Sanctions don’t always work

THE European Union’s (EU’s) resumption of direct aid to Zimbabwe after a decade of targeted sanctions offers cause for some reflection.

The €234m aid package announced this week follows Harare’s resumption of relations with international finance institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank as part of efforts to repair its badly damaged economy.

Despite sanctions targeted at President Robert Mugabe and his close associates remaining, the undertaking by the EU points to a definite thawing of relations.

Since Mr Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) party remain in power, and the democratic space has not opened much since sanctions were imposed, the question is: what has informed the change of heart by the EU? The answer is very simple: sanctions have not worked.

In almost every case where targeted sanctions have been applied, the ruling elites have simply adapted and found new places to which to travel and in which to do business.

This was no different in Zimbabwe and will be no different in Russia, where the US and EU have imposed similar conditions. This is not to suggest that those within the sanctions net do not feel the inconvenience. But often they are never painful enough to force the political changes desired at the time the sanctions are imposed.

There is another reason the EU may have decided to move on. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the opposition party that was widely believed to have been cheated out of winning the 2002 elections, has itself been caught up in a disaster of its own making.

Riddled with factionalism and intellectual incompetence, over the past few years the party has failed to develop the ideas that could have energised the Zimbabwean population to pursue an alternative to Mr Mugabe. By the last elections the party was but a pale shadow of its former self.

It is impossible to facilitate the democratisation of a country, in particular through coercive interventions such as sanctions, when the main internal protagonists have a serious credibility problem.

The EU has probably seen through the shambles the MDC has become, and decided to hedge its bets on a post-Mugabe Zanu (PF) government. It is a gamble, but one worth taking.