The Times yesterday commented on Zimbabwe, saying in part:
Joyce Mujuru, vice-president of Zimbabwe since 2004, is so far steeped in blood, plunder and oppression that the European Union maintains sanctions against her, along with about 200 of her compatriots. When Ms. Mujuru tried to sell covertly a huge consignment of Congolese gold through a bullion dealer with offices in London, the company uncovered her role and peremptorily refused the deal, on the admirably precise grounds that its instigators were criminals. Ms. Mujuru responded with the threats of personal violence that are the universal language of thuggish, kleptomaniacal mediocrities.
It is impossible not to cheer the scrupulousness of the bullion dealer. But the practice of imposing economic sanctions on repressive regimes and despotic leaderships has only a mixed record.
Autocracies where oppression is almost total — such as North Korea or Burma — can allow domestic conditions to worsen almost indefinitely, because the price will be paid by the already vulnerable. Western diplomacy needs to win the support of people laboring under oppressive regimes. There is a large danger that the suffering of a captive people will be blamed on international sanctions rather than domestic repression. All of these criticisms are fair. Sanctions may have scant effect on their targets. It was military action, not the sanctions applied to them, that overthrew Saddam and the Taleban, and that stopped the genocidal designs of Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo. But the importance of symbols in politics should not be underestimated. Ms. Mujuru’s outburst is suggestive. The Zimbabwe regime defies civilized standards, while its leaders enjoy the material spoils of gross misrule. It matters to them, even if it does not directly alleviate the plight of their victims, that the EU and United Nations maintain economic pressure. Tyrants may not thereby fall, but they can at least be denied the fruits of avarice and the means of opulent retirement.
