Scene Setting
I remember it clearly. Recently arrived in Oxford to start my postgraduate studies, I was visited in my room by one of my housemates. I offered her grapes. She asked where they were from. I named a local supermarket. No, she said, she wanted to know what country they were from. Peering at the bunch of grapes, she found a silver sticker which I had not noticed. It had ‘Cape’ written on it. The grapes were from South Africa. She said she could not eat them because of the boycott and sanctions against that country. It was 1989 and I had just come from neighbouring Zimbabwe which had also endured colonialism and apartheid and had fought a nationalist struggle for independence.
The grapes brought back memories. I was a young child in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, in the seventies. This piece reflects my recollections of sanctions from that era. It is a story of the best and worst of human nature. It speaks to the values that we want to inculcate in our children: fairness, integrity, honesty and the strength to fight for what is right, while highlighting the worst of human nature-hypocrisy, lies, betrayal and discrimination.
Introduction
The fraught events of the past few years which have included the outbreak of civil wars in Ethiopia and Sudan, the continuation of the Russian-Ukrainian war and more recently the eruption in the Middle East have raised afresh the efficacy of boycotts and sanctions against states or actors who are seen as violating human rights norms and international law more generally. This piece is about the efficacy of sanctions. Article 41 of the UN Charter defines sanctions as non-military means of getting compliance with Security Council Resolutions. These can take many forms including, “complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.”
Do sanctions work? The answer is, it depends on the goal or aim of the sanctions and on which state is sanctioned and by whom. Sanctions may aim to cripple the economy as a means of pressuring the country to stop the offensive behaviours or to rethink its stance on a particular issue such as with Iran. Or are they to signal disapproval, to raise awareness and to radiate solidarity with those who are suffering, such as with South Africa during the apartheid regime? Their efficacy is very much dependent on those enforcing the sanctions.
The evidence shows that where the interests of economically and politically powerful states align in support of sanctions there is a greater likelihood of the sanctions having an impact. Their efficacy is increasingly tested in a global world where countries take the opposite or a neutral view on an issue and may thus not want to participate in the enforcement of the sanctions. This provides an outlet for the sanctioned country to export its goods and services. The refuseniks often benefit from cheaper prices and the formation or reaffirmation of strategic partnerships for their future benefit.
History
On Armistice day (11 November) in 1965, the minority Rhodesian regime under Ian Smith issued a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI). Until then, the territory known as Southern Rhodesia had been under British control. Reflecting the decolonisation demands being made in other parts of the continent, the black African population had become restive and could no longer be placated with community development schemes and promises of political self-governance in the future. The majority of white Rhodesians and their leaders were resistant to accept even modest proposals set out in a 1961 Constitution. These would have permitted fifteen seats out of sixty-five to be held by Africans in the Assembly. They regarded these as a threat to their economic and political dominance. They were not prepared to envisage a time when, ‘The divine right is now accorded not to kings but the 51%’. They were the kings. (J. M. Eekelaar (1966) 120,129) The British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had warned of the need for transition in his 1962 “Winds of Change” speech to the equally racist and resistant SA Parliament. . The Rhodesians modelled themselves on South Africa. In 1952 Ian Smith had said, “I very definitely feel that we have much more in common with South Africa than any other country in the world.” The 1965 UDI Constitution thus retained and reinforced white minority rule. The UN was swift in its condemnation of UDI passing a resolution a day after UDI which called on states not to recognise the ‘racist minority regime’ or to offer it any assistance. The British government tried to reason with Smith but to no avail. It imposed sanctions against the rebel regime. These were designed to bring the Rhodesians back to Constitutional rule.
UN Imposes Sanctions
A week after UDI, the UN again weighed in, adopting Security Council Resolution 217 (1965) of 20 November 1965. This required states not to recognise the illegal Rhodesian regime or to give it any support, “in particular, to desist from providing it with arms, equipment and military material, and to do their utmost in order to break all economic relations with Southern Rhodesia, including an embargo on oil and petroleum products.” The Resolution left it to individual states to police themselves. Sanctions were strengthened in further resolutions including Resolution 253 (1968). This reiterated the prohibition of states maintaining any diplomatic or economic relationship with the Smith government. It encouraged those nations that had continued to trade or to facilitate trade to stop doing so. This was to cut it further adrift from the community of nations. Importantly, Resolution 253 of 1968 called on states to “render moral and material assistance to the people of Southern Rhodesia in their struggle to achieve their freedom and independence.”
Did the sanctions work? The British government thought it important to remain in dialogue with Rhodesia and interpreted the assistance provision in the 1968 UN Resolution 253 to exclude the use of violence or ‘terrorism.’ Other states saw it differently. The Attorney General told Parliament that the sanctions would not have an immediate effect but had already started to bite. He noted that exports “have fallen from £165 million in 1965 to £100 million in 1967.”
However, a declassified CIA report on Rhodesian sanctions from the same month, June 1968, said that sanctions were not having a significant effect. US economic figures showed that the Rhodesian regime had prepared for sanctions and was weathering them well. This was in part because of support provided to Rhodesia by several countries including South Africa and Portugal. It also noted that neighbouring states relied on Rhodesian infrastructure for food imports and other resources including electricity to fire the Zambian copper mines and coal for the Katanga mines in Congo.
Living through sanctions
My childhood memories are of living through a civil war for Black liberation which the regime sold as a fight against terrorism. Despite sanctions, the Rhodesians were well armed with helicopters, tanks and guns coming through South Africa, while the freedom fighters were supplied with arms and training by the Soviet Union and China with backup support provided by states such as Cuba. The Frontline states including Zambia together with Tanzania, allowed guerilla camps and provided both infrastructure and money on their territory. Cold War considerations were important in deciding which horse to back and when.
Apartheid South Africa proved to be a dependable ally. Rhodesian trade with South Africa increased. South Africa also helped to repackage Rhodesian goods to hide their provenance. Resolution 333 (1973) and Resolution 388 (1976). Despite the sanctions, petrol continued to flow from South Africa and Mozambican ports in Beira and Lourenco Marques. This was facilitated by Portugal, which was named and shamed in the UN along with South Africa. Resolution 277 (1970). While there was rationing, I remember my mother having a monthly allocation of petrol coupons, with more being available ‘informally’. I do not recall a time when the fuel ran out. An earlier UN Security Council Resolution 221/1966 had already asked Portugal not to allow oil to pass through the Beira port in Mozambique to Rhodesia. The lesson was, where there is money to be made or saved, countries will breach sanctions. Considerations about complicity in violations of human rights or sanctions were not barriers to trade. Sales of oil were a clear indicator in the same way that in the present day, cheap Russian oil has been bought by India and China despite Western sanctions against Russia for its war against Ukraine. The oil and gas sales are also a reminder of a famous Mandela retort when asked about the company that he kept; “Your enemies are not our enemies.”
Civilian life continued. Rhodesian ‘ingenuity’ became a matter of pride, with backs against the wall, this plucky little nation was going to show the world what defiance looked like: make do and mend became the mantra. Nothing was thrown away. Leisure was not ignored; sporting fixtures- rugby and cricket- against South Africa continued. Keen to show off its European cultural roots, the Rhodesian regime adopted a new national anthem, “Rise O Voices of Rhodesia” set to the Fourth Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. With a slightly different arrangement, Europeans may still recognise it as the Ode to Joy-the European anthem adopted in 1972. The Rhodesian anthem spoke of sharing God’s bounty, but clearly not with the Black owners, reminding one of the writer Doris Lessing’s observation that while white colonialists came to love the land, they never thought to love its people. The anthem’s call for God to lead them to wise decisions clearly fell on deaf ears.
Collaboration with South Africa was Rhodesia’s lifeline. South African universities welcomed white Rhodesian students in droves. The Rhodesian education department created a Matriculation level (M) qualification lodged between Ordinary (O) and Advanced (A) levels to allow Rhodesian students to qualify for South African universities. Whites only South African beaches teemed with white Rhodesian holiday makers. They returned loaded with goodies, South African sweets, wines and all that their hearts desired, and, if I am honest, I too longed for South African sweets which were of superior quality (Rhodesian ‘ingenuity’ did not extend to the sweets).
Integrity v. Self-Interest
Western states were inconsistent in their application of sanctions.Reluctant to lose its access to the supply of South African gold and minerals, Britain continued trading with South Africa and protected it from external pressure. The US played both sides of the fence-publicly condemning the Rhodesian regime, while privately continuing to support South Africa in full knowledge of the centrality of its role in buttressing the Smith regime.. In an introduction to South African anti-apartheid activist Ruth First’s book One Hundred and Seventeen Days, about her 1963 arrest and imprisonment in solitary confinement, her husband, Joe Slovo wrote about how her jailers had learned their craft, “from refresher courses in Western police academies” allowing them “to practise their newly acquired skills of mental torture.”
On Western political expediency and hypocrisy, he noted:
“The Reagans of the world were ‘constructively’ engaged on the side of thuggery and the Thatchers sabotaged every international attempt to take effective measures against it; arousing a suspicion that the protection of ‘kith and kin’ overshadowed their concern for ‘human rights’ and their much-vaunted repudiation of state terrorism. And the rest of the world seemed unready or unable to provide the means.” (J. Slovo “Introduction” (1988) 4, 5)
In the case of Rhodesia, the US’s self-interest was made plain in the case of Diggs v. Shultz.
Diggs v. Shultz
In 1972 a case, Diggs v. Shultz, was s brought in a District court in America challenging the import of Rhodesian chrome in defiance of sanctions. Chrome had been on the list of sanctioned goods. The mineral, Rhodesia’s biggest export commodity, was needed for manufacturing and so formed part of a Nixon era US import exemption enacted in the Byrd Amendment which allowed Congress to suspend or digress from its international obligations including UN resolutions. This was despite the fact that US had voted for the sanctions. The case was brought on behalf of numerous plaintiffs, including ZANU and ZAPU (the Black liberation movements) and Gore Vidal on behalf of authors whose books were banned in Southern Rhodesia. Also banned was the children’s book Black Beauty, which is about a horse, not about a gorgeous Black woman! (Personal correspondence-email-from Bert Lockwood to F. Banda, 9 September 2022) The District Court said that they did not have standing (the right to bring the claim).
The US Court of Appeals agreed that the case could be heard. However, the appellants lost on the key point challenging the legality of the Byrd Amendment. This was because of a doctrine in US constitutional law called “the last-in-time doctrine,” where if there is a conflict between a treaty and an act of Congress, the domestic court is required to apply the latter statute even though it would be a blatant treaty violation.
The Byrd Amendment led to another UN Security Council Resolution 314/72 adopted on the 28th of February 1972. Requested/Sponsored by Guinea, Somalia and Sudan, the Resolution noted that any law passed by a country “with a view to permitting, directly or indirectly, the importation from Southern Rhodesia of any commodity falling within the scope of the obligations imposed (by the 1968 resolution), including chrome ore, would undermine sanctions and would be contrary to the obligations of States.” The Resolution also said that the UN “…deplores the attitude of those States which have persisted in giving moral, political and economic assistance to the illegal regime.” Speaking at the United Nations after the passing of the Byrd Amendment, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, a nationalist leader said that he would have liked to have spoken before its passage and “to have shed a few African tears before him.”
Efficacy-Do Sanctions Work?
The evidence speaks to the importance of context, the strength of the condemnation against the offending state and the strength of allyship. The BBC correspondent Nancy Kacungira identified four different contexts in which sanctions were used with variable impact. In the 1940s the USA suspended post-war aid for the Netherlands after it arrested pro-independence leaders in the Dutch East Indies who wanted independence from Dutch colonisation. The Dutch relented and Indonesia was granted independence in 1949. A second example is that of Iran which was sanctioned for its development of a nuclear programme and support for proscribed terrorist groups. Although the sanctions have had some impact, Iran’s diverse economy and friendship with states such as China have helped it to withstand the worst of the sanctions. By way of contrast, the global condemnation of the South African regime and the imposition of economic, sporting and other sanctions contributed to the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and the holding of democratic elections in 1994. The final example given is that of Venezuela which was put under sanctions by the US and the European Union in 2014 in order to pressure President Maduro for corruption and abuse of power. Despite sky high inflation which has reached a ridiculous 200,000 percent and the impact of the COVID crisis, the Venezuelan president has remained in power. The people have suffered enormously and many have migrated to neighbouring states with those who are richer migrating abroad.
Does this mixed picture mean that sanctions are not worth the paper on which they are written? In personal correspondence, Lutz Oette writes, “there has been a broad consensus that economic sanctions have been ineffective as targeted governments have found ways to undermine them, insulate themselves, or use sanctions for a rally around the flag propaganda. These considerations are behind the turn to targeted sanctions in the late 1990s.” (Lutz Oette email to F. Banda 25 May 2024) He goes on to distinguish those movements or issues which manage to generate international sympathy, such as the South African case from those which do not. In the latter category are sanctions against Iraq following the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussain and the war that followed. While solidarity and sympathy kept South Africa in the headlines, the relative indifference to Iraq meant that the plight of the Iraqi people was not as visible.
Pragmatism and Political Pressure
The increasing pressure on South Africa had an indirect effect on the Rhodesian story. Uncertain about its own future, and under pressure to relinquish control over South-West Africa/Namibia, the South African government could not continue to take on the added burden of supporting Rhodesia. It therefore exerted pressure on the Rhodesian government to reach a settlement with the liberation leaders. There was the added impact of the decision of Portugal to agree to independence and hence majority rule in Mozambique and Angola which left the minority white run Southern African states exposed to further pressure and condemnation.
Despite the equivocation of the UK and the USA, it is clear that the Rhodesian case had broader international and organisational support evidenced by the swiftness and consistency of UN resolutions condemning the Rhodesian regime and recording invitations to Black nationalist leaders to speak before the UN. The United Kingdom was encouraged to work towards resolving the Rhodesian crisis. The Commonwealth, a club of former British colonies, also kept up the pressure as did the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) whose 1963 Charter had as its goals, decolonisation and ending apartheid. The OAU had an African Liberation Committee. The Southern African question encompassing South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe was kept under review as were Angola and Mozambique. The Pan Africanist vision required their freedom as a precursor to the realisation of African unity.
Sanctions as the Price to be Paid for Freedom
The Rhodesian case study is also an example of the ‘empire biting back’, for it marked a time when newly independent states used the language of self-determination, dignity and equality to demand for themselves that which the ‘West’ had, in the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, 1948, proclaimed as the birthright of all humanity. An Na’im refers to this as the process of reciprocity which requires you to “imagine the situation with you as the subject of violation of human dignity and freedom.” They were as keen on UN Charter sovereignty as some colonial states were resistant to relinquishing their privileges. It helped that liberation movements had explicitly said that they were prepared to endure the suffering that sanctions may bring. Rhetoric played a powerful role. Impactful was the invocation of religion and specifically Christianity to call out the hypocrisy of those who proclaimed themselves Christians, but who sought to deny human rights, dignity and equality to others by maintaining a daily regime of suppression and oppression of Black people.The hurt of the people impacted was deployed to profound effect. Also highlighted was the inconsistency of the US whose public proclamations of its rule of law based order and adherence to principles of equality for all before the law, was directly contradicted by its actions. It is interesting to note that it was the Congressional Black Caucus which was one of the groups which maintained pressure on US administration through the Rhodesian and South African apartheid years.
Speaking at a UN press conference, the nationalist leader Bishop Abel Muzorewa reminded the UK of its continued obligations to the African people for whom it remained responsible. It had attempted to say that it had limited influence on the Rhodesian regime. He went on to observe that instead of decolonisation, there was a process of recolonisation under way. While making clear that a non-violent approach was desired, he warned that frustration could lead to the adoption of violence as a means of resistance, which is what happened. He saw boycotts and sanctions as legitimate means of putting pressure on the recalcitrant Rhodesians. These were to be counted as the ‘price of freedom.’ He also mooted the possibility of African labour strikes, reflecting that white people who ‘could not even make a cup of tea for themselves’ would find it difficult to cope without access to black labour. The economy would shut down in a month.
Sanctions as Solidarity Building
It is clear that if the aim of sanctions is to raise public awareness then yes, they can be impactful. In a world in which individuals can feel helpless, boycotting goods from a particular nation can feel like one is at least doing ‘ something ‘, or one’s bit. International solidarity can be a powerful thing, pressuring governments to change or alter course, including ceasing or limiting trade with recalcitrant states.
Sanctions or boycotts may be highly effective in pressuring non-state actors. In particular, threats of boycott of companies who have assets or who conduct business in targeted states. The aim of the threats is to encourage companies to divest or to cease trading in those states. Pressure can also be brought to bear on universities not to invest in corporations that have links with the state in question. They can be asked to refrain from collaborating with universities based in the targeted country.
Travel and cultural boycotts including not travelling to the sanctioned country and not participating in events sponsored by companies that have links with the targeted country may be impactful. The advocacy acts as an effective tool to manifest disapproval of the company and can be used to try to make it unprofitable, or to inflict reputational damage. These actions also show that ‘ordinary people’ are in solidarity with the oppressed. More recently one can see a mirroring of advocacy tactics in the actions of climate activists and those opposed to the actions of certain states or companies.
States can use sanctions to show that they take a principled, rather than rhetorical, commitment to human rights. The most important effect is the affirmation for those who are at the receiving end of oppression. Hearing and seeing that you are not alone, or that others are outraged, can be affirming. Long term oppression can have the same effect as domestic violence where the victim may begin to question their own worth and think that this is all that they deserve. Having your humanity and dignity recognized and validated is important. With the right advocacy, sanctions can bring this about. Despite the cynicism shown by some states, human rights matter
The Diggs case is significant for its broader discussion of the efficacy of sanctions:
It may be that the particular economic sanctions invoked against Southern Rhodesia in this instance will fall short of their goal, and that appellants will ultimately reap no benefit from them. But, to persons situated as are appellants, United Nations action constitutes the only hope; and they are personally aggrieved and injured by the dereliction of any member state which weakens the capacity of the world organization to make its policies meaningful.
Conclusion
The Rhodesian example shows that, on their own, sanctions may not be sufficient to bring about immediate change. However, as part of a broader nexus of measures including advocacy, pressure on corporations and public shaming, they can have an impact. Most importantly, sanctions reinforce the symbolic importance of human rights even when they are not strictly adhered to.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to my colleague Professor Lutz Oette for enormous help with this paper. As ever, I am indebted to my mentor John Eekelaar for our conversations about Zimbabwe and for showing integrity during the apartheid years. His work and life are a testament to the fact that we always have a choice to do the right thing. Thank you John. This short paper is for you.
This piece belongs to our Symposium “Unmasking the Intractable: Exploring Anti-Racism and the Law” (see the Introduction here), hosted by Verfassungsblog and africanlegalstudies.blog.
