo to ask him to assist them to compile a report on the impact US sanctions have on Zimbabwean human rights and health. The culmination of this exercise was that the Congress subcommittee wrote a report to Joe Biden asking him to remove the executive order sanctions on Zimbabwe because they were hurting civilians.

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In addition, at about the same time, Rutendo Matinyarare and the Minister of Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Ziyambi Ziyambi, convinced the United Nations Human Rights Council to come and do an impact assessment on the negative effects of sanctions on Zimbabwe. This saw the Special Rapporteur for the negative impact of sanctions, Alena Douhan, denouncing sanctions on Zimbabwe as illegal and depriving Zimbabwean civilians of the enjoyment of their human rights.

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With the release of the UN report on the negative impact of sanctions on Zimbabwe, Rutendo, as Chairman of the Zimbabwe Anti-Sanctions Movement, led the organisation in instituting a court application in the Gauteng High Court in South Africa, for a declaratory order, that would make it illegal for South African financial institutions, companies, and third parties to implement illegal unilateral sanctions. As part of the strategy, ZASM cited the US President, the Secretary of State, the head of OFAC, and the Speaker of Congress. This then led to the South African Department of International Affairs being mandated to deliver these papers to their US government counterparts to push that government to respond to the case in South African courts. In the process, the South African government read these papers and was convinced about the merit of our fight against US sanctions, which turned them into leading the fight against US and Western sanctions on Zimbabwe.

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In turn, after 13 months, the US Presidency was forced to respond to the court application through a diplomatic note in which they notified the court and the South African department of internation relations that under international law that South African courts had no jurisdiction over a US President. The note went further to say that the US President would claim immunity. This response brought the US President to the level that Rutendo had hoped to bring him, as now ZASM responsed by challenging the US President's immunity when he was coercing South African comapnies to break international law and South African law to implement illegal US sanctions on the threat of prosecution, confisacatin of assets and other punitive measures. 

 

Four days after ZASM submitted its response to the US diplomatic note to the court, on the 4th of March 2024, the US President removed executive order sanctions on Zimbabwe. Soon after, the Europeans and British also removed all their sanctions on Zimbabwe and its officials. Now Zimbabwean goods have duty-free access into the EU, and Zimbabweans can obtain loans, financial services, and purchase machines and tools from the EU without hindrance, unlike during sanctions.

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Using his competencies as a TV presenter on SABC for Africa Within, Walk the Plank, and his current program Telling The Good Zimbabwe Story, Rutendo used his communication skills to create awareness about the sanctions on Zimbabwe. This successfully exposed the illegality of Western sanctions on Zimbabwe and, by so doing, got the UN, the US Congress, and SADC to measure the impact of these sanctions on Zimbabwe, and to denounce them. This gave rise to an opportunity for ZASM to embarrass the US President by dragging him through African courts to hold him accountable for perpetuating crimes against humanity upon Zimbabweans. And just to prove the efficacy of the strategy, the US President was brought down to a common man's level when he was pressured into responding to the South African courts, giving ZASM and opportunity to challenge his claim for immunity while violating human rights.

 

Rutendo even managed to get SADC countries marching against these illegal sanctions every 25th of October since 2019, resulting in SADC and AU leaders making it a point to demand the removal of these illegal Western measures at every multilateral gathering. All this, in the end, proved too much for the US government, leading them to remove sanctions on Zimbabwe in order to save face.

 

Just this week of the 18th of September, 2025, the US Congress has proposed a Bill titled H.R.5800 or The Department of State Policy Provisions Act which is proposing repealing the ZDERA Act that the Congress enacted to ask the US President to impose executive order sanctions on Zimbabweans.

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This is a testament to Rutendo's integrated strategy and execution, which compelled the US government to remove its illegal sanctions on a country [Zimbabwe] without the country capitulating to US policy dictates, being invaded, or suffering regime change.

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