EDITORIAL COMMENT: Sanctions will be defeated by pragmatism

When sanctions were applied against Zimbabwe a little over 20 years ago without the authority of the United Nations Security Council, the only issuer of a legal sanctions order and even then only when there is a threat to world peace, the intention was to bring Zimbabwe to its knees.

Those using sanctions obviously did not see a small country as a threat to world peace, and the UN Security Council threw out the attempt to legalise sanctions, but they wanted to bring the Government of Zimbabwe down and replace it with a regime that would do what the sanctions imposers wanted.

If this involved an economic collapse and a popular uprising, then that could create other useful openings for those that hated land reform and other measures of the Government. 

It would also make it clear to other countries that the sanctions imposers meant business and that their threats should be taken seriously in future.

Although the propaganda veneer was that the sanctions were targeted against a small group of people associated with the Zanu PF Government and some of their businesses and Government-owned businesses, not even the imposers believed a word of this.

When the United States was passing the Zimbabwean Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA) then Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker made it abundantly clear that he hoped the US Congress would make people suffer so they would change their Government. And that is still the aim.

Zidera spells out the measures to prevent Zimbabwe accessing the multinational financial institutions, or more precisely making the US representatives vote against any access and US vote is easily the largest and US allies can join the US to create a majority without any difficulty. That would be bad enough.

But the annual sanctions order, and the way it is enforced by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, has made a lot of normal trade and payments through normal commercial banking systems difficult for many American British and some European companies. 

Unless they delve deep into every transaction involving a Zimbabwean company they may find they have inadvertently done business at several steps removed with someone or an entity on the list, and be forced to pay steep fines. 

Such checks are possible, but few wish to spend the money for what amounts to very modest business since the profits will be less than the investigation costs. 

So although there are no formal trade sanctions, or not outside the targeted people, the effective position is that there are quite a lot.

This weekend President Mnangagwa said Zimbabweans should not just sit back and wring their hands over sanctions. A lot has been done and a lot more can be done in mobilising Zimbabwean resources instead of relying on foreigners. 

The Second Republic is making inroads with its engagement and reengagement policies, and there has always been support from countries who disagree with the sanctions regime, along with support from many investors, including some American investors, who are keen to do business in Zimbabwe even if they have to ring fence their operations here to avoid overzealous sanctions enforcers.

But the main thrust of President Mnangagwa’s argument was that Zimbabweans, and he includes those Zimbabweans in the diaspora, do not have to sit back and wait forever for sanctions to be lifted, but can themselves innovate, invest and most critically produce and process what we grow, mine and make. This has a double benefit. 

For a start it develops the country, but perhaps a lot more important for those doing the investing, innovating, production and processing is that they are building up their own farms, mines and businesses.

The gross national product is the total of every economic activity in the country and much of that economic activity comes from the private sector, all the way from small micro businesses, through smallholder farms and onto the medium and very large companies with large payrolls. It all adds up.

The President listed the sort of business expansion that is going on during his watch, partly because the Government is making doing business a lot easier, partly because investors are now encouraged, and partly because Zimbabweans are grabbing the opportunities now available, some created by Government and some because Government no longer imposes rules designed to limit business openings.

At the same time universities, colleges and schools have upgraded curricula to include a lot more attention to preparing young people to become highly productive and innovative, able to start their own businesses and build them up. 

At the same time their lecturers and professors are working on solving technical issues and also creating businesses and business openings.

All this, the production, the innovation, the investment and the like, puts to work something sanctions cannot block, the skills and the intelligence of Zimbabweans prepared to put in some hard work but also expecting to get a return on that hard work. 

Despite all the natural resources in Zimbabwe, President Mnangagwa sees the most crucial resource being the people. And the process is putting together the resources and the people so everyone can make more money.

It is this sort of pragmatic set of programmes that will defeat the intentions of the sanctions imposers, with Zimbabweans preferring to build and grow their businesses and their income rather than tear everything down to gratify the wishes of those who wish the country ill. 

And of course many Zimbabweans are patriotic, especially when patriotism makes good economic sense so there is zero conflict between person and public goals.