by Joseph Kurebwa
University of Zimbabwe Publications (Harare), 2012, xi + 324 pp.
US$45, ISBN 1-77920-006-4

 
The book under review has been published at a time when ‘targeted sanctions’ imposed by the United States (US), European Union (EU), Switzerland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand on Zimbabwe have become topical in the country’s academic, political and media circles1. Ironically, one of the nationalist movements which benefited from sanctions imposed on Rhodesia, the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) – is now itself the target of sanctions. Sanctions which were imposed on Rhodesia and the current sanctions on Zimbabwe are similar, in that they were imposed on allegedly delinquent regimes which suppress the will of the people, disrespect the rule of law and violate human rights. They are however different in two ways. First, sanctions on Rhodesia were within the ambit of the United Nations (UN) while the current sanctions on Zimbabwe were imposed by Western nations and their allies. President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party have fully manipulated thisreality to denounce the current embargoes as ‘illegal’ because they were imposed outside the mandate of the world body. Second, while sanctions on Rhodesia were intended to be comprehensive, the current sanctions on Zimbabwe are targeted on individuals and allied business entities accused of electoral fraud, undermining democracy and the rule of law, and violating human rights. In this context, Joseph Kurebwa’s book is a timely one. It will inform and shape the debate on current sanctions on Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the world.
Kurebwa’s book emanates from his doctoral thesis which was submitted to the University of Zimbabwe in 2000. The study deals with economic sanctions which were imposed on the settler regime in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, from 1965 to 1979. These embargoes were imposed when the then Prime Minister Ian Douglas Smith and his government proclaimed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) on 11 November 1965. By this declaration, Smith and his government proclaimed independence from the colonial power, Britain, which wanted the gradual transfer of power to the black majority in conformity with global realities and demands after the Second World War. Black majority rule was unpalatable to the Rhodesian regime which wanted to maintain its racial supremacy and protect its political and economic interests. UDI was condemned as illegal by Britain, the Commonwealth, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the UN. Sanctions imposed on Rhodesia were meant to compel its regime to reverse UDI and to pave way for black majority rule. It is in this context that Rhodesia was treated as a delinquent state by most of the international community. By 1968, most countries and the UN had imposed mandatory economic sanctions on Rhodesia. These sanctions were lifted during the 1979 transitional period which eventually led to independence in 1980. Using Rhodesia as a case study, Kurebwa evaluates the relevance of economic sanctions as an instrument of managing both intra- and inter-state conflict to ensure collective security.

Earlier publications on sanctions on Rhodesia were written in the 1970s, when most of the primary sources on the subject were strictly confidential. These publications include Leonard T. Kapungu’s The United Nations and Economic Sanctions Against Rhodesia (Toronto: Lexington Books, 1973), John Handford’s Portrait of an Economy: Rhodesia Under Sanctions (Salisbury: Mercury Press, 1976) and Jorge Jardim’s Sanctions Double- Cross: Oil to Rhodesia (Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 1978). While these works are valuable, they were limited by lack of access to the Rhodesian regime’s official documents kept within the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Information, and Commerce and Industry. This information could not be made available to the public, including academics, for security reasons. Kurebwa’s book, which has been published thirty-two years after colonial rule, has the advantage of access to some official documents of the Rhodesian regime. The book makes intensive use of official memos from government ministries and departments, including from the CIO. However, as noted by Kurebwa himself, not all the evidence on the subject could be accessed because the Rhodesian regime had transferred some sensitive documents to South Africa and destroyed others prior to independence. This lacuna has partly been filled by Kurebwa’s interviewing of key figures of the regime, including the late Ian Smith, who now have relative liberty to divulge some information about what was happening inside the Rhodesian regime from 1965 to 1979.
 
In addition to domestic sources, the book makes wide use of newspapers, periodicals and other documents from foreign countries, such as South Africa, Zambia, Britain and the US. This enables the study to examine sanctions on Rhodesia from both domestic and international perspectives. Official and public views of some foreign countries on sanctions imposed on Rhodesia are well presented. The study also benefits from works on the Rhodesian regime which were published after independence, such as Ken Flower’s Serving Secretly: An Intelligence Chief on Record. Rhodesia into Zimbabwe 1964 to 1981 (London: John Murray, 1987), Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock’s ‘Rhodesians Never Die’: The Impact of War and Political Change on White Rhodesia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) and Ian Smith’s The Great Betrayal (London: Blake Publishing Limited, 1997). Kurebwa ably combined use of earlier works and new evidence to come up with fresh and sometimes provocative arguments and ideas on the politics of economic embargoes imposed on Rhodesia. Detailed examples and tables are used to support these arguments.

In the last two decades, the use of sanctions as a foreign policy tool by individual countries, regional blocs and the UN has attracted a lot of attention in disciplines such as History, Political Studies, Law and Economics. Whilst there are debates about the underlying purposes of using sanctions, most studies concur that they are meant to influence the decision-making processes of the targeted country2. Kurebwa sets the context for his study by discussing the universal debate on the meaning and purpose of sanctions. Sanctions were and are still being used by international organisations, such as the League of Nations and the UN, to ensure collective security. However, history has shown that one state may impose sanctions on another when it feels that the target state’s policies threaten its national interests. For example, the US imposed sanctions on its neighbour, Cuba, because it felt that communism in that country threatened capitalism, which is one of the US core values. This implies that sanctions are not used solely to ensure collective security but also to compel targeted states to change their policies. This has led most Third World countries to view sanctions imposed by Western nations as imperialist tools. The lack of commitment by the international community and the ability of target states to launch import-substitution industrialisation, and thus mitigate the effect of sanctions, led to the ineffectiveness of most sanction regimes in the twentieth century.
Unlike most works on this phase of the country’s history, Kurebwa articulates the reluctance of the British government under Prime Minister Harold Wilson to take a firm stand to pressurise the Rhodesian regime into immediately paving way for majority rule. The British government feared that post-colonial Rhodesia could degenerate into anarchy as had happened in the Congo. Sanctions on Rhodesia were also a sensitive electoral issue in Britain. Kurebwa argues that while the British government wanted to coerce the Rhodesian regime, there were official and public sympathies towards the regime, based on kith and kin ties in Britain. The Conservative Party sympathised with the Rhodesian regime and was highly critical of the Labour Party’s sanctions policy. British organisations, such as the Anglo-Rhodesian Society, the Monday Club, the Institute for the Study of Conflict, the Foreign Affairs Research Institute, and the Christian League of
Southern Africa, campaigned against the renewal of sanctions against Rhodesia. This prevented Wilson and his government from taking tougher sanction measures against Rhodesia at the UN Security Council. This indicates the political stress that sanctions on Rhodesia imposed on the British government. In this way, Kurebwa successfully proves that sanctions were painful to both the targeted and the sanctioning state.
 
The book under review demonstrates how UDI and economic sanctions imposed on Rhodesia polarised world opinion. By putting sanctions on Rhodesia within a global context, the book examines how this polarisation had its genesis in the realities of race, the Cold War and economic imperatives. Russia, most African and Asian states were totally opposed to UDI and the Rhodesian regime. Britain’s former colonies, such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada, whose governments were controlled by settlers, tended to sympathise with the Rhodesian regime. While the US and most Western nations wanted black majority rule in Rhodesia, they were suspicious of black nationalists who were inclined towards the communist countries. In its application of UN sanctions as well as its own, the US tended to be lenient on Rhodesia because, although it was a delinquent state, it was a non-communist country. It was impossible for most countries to avoid trade with Rhodesia during the Cold War because the country had commodities of great military and economic value. At times, the US defied sanctions by importing Rhodesian chrome which was needed for making military equipment. On the extreme end, South Africa and Portugal openly gave moral, economic, political and military support to the Rhodesian regime. The apartheid regime in South Africa sympathized with Rhodesia because it shared with it similar racial policies that discriminated against blacks. Portugal, which had colonies in Africa, wanted the continuation of white rule in Rhodesia. This would provide psychological and moral support for continued Portuguese rule in Africa, especially in Mozambique, which shared a common border with Rhodesia. The study thus shows that world opinion on the Rhodesian problem was variegated. Consequently, the Rhodesian regime manipulated divisions within the international community to resist sanctions. This accounts for the poor implementation and the ineffectiveness of the sanctions imposed on Rhodesia.
 
Scholars, such as Richard N. Haas, assert that it is extremely difficult to generate international support for sanctions3. Others, such as Daniel Drezner, have argued that the implementation of international economic sanctions is often erratic and haphazard4. Most countries are not willing to sacrifice their economies in pursuing foreign policy goals or a collective security agenda that is not always clear to them. For example, economic imperatives obliged most countries to import Rhodesian beef, either covertly or openly, in violation of sanctions. James M. Lindsay notes that sanctions often fail to cause economic pain because sanctioning countries do not control a large portion of the targeted state’s external relations5. Moreover, forcing other countries to comply with sanction measures further harm diplomatic relations to the benefit of the targeted state6. Kurebwa argues that sanctions on Rhodesia were undermined by massive international conspiracy. Economic sanctions on Rhodesia could easily be evaded because states, including influential powers like the US, violated their own national and UN sanctions legislation on Rhodesia. Kurebwa notes that the US government found it difficult to justify its economic sanctions on Rhodesia when it was supporting Israel in violation of UN resolutions.
 
Despite their awareness that Rhodesia was under UN sanctions, the following African countries traded with it openly or covertly: Angola, Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), Gabon, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia (formerly South West Africa), South Africa, Swaziland and Zambia. Countries outside the continent which traded with Rhodesia were: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Cyprus, Denmark, Europe, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indian Ocean Islands, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland and the US. Kurebwa argues that transnational corporations (TNCs) like Shell and BP undermined sanctions as they continued to supply Rhodesia with oil. He argues that, while covert means could have been used, violations of this magnitude were often tacitly approved by their home countries. In this way, Kurebwa was successful in proving that sanctions often have serious limitations in ensuring collective security because of lack of discipline in implementing them, which amounts to international conspiracy.
 
Kurebwa even notes that the Ian Smith regime was optimistic about overcoming sanctions, in view of their ineffectiveness elsewhere. The Rhodesian regime countered sanctions by instructing retailers to keep the prices of goods low, by reducing holiday allowances and by prohibiting sending money orders abroad. One of the major weaknesses of sanctions imposed on Rhodesia was their gradualist application which gave Rhodesia time to develop sanction-evasion strategies and to diversify and restructure its economy. The CIO played a very important role in the evasion of sanctions. It assessed and recruited middlemen who could facilitate covert trade with foreign countries. These middlemen undermined sanctions by using false certificates of the origin of Rhodesian goods, bribing customs officials and using circuitous routes. Incentives for evading sanctions given to middlemen by the Rhodesian regime included the payment of their travel and hotel bills. Sanctions are usually successful when the sanctioning countries understand the economy of the targeted state7.With this in mind, Rhodesia withheld economic information to prevent the identification of vulnerable sectors which could have led to the intensification of sanctions. This also protected Rhodesia’s trade partners and middlemen from being identified by the UN.
 
Most importantly, Kurebwa’s book examines the economic manoeuvres undertaken by Rhodesia to counter economic sanctions and to sustain its long-term economic objectives. Measures were taken to readjust finance, agriculture, mining and manufacturing to resist sanctions. Britain imposed financial sanctions on Rhodesia, including termination of capital exports, expelling the target state from the Pound Sterling area and denying it access to the London capital market. However, Rhodesia came up with a sound and sophisticated fiscal management system. For example, sixty per cent of Rhodesia’s money supply was in savings and fixed deposits and only twenty five per cent was in notes and coins. Rhodesia also showed greater capability to print and manage her own money. To maintain her foreign currency revenue, Rhodesia covertly traded its prime export product, tobacco, with countries such as Portugal, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Moreover, in allocating foreign exchange, Rhodesia prioritised key areas such as agriculture. Kurebwa argues that British financial sanctions on Rhodesia failed to erode the confidence of Rhodesian bank account holders. In this way, Britain’s financial sanctions, which were meant to cripple Rhodesia, were rendered ineffective.
 
Moreover, the book also demonstrates how the regime managed to withstand sanctions in different sectors of the economy. The regime undertook agricultural diversification. The amount of land under tobacco and sugar farming was significantly reduced, as the sectors were now targeted by sanctions. More land was allocated for maize and wheat growing. Rhodesia’s mining industry expanded and became more sophisticated. It used up-to-date technology to produce a wide range of minerals, including asbestos, chrome, copper, gold and coal. In Kurebwa’s view, Rhodesia was indispensable to world trade because, in the 1970s, it was the fifth largest producer of gold. The country also remained the major supplier of the electricity and coal that were needed by Zambia’s copper mining industry. The Rhodesian regime mitigated sanctions by forming the Joint Marketing Organisation (JMO) to secure markets and trade Rhodesian minerals and other products covertly. In order to avert the depletion of scarce petroleum products, which were needed in all sectors of the economy, fuel rationing was introduced. Motorists were encouraged to reduce speed to lessen fuel consumption. These measures are said to have been effective in negating the anticipated impacts of oil sanctions on the country.
 
Rhodesia also attempted to ensure economic self-sufficiency by promoting domestic manufacturing industries and encouraging its citizens to buy local products. James M. Lindsay argues that sanctions fail to enforce compliance because, in most cases, the target state finds domestic substitutes for lost imports8. Kurebwa argues that sanctions failed to halt or discourage the establishment of import-substitution industries, which prospered in the absence of foreign competition. However, Kurebwa challenges earlier assertions that import substitution resulted in employment creation and rapid economic growth. He argues that shortage of foreign currency made self-sufficiency unsustainable and resulted in erosion of earnings and loss of employment among blacks. This view is supported by Kenneth Hermele et al, who note that while there was general economic development between 1965 and 1974, this largely benefited the white population in urban areas, to the detriment of blacks9. This partly explains why the Rhodesian regime made strenuous efforts to strengthen the rural African economy to mitigate the negative impacts of sanctions.
 
Kurebwa’s study reveals that while sanctions can harm the target state, they also affect the sanctioning states and third party states in a negative way. Since Britain was Rhodesia’s major trading partner, it wanted to use its economic muscle to compel Rhodesia to abandon UDI. Britain made the wrong assumption that sanctions against Rhodesia would effectively cripple the Rhodesian economy in a short space of time. This was proved wrong since Rhodesia managed to withstand sanctions for fourteen years. Sanctions cost Britain economically, as she lost part of her global market and Rhodesian raw materials. Britain’s traditional trade rivals, such as West Germany, France, Portugal, Belgium and Japan, replaced her, though in a covert way. Another major proponent of economic sanctions against Rhodesia, the US, also felt their negative effects. In November 1971, the US passed the Byrd Amendment which lifted sanctions on Rhodesian chrome. Although, this was later reversed, it proves that, despite its prosanctions rhetoric, the US had interests in Rhodesian products, which were of high quality.
 
Sanctions on Rhodesia also damaged the economies of neighbouring countries. The worst affected was Zambia. Zambia’s copper mining industry used electricity and coal from Rhodesia. Industry also needed reliable transport routes for imports of equipment and exports of copper. In 1973, Rhodesia closed her border with Zambia, accusing the latter of supporting guerrilla fighters and sanctions. This jeopardised Zambia’s economy. Rhodesia was able to force Britain to make concessions by taking the Zambian economy hostage. Using the Rhodesian case study, Kurebwa concurs with other scholars that, in most circumstances, sanctions are a protracted and costly low-intensity campaign which negatively impacts on the economies of both the targeted and imposing states, as well as third parties10. This shows the serious limitations of sanctions in managing internal state conflicts and international relations.
 
Despite sanctions, Rhodesia proclaimed herself a republic on 2 March 1970 and that implied an end to its dependence on Britain. It also signified the failure of sanctions. The Rhodesian regime consolidated its power by using state security apparatus to crush demonstrations, deporting critics and strictly censoring the media and books. Despite the official nonrecognition of the Rhodesian regime by many countries, the country participated in most international events, thereby improving the regime’s visibility. The delinquent state maintained law and order in the country and traded with other countries. Moreover, the fact that Rhodesia negotiated with Britain in 1979 the transfer of power to a black majority shows that the state had retained a degree of sovereignty.
 
Kurebwa argues that, despite spirited efforts to resist them, sanctions harmed the Rhodesian economy. He challenges earlier writings, for example John Handford’s Portrait of an Economy: Rhodesia Under Sanctions (Salisbury: Mercury Press, 1976), which have paid tribute to white Rhodesian ingenuity in resisting sanctions. He argues that sanctions caused shortages of spare parts, raw materials, plant and equipment, as well as the shrinking of domestic and foreign markets, which retarded economic growth. Most critical studies on sanctions have argued that sanctions are usually successful when the cost imposed on the target economy increases11. In the Rhodesian case, Kurebwa argues that unorthodox entrepreneurship and the collapse of business ethics proved costly on the Rhodesian regime as it was swindled of large sums of money by trade middlemen. While agricultural diversification reduced the effects of sanctions, it resulted in low profit margins. Sanctions also caused the shortage of fertilisers in Rhodesia and this caused poor crop production. Although sanctions were poorly implemented and the regime took measures to counter them, they inevitably weakened the country’s economy.
 
Kurebwa’s study highlights two factors which complemented sanctions in the demise of the Rhodesian regime. The first factor is Rhodesia’s total loss of regional support. The collapse of Portuguese rule in Mozambique in 1975 caused a siege psychosis mentality among the whites. This was exacerbated by the closure of the Mozambican border and the denial to Rhodesia of access to Beira port by the new black government in Mozambique. Moreover, in the early 1970s, South Africa under John Vorster adopted a détente policy which emphasised co-existence between black and whites states. Through this policy, South Africa sought to gain legitimacy in the eyes of independent African states by distancing itself from the Rhodesian regime. South Africa imposed financial and logistical sanctions on Rhodesia to force her to comply with détente. Second, sanctions were made more effective by the war against the nationalist guerrillas, which was costly to the Rhodesian regime. Scholars, such as Hossein G. Askari et al, have argued that target states do not usually yield to the demands of sanctioning countries when the embargoes are not supported by military force12. The war caused heavy human, material and financial losses. Kurebwa argues that the war intensified the vulnerability of the Rhodesian economy to sanctions. The regime and its security apparatus gradually lost control of rural areas to the guerrillas. However, Kurebwa argues that the war was not caused by sanctions and sanctions did not incapacitate the Rhodesian regime from fighting. This reveals that war and sanctions complemented each other in bringing about the demise of the Rhodesian regime. The total loss of regional support and the war forced the Rhodesian regime to accept the terms of the Lancaster House Agreement in December 1979. This agreement led to elections which ushered in independence on 18 April 1980, with Robert Mugabe as Prime Minister. From Kurebwa’s discussion and analysis, it seems that without the war, sanctions had proven less effective in managing intra-state conflict and in ensuring collective security.

Despite its numerous merits, Kurebwa’s book cannot escape criticism. The process by which sanctions were imposed on Rhodesia could have been a very interesting aspect of this book. In chapter 7, Kurebwa points out that the sanctions were imposed in a gradualist manner, growing from voluntary to comprehensive, to mandatory measures. Since the study is about the competing and conflicting views on sanctions imposed on Rhodesia, a detailed discussion of how sanctions evolved could have been more fruitful. A discussion of the factors which were considered by the UN Security Council and individual countries in tightening sanctions over time could also have been of interest. Related to this, one would also have liked to know the similarities and differences between UN sanctions and those of individual countries. In addition, the mechanism used by the UN Special Committee on Rhodesian Sanctions and individual countries, to enforce the embargoes and the challenges they faced, should have been given more attention.
 
Kurebwa’s discussion of the politics of economic sanctions tends to marginalise the ordinary people. Most studies on sanctions have concluded that sanctions, comprehensive or targeted, often miss the targeted leaders and harm innocent civilians13. A good case is the UN comprehensive sanctions on Iraq during the 1990s, which triggered a humanitarian crisis14. Kurebwa rightly pointed out in Chapter 2 that sanctions also affected ordinary people but, disappointingly, he dispatched this important fact in a few lines on page 134. Moreover, sanctions often have a political effect on the masses in two different ways. First, suffering by ordinary people can lead to a revolt against the targeted regime. Second, sanctions can provoke a patriotic response when the targeted regime uses propaganda to mobilise the masses to be resilient and fight against sanctions imposed by sender states15. In this way, the populace would view the sanctioning states as threats to national sovereignty, and support the targeted regime in what David Cortright and George A. Lopez et al have called the rally-around-theflag- effect16. Like Johan Galtung, Kurebwa points out that sanctions aroused patriotic sentiment and support for the Rhodesian regime among the white community17. However, there is no discussion of the political effects of sanctions on the blacks, coloureds and Asians in the country. Moreover, the voices of these groups, especially the nationalists and business people, about their experiences of sanctions, are not captured. Such a discussion could have made ‘the politics’ of economic sanctions on Rhodesia more interesting.
 
After a detailed discussion of both the ineffectiveness and harmful effects of sanctions on the Rhodesian economy, sanctions simply vanish towards independence. The story of sanctions ends there. More could have been said about the renewal or lifting of sanctions during the period of internal settlement in 1978-1979. Kurebwa did not discuss the issue of sanctions during the Lancaster House negotiations that led to independence. There is no discussion, either, of when and how sanctions were lifted by the UN, US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, African states and other nations. A discussion of the immediate or gradual lifting of sanctions is essential to assess the extent to which they can be credited for the demise of the Rhodesian regime vis-à-vis war of liberation.
 
Be that as it may, this is an important book that ought to be read by those interested in Zimbabwe’s political and economic history between 1965 and 1979. One of the great merits of this study is its discussion of sanctions on Rhodesia in their broader national and global contexts. Moreover, the book is an important contribution to the ever-expanding body of literature on the role of sanctions in international relations. As such, the book deserves to appear on the shelves of those who shape and administer foreign policy.