HONORS THESIS COLLOQUIUM MACAULAY COLLEGE AT CUNY FALL 2010
FIRST SEMESTER DRAFT:
THE IMPACT OF SANCTIONS: The Case of Zimbabwe
By:
Charlesworth Mabheka: City College
Vincent Boudreau: Faculty Advisor
Professor Lee Quinby: Colloquium Director
“The land is ours. We shall feed all. Even the stooges and puppets will have enough.
No Zimbabwean should die of hunger”
Robert Mugabe, August 2002.
‘Half the land is in the hands of 250,000 settlers’
Robert Mugabe, 1976.
CONTENTS
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………3
Type of Sanctions ……………………………………………………………..…………………3
Background……………………………………………………………………………………….6
Settler Conquest and Colonization ……………………………………………………………..8
Zimbabwe Land Question in Historical Context …. …………….……………………………9
War of Liberation……………………………………………………………………………….12
Lancaster Agreement ………………………….……….………………………………………13
The Land Invasions……………………………………………………………………………..15
Sanctions and the Land Issue …………………………………………………………………16
Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA)…………………………….18
Targeting Zimbabwe, not Mugabe……………………………… ……………………………19
Public Health Crisis ……………………………………………………………………………22
Why Zimbabwe…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 26
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………26
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………33
Introduction
Since the establishment of the League Nations, economic sanctions have been an important tool of coercive influence (Cortright and Lopez, 2000). Questions about the usefulness of economic sanctions continue to trouble scholars and policymakers. It is important to think about sanctions as a two- level game to allow for examination of the domestic political factors that help coerce the decision- making processes on both sides of the sanctions equation – target and sender. It is important to note that when sanctions are applied, the sender demands a change in the behavior of the target. If sanctions are to succeed, the target government must concede to the demands of the sender. Britain, United States, and the European sanctions against Zimbabwe rekindled a heated international debate over the use of economic sanctions in pursuit of foreign policy goals. This debate continues to rage today in the context of proposals to lift up all the sanctions imposed on that landlocked southern African country. I explore the conditions that led to the imposition of sanctions in Zimbabwe. Next and perhaps central to the thesis, I examine the devastating impact of sanctions on Zimbabwe, and consider how they affected the population. To put these issues in perspective, I have delved in the rich history of Zimbabwe in order to identify circumstances in which economic sanctions can “succeed” in attaining their foreign policy goals without hurting the general innocent population. This study concentrates on three central questions: When the new government took over in 1980, in whose hands was most of the fertile land the manufacturing and mining sectors. As Hufbauer puts it, economic sanctions can contribute to the achievement of foreign policy goals, but only if used judiciously to reach carefully defined objectives. In most cases, sanctions are generally effective, and occasionally they backfire (Hufbauer 1958:28).The starting point of my analysis is to draw general lessons from Zimbabwe’s historical background, identify the economic and political circumstances in which sanctions against Zimbabwe were imposed. This paper begins with an examinations of the impositions of sanctions on Zimbabwe by the United Kingdom (UK), the European Union (EU) and the United States (U.S.) I conclude by noting that greater optimism regarding the effectiveness of sanctions should be balanced by a careful consideration of the policy’s real and protection of the “innocent bystanders “and vulnerable populations caught in the middle. First, I offer a background for understanding the different types of sanctions and the debate concerning the use of economic sanctions, and their impact on the people of Zimbabwe.
Type of Sanctions A form of international pressure, sanctions are usually meant to change the policies of other countries. There is much doubt on whether they ever work. This essay shows that economic pressure works in at least one respect: economic sanctions impact and do the most damage to the weakest members of society and do not hurt the leaders it targets. I present a hypothetical argument that explains why damage is not a necessary condition for successful force. With specific focus to Zimbabwe, I find evidence that sanctions frequently miss their intended target and often do damage to the very groups they are intended to help by destabilizing the economy. It is important to understand that sanctions are measures applied in response to perceived wrongdoing by a state, such as an act of aggression against another state or human rights violation from the perspectives of international conventions. Economic sanctions are usually the most important of all sanctions imposed on a nation. They imply the deliberate government-inspired withdrawal, or threat of withdrawal, of trade and financial relations, including technical cooperation. There are three main ways a sender country tries to inflict costs on a target country: first by limiting exports; second by restricting imports; third by impending finance, including the reduction of aid. , (Hufbauer 1985:28) But do sanctions achieve their objectives? Many scholars have concluded that sanctions simply do not” work.” In his book , The Power of Nations: The Political Economy of International Relations, Knorr Klaus explains that the first multiple –case study examined twenty –two instances of trade sanctions, and only four of those were deemed successful (Knorr,1975). He concluded that ‘targets will always be able to find alternative trading partners, and that sanctions tend to bring about domestic integration rather that political and economic stabilization.” As Hufbauer puts it, sanctions often do not succeed in changing the behavior of foreign countries. (Hufbauer; 1985:28) He argues that the reason for failure is the sanctions imposed may simply be inadequate to achieve the objectives sought – the goals may be too elusive, the means too gentle, or cooperation from other countries, when needed, too tepid. He contends that another reason for the unsuccessful application of economic pressure is that sanctions may prompt powerful allies to lend support largely offsetting whatever deprivation results from the sanctions themselves (Hufbauer; 1985:28). However, it must be pointed out that sanctions in Zimbabwe and indeed, sanctions on any other country have played an important role in foreign policy as an alternative to political coercion and produces results that run counter to the norms of the protection of the innocents and the promotion of basic human rights. In this context, I explore Britain, the European Union’s and United States’ targeted sanctions against the Zimbabwean regime, imposed after the land reform programs, to right a colonial wrong to return the land that was stolen from the indigenous peoples through the British South Africa Company. It is under this background that the EU, UK, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Zimbabwe claiming of imposing “targeted sanctions” and “travel bans” on Zimbabwean leadership and not economic sanctions on the whole country. The central thesis of the article therefore, is that economic sanctions do the most damage to innocent populations, while leaving political and economic elites largely unhurt. Indeed, economic sanctions against Zimbabwe have had a devastatingly profound impact and are largely to blame for Zimbabwe’s social and economic tragedy. The main thesis therefore rests upon three themes; the conquest and colonization of Zimbabwe, the Lancaster House Agreement, and the land question. All these themes are critical to understanding the causes and devastating impact the sanctions have had on the population of that landlocked country. It should be acknowledged that while it is difficult to disentangle the effects of sanctions from the effects of the land seizures, other factors such as corruption, inflation and the rule of law were at work at the same time and these factors are also to blame for Zimbabwe’s economic dilemma.
Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 which was hailed as a miracle by both the local and international community marked the beginning of majority rule and the hope of transition to democracy in that previously colonized country. Sadly, twenty – eight years after independence, Zimbabwe is an economic and democratic disaster as a result of sanctions imposed against that country. The country’s economy is in tatters, famine is threatening, and the miracle of 1980 turned into a nightmare. Law and order has broken down; bad governance and corruption are rampant; inflation is the highest in the world; nine out of ten adults are unemployed; commercial farming has collapsed; there is virtually no public health system; a shortage of teachers has crippled the school system; and one third of the population are in exile. The repression leashed against the opposition and the denial of property rights as well as the government’s refusal to respect the rule of law shocked the international community. The questions that come to mind are: How did this happen. And who is responsible? Who is to blame for this tragedy? What has caused deepening hunger, raging hyperinflation and the collapse of health, sanitation and education services that have crippled what was once the breadbasket of Africa? Was this a result of bad economic management policies, corruption, the rule of law and bad governance? On balance, I conclude that it was due to the seizure of white-owned farms by Mugabe’s black supporters resulting in the imposition of economic sanctions by Britain caused the country’s declining economic crisis therefore causing the suffering of the people. But, that still leaves the question: Why those land seizures? The answer lies in a combination of political and economic factors including Zimbabwe’s war of liberation and the Lancaster Agreement
The war of liberation lasted until the Lancaster House Conference in 1979 when representatives from the colonial government, leaders of the liberation movement, and the British government met to achieve a ceasefire and to establish a new constitution. It is important to note that while a ceasefire was achieved, the constitution agreed upon lacked strong support because it protected the inequitable distribution of land to the hands of white minority farmers. Furthermore, under the Lancaster Agreement, the new Zimbabwean government, led by President Robert Mugabe could not seize white-owned land for the first ten years of independence. What it meant was that the government could buy land from white farmers only through a willing-seller, willing-buyer program, at full market price. Sadly, by the 1990s, the government had still not fulfilled its revolutionary promise of land reform, and it was under public pressure to revise the constitution. This led to Mugabe’s controversial land reform leading to the imposition of sanctions by the United States, United Kingdom and European Union. In recent times, the ZANU –PF government has claimed that Zimbabwe problems are a result of economic sabotage by the racist minority. The US, UK, and the EU condemned President Robert Mugabe for the country’s economic dilemma and imposed “smart sanctions” on Zimbabwe, claiming to be promoting democracy, human rights and the end of suffering of the Zimbabwean people. I assess all these claims before turning to other possible answers. A brief historical background is instructive.
Background It is important to understand that the land question has always been and remains central to Zimbabwe’s economic, political, and social development. Thus, to ignore the definite link between the Zimbabwe Land Question, Sanctions and Zimbabwe’s economic policies including their actual and perceived shortcomings on the other hand, is to ignore a monumental heap of reality staring the international community in the face. Thus, this essay seeks to place both the current land crisis in Zimbabwe in its proper historical context by tracing the origins of the problem of the land question from the early years of British colonization, through the struggle against colonialism via the Lancaster House Agreement right through twenty years of Zimbabwe’s independence, to the farm invasions of 2000 and imposition of sanctions by the EU, UK, and US. It is important to remember that the advent of white- settler occupation of Zimbabwe in September 1890 marks the genesis of the dispossession of Africans of their land. The Ndebele Kingdom’s invasion in 1893 leading to the establishment of the notorious Gwaai and Shangani reserves; Shona and Ndebele Rebellions of 1896 – 97; the war of liberation which, in 1980, led to Zimbabwe’s independence; and the controversial constitutional negotiations at Lancaster House Agreement in 1979 all bear testimony to the centrality of the land issue in Zimbabwe’s history. In this context, it is important to note that the factors that form the basis of the Zimbabwe crisis are an uneven distribution of land and economic resources between an affluent minority and an increasingly impoverished black majority, which remained the same after Zimbabwe’s independence. Moreover, in Rhodesia, the best farmland was held by whites, who were a tiny minority making up less than 1 per cent of the Zimbabwean population of 12 million people and yet, they controlled 70 per cent of the country’s arable land (Swarms, 2002:1).
The land issue in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe is not ancient history. It is modern history. This research offers a background for understanding the history surrounding the current land question in Zimbabwe, and its impact on the population. When the Pioneer Column of white settlers came in 1890, their scramble for land became more than plunder. Farms were pegged out regardless of whether there were local people living there. Within ten years of the Pioneer Column, nearly 16 million acres had been seized by whites. Africans were dispossessed of the land and were driven the mountains and barren land. The research finds that that in Rhodesia, 85% of the best land was owned and occupied by 2 % of the population. In 1896, the Africans rose against white rule. Memories of the 1896 -1897 revolt lingered long enough for African nationalists to draw inspiration from it sixty years later. Thousands of Africans continued to be evicted from white farm areas and grievances over land eventually swelled into nationalist protest. The guerrilla war of the 1970s and the 2002 land invasions were a response to win back ‘lost” lands. At independence in 1980, Zimbabwe inherited a skewed land ownership pattern, characterized these historical imbalances. Let me point out that, while using the sanctions imposed against Zimbabwe as my vantage point and the basis of my thesis, the broader dimensions of the role played by the Mugabe regime are not neglected. As Hill points out, “Just five years earlier, the country had been a major exporter, but repression and misrule had led to the collapse of the agricultural, mining, and tourism sectors” (Hill; 2005:2). Many people have blamed Mugabe’s land seizures for the Zimbabwe crisis. All these claims are assessed, but find that instead of blaming it all on Mugabe, economic sanctions are mainly to blame for bringing Zimbabwe’s economy to its knees. This claim is also investigated before turning to other possible answers. Twenty years after ZANU-PF fought a liberation struggle and seized state power, landless peasants, unemployed and homeless proletarians in Zimbabwe desperately began to seize fertile land. Instead of opposing the land seizures, ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe supported the landless peasants in their efforts to take back the land that had been forcibly expropriated from their ancestors. This marked Zimbabwe’s decade of economic horror and the path to the seizure of white farms was opened, and thus began the long slide toward today’s economic chaos leading to the imposition of sanctions by the UK, US and EU, which explains Zimbabwe’s present economic crisis.
Settler Conquest and Colonization It cannot be disputed that the land question is central to Zimbabwe’s political, social and economic development. It is true that no explanation of the causes and impact of economic sanctions can be complete without an investigation of the colonial history of Zimbabwe. The economic and political crisis facing the country today is a complex situation, which has its origins in a number of factors originating from the country’s special history. When the white settlers arrived in Mashonaland in 1890, “their main hope was to find gold,” states Meredith. “Each settler was awarded fifteen mining claims,” he maintains. The gold rush proved disappointing and the whites therefore turned to the next prize, land (Chikuhwa 2002:112). The scramble for land in the 1890s became more than plunder. Farms were taken by Rhodes’s agents regardless of whether local people were living there, maintains Meredith (Chikuhwa 2002:112). A similar observation is made by Chikuhwa who notes that British interests prevailed through the vehicle of Rhodes’s BSAC (Chikuhwa, 1998:45). According to Chikuhwa (1998:45), when the first whites arrived in 1890, the land was inhabited by the Shona and the Ndebele people, who claimed sovereignty. Rhodes tricked Lobengula into a treaty. He believed he was allowing a mere handful of prospectors to enter his country. But the concession which he signed was deliberately mistranslated by the Reverend Charles Helm, notes Chikuhwa (1998:45-46). In practice, it actually gave Rhodes and his agent’s permission “to take whatever action they considered necessary to exploit the mineral wealth of his Kingdom” (Chikuhwa1998:45). The Rudd Concession, fraudulently obtained from King Lobengula, became the means through which Rhodes and his BSAC claimed mineral rights in Mashonaland despite Lobengula’s vigorous protests. When Lobengula realized that he had been tricked, he rejected the Concession. Unfortunately his protests were totally ignored by the British Government who approved the colonization of Zimbabwe by Rhodes’s BSAC (Chikuhwa, 1998:.45). Rhodes’s heavily –armed ‘pioneer column’ occupied Mashonaland. The pioneers then dispersed to stake out farms for themselves and to exploit the abandoned gold mines.” In their desperate search for valuable gold artifacts, these early white colonists vandalized and looted many ancient historical sites, destroying hundreds of year’s worth of irreplaceable archaeological evidence (Chikuhwa, 1998:.45). White missionaries also acquired almost a third of a million acres. A young assistant working for the Anglican Bishop of Mashonaland was soon exhausted by the constant search for more farms. “The one thing I strongly object to,” he wrote to his parents in 1892, “is to go looking for more farms, which I hear….is the Bishop’s great idea. He already has more than 40!! All over 3,000 acres! And not one of them is being worked, either as farm or as station as far as I can discover” (Meredith, 2002: 13). By 1899, some 9.3 million acres were in the hands of these companies (2002, 113). Within ten years of the arrival of the Pioneer Column, 16 million acres of land had been seized by whites (Meredith, 2002:113).
Zimbabwe’s Land Question in Historical Context Between 1997 through 2002 land reform remained an unfulfilled promise as whites still owned much of the best land (Meredith, 2007:17). It is the ordinary people who suffered the brunt of government mismanagement. Meredith asserts that “by 2000, Zimbabweans were generally worse off than they had been at independence: average wages were lower, underemployment had trebled, public services were crumbling and life expectancy was falling (2007, p. 17). It should be noted that the factors which are the basis of the present crisis are a racially skewed land distribution and ownership pattern between an affluent minority and an increasingly impoverished black majority, which did not change after Zimbabwe’s independence. Most Zimbabweans felt betrayed by the outcome of the liberation war they had waged for close to a decade. Mr. Mugabe occasionally resorted to rhetoric in addressing the land problem. “We can never have peace in the country unless the peasant population is satisfied in relation to the land issue,” he had declared in 1981 (Meredith; 2003:121). Meredith asserts that Mugabe whipped support over the land issue saying “It makes absolute nonsense of our history as an African country that most of our arable and ranching land is still in the hands of our erstwhile colonizers, while the majority of our peasant community still live like squatters in their God – given land” (Meredith; 2003: 121). As noted earlier, led by Cecil Rhodes, the British South Africa Company had moved into the region, seized land from blacks, and sold most of the fertile land to white settlers. Clearly, this explains Mugabe’s plans for redistributing the land to correct this historical imbablance which was only partially successful. Despite initial plans to resettle 162,000 families in three years and the development plan’s aim to resettle seventy – five thousand families in five years, a ministerial statement in 1988 admitted that only forty thousand families had been resettled since independence (Chikuhwa; 2006:189) Chikuhwa asserts that “since the triumph of the 1980 revolution in Zimbabwe the promise of land reform went largely unfulfilled.” It is under this background after independence that Mugabe’s government promised to give the “stolen lands” back to the indigenous farmers and thereby establishing plans for the land resettlement program.
In his book Robert Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence Chan Stephen Chan asserts that “The roots of the land problem had grown from settler seedlings” and that “The appropriation of land, by Cecil Rhodes’s British South Africa Company at the end of the nineteenth century, was not gentle (Chan 2003:148). In 1896, a huge uprising of both Shona and Ndebele people killed some 400 settlers. This was the first liberation War, Chimurenga, of modern Zimbabwean history. The settler’s response was even more brutal than the uprising, and ‘native” modes of self- organization were destroyed. The formalization of white hegemony over the land came in the 1923 Constitution, which entrenched native reserves, and in 1930, with the Land Apportionment Act, whereby Rhodesia was largely divided into land privately owned by white settlers (by far the majority of land, and the best), and what came known in the Smith era as the “tribal trust lands”, a kind of peasant –farmer extended reservation. The second Chimurenga, the war of liberation that ended with independence in 1980, was a victory over the political structures imposed by generations of settler government and culture., but not over the land ownership structures of the almost- century –long settler era. As outlined above, Mugabe had, from the beginning, regarded land as a great unfinished issue, but there were never the funds to purchase huge amounts of white lands and, as the international community – Britain very much included – became disinclined to help. (Chan 2003:148)
In 1891, the British government recognized the South African Company’s “investment” in Zimbabwe, and brokered that company’s expropriation of fertile farmland from the Africans. Supported by the military might of the British crown, the white settlers who followed Cecil Rhodes to Zimbabwe were given 3,000 acres of choice farmland, plus 15 gold-mining claims by those who had no right to give what was not theirs. The white settlers discovered that no significant wealth would be obtained from the gold mines in Zimbabwe and, thus, were granted 6,000 acres of choice farmland by the South African Company. After the brutal conquest of the region by Cecil Rhodes in the 1890s, white settlers seized all the prime land (Hill, 2005, p.12).White settlers continued unabated in their invasion of Zimbabwe. Cattle were seized from the native population, native lands were taken, and the indigenous people were often forcibly prevented from plowing and sowing the meager plots of soil that were left to them because of tax collection and coerced labor in white-owned farms. By 1899, the white settlers had seized 15,762,364 acres of farmland (Leeming and Tidy, p.1981).
These historical acts of theft and plunder of African lands are the basis in Zimbabwe, today for what the UK, the U.S. and their allies call the “rule of law.” It is argued therefore that when the U.S and UK speak of the “rule of law,” they refer to the “rule of law” of their “kith and kin” that killed and plundered Zimbabwe, allowing the white settlers to steal the land and control the native lands of Zimbabwe.
War of Liberation
It is true that no discussion of the causes of Zimbabwe’s current economic sanctions can be complete without an analysis of the Zimbabwe war of liberation. A detailed examination of Zimbabwe’s guerilla war of the 1970s, which was fought principally to overthrow white rule and gain power is important. As noted by Hill (Hill 2007:118), “land grievances and landlessness, the idea of winning back lost lands provided much of the rhetoric and motivation behind the war” (Hill 2007: 118). Hill asserts that “It seemed as if white rule might continue indefinitely until Black Nationalist leaders, eager to take charge and angry at continued discrimination, went into exile in 1972 and established guerilla bases in neighboring bases (Hill 2007:118). The fighters, armed with landmines, rifles and grenades, infiltrated Rhodesia, and for eight years the country was locked in civil war (Hill 2005:13).This liberation war for Zimbabwe’s independence raged between the white governments led by Ian Smith and liberation fighters led by Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo. By 1979, the guerilla war had spread to every rural area of Rhodesia. Main roads and railway lines were under frequent attack. White farmers bore the brunt, barricaded at night in fortified homes, living daily in the risks of ambushes and landmines (Hill 2005:.6) after years of intense guerrilla fighting; Smith eventually yielded to British-brokered peace talks in 1979. The result was the Lancaster House Agreement, signed by British and liberation leaders from ZANU and ZAPU parties. As noted in the introduction, an understanding of Zimbabwe’s land question is important in order to appreciate the political problems that led to the imposition of economic sanctions by the UK, the US and their allies. Ramsamy takes this observation further and specifically traces the history of property rights during the liberation struggle. He notes that during the liberation struggle, Zimbabwe’s major liberation movements called for the abolition of private property and the redistribution of white- owned land (Ramsamy 2006:132).
It is important to understand that the Zimbabwean anti-colonial resistance during the late 19th century through the 20th century has been based on the retaking of the land and resources stolen by the colonialists. Hill notes that as the war intensified, Britain launched an initiative to find a solution, calling for negotiations at the Lancaster House Conference. Hill points out that Mugabe, a cold, austere figure who rarely smiled and seemed bent on achieving revolution whatever the cost, arrived for the conference in London. While in exile, he had repeatedly threatened that “Ian Smith and his ‘criminal gang’ would be tried and shot, and warned that white exploiters would not be allowed to keep an acre of land” (Hill 2005:7).
Lancaster Agreement I turn now to a review of the Constitutional Conference at Lancaster House which convened on 10 September 1979, which is important in explaining the causes of the farm invasions, an act which led to the impositions of sanctions. It must not be forgotten that the Lancaster House Agreement mainly called upon the U K government to accept the sole responsibility to pay compensation for land acquired from former land owners for resettlement; to work together to secure international support and finance for the land reform program in terms of compensation for the former land owners and support for new farmers; and to work together for the restoration of full productivity on all agricultural land. President Mugabe also argues that when Tony Blair came to power he reneged on the understanding and agreement reached at the Lancaster Conference of 1979]regarding the land reform programme and the compensation they agreed to pay to enable the government to buy the land from their kith and kin, in Zimbabwe. According to President Mugabe, when Blair’s government decided to dishonor the Lancaster House Agreement, Mugabe maintains that he was not bound by the agreement any longer and was released from it and would not pay any compensation to the white farmers because the funds had stopped flowing from Britain. According to Mugabe if they did not get the funds, naturally they did not have the capacity to compensate the farmers. And they would have to deal with UK to compensate them directly.
It is this viewpoint and undertaking that led to the violent land seizures. Mugabe took the land and paid compensation in respect of improvements where the farmer had built a dam, a homestead, done some fencing, the government was prepared to pay compensation for those, but not the market price of the farm. That was the responsibility of Britain. This led Tony Blair to be angry because he thought the ZANU PF government would tax its poor people in Zimbabwe to buy back their own land, but Mugabe was not prepared to do that. It is under this backdrop that Blair claimed that Zimbabwe had breached the tenets of democracy, human rights, rule of law, and which is a dictatorship. The road to the Lancaster Agreement was not easy and during the Lancaster negotiations, the land issue was difficult to resolve. The problem came when the conference presented a draft constitution which contained no reference to the land. The whites, backed by the British government, insisted that land rights should be entrenched in a Bill of Rights in the new constitution. (Hill 2007:18).As noted earlier, whites, who comprised 5% of the population owned 80% of the arable land, while millions of black people scratched at a living on the rest. For Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Nkomo this was critical. During the liberation struggle, Zimbabwe’s major liberation movements called for the abolition of private property and the distribution of white owned land (Ramsamy; 2006:127). Furthermore, during the political struggles of the 1960s and the guerrilla war of the 1970s, ZANU and ZAPU had committed themselves to redressing the socioeconomic and inequalities caused by colonialism (2006: 127). When Nkomo and Mugabe saw it and understood the implications they were disappointed. They asked Carrington what he meant. Yes, the struggle was about land. They questioned: “Was he saying to them they must sign a constitution which says that they could not redistribute land, because if that was the case, they should go back to the bush and the conference would break up?” It is noted that the negotiations that the nationalists were forced to accept meant that “for ten years the government could only purchase land against the owner’s wishes if it was underutilized” or required for a public purpose, and only then if the owner was provided with a prompt and full compensation in foreign exchange. The problem was that the provision of “willing seller willing buyer” basis restricted the government to purchasing limited and often poor quality land. It is important to remember that the UK, under Margaret Thatcher, agreed to help finance a land distribution program, but in 1997 the British reneged on their promise to compensate. This explains why is important to understand the Lancaster Agreement in – order to form a reasonable judgment on Zimbabwe’s current political and economic state. It should also not be forgotten that when Tony Blair became Prime Minister, his government refused to accept the Agreement signed at Lancaster and Clare short, and his minister of foreign co- operation also sent a no-nonsense letter to Mugabe refusing any responsibility to pay for the land reform. It is therefore clear that the current economic problems started with the Lancaster Agreement itself which supported the status quo and stolen land acquired in the plunder of Zimbabwe remaining in the hands of the white minority regime instead of being transferred to the Zimbabwean peasants, the rightful owners. This is also why after enacting the Zimbabwe Land Redistribution Act, the Mugabe regime saw itself on the road to fulfilling the promise that the indigenous people of Zimbabwe own the land. The path to the seizure of white farms was opened, and thus began the long slide toward today’s economic chaos leading to the imposition of sanctions by the UK, US and EU, which explains Zimbabwe’s present economic crisis.
The Farm Invasions The whole crisis started in 2000 when ZANU PF gangs armed with axes and pangas invaded white – owned farms across the country. Government vehicles were used to transport the invaders to the farms. It is noted that by March 2000, the invaders had occupied nearly 400 farms (Meredith; 2003: 169 -170). On the farms, some gangs caused disruption, others were more aggressive, threatening violence, slaughtering cattle, demanding transport, and breaking into farmhouses. As Meredith notes, a High Court order declared the land invasions illegal and instructed the police to evict the invaders within twenty – four hours, and personally instructed Chenjerai Hunzvi, Chairman of the Zimbabwe War Veterans Association, not to encourage, allow, or participate in any invasion. Interestingly, Hunzvi retorted that he would defy it saying, “We cannot accept the humiliation of being told by a white man to pack our bags and leave our land” (Meredith, 2003:170). Mugabe described the invasions as demonstrations. Amid rising tensions the Britain raised the temperature further, indulging in a war of words with Mugabe.
Meredith explains that once more the Courts ruled the land invasions illegal and called on Mugabe “to recognize that it is in the permanent interest of Zimbabwe and the rule of law to bring an end to the farm invasions” (2003:170). According to Meredith, Mugabe shrugged off the High Court Order. Meredith notes that “returning from a visit to Cuba,” he said on arrival: “I know there is an expectation that I will say to the War Veterans ‘Get off the land.’ I will not say so or do that.” Nor would he instruct the police to act. “There is no policeman who is going there. We have said ‘no.’ If the British have their own police, they must send them there.” Hunzvi’s response was similarly blunt. “They [the Judges] can go to hell. They are part of the system that hanged us when we fought for independence” (Meredith; 2003:170). Meanwhile, on the farms under occupation, white farmers faced daily harassment. Meredith confirms that “One Karoi farmer and his family, confronted by an armed gang, were given ten minutes to get off their farm (2003: 170).
Sanctions and the Battle for Land It must be emphasized that to oppose the sanctions is not equivalent to supporting the regime of Mugabe. To oppose sanctions is to support the Zimbabwe people. Some critics have argued that Mugabe is a murderous dictator who promotes those who are loyal to him and kills those who voice opposition to his regime. True, unemployment stood at more than 90 per- cent, a third of the population had gone into exile, and millions were hungry in a country that, until recently had grown enough crops to feed itself and much of southern Africa. Moreover, sanctions have not affected the lifestyle of Robert Mugabe or his inner circle. Food and medicine are available to those who can afford it. The sanctions hurt only the Zimbabwe people.
It cannot be disputed that the land question is inseparably linked to the issue of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the UK, US and EU. According to Sir Shridath Ramphal, former Commonwealth Secretary General who acted as adviser to Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo at the Lancaster House negotiations, “It was about land in the beginning……it has remained about land today.” However, Chua sees Mugabe as a key reason for the economic collapse of Zimbabwe (Miller: 66- 167). She points out that “President Mugabe has encouraged the violent seizure of 10 million acres of white – owned commercial farmland (Miller: 166-167). It is noted those two days after a white farmer Henry Ellsworth was killed in an ambush near his farm, Mugabe said, “This country is our country, and this land is our land,” concluding, “The white man is not indigenous to Africa. Africa is for Africans. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans!”(Meredith, 2002, p.121).As one Zimbabwean explained, “The land belongs to us. The foreigners should not own land here. There is no Black Zimbabwean who owns land in England. Why should any European own land here?” (Miller 2000:166 – 167). Mugabe himself was more explicit, “Strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy!” Most of the country’s white “foreigners” are third generation Zimbabweans. (Miller 2000: 166-167). Similarly, Mugabe occasionally resorted to rhetoric in addressing the land problem. “We can never have peace in the country unless the peasant population is satisfied in relation to the land issue,” he declared in 1981 (Meredith: 121). Mugabe whipped support over the land issue in advance of the 1990 election. “It makes absolute nonsense of our history as an African country that most of our arable and ranching land is still in the hands of our erstwhile colonizers, while the majority of our peasant community still live like squatters in their God – given land.” He promised a ‘revolutionary’ program of agrarian reform to redistribute land (Meredith: 121). Meredith notes that Mugabe announced the expropriation of a total of 5, 000 farms, and covering 19 million acres. An upsurge of violent incidents hit the white farming community. Squatters and war veterans laid siege to farming families in their homes, destroyed crops and seed beds, wrecked farm equipment, cut off water supplies, and set fire to grazing land. An elderly white farmer died after being struck on the head with an axe (Meredith, 2002, p. 219). With so many farms disrupted, destroyed, and left untended, Zimbabwe now faced serious food shortages to add to its list of woes. In November, 2001, Mugabe delivered his final blow. By presidential decree, he ordered the expropriation of virtually all white –owned farms without compensation. Farmers were told they would be given ninety days to vacate their homes and were threatened with imprisonment if they tried to interfere (Meredith; 2003:213). According to Hill, by 2004, all but 300 of the original 4000 white farmers were off the land. One in three Zimbabweans had left the country, pushed out by violence and inflation running at more than 500 percent. Cash crops like tobacco, cotton, flowers, corn and vegetables had been among the countries’ chief exporters earning valuable foreign exchange, but as the sector imploded the economy collapsed and unemployment soared (2005:18). Hill continue to observe that basic foodstuffs, including maize, meat, milk, and bread, grew scarce, and as prices rocketed, the government imposed controls which in turn, gave rise to a black market that pushed the cost of goods even higher (2005: 18). In her celebrated article “The Spread of Global Free – Market Democracy,” Professor Amy Chua looks at the impact of the land invasions in Zimbabwe, and explains that “Watching Zimbabwe’s economy take a free fall as a result of the mass land grab, the US, the UK, and the EU together with dozens of human rights groups urged President Mugabe to step down, calling for free and fair elections” (Miller 2002:166-167). The point here is that, it is the land occupations that prompted economic sanctions which have adversely impacted the country.
It is noted that sanctions advocates argue that the value of smart sanctions “lies in the fact that they focus pressure on the targeted leadership or group, with little or any negative impact on civilian populations.”[1] Instead, I contend that economic sanctions often do harm than good and often target the vulnerable groups and civilians at large. This essay, systematically examines the effectiveness of economic sanctions imposed by Britain, the European Union, and Zimbabwe. In will examining the economic and social impact of sanctions on this country, I also consider how they affected the population. I argue that because of the impositions of sanctions, the most vulnerable groups have been the hardest hit, especially children under five years of age who are being exposed to unhygienic conditions, particularly in urban centers. I conclude that “targeted” sanctions have not affected the lifestyle of Robert Mugabe or his inner circle, but instead, the sanctions have hurt only the majority of the Zimbabwe people.
Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA)
America’s Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act supposedly meant to support the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle to effect peaceful, democratic change has since missed its intended target damaging the general population it is intended to help. So, by taking a closer look at Zimbabwe’s land question and discussing it in the context of the War of Liberation, and the Lancaster House Agreement, I draw attention to the reasons that led Britain ,the European Union and United States to impose sanctions, question whether the sanctions have been successful in destabilizing Mugabe they claim to target. Finally, I conclude by showing how the case of Zimbabwe is clearly evident that sanctions never fully achieve their stated objectives having little or no impact on the behavior of the targeted political leaders.
To this end, the case study on the impact of sanctions imposed by Britain, the European Union and the United States against Zimbabwe, whatever their effectiveness, show that sanctions frequently miss their intended target and do often damage the very groups they are intended to help. Evidently, the main impact is upon the civilian population in the target who are unable to protect themselves and often have little or no influence on the policies which sanctions are intended to change, (Doxey 1999: 207).
Targeting Zimbabwe, not Mugabe Critics have blamed the economic collapse on poor management by the government claiming that the sanctions were not targeted at the country as such, but at named individuals. I argue that to blame the decisions made by a single individual is, indeed, absurd in explaining the fate of the national economy. There is no possibility that a single individual could single-handedly ruin a country. In this context, one of the serious implications of the above discussion is that there is nothing like “smart sanctions.” Sanctions hurt the general population and have made Zimbabweans suffer. In this context, I disagree with Cortright and Lopez who write that “a ‘smart sanctions’ policy is one that imposes coercive pressures on specific individuals and entities and that restricts selective products or activities, while minimizing unintended economic and social consequences for vulnerable populations and innocent bystanders” Cortright and Lopez; 2002:14) . An interesting question to ask is: why did the US, UK, and the EU impose sanctions against Zimbabwe soon after Mugabe’s fast-track land reform program, under which it compulsorily acquired land from mostly white farmers and redistributed it to peasant farmers. John Gatling has the answer to this question. For example, Galtung defines sanctions as “actions initiated by one or more international actors against one or more others with either or both of two purposes: to punish the receivers by depriving them of some value/ (in this case land) and or to make the receivers comply with certain norms the senders deem important” (Galtung 1967:379). On the other hand, Roger Fisher explains that “in international conflict as elsewhere our first reaction to somebody’s doing something we don’t like is to think of doing something unpleasant to them” (Fisher 1969:27-28). Clearly, in the context of Rogers’s definition and Fisher’s remarks on sanctions, one can clearly identify the reason for the imposition of sanctions by the U.S., UK and their allies. This is not about human rights, bad governance and the rule of law. The truth is that when Mugabe seized the white – owned farms, the UK, EU and the United States retaliated by imposing economic sanctions against that country. The point that must not be forgotten that “When Mugabe’s government took over in 1980, the country’s economy was aligned to the West and most of the fertile land was in the hands of the Europeans.” When the Zimbabwe nationalists leaders differed on the questions of land British Prime minister Tony Blair decided to fight Zimbabwe by using political, diplomatic and economic instruments. Britain does not talk about the difference between Britain and the West and Zimbabwe as being the land issue and the compensation from Britain that it dishonored. No, he refers to good governance, human rights and rule of law. He then persuades the members of the E Uand the United States to impose sanctions on the poor country. Persuaded by Britain to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, the EU and U.S.say these are “personal sanctions” targeted at the economic and political elites. As Lind and Tamas note in their Controversies of the George W. Bush Presidency., They note that President Bush supported sanctions against the Zimbabwe government. The authors maintain the tyrannical government of Mugabe “stands accused of severe repressive actions against its own people to illegal land seizures and distributions.” They write that President Bush has support from both UK, EU; they imposed travel bans and other economic restrictions on their citizens and on Zimbabwe. As some analysts have suggested, the weapon of sanctions continue to be unleashed upon innocent populations and have left thousands of children and old people dead. World Health organization reports have exposed the following undesirable effects of sanctions on the vulnerable groups of Zimbabwean society: High death toll due to inadequate health facilities; acute shortage of basic commodities leading to high prices, malnourishment and deaths. Elsewhere, Tom Gilten, in his Crimes of War Project (1999- 2006), has shown that children die because hospitals cannot get medicines. In the same vein, report by the British House of Commons Select Committee on Development highlighted the fact that economic sanctions, “unless carefully targeted”, have the capacity to kill more people than armed warfare. Sanctions are a form of warfare, and its effects on the country have claimed thousands of innocent lives. As Dr. Tafataona Mahoso, head of Zimbabwe’s Media and Information, characterized it, “There is a campaign of what can be called ‘economic terrorism’ against Zimbabwe mounted by Britain and its Western allies. In Mahoso’s view, “the UK, US, and their allies claim that they have only imposed “targeted sanctions” and “travel bans” on the Zimbabwean leadership and not economic sanctions on the whole country.” Mr. Mahoso maintains that “Sanctions have not affected the lifestyle of Robert Mugabe or his inner circle,” arguing that “The sanctions hurt only the Zimbabwe people.” According to Dr. Mahoso, “Sanctions have made the majority of the people suffer economic hardships since the year 2000 when the African people started to reclaim the land that once belonged to their ancestors” (Mahoso;2007:76). It is important not to forget that the reasons for the imposition of sanctions by the US and its allies are not only about human rights, bad governance and violation of the rule of law or human rights abuses. The truth is that when the Mugabe regime seized the white – owned farms, UK, EU and the US retaliated by imposing sanctions against that country. For example, the New York Times noted that “Western governments have withdrawn all financial aid, aside from food, from Zimbabwe to protest the land seizures and the attacks on the political opposition” (Swarms, 2002, p.1).Mugabe charged that EU and U.S. sanctions against his regime had crippled his nation’s economy and fuelled popular unrest, and he described the sanctions as not only illegal, but unjustified and cruel,” arguing that “they have also contributed deeply to the suffering and the poverty-induced polarization of the people of Zimbabwe.” President Mugabe accused donors of punishing Zimbabwe for his land reform program Moreover, Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, noted that “sanctions on Zimbabwe have had a devastating effect on the nation” (Gono 2007: 86). Dr Gono emphasized that the Western sanctions are killing Zimbabwe’s economy and noted that the withdrawal of financial support has seen the country’s import cover decline. According to Dr. Gono, “The country is no longer able to import critical items such as drugs, food, fuel and electricity, and more than 600 people have died following an outbreak of cholera because the country cannot afford to buy drugs and chemicals to treat drinking water” (Gono 2007: 86). As mentioned earlier, the sanctions have had tremendous impact on the people of Zimbabwe. Mugabe took over from Ian Smith in 1980, the economy was aligned to the West and most of the fertile land, as well as the manufacturing and mining sectors were was in the hands of the Europeans. The struggle for land began and differences between Mugabe and Tony Blair arose because of the land issue and the compensation from Britain that they dishonoured. Blair decides to fight Zimbabweans using political, diplomatic and economic instruments and does not talk about the differences between us as being the land question. He refers to good governance, human rights, and rule of law. He then persuades the members of the European Union to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, and they say these are “smart sanctions” targeted at the leadership.
Public Health Crisis
Some special attention must be paid to the public health conditions, for it helps explain Zimbabwe’s problem with the unavailability of drugs. Sanctions regrettably, continue to claim the lives of millions of children through the denial of medical equipment, drugs and food.
As UNICEF and Government of Zimbabwe Ministry of Child and Health Welfare Report notes, sanctions target the weakest and most vulnerable members of Zimbabwean society –poor, elderly, newborn, sick, and young. It is true that sanctions tend to disproportionately damage innocent populations because such populations often have little capacity to affect their government’s policies. In order to be effective, sanctions must impose costs on the target’s ruling elite. To be humane, they must avoid damage to innocent civilians. By 2004, average life expectancy, which stood at fifty six years in 1975, had slipped to just thirty-three, the lowest in the world. A quarter of the adult population was HIV positive or suffering from full – blown AIDS, 70 percent lived below the poverty line, with almost as many not having enough to eat, and the state allocated just 3 percent of its budget to health, while more than twice that figure was spent on defense. For example, figures published by UNICEF suggest that 25 percent of Zimbabwean teachers are HIV- positive, and that by the end of 2010 some 38 000, or just over a third of the current staff, will have died (Hill 2007: 32). And unless billions have been spent on the country’s health system, there will be little help for patients afflicted with a headache, let alone HIV/AIDS. But there is another problem – cholera. Water treatment has suffered because foreign currency was not available to import chlorine and other chemicals, and gastro-internal diseases are common. Outbreaks of typhoid and cholera are annual events; waste disposal is erratic, and when people get sick, they are hard pressed to find help. On average, developed countries have 320 doctors per 100 000 people. In Africa, it’s only twelve, (IOM) and Zimbabwe falls near the bottom of that list, with just six. (United Nations Development Report, 2004, quoted in The Zimbabwe Independent, 8 October 2004.) By 2005, in rural areas government introduced ox- drawn ambulances because fuel and spare parts couldn’t be found for the vehicles that used to transport patients to hospital. The cost of seeing a doctor was more than the average monthly wage. One witness in Zimbabwe is a horrific mix of the AIDS pandemic and an intense political and economic crisis. The medical infrastructure in the country is limited to begin with. Add to that a situation in which one in three adults have HIV and no access to antiretroviral, and the result, at the ground zero level, is unimaginable human suffering. Patients with medical complications of HIV are packed into run-down wards. The morgues are full to capacity and the coffin industry is booming (Hill2007: 37). The inability of the country to make repairs of the sewage treatments plants and water purification plants means the continuation of malnutrition. This meant that 14 million people would be denied clean water resulting in the absolute devastation of the civilian population. The largest number of casualties has been the result of dirty, contaminated water caused by inadequate sewage –treatment and water treatment facilities. What that means is that children are dying in Zimbabwe of eminently treatable diseases: simple diarrhea and other contaminated –water-borne diseases. The spare parts and this led to the destruction of the country’s life support systems, especially its ability to produce and distribute clean portable water to the population. Because of sanctions, water and sewage treatment plants continued to operate at a critically reduced capacity. Children who drink untreated water in Zimbabwe are at great risk. The water – borne cholera epidemic has had severe consequences. The health care system had collapsed as a result of the unavailability of humanitarian supplies including medical equipment, along with water pumps and water – treatments plants had been held by the European Union and the United States and were not available. They had died as a result of an embargo on commerce with Zimbabwe. These economic sanctions are a silent war in which only the weakest, most vulnerable and innocent, non-combatant civilians, – women children and families – continue to suffer. The imposition of sanctions in 2003 significantly constrained Zimbabwe’s ability to earn the foreign currency needed to import sufficient quantities of drugs to meet its needs. The dramatic impact of sanctions could be described as a genocidal onslaught on the people of Zimbabwe by the UK government and can be seen in the huge number of children and adults dying from the spread of infectious diseases due to the closure of waste water treatment plants. Sadly, water- borne diseases such as cholera, typhus, and typhoid fever have had severe consequences. The breakdown of Zimbabwe’s water and sanitation systems has led to a cholera epidemic that is spilling over the border into South Africa. Zimbabwe’s Health Ministry itself acknowledged note that cholera had spread to nine of the country’s 10 provinces.
The country has indeed been seriously impacted by a cholera epidemic which has affected thousands of Zimbabweans. It is noted that according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare (MoHCW) of Zimbabwe, “as of 18 February 2009, 79, 613 suspected cases, including 3, 731 deaths have been reported by the Ministry of Health since August 2008” (WHO 2009: 1). It is important to emphasize that sanctions hurt the poor people and are designed to produce deprivation and poverty; hence it is not surprising that they bring about widespread malnutrition and increased mortality. Sanctions, of course are designed to give economic pain; but who, in practice is being hurt? Not the power elite, not the leaders, but the poor and vulnerable. (Arnove 2002:199). There is insufficient evidence that human rights and governance are responsible for the economic collapse in Zimbabwe. I therefore argue that economic sanctions imposed soon after Mugabe seized the land from white farmers and redistributed it to peasant farmers are to blame for the present woes.
The chief aim in this paper has been to identify and to begin the task of providing an answer for an important but neglected problem in dealing with the impact of economic sanctions, with specific focus to the majority of the suffering Zimbabweans caused by the current economic dilemma. In this context, my argument has been that “the international community needs to examine alternatives to economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe, which by their nature impact the weakest members of society first and the leadership last and therefore violate basic principles of international law” has been central to my thesis (Normand 1996:43).This indeed, is an important question that students and scholars of social science need to consider in the debate over the reasons behind Zimbabwe’s economic troubles. For this reason, this analysis would not be complete if I would not discuss the role played by the notorious Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA), enacted by President George W. Bush on 21 December, 2001” to destabilize Zimbabwe economically. Even more obvious about the economic sanctions, the US imposed the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act which they passed into law in December 2001, which effectively imposed stringent economic sanctions on Zimbabwe. They interfered with the international financial institutions, so that even though the Mugabe regime paid its debts to the IMF, the US still persuaded the IMF not to give the Zimbabwe government the balance of payment support that it deserve. And even the country is a member of the World Bank, and the country has complied with the Bank’s rule, they have also imposed sanctions against the landlocked country. As Baffour Ankomah points out, “For those who still don’t believe that Britain, America and their Western allies have imposed economic sanctions on Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act is one such law passed by the US Congress in December 2001” (Ankomah 2007:80). It is noted that by promulgating this law, the U.S. President was empowered to instruct representatives of the U.S. in the multilateral lending agencies for such as the IMF and World Bank to vote against credit facilities, in all their different forms to the impoverished nation of Zimbabwe, until that country improved its compliance to the rule of law, holds free and fair elections, and improved its human rights record. This marked the sad beginning of Zimbabwe’s economic and social crisis. (2007:80) The promulgation of ZIDERA empowers the U.S. to prevent Zimbabwe from getting finance from the main global multilateral lending institutions. I argue again, declaring sanctions on an impoverished developing African nation such as Zimbabwe is a crime against humanity because, as Gono points out, “Sanctions….continue to claim the lives of the millions of children through the denial of medical equipment, drugs and food (Gono 2007: 87).
Why Zimbabwe?
Furthermore, there are questions that need to be answered here: Why Zimbabwe? Why not the countries of the Middle East where women are forbidden to vote, where there is no freedom of expression and speech, and where there are human rights abuses and extreme torture? Again, why Zimbabwe? Why not Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak where presidential elections are predetermined? Why not countries like Pakistan where the Presidents come to power through coups? Why not nations such as Uganda where there are no multiparty politics? How about Ethiopia where presidential elections are clearly rigged, students not allowed to demonstrate and are detained, and there is torture? Why not China, or Libya, both countries transacting trade with the EU and US, though they not democratic and basic human rights are not observed? I do not dispute that because Zimbabwe is no different from other nations there must be no consequences for the absence of free and fair elections and human right violations. My argument is: It is not right to cause an economic implosion to Zimbabwe only to rid Zimbabwe of one person, Mugabe. The advocates of sanctions argue that the value of smart sanctions” lies in the fact that they would focus pressure on the targeted leadership or group, with little or any negative impact on civilian populations.”(United Nations Secretariat 2000). I do not agree with proponents of sanctions who argue that this produces various concrete benefits including; the protection of innocent people, exclusive targeting of political elites who have the capacity – directly or through political pressure to alter government policy. As Bull and Tostensen correctly puts it, while concept of smart sanctions is politically attractive to sender governments, “the operational problems are so numerous and formidable that a smart sanctions regime is hardly feasible to enforce” (Bull and Tostensen 1999/2000:85). Most scholars have cast doubt on the utility of smart sanctions as a “magic bullet” (Hufbaeur 2000). In sum, while the body of empirical work on the general issue of sanctions is considerable, there is little systematic empirical research directly comparing smart against traditional sanctions with respect to effectiveness or impact. It remains an open empirical question as whether smart sanctions represent a viable alternative for policy makers, and it is for this reason that a comparative assessment of trade and financial sanctions is needed. To date, studies examining the impact of sanctions, as in the case of Zimbabwe, have tended to ignore its impact on the general populations while focusing on the political and economic elites. The result as noted above is the conclusion that sanctions are in general are not very effective, and hurt the people they are intended to protect. As argued earlier, sanctions miss their intended target and often do damage to the very groups they are intended to help. The major impact is upon “the civilian population in the target who are unable to protect them and often have little or no influence on the policies which sanctions are intended to change (Doxey 1999:207). For example, scholars note that sanctions against Iraq were the direct cause of suffering for literally “hundreds of thousands of children” under the age of five (Normand 1996:40).
“Targeted Sanctions” Target the Population
This essay offers a thorough analysis of the unintended impact economic sanctions have on the people of Zimbabwe. I argue that economic coercion is a counterproductive policy tool that do more harm than good to the populations. Many people believe that sanctions in Zimbabwe are only hurting a few targeted individuals, but nothing could be further from the truth. When a child fails to go to crèche or school, because the school bus, or family car has no fuel; When the elderly fail to get an ambulance service or appropriate medical drugs, because there is no fuel or the hospital has no access to drugs; When the employees have to come late to work in the morning and get home late into the night because of transport problems emanating from fuel shortages or lack of public transport contractor aspare4 –parts; When the rural folk fail to take their maize or small grains to the grinding mill next door, or when they fail to go to the clinic because there is no fuel or drugs; When hospitals and doctors have to operate in darkness because the national power utility (ZESA) has failed to get lines of credit to improve its operating capacity for power generation; When pregnant mothers fail to get an ambulance to take them to maternity wards because there is no fuel; And when the departed fail to get an ambulance to get a descent burial because the funeral parlor has no fuel to take the body to its final resting place all because of sanctions supposedly targeted at a few. Then it is time to ask whether the so called sanctions are the best form of dealing with differences between a people, dealing with differences between regions, dealing with differences between continents, and dealing with differences between economic trading blocks. One wonders whether the sender of sanctions is imposing those sanctions for the genuine benefit and interest of the general population in sanctioned country. The US government openly admitted that it is sponsoring regime change activities in Zimbabwe. The admission was contained in a State Department report, Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The US record 2006, released on 5 April 2007.In this report President George W. Bush admitted that “We are working for regime change in Zimbabwe.” I argue that instead of forcing the sanctioned regime into reforming itself, sanctions inadvertently enhanced the regime’s coercive capacity and created incentives for the regime’s leadership to commit political repression. The public health crisis and starvation in Zimbabwe and World Health Organization data support my argument, confirming that the continued use of economic sanctions in Zimbabwe (even when aimed at promoting democracy and respect for human rights) had pervasive and negative impact. This conclusion suggests that both policy makers and scholars should pay more attention to the externalities caused by economic coercion. Clearly, it is under this backdrop of the negative impact of sanctions, for example, that Weiss and Fausey have placed the utility and desirability of economic sanctions very much in doubt, such that there is now a growing call to bring economic sanctions under scrutiny from a human rights perspective. (Weiss 1999; Fausey 1994). It is noted that what caused the UK, US and the EU to impose sanctions is Mugabe’s decision to seize white farms, rigging elections and human rights violations. Correct and very true, but, again the question is: “Is it right to use economic muscle to blockade Zimbabwe, and not Mugabe from the international credit markets as punishment?” Well, if that is the universal standard, again, why is half the world not the subject of the same so called “smart sanctions”? The controversial question I have asked throughout this paper is who suffers, Mugabe or the people of Zimbabwe, who have even struggled to get rid of their leader? Moreover, because of EU and US foreign policy, Zimbabwe’s international debts have not been forgiven, as have those of other developing nations. I am not defending Mugabe from blame. But again, I ask, is it right to punish the people of Zimbabwe because of the behavior of Mr. Mugabe? So, it is on the basis of the above views that I contend that the sanctions are to blame for the economic crisis leading to the suffering of the population. As Gary Clyde Hufbauer have observed, “Sanctions are seldom effective in bringing major changes in domestic policies of the target country” (Hubfauer 1995: 82).
Cynthia McKinney, member of the U.S. House of Representatives has also argued, “Zimbabwe’s sin is that it has taken the position to right a wrong – to return its land to its people” (Ankomah, 2007:84). McKinney asked, “Can anyone explain how the people in question who now have the land in question in Zimbabwe got title to the land?” According to Ankomah, a fuming McKinney protested, “The truth was that the land was stolen from the indigenous peoples through the BSAC and any titles of it were illegal” (2007, p.84).
As McKinney put it, “The Zimbabwean government has said that a situation where 2 per- cent of the population owns 85 per – cent of the best land is untenable,” adding, “Those who presently own more than one farm will no longer be able to do so” (Ankomah, 2007:4). She asserts that “The real motivation for sanctions against Zimbabwe was their daring to embark on land reform which negatively impacted on white commercial farmers in the country” (Ankomah 2007: 84).
Finally, a number of lessons can be abstracted from the sanctions episodes based on the experience of Zimbabwe. The simple truths are underscored by public health crisis and thousands of lives that have been claimed through the denial of medical equipment, drugs and food. For these reasons, it is clear that sanctions are decreasingly useful policy instrument. While advocates have argued that such sanctions represent the best alternative with respect to the protection of human rights, the paper argues that the effectiveness of such an approach has remained largely unexamined. Critics of trade sanctions have argued that the global community appears to be uninterested in coordinating policy with respect to the use of smart sanctions to protect human rights (Aznar-Gomez: 2002). Instead, individual governments tackle the problem in an ad way. One explanation for this approach is that the level of international coordination required for effective financial sanctions is significant. Indeed, critics of smart sanctions have argued those who recommend them do so with “a total disregard for the realities of global politics” (Bull and Tostensen 1999/2000:133). Another possible explanation which has been given is that policymakers are not yet fully convinced of the utility of purely financial sanctions. One implication of the findings here is that better coordination on this issue is justified and that smart sanctions advocates are justified in pushing for a consensus. However, the current view that, “the international community needs to examine alternatives to comprehensive trade sanctions, which by their nature impact the weakest members of a society first and the leadership last and therefore violate basic principles of international law,” is now well-established (Normand 1996:43). The findings here demonstrate that smart sanctions are a potentially attractive alternative. It is suggested that the scholars ought to now turn their attention to study the more nuanced aspects of financial sanctions. One important set of questions revolves around the different types of financial restrictions and their comparative effectiveness. In addition, there is considerable research on the problems of maintaining international cooperation between governments with respect to sanctions (e.g., Green 1983; Miyagawa 1992). While financial restrictions often require meaningful international cooperation, the conditions for successful collaboration have not been systematically explored. Not all potential targets of sanctions will be vulnerable to financial sanctions—if for no other reason than that their financial assets are not accessible. It worth mentioning that smart sanctions advocates will need to think about alternative mechanisms that serve the twin purposes of effective pressure, and the protection of basic human rights. Academics can also assist in this regard, as the other forms of smart sanctions—beyond the financial restrictions examined here—also demand further study. Unfortunately, there is little systematic data available, so the development of quality datasets remains a priority.
Financial sanctions may be more or less effective when combined with other forms of smart sanctions such as travel restrictions imposed on Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe. Understanding such interactions are a necessary condition for the delivery of effective and humane sanction bundles that both promote compliance and protect fundamental human rights.
Conclusion To conclude, it could be argued that the colonial system, the Lancaster House constitution, the British and Zimbabwean governments and white commercial farmers are all to blame for the current land crisis in Zimbabwe .Yet, the inescapable reality remains that the economic sanctions imposed as a result of the land reform wreaked havoc on Zimbabwe’s economy therefore impacting the general population, not the leadership. Even Arnove argues that “the embargo as a result of sanctions has had major effects on nutrition and health, ever-changing food prices, increased mortality and a general breakdown in the whole fabric of society” (Arnove 2002:199). According to Arnove, “Sanctions are an insidious form of warfare, and have claimed hundreds of innocent lives” (2002: 86). The inhumanity and criminal vindictiveness of sanctions against Zimbabwe struck me when on January 23, 2009, my mother, my sister and nephew all died following a cholera epidemic because the country could not afford to buy drugs and chemicals to treat drinking water. It is painful that sanctions against Zimbabwe are the direct cause of suffering for literally “hundreds of thousands of children “under the age of five (Normand; 1996: 40). This has placed the utility of sanctions of sanctions very much in doubt, such that there should be a call to bring economic sanction against Zimbabwe under international scrutiny from a human rights perspective (Weiss 1999; Fausey 1994). In sum, while the research recognizes the need for land reform, it acknowledges, however, that the land reforms were implemented in a chaotic manner which contributed to incalculable damage both to the economy. At the same time the research concludes by noting that Britain should honor its compensation obligations with regard to land reform made at Lancaster negotiations, bearing in mind that “political power alone is meaningless unless people have land,” yet also support Zimbabwe’s transition to democracy for a non-racial society. In closing, let me leave you with the words of former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, who, in speaking on the devastating impact of sanctions highlighted that: “Sanctions remain a blunt instrument which hurt large numbers of people who are not their primary targets” (New African, 2007:87). With these words it is important to point out that policy makers need to take a close look at the effectiveness of sanctions when designing foreign policy strategy. In most cases, sanctions do not contribute very much to the achievement of foreign policy goals and cause untold damage to innocent populations.
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