International Sanctions against Sudan

I have never been able to understand the understanding of Sanctions. The last few instances of sanctions on countries have been on Zimbabwe where habitancy are starving to death, North Korea where habitancy are starving to death and now perhaps Sudan where habitancy are starving to death already. These are ones that I have observed, there are bound to be others. Can anybody interpret to me how this works? Let's penalise a country and its citizens when they are already suffering huge economic hardships.

Is it an additional one instance of the general ignorance that the industrialized world has towards other nations that are not members of their exiguous elite group of economic powerhouses? The mental is, if we had sanctions against us we would indubitably suffer, so lets do this to these exiguous countries. We are sure to get some kind of sensible reaction from the countries' leaders. Please! Neither President Bashir, nor Robert Mugabe will even blink at the news, or stop maltreating their citizens for one second or even nanosecond. These leaders have indubitably no regard for their people. They don't care whether their habitancy suffer food shortages, death from uncontrolled militia attacks, disease from shortages of clean water and total disregard to human dignity and life. It is not on their register of concerns.

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Possible the western countries added do not realise that these leaders do not have to be implicated about elections as they rigged theirs in the first instance. They are not accountable to an electorate. They are not accountable to anybody. They pay off a retain system with other words perhaps the troops or other political people. Mugabe just distributed a few, indubitably a combine of thousand, white owned farms to his cronies to keep his retain base happy. I am sure that Bashir has given away land, wealth or power to the nasties that are hounding, killing and terrorising the citizens of Sudan, and Chad now.

International sanctions will not bring about the required changes. There is all the time some other country that will think Zimbabwe's mines, for instance, as an important resource, such as China and will throw money at Mugabe. I lived in South Africa while many years of international sanctions. There were no shortages. There was all the time some country ready to ship goods to South Africa or buy goods from the country and yes it had to be via via and no country of origin on the stamps etc. Black market trade on a grand scale. A country can survive for years. And the whites didn't even feel it. The black South Africans, which the whole sanctions attempt was supposed to support, were the ones who suffered. Sanctions in consequent stopped the economy from growing at any decent rate which meant no jobs.

Sanctions have a habit of punishing the very habitancy they are supposed to help. What would indubitably help? Nothing much actually. troops interference is not a good idea. Numerous examples should warn against this, Iraq being a traditional one. Unless the habitancy have the will and power to fight for their own rights, no external force can do it for them. One could perhaps try and punish the leaders by attaching their foreign investments, and believe me they have much money stashed away in foreign accounts. They don't trust their own economy themselves. Hurting the pocket can help. Regrettably, there will be somebody or some country elsewhere who will offer to look after Mugabe's assets.

What else not to do. Do not interfere by giving money and retain to some incommunicable private who says he can make a difference. This is a typical American strategy which has backfired in many instances. American retain of Saddam Hussein a few years ago being a fairly good example of how not to do it.

So what to do? The western countries need to contribute more resources for the refugees. Give the armies something good to do for a change. The armed troops have the best tool to move needed goods and services. Many aid agencies are hampered with converyance issues. Bring in the Air Forces. They have planes that land on a handkerchief.

The best and most productive relief efforts I ever saw was the retain South Africa provided Mozambique a few years ago, while one of that country's worst floods. The army moved in providing food, water and protection to refugees. Army helicopters rescued habitancy where they had escaped to, in trees, on top of houses on 'islands' in the floods. And the aid was immediate and where it was needed the most.

But for us individuals who have no clout to move our governments into doing the sensible, honourable thing by sending in aid, what can we do. Dafur is developing into an additional one Rwanda. Lets not close our eyes to this tragedy. And if the only thing we can do personally is to donate to Oxfam or any other relief department near you, then lets do that.

International Sanctions against Sudan

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