(TALKZIMBABWE) Nothing smart about ZIDERA

Nothing smart about ZIDERA
SuperT ― Opinion
Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:00:00 +0000

DEAR EDITOR ― Mhofeti (in an opinion article yesterday) is correct to say that the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai is appealing for international support that had been withdrawn under the guise of smart and targeted sanctions.

This is premised on the fact that the Zimbabwe Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA) imposed on Zimbabwe in 2002 effectively precludes Zimbabwe from accessing international credit facilities. Zimbabwe is effectively under sanctions.

How else can you describe ZIDERA?

If you preclude a country from accessing credit facilities for whatever reason that constitutes sanctions.

This point grows in importance when you consider that the US has sweeping powers (in terms of shareholding, vote and donor status) in the major international lending bodies such as IMF, World Bank and African Development Bank.

ZIDERA allows the US to prevent Zimbabwe from accessing finance from these multilateral lending institutions without explicitly saying that we have imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe. Probably this is the “smart” bit otherwise nothing else is smart about this enactment.

Those sanctions are targeted at the heart of government functions. Governments operate on credit terms and never on a cash basis like Zimbabwe was forced to do. If you preclude a government from such facilities then you have effectively imposed sanctions.

So yes Zimbabwe is under sanctions subtly introduced through ZIDERA and disguised as smart or targeted.

Issues being raised about property rights, human rights, governance, etc smack of crude ingenuity.

SuperT