From where does the West derive the temerity to dictate what we should want? Who abrogated this power to them? Should you my fellow Zimbabweans keep quiet over this? I chose to stop this.
Sanctions are said to be targeted at selected individuals and firms. They are definitely targeted at all Zimbabweans living and yet to be born
The Sunday Mail
Continued from Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries: Sanctions are harmful
By Joseph Kanyekanye
Continued from March 12 Sunday Mail issue.
AN understanding of the historical context is critical to an understanding of the present situation in Zimbabwe. Much could be written about the historical context of the Zimbabwe situation. We will focus on what we see as the key issues.
The land question is central to this historical context. Redressing the imbalance in land ownership and distribution was a key objective of the liberation struggle. In order to facilitate the Lancaster House peace accord, it was agreed to maintain a willing buyer, willing seller approach on land redistribution for the first 10 post-independence years. We often forget that this was adhered to by the Government of Zimbabwe.
Subsequent to the 10-year clause’s expiry, we understand that the Zimbabwean Government further agreed with the then Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, to postpone any radical land reform programme in order not to derail the transition to democracy in South Africa.
Therefore it is clear that the Zimbabwean Government exercised enormous patience on the land question.
Against this backdrop, the 1997 letter from the government of the United Kingdom in which it was stated that the United Kingdom believed that they had no special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe had done its bit.
By disavowing special responsibility, the United Kingdom has failed to fully play its part. Therefore Zimbabwe has, what many would agree, is a genuine grievance with the United Kingdom regarding the land reform programme.
It can be argued that this was the first form of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe. In hindsight, the Government of Zimbabwe should have sued the British government for breach of trust then.
Whether one approves or does not approve the way that land reform was finally conducted in Zimbabwe, what it does mean is that the situation was far more complex than the simplistic view that was taken by the Western media and some local not-so-independent newspapers.
Thus given this historical context, this creates a widespread perception that, in fact, the sanctions are some sort of punishment for the land reform programme. This perception clearly pervades the whole Zimbabwean perspective and totally colours the nation’s view on the whole issue of sanctions. This impression, that sanctions are unfairly imposed on Zimbabwe, is not only held within quarters in Zimbabwe but widespread in Africa. This impression is reinforced by the fact that certain countries, objectively less democratic than Zimbabwe, and with objectively poorer human rights records, do not have similar sanctions regimes imposed upon them by the West. The impression created is that the West is anti-Zanu-PF, and whether Zanu-PF achieves a fair victory on the polls this would remain unacceptable to the West. We believe that it is important that the West is seen to be impartial and that it will work with any party that is elected in free and fair elections. For these reasons we believe that the sanctions are counter-productive.
Are Sanctions Western Myths, Reality or Mass Deception?
The United States Embassy in Harare has declared that sanctions do not affect ordinary Zimbabweans but few individuals and companies. The Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic recovery Act (2001) or
Zidera’s existence at the same time with the fact that the US has a visa system and border control measures that could alternatively be used to deal with these individuals and firms suggest some cognitive resonance on me or them.
Why legislate to deal with individuals when there are already travel instruments? Why is the US government maintaining Zidera if there is no intention to stifle efforts by Zimbabwe to deal with its debt and secure funding? It is analogous to a person with a nicotine fit who runs around from bar to bar looking for cigarettes while claiming they do not smoke. It needs to be pointed out that with the exception of the PTA Bank, Afreximbank and lately the Development Bank of South Africa and some China Development Bank support, Zimbabwe has failed to access the international debt market largely because of sanctions. Industry needs at least US$3 billion to creep back! I have met representatives of virtually every multi-lateral agency to a point that I know their standard line for declining financial assistance.
They always say sort the political issues first and money will flow. It cannot be anything else or we run the risk of saying that these aforementioned institutions do not do proper due diligences. On the contrary, the Afreximbank president is on record as indicating that this all-weather friend of Zimbabwe industries has never failed to get its money back. Zimbabweans, use your world-renowned literacy and judge for yourself!
UK and US embassies in Harare, some not-so-independent Press plus one prominent deputy minister in Zimbabwe, often say there are no sanctions at all.
They are afforded acres of space in these newspapers to give “expert” opinion pieces not backed by either empirical evidence, experience of industry or analytical rigour. Read Zidera in English and perhaps in Shona or Ndebele. Get a transcript of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s opening speech on March 8 2011 at the Euromoney Investment Conference where he conceded the need to remove sanctions while pointing out the difficulties he faced in this endeavour.
Readers are also urged to interpret Finance Minister Tendai Biti’s statement at the same conference when he indicated the stark reality that Zimbabwe is one of the few developing countries that are driving growth almost exclusively on domestic resources, i.e. no overseas development assistance. Kindly judge your comprehension skills thereafter.
Sanctions do not hurt ordinary Zimbabweans, so says various urban-based armchair critics. They cite the EU Council resolution (EC) — 314/2004 CFSP — financial restrictions on Zimbabwe and travel ban on select government leaders. Let’s go together to Bikita, my home area, and ask the rural folk what has changed in NGOs approaches. Which projects were abandoned before completion? Some people in this country are quoted indicating that sanctions have no impact on business. I invite you to talk to the IFC and ask them why they are not funding viable private sector projects in Zimbabwe when they use private sector equity funds (ostensibly not affected by sanctions) to do this?
You should also attend the signing of the Botswana P500 million line of credit in Harare on March 21 2011 to see the domestic desperation for funding.
There is a stampede for funding under this scheme which is only US$70 million! I would appreciate an analytical mind to explain why this scheme is being bankrolled by private Botswana banks which have branches here but are not able to do so locally?
These banks are clearly saying that there are bankable projects in Zimbabwe at a private sector level. Judge for yourself and be brave and candid thereafter for the sake of the country that you call home - Zimbabwe.
Post-GNU extension of sanctions is traceable to deteriorating human rights, so say some civil society groups. Is this comparable to DRC or the level of corruption one confronts in Malawi? This suggests another objective beyond the ostensible need to protect human rights and democracy. Business still gives the GNU a lot of goodwill and any person in a bus from Shurugwi will tell you we have a government of national unity representing at least 90 percent of political support in Zimbabwe. In such a scenario and since 2009, where does the West get their cue to continue sanctions in whatever manner?
Is it also normal for another country to then unilaterally impose Zidera and some afore-mentioned sanctions to cause a sovereign state to align its policies to suit the West? Is this not immoral, undemocratic and unChristian?
From where does the West derive the temerity to dictate what we should want? Who abrogated this power to them? Should you my fellow Zimbabweans keep quiet over this? I chose to stop this.
Sanctions are said to be targeted at selected individuals and firms. They are definitely targeted at all Zimbabweans living and yet to be born. When Zesa fails to fund viable power projects and you have load-shedding kindly reflect and ask yourself if these sanctions are not targeted at you as well.
Zidera specifically directs the Secretary of Treasury to instruct the United States executive director to each international financial institution to oppose and vote against any loan credit or guarantee to Zimbabwe or cancellation of reduction of indebtedness. Zidera says: “Until the President makes the certification described in sub-section(d), and except as may be required to meet basic human needs or for good governance, the Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States executive director to each international financial institution to oppose and vote against: any extension by the respective institutions of any loan, credit or guarantee to the Government of Zimbabwe: or any cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the Government of Zimbabwe to the United States or any international financial institution.”
This is targeted at all Zimbabweans including the inclusive Government obtaining now! Dare we say there are no sanctions honestly and that they are targeted at few individuals when Zidera explicitly targets the inclusive Government of Zimbabwe. When we spend days as a nation arguing our right to sell diamonds but defending issues outside the Kimberley Process do we dare ignore this?
When ZMDC is interfered with in their RTGS transaction payments for diamonds meant to pay civil servants and/or boost Government revenues, should we remain civil about this? Surprisingly, everyone from every political party is keen to see ZMDC money enter the fiscus yet we are not united in ensuring we break sanctions to enhance the value from our diamonds which can potentially bring at least US$85 million monthly and break sanctions. There are very few companies in their lifetime that give so much money now to the fiscus than what ZMDC does in one year. What offends Zimbabweans is the fact that even when ZMDC passed a rigorous and objective Kimberley Process verification amidst wrong categorisation of Marange diamonds as bloody diamonds, the EU proceeds to impose sanctions on this company. The current argument is that their operations are not transparent hence sanctions.
Do Zimbabweans know the transparency or lack of it of say the private security firms in Iraq? Can you imagine explaining to Americans that Zimbabwe and Sadc are imposing sanctions on one such firm because they are not transparent. I have been to America and lived in Britain and I can say without any fear of contradiction that they will say the most impolite words to your face for saying this. Are we supposed to then just accept this notion that when the EU lets out air at Zimbabwe we should not complain? If one wants a compromise in terminology, these are restrictive sanctions!
The US Embassy has argued that trade between Zimbabwe and the United States increased amidst sanctions while conceding it has now gone down. This is, in fact, true but the impact of sanctions is not measured in marginal increase of trade alone and with an improvised state.
Perhaps the trade would have been hundred times more if the US had not stifled Zimbabwe’s access to lines of credit as is the case now. The reality is that in 1996, Zimbabwe’s economy was about a fifth of that of South Africa. A look at 2010 would have suggested that our economy should have been about US$50 billion if one discounts any other factor other than sanctions. In reality sanctions plus other self-induced domestic policies led to the decline.
This author grew up in the mean streets of Sakubva in Mutare and later on moved to live at a house his parents built on 1060 Chikanga. This house is on the corner of Gomo Rembira Road and the World Bank Road in Mutare. The street was named World Bank because the World Bank used to offer subsidised housing materials that my parents used to build the house I have known as home for a long time. The WorldBank was established as a bank for reconstruction when Europe was in ruins. Any serious student of international development assistance will tell you that the World Bank has funded maternity, sanitation, power projects, women rights to almost everything in Zimbabwe and most developing countries. One criticism of the World Bank is that it has generated odious debt while the IMF is often cited as popping up with finance to prop up poor economies.
The IMF is meant to supply emergency funding to countries in need of such assistance. The World Bank and IMF have also afforded debt relief to a lot of countries like Tanzania and Burkina Faso. A 2004 World Bank report shows that poverty reduction doubled with debt relief. Zidera prevents this debt relief and even stifles IFC interventions in the Zimbabwe private sector. Academics often argue that there is no debt that is not payable on the basis that any country, except Zimbabwe under Zidera, can refinance its debt through the IMF or World Bank. Zidera is thus a frontal sanction to all Zimbabweans living and those yet to be born!
The use of a unilateral sanctions list heightens country risk and invariably increases the costs of borrowing, beyond targeted companies and individuals. Market price risk and having your country on the US and EU sanctions certainly increases risk beyond internal country risk thus scaring both multilateral and private equity funds from Zimbabwe.
The queue to borrow at rates over 20 percent per annum in Zimbabwe points to a dangerous source of lack of competitiveness that is being foistered on business, invariably forcing them to seek a large margin in excess of normal global margins of 5 percent seen in the West. The process of destroying this country’s industry comes from anyone who wishes to prolong this anomaly or joins a coalition of denial and indifference to those that seek to want business to be quiet about these illegal sanctions. As things stand in Zimbabwe now, it’s only in the last year that some businesses in Zimbabwe can secure letters of credit with an EU country. This is still difficult today with banks like HSBC refusing currently to accept Zimbabwean traveller’s cheques as per instructions from the head office in London. The CZI president experienced this directly in Beijing recently. AGOA did not benefit Zimbabwe. In fact, there are such countries like Botswana which did not have features that qualified them but negotiated entry and accessed the benefits of AGOA, while Zimbabwe failed largely due to an extension of illegal declared and undeclared sanctions imposed by the United States.
The sanctions are a major source of division and disunity in Zimbabwe in several ways. Firstly, the unilateralism offends most businesspeople, conjuring immediate past valid colonial abuses. A significant educated population sees this as 21st century colonial abuse where Britain no longer sends viceroys to Africa but simply tweaks the EU to act.
When this is viewed against Western indifference of a much more catastrophic Rwanda genocide when Western NGOs pulled out and no one intervened, the justification that this has to do with human rights is often doubted. Bosnia went through ethnic cleansing and the world witnessed the genuine Western focus to deal with it with no NGO pulling out. This heightens the suspicion that Zimbabweans are being punished for land reform. This may well be a wrong perception but it is a reality with a large following in Zimbabwe.
To be continued March 20, 2011. That last instalment will feature CZI’s views on the way forward.
SEE ALSO:
Barack Obama extends illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe
Ethical significance of anti-sanctions petition
Anti-sanctions campaign the day the lion knew how to draw
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