Time to tear down this wall of sanctions

12 Apr, 2020 - 00:04 0 Views
Time to tear down this wall of sanctions

The Sunday Mail

Before the country’s latest battle against a new enemy — the coronavirus — it was already engaged in several other battles over the past two decades.

At the turn of the millennium, the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme, which was meant to democratise land ownership and right the historical wrongs of colonialism, precipitated a war of attrition with former coloniser Britain.

Unfortunately, the bilateral dispute culminated in the imposition of sanctions from both the European Union and the United States of America, which are Britain’s allies.

The results have been apparent.

Without financial support from international financiers, the economy progressively deteriorated.

Investment in social services and infrastructural development has suffered as a result. The damage has not been limited to the public sector only, as the private sector has been equally affected. Companies have had to pay extortionate premiums for foreign loans owing to the country’s perceived risk and uncreditworthiness, which obviously has translated into astronomical costs for local consumers.

As if sanctions were not encumbering enough, we have had to recently fight against the vagaries of climate change over the past three summer cropping seasons, which climaxed in Cyclone Idai — regarded as the worst natural disaster ever to affect the Southern Hemisphere — in March last year.

Just before we could meaningfully recover, we are now engaged in a new battle with an even more lethal and virulent enemy. So, essentially we are fighting many battles on different fronts.

Presently, Zimbabwe is like a fatigued warrior who has had to gird for a life-and-death duel with an invisible and merciless gladiator. But as we have done throughout history, we shall overcome.

We have seen how Covid-19 has callously hacked down vulnerable blacks in communities across the United States of America. For example, in Michigan, blacks make up 15 percent the state population but represent 35 percent of people diagnosed with the virus.

This means that blacks in Michigan are 133 percent more likely to contract the novel coronavirus relative to their population size.

Similarly, blacks also account for 40 percent of all deaths in that state.

Conversely, whites, who make up 70 percent of that state’s population, represent 25 percent of the people diagnosed and 26 percent of the deaths.

In Chicago, blacks represent 70 percent of people who have died from coronavirus.

North Carolina, South Carolina and New York show the same pattern.

There is an ominous pattern here.

And it is the same pattern that has prompted people and institutions with a conscience to speak out.

On March 24, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, called for the lifting of sanctions against the Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea to give them a fighting chance against Covid-19.

“The majority of these states (Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea) have frail or weak health systems. Progress in upholding human rights is essential to improve those systems — but obstacles to import vital medical supplies, including over-compliance with sanctions by banks will create long-lasting harm to vulnerable communities. . .

“The populations in these countries are in no way responsible for the policies that are being targeted by sanctions, and to varying degrees have already been living in a precarious situation for prolonged periods,” she rightfully observed.

The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has raised similar concerns, as did the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The novel coronavirus might, as the name suggests, be new, but we know that it spreads exponentially; if you give it an inch, it will take a mile.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, therefore, acted in time by imposing a 21-day lockdown to avoid being blindsided by the disease.

Make no mistake about it, closing a whole economy, especially in an environment where most people are employed in the informal sector and the country’s foreign currency reserves are running on empty, is not an easy decision to make — but it was one that had to be made.

We will, however, have to deal with the consequences long after the virus has been contained.

In essence, the President has had to choose between two options — a bad option, on the one hand, and a terrible one on the other — and he chose the better of the two.

It is unquestionable that a lockdown is the only viable remedy, particularly in cases where the healthcare system wouldn’t possibly cope with an influx of sick patients, yet it would also become incredibly difficult for businesses to keep workers on their payroll if they remain shut. Zimbabwe clearly does not have the “helicopter money” — cash that is printed and given to the public — to spend its way out of the crisis.

The US has had to spend more than US$2 trillion to deal with the fallout of the current crisis, while the European Union will be shelling out a staggering 500 billion euros to help its member states.

It is undoubted that the country’s response would have been better without being encumbered by the sanctions.

But how do those who still think that keeping the sanctions in place is a good thing even sleep at night, especially during these difficult times?

While withholding relief packages might be discretionary, retaining sanctions is thoroughly immoral.

Similar to the way ex-US president Ronald Reagan exhorted former USSR president Mikhael Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall on June 12 1987, we are also compelled to tell the current US president the same thing: “Mr Trump, tear down this wall (of sanctions).”

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