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The United States has always incorrectly tried to claim that its sanctions against Zimbabwe are targeted against a modest number of individuals whom it sees as guilty of human rights abuses and economic mismanagement.
This was finally admitted this week by the US Department of State sanctions co-ordinator, James O’Brien. He came clean and said that a lot of American businesses, as a practical matter, find doing quite legal business with Zimbabwean firms just too difficult and so do not bother. It is safer to stay away.
If the so called targeted sanctions were all that was involved, and a couple of Zimbabweans could not operate American bank accounts, transfer money via American banks or buy property in America, it would be a minor irritation for those people to be so listed, but of little consequence to Zimbabwe as a nation.
Even the ban on sales of almost anything to the defence forces and the police would hardly be a problem as Zimbabwe buys that sort of stuff elsewhere, getting better value for its limited spending.
But the US from the very beginning of the sanctions regime has gone a lot further, and deliberately pushed sanctions against the entire nation in an effort to ensure Zimbabweans would suffer and that they would turn against the Government led by Zanu-PF.
This was announced in a rare burst of honesty by Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker when the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act was passed by the US Congress in 2001.
The big stuff in ZDERA was to ensure that US representatives in global and regional financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to name but two, would never approve any assistance to Zimbabwe, and that American institutions would not allow trade finance and the like.
This was reinforced with a series of Executive Orders by US Presidents setting up a lot of rules about dealing with Zimbabwean businesses and banks, in theory screwing down on the listed people and entities, but in practice requiring a lot of expensive work to ensure that those listed are not involved in any way whatsoever.
Considering the size of the American economy, and the US voting block in most international financial institutions, this de facto ban on fiscal and economic support for Zimbabwe was a major set of sanctions, designed to ensure that capital was not available to the Zimbabwean economy.
Zimbabwe had its own troubles with the IMF and World Bank, but ZDERA meant that the two institutions could not follow their own rules on dealing with these.
In addition, there has been a large measure of what has been called over-compliance with US financial laws and executive decisions concerning banking relations with Zimbabwean banks.
Business-to-business relations and even private banking arrangements with Zimbabwean businesses and banks are not banned, but there are dangers if anyone is even vaguely involved, or even possibly involved, with a listed person or entity, meaning that a lot of money needs to be spent in checking that out.
Zimbabwe is a small and not very rich country, so the business available is useful, but hardly large enough to show a profit if a large sum has to be spent first in those checks, and so a lot of American businesses and banks do not bother. It is easier just to ignore all Zimbabwean business.
A few American firms have taken the plunge, done the paperwork required to prove they are not breaching the complex American rules, and have invested, but many others who would normally be interested do not want to risk a clash with America authorities hunting down sanctions breakers, even when they are not breaking any sanctions.
One reason European firms are making inroads into Zimbabwe is that while the EU has its own sanctions, the compliance is more straight forward and the rules far easier to navigate.
So a European arms maker, for example, will have zero ties with Zimbabwe, but many other firms find the costs of Zimbabwean business and investment manageable, and businesses in a non-EU country, such as Switzerland, have an even clearer run with an even simpler set of rules.
The collateral damage is substantial, as UN Rapporteur Alena Douhan found when she investigated. In fact almost all the damage is collateral, in theory not a direct result of the sanctions laws, but because the direct laws make it practically impossible to do business.
The collateral damage, if you read what is implied by US Treasury “findings” on Zimbabwe seems intentional.
It allows US officials to state that sanctions are targeted, although the targeting does include international finance institutions and non-humanitarian aid which is often omitted in these findings, and that normal commercial, business and banking ties are permitted.
But the processes involved in doing permitted business are difficult, and in any case trade without normal trade finance is often almost impossible. Profit margins are tight in the modern world and extra costs cannot be justified. But the US Administration can still pretend it has clean hands. So while in theory, outside the arms trade, there are no trade embargoes, in practice there are since trade does require banks.
The collateral damage affects our neighbours as well, some of whom have really good ties with the US. Even doing business with a South African business or bank can be tricky if you have to find out in advance whether that business or bank has ties with Zimbabwe, and many obviously do, and if so what sort of business and with whom.
This is one reason, besides solidarity with a friendly neighbour, why South Africa and other neighbours add their strong voices against the US financial sanctions.
They want to be shot of the problems that hit them. The neighbours are also aware that the SADC and AU oversight of political processes in the region and the continent mean that the Government is legitimate, wins elections honestly and is a zero threat to world peace, continental peace and regional peace.
In fact Zimbabwe is a useful addition to the forces pressing for every greater democracy, peaceful resolution of conflicts, and working for economic growth.
And they know a lot more of what happens across their border than some person in the US who needs an atlas to figure out where Zimbabwe lies. Those same US reports try to trash the neighbourly support by saying that all the neighbours want is a stop to floods of refugees fleeing “tyranny”. Really.
And apparently, according to the pro-sanctions lobby, opposition politicians in Zimbabwe can do no wrong and any illegal and pro-violent activity in any case is allowable.
Yet Zimbabwe allows aggressive campaigning but, like the US, frowns upon those who urge violence, as a large group of people who attacked the US Congress last year have found when they go to trial and jail.
Our laws on incitement to violence are very normal worldwide, and the only point that needs to be decided, by an independent court, is whether a particular person breached such a law.
And it is persons, not parties, that stand in the dock, just like what happens in the US.
So sanctions are far more damaging than usually admitted by those that impose them, and they often suppress data to make their “clean hands” point. They need to be lifted as they have trivial direct effect on the “targets”, and a lot of damage on the rest of us.
Online Reporter