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Sanctions and development aid contradict each other
14 January, 2010
When the international community, the United Nations or any other organization imposes sanctions against a country, company or person, the idea is to arm-twist them into compliance.
Over the decades, rogue governments have been slapped with sanctions for one reason or other, but especially over political misbehavior and human rights violations.
Sanctions are just a cowardly way of dealing with a rogue that you do not want to confront.
Ian Smith was slapped with sanctions, not because he was abusing the Africans in Rhodesia, but because he had embarrassed the British by declaring unilateral independence.
Sanctions are a hypocritical way of dealing with a situation without appearing to do so, but while acknowledging that what is happening is not acceptable.
After acknowledging that Ian Smith had erred, why didn’t the British simply move in and arrest the rebel? They had more than the capacity to do so.
After recognizing that Robert Mugabe was killing innocent people, was ravaging national coffers and was destroying the region, why didn’t the United Nations and those who imposed the so-called sanctions deal with the perpetrator of evil directly and put a stop to the unnecessary suffering and killing of the people?
Although meant for good intentions, sanctions are bad in that they are a public acknowledgement of a wrong or an evil but without the corresponding and immediate desire to remove it.
It makes me wonder why, after identifying an evil or misdeed, we have to remove it gradually. Evil is evil and need not be given any more time, lest it regroups and comes back stronger, just like Mugabe and his ZANU-PF are doing in Zimbabwe today.
The United Nations, the African Union and, indeed SADC, all recognized the rot in Zimbabwe and some of them responded with sanctions in the face of a murderous onslaught on an unarmed and innocent nation.
They continue to watch as Mugabe and his cronies empted national coffers while killing people and making others disappear.
Even today, the United Nations still welcomes Mugabe to their conferences in the name of diplomatic protocol while our people and nation continue to be abused.
The British and American governments display the most outrageous and hypocritical approach on dealing with Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe has more than political problems.
Political problems are when a government tries but, due to certain constraints, fails to deliver services to the people. Political problems are not when a government deliberately starves and kills its citizens. That is murder most foul, and that is what we have in Zimbabwe today.
That cannot be handled through sanctions. It needs a much more serious response than sanctions. A response with sanctions is like using a teaspoon to empty a lake.
Both the British and American governments know very well that the people of Zimbabwe are under siege and that the people are being not only abused, maimed, made to disappear, starved but are being killed for simply holding a different opinion from that of the government, for being suspected of supporting another party and for simply being a citizen.
Their response: sanctions!
And, as Mugabe learned so well from Ian Smith, sanctions always have loopholes and that is why he continues to stalk every UN conference held outside Zimbabwe.
But I am not concerned about the legal loopholes that Mugabe uses to thumb his nose at his victims; I am more concerned with the loopholes created by the British and American governments through what is termed “developmental aid”.
Foolishly declaring that the money is not going to Mugabe and his ZANU-PF, these two governments are now pouring millions of dollars in “developmental aid” into Zimbabwe and that suits Mugabe just fine.
There is no doubt that Mugabe is hiding behind the MDC while the MDC is hiding behind the coalition government, so now the money can come in yet we all know that Tsvangirai and his MDC have absolutely no power in this government, save for occasional outbursts in reaction to one thing or other to remind people that the MDC are still hanging in there for reasons best known to themselves.
While there is no doubt that people need aid, there is also no doubt that this “development aid” is reaching Mugabe and his thieves.
Mugabe is clearly stronger today than he was the day he lost elections to Tsvangirai, thanks to both the MDC’s ineptitudeness and “development aid”.
We are not naïve.
Mugabe would not be as strong as he is today had the MDC not unwittingly offered him a hand with the British and Americans sending Mugabe money under a guise.
Everyone is hiding behind the people.
So, is development aid doing more good than harm, or vice versa?
I believe this development aid is helping Mugabe more than the people and that is contributing to Mugabe’s intransigency. Development aid is slowly lifting pressure off Mugabe’s shoulders and his arrogance has suddenly picked up again.
The Zimbabwe Vigil, a UK based pressure group, has approached the International Development Committee of the British Parliament, which is to review the British government’s aid to Zimbabwe, to register their fears over this aid.
Said the Vigil: “The Zimbabwe Vigil wishes to express its opposition to any dilution of the pressure on Mugabe and his cronies until they comply fully with the Global Political Agreement signed with the two MDC factions in September 2008.”
They went on to say that the UK government would be setting the wrong precedent by ‘prematurely’ handing over developmental aid to Zimbabwe, where there is no evidence of any real change.
Of course, Mugabe is hiding behind Tsvangirai; and Tsvangirai and the MDC are hiding behind the coalition government, which itself is hiding behind the people.
So, clearly, the British, the Americans, Mugabe, ZANU-PF, Tsvangirai, the MDC are all using the people. Using us as excuses, they are giving each other money and we see more and more repression.
Says the Zimbabwe Vigil, “We believe, in particular, that to give development aid to the coalition government is premature and will send the wrong signals not only to Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party but also to members of the European Union and other countries which have adopted measures against Zimbabwe.”
In other words, the MDC is just as good as absent because they have no power to do anything against ZANU-PF.
So, while the Zimbabwean people welcome the humanitarian assistance to Zimbabwe, they also urge the donors to time it correctly and “to withhold development aid until they are confident that the money will benefit the people rather than the corrupt Mugabe regime”.
An example of the conflict between sanctions and development aid is illustrated more by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) vis-à-vis Zimbabwean farmers at a time when farm invasions are on the increase and with the government saying it will be using the army to rid Zimbabwe of the few remaining white commercial farmers.
USAID has reportedly made available US $14 million in grants to the 52, 000 farmers in Zimbabwe. With most farms owned by Mugabe and his cronies, it is not clear which farmers are set to benefit from this.
Mugabe and his wife stole six farmers between them and may be eligible for these grants since no criteria was set as to who qualifies and who does not.
If the seven NGOs singled out to distribute the grants discriminate against Mugabe and his land grabbers, we have another dispute like the one that Nestle Zimbabwe still has to recover from.
Many people were killed as their farms were violently seized and Mugabe and his group of murderers continue to lead bloody farm invasions and the Americans make money available to such “farmers”, in effect, rewarding them for such nauseating thuggery.
The heart of the matter is that sanctions and development aid are contradicting each other but to the advantage of Robert Mugabe and his marauding thugs.
Mugabe and his violent farm invaders are now being rewarded by the Americans under the false guise of aid to farmers while more and more people continue to lose their farms and lives under Mugabe and his people.
Are we saying that a serial rapist who always takes his woman victim to hospital afterwards should be exonerated for this “kindness”?
What do you say?
Send me your comments on tano@swradioafrica.com
Are the Americans and the British rewarding the farm invaders for killing our compatriots and stealing their property?
Are we rewarding Mugabe for accepting to share power with the MDC when he was not supposed to be anywhere near state property?
While I concede that people need assistance, I am also sadly aware that the same assistance is strengthening the man we had weakened. The man we had rejected.
Thanks to the Americans with their money.
Thanks to the MDC and its ineptitudeness and shortsightedness.
Thanks to the British for dishing out money to the “coalition government” and unwittingly strengthening Mugabe’s hand against us all.
Look at Mugabe now! Tsvangirai stands no chance.
If I were Tsvangirai, I would look for another approach instead of continuing to cavort with Mugabe like this.
Honestly, this charade has gone on for too long.
I am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my fellow Zimbabweans, is the way it is today, Thursday January 14, 2010.
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