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Zimbabwe: Sanctions and Solidarity
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Apr 18, 2010 (100418)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"In the case of Zimbabwe today, both supporters and opponents of
sanctions exaggerate their importance. The international community,
both global and regional, has other tools as well. Key issues are
not only when to lift or relax sanctions but also how much support
Western countries will provide for economic recovery. Even more
decisive will be whether Zimbabwe's African neighbors can
strengthen their diplomacy by backing it with effective pressures,
even if they hesitate to use the word sanctions." - Briggs Bomba
and William Minter
The debate about Zimbabwe's political crisis and the role of the
international community is contentious and confusing, making it
difficult to sort out reality from rhetorical smoke and mirrors.
This is particularly true of the sanctions question. But in fact it
is impossible to seriously discuss sanctions without sorting out
the details, what measures are actually in place and what specific
effects they have or should have.
If the international community, both in Southern Africa and around
the world, is to play a constructive role in Zimbabwe's crisis, it
is essential to shift the debate away from simply for or against
Mugabe or for or against sanctions. It's clearly time for
systematic review of sanctions and other policies, taking account
of changing realities and the actual record of policy
implementation.
This article, co-published with Pambazuka News and Foreign Policy
in Focus, appeared in Pambazuka News on April 15. A version of the
article will appear in Foreign Policy in Focus (http://www.fpif.org) this coming week.
[For an earlier article debunking the claims of significant effects from Zimbabwe sanctions,
see the discussion by Patrick Bond at http://links.org.au/node/815
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Zimbabwe, see
http://www.africafocus.org/country/zimbabwe.php
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Zimbabwe: Demystifying sanctions and strengthening solidarity
by Briggs Bomba and William Minter
Pambazuka News 2010-04-15, Issue 477
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63708
[Briggs Bomba, a Zimbabwean civil society activist, is director of
campaigns for Africa Action. William Minter is the editor of
AfricaFocus Bulletin. Both Bomba and Minter recently visited
Zimbabwe.]
In debates about Zimbabwe's political crisis and the role of the
international community, it is difficult to sort out reality from
rhetorical smoke and mirrors, write Briggs Bomba and William
Minter. The current debate on 'sanctions' is a classic example:
There is much strong language for and against, but rarely do
debaters bother to say which measures are actually in place and
what specific effects they have or should have.
The fact that sanctions on Zimbabwe have been imposed only by
Western powers has undermined their international legitimacy,
despite the well-documented violations of democratic rights that
are used to justify them. Zimbabwe's civil society has been divided
on whether sanctions are appropriate measures. President Mugabe and
his defenders have even contended that sanctions as such are
illegal as well as illegitimate. Others, including many who support
sanctions in this case, have rightly pointed to the fact that
Western countries have not imposed similar sanctions on other
regimes guilty of similar offences.
But 'sanctions' can refer to a wide variety of international
measures penalizing certain actions in order to alter behavior. Any
country has the sovereign right to determine its foreign policy
towards another country, according to its own laws, with the
sanctions option occupying the middle ground between diplomacy and
war. Whether such measures are seen as legitimate and are effective
in achieving results cannot be answered without paying attention to
the details. It's long past time for those concerned with the
future of Zimbabwe to take a step back from the current debate and
look at what measures are in place, how they are implemented, and
what impact they have on the democratization process.
It is also essential to understand sanctions as only one among
several policy tools. In the case of Zimbabwe today, both
supporters and opponents of sanctions exaggerate their importance.
The international community, both global and regional, has other
tools as well. Key issues are not only when to lift or relax
sanctions but also how much support Western countries will provide
for economic recovery. Even more decisive will be whether
Zimbabwe's African neighbors can strengthen their diplomacy by
backing it with effective pressures, even if they hesitate to use
the word 'sanctions.'
Zimbabwe Sanctions in Practice
The current sanctions, justified by supporters as increasing
pressure on President Robert Mugabe and his colleagues to cease
human rights abuses and remove other blockages to democratization
in the country, differ in several respects from previous sanctions
against the white-minority regimes in Rhodesia and South Africa.
They are aimed at abuses by a specific political faction rather
than at a system entrenched for generations. And they are
explicitly defined as limited and 'targeted' rather than as
comprehensive.
Even so, today's debate resembles previous debates in featuring a
wide gap between rhetoric and reality. Thus Great Britain and the
entire United Nations imposed presumably comprehensive sanctions on
white-minority Rhodesia after its Unilateral Declaration of
Independence in 1965. But British and other world leaders clearly
understood that strategic components of sanctions, such as the ban
on oil imports, were being undermined by South Africa, by the
Portuguese colonial regime in Mozambique, and even by British oil
companies. Sanctions against Rhodesia became a decisive factor only
after 1975, when Mozambique became independent and closed its
transit routes to Rhodesia. And it was in part the tacit threat of
sanctions from South Africa as well that finally induced Ian Smith
to enter into negotiations for transition to majority rule (see
William Minter and Elizabeth Schmidt, 'When Sanctions Worked: The
Case of Rhodesia Reexamined,' in African Affairs, April 1988 -
http://www.africafocus.org/editor/aa1988.php).
In effect, the sanctions then were labeled as comprehensive, but
were actually not comprehensive. Today's sanctions are labeled as
targeted. But no one, not even the governments that have adopted
sanctions, seems to have investigated to what extent they are
actually hitting the intended targets or having much effect at all.
No government has imposed comprehensive trade or investment
sanctions on Zimbabwe, comparable to those that anti-apartheid
activists demanded, and partially achieved, against the South
African apartheid regime, or to those that the United States still
imposes on Cuba. Yet hard-line supporters of President Mugabe try
to give such an impression, claiming that the existing measures
have massive negative effects on the Zimbabwean economy. In fact,
the European Union and the United States are still among Zimbabwe's
largest trading partners. EU-Zimbabwe trade totaled some US$561
million in 2008, the last year for which full statistics are
available, second only to the dominant role of South Africa with
US$2,650 million in trade with Zimbabwe. China followed with US$267
million and the United States with US$197 million.
Sanctions supporters, however, have not effectively challenged the
misleading impression that sanctions are comprehensive, failing to
explain clearly the measures in place. Trying to change the
terminology by referring to 'restrictive measures' has only added
to the confusion. The governments imposing sanctions, happy to take
political credit for taking action on Zimbabwe, are conspicuously
uninterested in explaining how or whether the measures are working.
In addition to prohibitions on arms sales, the limited measures in
place include asset freezes and travel bans targeted at specific
individuals and the companies owned by them. The European Union,
for example, cites 'persons who bear a wide responsibility for
serious violations of human rights and of the freedom of opinion,
of association, and of peaceful assembly.' The US Zimbabwe
Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001 (ZDERA), calling for
measures later implemented by President George W. Bush, specified
'individuals responsible for the deliberate breakdown of the rule
of law, politically motivated violence, and intimidation in
Zimbabwe.'
Implementation of these measures, however, have been neither
transparent nor precisely targeted. As of March 2010, the list of
persons targeted by EU sanctions included 197 individuals and 31
companies, after six individuals and nine companies were removed
from the list in February. The US list, last updated in November
2008, included 132 individuals and 54 companies. One can, with some
difficulty, locate these lists on the web (see http://www.africafocus.org/docs10/zim1002.php for links to start
with). But there is no documentation explaining the process for
deciding on additions or deletions from the lists, and no
explanation of the reasons a particular person or company is on the
lists. The credibility is not enhanced by the fact that the lists,
from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand as well as from the US and
EU, do not coincide with each other.
Some of those on the lists are appropriate targets of sanctions,
such as President Robert Mugabe himself, or officials well-known to
be directly responsible for violence, such as war veteran leader
Joseph Chinotimba, Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, and
Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander Constantine Chiwenga. But others
clearly should not be there, such as former minister of health
Timothy Stamps, who is on the EU list even though he retired in
2002. Stamps was responsible for the innovative and successful
Zimbabwean health policies of the 1980s and early 1990s, before the
system was devastated by cuts imposed by the Mugabe government at
the insistence of international financial institutions. Also
questionable additions to the EU list are people like Peter
Chingoka, whose management of Zimbabwe cricket may be dubious on
multiple grounds, but who can hardly be considered responsible for
politically motivated violence. And including journalists, such as
Judith Makwanya of Zimbabwe Broadcasting and Caesar Zvayi, of The
Herald, however sycophantic their support of the regime, hardly
seems consistent with advocacy of freedom of the press.
Some names, such as that of former cabinet secretary Charles Utete,
who retired in 2003, seem to be on the list simply because of their
continued association with Zanu PF. In fact the lists seem to be
have been compiled to include all prominent government and party
officials, without bothering to document their involvement in human
rights abuses or opposition to democracy. Even if such a broad
targeting mechanism were appropriate at one time, which is
doubtful, it became clearly inappropriate with the establishment of
the government of national unity over a year ago, in February 2009.
There are many flaws in implementation of the agreement forming
that government, and there are Zanu PF hardliners determined to
sabotage it. But it is counter-productive to indiscriminately
identify all Zanu PF officials as complicit in those actions.
In 2008, a new executive order by President G. W. Bush, renewed in
March of 2009 and 2010 by President Obama, made sanctions more
inflexible, referring not only to persons meeting the original
criteria, but to 'senior officials of the Government of Zimbabwe,'
as well as to state-owned companies. The results have included
blockage of assistance to companies such as Agribank and ZB Bank,
which supply financing for Zimbabwe's small-scale farmers. And even
though many officials of the current unity government have not been
added to the US list, the wording of the executive order still
reflects a counter-productive rigidity in Washington policy
circles. When Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangarai's delegation met
with President Obama in June 2009, for example, Zimbabwe's minister
of tourism Walter Mzembi, an advocate for reform within Zanu PF,
was barred from the meeting, even though he is not on the US
sanctions list.
This less than discriminate 'targeting' undermines the credibility
of the sanctions in Zimbabwe and the Southern African region, and
casts doubt on the motives of the countries implementing the
sanctions. In practical terms, the targets can easily evade serious
consequences by doing their business in South Africa or in Asian
countries. The failure to evoke the sanction of regional public
opinion by an open process significantly weakens the impact of the
measures, allowing defenders of Zanu PF to dominate the debate.
Instead of changing behavior, poorly implemented and poorly
explained sanctions provide Zanu PF with a convenient scapegoat to
divert attention from their failure to implement agreements.
In addition to the targeted sanctions against individual persons
and companies, the 2001 ZDERA act by the US Congress mandates US
votes against loans or debt cancellation for Zimbabwe by
international financial institutions (IFI), such as the IMF, the
World Bank, and the African Development Bank, unless the president
determines that Zimbabwe has met conditions including return to the
rule of law, or waives this provision.
Since the formation of the unity government, relations between
Zimbabwe and the IFI have thawed but remain strained and restricted
by Western governments' policies. Significantly, the IMF has
restored Zimbabwe voting rights and granted a US$510 million
support facility for economic crisis, while the World Bank is
managing a multi-donor fund to support recovery.
In this new era of the unity government, despite its faults, there
is no justification for continuing political restrictions on IFI
dealings with Zimbabwe, such as those stated in US legislation.
These institutions instead need to work constructively with the
energetic efforts led by Zimbabwe's finance minister Tendai Biti to
turn around the economy and bring relief to long-suffering
Zimbabweans. Relief for international debt of almost US$6 billion,
said to be depressing economic growth rates to a third of its
potential, is fundamental to the sustainability of economic reforms
and development efforts. An official audit of the debt and a new
framework for debt contraction and management are essential. As
civil society activists have long demanded, for Zimbabwe and other
African countries, this should be based on transparency and
accountability, including identification of illegitimate debts,
rather than rigid application of IFI frameworks.
There are real issues in the relationship between Zimbabwe and
international financial institutions. The 1990 structural
adjustment program, supposedly home-grown but crafted along
standard World Bank lines, impacted negatively on social services
and the economy more generally, sparking social struggles and
eroding Mugabe's legitimacy in the eyes of Zimbabweans. While Zanu
PF must take responsibility for the economic mismanagement,
corruption and political repression that followed, international
financial institutions share the blame for launching Zimbabwe's
spiral of decline from its status as a model for the region. As
with other African countries, the relationship of Zimbabwe with the
IMF and World Bank is problematic. But these issues should not be
confused by conflating them with the distinct issues of removing
obstacles to political democratization.
Finally, the confusion between comprehensive and targeted sanctions
seems to have had effects in incidents apparently based on
misunderstanding. Thus, a US company reportedly justified refusal
to allow software downloads to a student at Africa University, in
Zimbabwe, because of sanctions, and Harvard University reportedly
gave a similar justification for denying financial support to a
student from Zimbabwe. Such incidents indicate a spill-over effect
of sanctions beyond the intended targets, and strengthen the case
for a comprehensive review.
From Targeted Sanctions to Targeted Support for Recovery
As of this writing, in early April 2010, the future of the
democratization process in Zimbabwe remains highly uncertain,
despite some recent positive developments such as appointment of
independent commissions on human rights, elections, and the media.
Despite renewed mediation efforts by the Southern African
Development Community (SADC), now led by South African President
Jacob Zuma, there remains a stalemate on 'outstanding issues.' Zanu
PF hardliners are still resisting sharing authority with MDC
officials in the government. Most significantly, while day-to-day
political violence has dramatically reduced, the potential for more
violence remains given the fact that the culture of impunity has
not been dealt with systematically. There has been no progress at
all on security reform. With new elections predicted for next year,
most likely without completion of a new constitution, the capacity
to ramp up repression - and the will to do so - remain intact.
In this context, 'lifting' sanctions on hardliners who continue to
impede progress would be a mistake. It would be seen as a signal of
impunity for future as well as past abuses. But keeping the current
list as is would also be a mistake, based on and reinforcing the
incorrect premise that Zanu PF should be regarded as homogeneous.
Current sanctions, which do not take account of such realities,
should be reviewed and refocused, with more precise targeting and
consistent implementation.
Those sanctions that remain after the review should be matched with
equally prominent policy measures to support economic and social
recovery in Zimbabwe, as well as continuing support of civil
society. Supporters of sanctions should actively encourage input by
Zimbabwean and African civil society into the review process. They
should also urge Southern African governments to consider parallel
if not identical measures for effective pressure to remove
obstacles to democratization.
Given the defects of current sanctions, and in the light of the
changed circumstances since the formation of the unity government
in 2009, a systematic review is clearly required. Such a review,
including all the countries that have adopted sanctions, should
include a detailed evaluation of the criteria for inclusion on an
agreed list of targets, investigation of the reasons for including
specific persons and companies, and transparent and wide disclosure
about the process and the results. The intended effect should not
only be more credible implementation. It should also be aimed at
gaining more support from Zimbabwean and international public
opinion, with convincing documentation for every name included on
the list.
The resulting list would certainly have fewer names. But, if
strategically managed, it could have greater impact. It should
include a procedure for appeal by affected parties and be updated
regularly, with a process for tracking implementation and a
mechanism for relevant additions and deletions reflecting new
developments. The current list, for example, does not reflect the
rapid growth and strategic importance of the diamond industry in
eastern Zimbabwe, accompanied by well-documented human rights
abuses by the Zimbabwean military, as well as corruption and
illegality in assignment of contracts. Two South African companies
established in collaboration with former Zimbabwean military
officers (Mbada Diamonds and Canadile Mining) were awarded new
mining rights in 2009 and are embroiled in controversy both in
Zimbabwe and South Africa. Yet there is apparently no process for
investigating whether or not they should be added to the sanctions
lists.
A policy based on sanctions alone, however well targeted, would be
fatally flawed. There must also be strong and well publicized
positive measures to meet humanitarian needs and to support
economic and social recovery ('humanitarian plus'). In fact this is
now the official policy of Zimbabwe's 'donors,' including those
countries imposing sanctions. But the consolidated UN appeal for
2009, calling for US$722 million for critical needs, raised only
65% of the total required. The 2010 appeal, released in November
2009 and calling for US$378 million, had raised only US$12 million
by late March 2010, despite positive reports from the previous year
on collaboration between donors, private agencies, and
working-level Zimbabwean government officials.
While this gap can partly be explained by slow budget and
disbursement processes, it also contradicts the donors' own
judgment that support is 'time critical.' Donor countries should
urgently give much greater priority to substantive action with
immediate effects to support both humanitarian and development
needs in Zimbabwe.
Continued support from Western countries for Zimbabwe's civil
society and democratization process, moreover, should be
transparent, with clear goals linked to protection of the rule of
law and the democratic process. Criticism from Zanu PF hardliners
is inevitable, of course. But Western governments should take
maximum care to ensure that their grants as well as their sanctions
are targeted on the basis of clearly defined principles rather than
partisan political goals.
Southern Africa must Take Primary Responsibility for Action
Actions by Western countries may have some influence. But it is
Southern Africa, and particularly South Africa, that is the most
decisive component of the international community for the future of
Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's neighbors, particularly South Africa and
Botswana, are the most severely impacted by the ongoing crisis in
Zimbabwe. South Africa hosts the largest number of Zimbabwean
refugees, estimated by independent researchers to number over a
million. The political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe, accompanied
by xenophobic violence against refugees in South Africa, is the
major threat to peace in the Southern African region.
To their credit, the countries of the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) have been engaged in ongoing diplomatic efforts to
resolve the crisis, with the Global Political Agreement (GPA)
leading to the formation of the unity government last year the most
notable accomplishment. SADC, with South Africa in the lead, is the
guarantor of this agreement. South Africa, Zimbabwe's leading
trading partner, has greater economic leverage than any other
country. Yet while Western countries have overemphasized largely
ineffective sanctions, South Africa and its SADC partners have also
faltered, failing to ensure full implementation of the GPA. The
impact of diplomacy has repeatedly been undermined by a stance of
'see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil,' carried over from
the period of President Thabo Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy.'
Almost one year into the presidency of Jacob Zuma in South Africa,
policy remains hobbled by the lack of a plan B to deal with Zanu PF
intransigence. Hopes aroused by the latest round of mediation have
been dashed. SADC leaders are well aware that it is President
Mugabe and his colleagues who are holding up progress, as they were
well aware of the waves of state-sponsored violence, which reached
their height during the 2008 election crisis. In private, SADC
officials are often vocal in their criticism of Zanu (PF). Before
he was president, Zuma himself publicly rebuked Mugabe for failing
to step down. But in public, with the exception of Botswana's
President Ian Khama, SADC leaders have failed to bring public
pressure to bear for Zimbabwe's leaders to implement their
commitments. Strikingly, President Zuma has even undermined his own
diplomacy by echoing the talking points of Robert Mugabe.
As mediators in Zimbabwe, SADC leaders do have to avoid
unproductive rhetoric, and South Africa has to avoid the image of
a regional bully. But diplomacy without real pressure loses
credibility. When diplomacy is thwarted, failure to strengthen it
with other options not only evades the region's responsibility to
Zimbabwe. It also endangers the stability and damages the
reputation of the entire region.
The unity government has resulted in real progress in Zimbabwe,
mitigating the decade-long political and economic crisis. Political
violence is reduced and the economy is improved. But these changes
will not be sustainable unless constitutional reform is completed
and unless fundamental political change is protected from the
threat of violence from an unreformed security sector. Just as
Western governments need to think beyond relying primarily on
sanctions, so SADC governments need to think creatively beyond
exclusive reliance on 'quiet' diplomacy.
This does not imply, as defenders of 'quiet diplomacy' often argue,
shifting to the opposite extreme of 'megaphone diplomacy' or
intrusive intervention by the mediators. But continuing mediation
could be strengthened if SADC governments were also willing to be
proactive in building public support for the goals of respect for
human rights, the rule of law, and the illegitimacy of political
violence to intimidate political opponents and other critics. In
particular, it is important to provide encouragement to the new
human rights, electoral, and media commissions.
South African and other SADC leaders can also help focus the
spotlight on abuses. In effect, although new elections may come
next year or later, Zimbabwe is already in a 'pre-election' period.
SADC preparation should begin now, making use of existing SADC
standards, rather than waiting until increased violence is
imminent. More broadly, the tone of debates in South Africa in
particular can influence parallel debates in Zimbabwe. A case in
point is the current debate on indigenization, where a new proposal
to require 51 per cent Zimbabwean ownership of companies raises
real issues of economic inequality but also provides ample
opportunity for elite corruption, demagogic rhetoric and
extra-legal actions.
There are also other formal mechanisms, such as the Kimberley
Process (KP) for diamond certification, which may significantly
affect the resources available to 'securocrat' hardliners. SADC
governments, which have leading roles in this internationally
mandated process, should insist that this process go beyond
technical details to fundamental issues of human rights and
corruption. Abbey Chikane, the former chairman of South Africa's
Diamond Board, is currently investigating Zimbabwe diamonds as the
KP monitor. Whether or not he certifies the diamonds from Marange,
and on what grounds, will be a key indicator of whether SADC is
willing to use the leverage it has to promote accountability in
Zimbabwe.
Conclusion
Despite unresolved 'outstanding issues' and inconsistencies of
implementation, the unity government in Zimbabwe has created a new
context which requires the rethinking of strategies by all those
concerned with the future of that country. In the international
community, Western governments should review sanctions and stress
positive measures as well. African governments and international
organizations, including the African Union as well as SADC, should
find ways to add muscle to their diplomatic interventions. Both
should pay attention to civil society and the structural
requirements for democratization rather than focusing only on
political parties, involving a wide range of voices in reviewing
their policies towards the crisis.
Such policy reviews could give an opportunity for convergence
between Western and African governments in support of the
democratic process in Zimbabwe. Realistically, however, solidarity
activists should not expect more than incremental changes from
their governments. Activist groups both in Southern Africa and
around the world, including Zimbabwean diaspora groups, should also
take their own initiatives.
Dockworkers around the region set a precedent for vigorous action
in 2008, when they refused to unload an arms shipment from China to
Zimbabwe in 2008, sparking support from broader civil society.
Given how the public debate on Zimbabwe is still dominated by
outdated and simplistic stereotypes, groups in Southern Africa and
internationally should give priority to highlighting the
achievements of the unity government as well as exposing continuing
obstacles to democracy and economic recovery. Only a visible boost
in people-to-people solidarity is likely to lead governments, from
Pretoria to London and Washington, to adopt more effective
policies.
The primary responsibility lies with the internal efforts of
Zimbabwean democratic forces. But their chances of success will
depend on whether those outside, both Zimbabwean and others, also
take their responsibilities seriously.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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