Eric Bloch: Devious anti-sanctions campaign
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 11 March 2011 13:26
IT was Sir Walter Scott, the renowned author who lived from 1771 to 1832,
who said: “O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to
deceive!” Although that was written more than two centuries ago, it is
still apt, as evidenced by the deception exercise launched in Zimbabwe last
week.
A bevy of Zimbabwe’s political hierarchy, of Zanu PF ilk, launched its
anti-sanctions petition campaign with more razmataz and vigour than ever
applied by it before in addressing the needs of Zimbabwe and its people. In
doing so, much political misrepresentation, deception and distortion was
applied.
Key to the deception was the recurrent contention that the causes of
Zimbabwe’s very pronounced economic morass are the sanctions imposed by the
US, the EU, various Commonwealth countries, and some others.
This contention is not of new origin, but was vociferously and repeatedly
expressed by the pre-Government of National Unity (GNU) political
leadership.
Although devoid of substance, and the reality being that the immense array
of economic ills that have afflicted Zimbabwe was due to the policies and
actions of that pre-GNU government, at no time has there been any hesitance
to allege, with intense conviction, that those sanctions have occasioned the
economic distress which has caused endless suffering to the populace.
In launching a campaign to obtain more than two million signatures to
petition for the discontinuance of the sanctions, the campaign’s proponents
sought to justify their claims of the economy’s decimation by emphasis upon
the December 2001 enactment in the USA of the Zimbabwe Democracy and
Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA), and upon some similar sanctions imposed by
other states.
They highlighted, with intense emphasis, that ZDERA obliges US to apply veto
powers to the advances of any funding to Zimbabwe by the Bretton Woods
institutions (such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World
Bank), and they contend that that barrier to funding is a primary cause of
Zimbabwe’s economic ills.
However, in doing so, they very conveniently, and with unmitigated gall,
disregard the fact that sanctions are wholly hypothetical, for in reality,
even if ZDERA did not exist, no funding could flow to Zimbabwe from those
institutions.
Their constitutions preclude any advances to countries who are in default of
servicing their debts to those institutions, and Zimbabwe has gargantuan
arrears on loan repayments, its debt servicing default having been
continuous for more than a decade.
Therefore, whether or not the USA and other countries are bound to veto
international institutional loans to Zimbabwe, such loans would in any event
not have been forthcoming. The fact is that by failing to service its debt
commitments, Zimbabwe has placed sanctions against itself.
The anti-sanctions campaigners further strive to substantiate their
deceptive contentions of the economic prejudices of the sanctions by
emphasising on the wideranging international ban on any funding for
commercial transactions with the Zimbabwean Government, its parastatals and
other economic entities, and those private sector enterprises in which 168
named individuals hold equity.
Admittedly, that sanction exists, but it is wholly notional, for even if the
sanction did not exist, none of that international community would
contemplate lendings to, and engaging in contractual arrangements with, a
government which, by its own admission, is “bankrupt”.
That is especially so in respect of an economy the size of that which
Zimbabwe had when the national debts amounts to US$6,9 billion.
What sane enterprise, other than one engaged exclusively in philanthropy,
would make loans or grant credit or otherwise transact with any that are
recurrently in default of honouring debt, and are flagrantly and blatantly
insolvent .
That is even more so when the enterprises seeking credit facilities and
loans are owned by a government which flagrantly expropriates legitimately
owned property of its citizens and residents without compensation and which
blatantly breaches the numerous Bilateral Investment Promotion and
Protection Agreements (BIPPAs) to which it is a signatory.
In a determined attempt to convince the grievously economic-ailing
population that all its ills are wholly in consequence of the diabolically
evil machinations of the western world, the politicians also repeatedly and
deceptively claim the sanctions to be illegal.
They found their argument on the fact that the sanctions were not agreed to
and imposed by the United Nations, whilst conveniently ignoring that any
country has the sovereign right to determine who it will transact with, and
with whom it will not.
Each such country also has the right to determine how to exercise its votes
at meetings of international organisations of which it is a voting member.
The claims of illegality of the sanctions are therefore equally
misrepresentative, devoid of fact, and are further deception.
State-controlled media devoted its news bulletins endlessly and almost
exclusively to the campaign, citing the deceptive and false allegations of
the economy’s near-total collapse and the attendant misery of the masses,
unceasingly, as absolute fact.
There was total disregard for other world and national news. At the same
time, enormous sums have been and continue to be expended by the campaign’s
promoters on endless and nauseous advertising to obtain the desired
signatures to the petition.
Also, the campaign promoters resorted to invasion of privacy by nationwide
transmission of SMS messages to virtually all mobile telephones on Net One.
(How did they receive unauthorised access to the millions of telephone
numbers?).
But the foremost deceipt is surely the real motivation for the campaign.
Its organisers must be fully aware that the campaign can only provoke
continuance of the sanctions.
That enables them to continue to castigate and abuse the international
community, and to contend intensifyingly that all Zimbabwe’s economic ills
are solely due to that community’s allegedly evil intents.
By so doing, they expect to continue diverting the population from
recognising the real causes of the myriad of economic ills, and thereby to
deflect any realisation that those ills are almost wholly a consequence of
gross misgovernance and power abuse.
Concurrently, it has enabled them to disparage their political opponents for
their non-support of the specious campaign, and for allegedly motivating the
initiation and the continuance of the sanctions.