Western sanctions appear to have hindered the growth of vulnerable developing economies and upended their progress in tackling climate change. One glaring. 11.11.2022, Sputnik International
« The US sanctions against Zimbabwe have been piled on since 2001, following a government decision to repossess land from minority white farmers for redistribution to landless indigenous Zimbabweans, » Dr. Mamdouh G. Salameh, an international oil economist and global energy expert, told Sputnik. « The sanction-induced economic mire has inflicted a myriad of real challenges on Zimbabweans, especially amid an unprecedented global pandemic. »The issue of Western restrictions slapped on Zimbabweans was raised by the nation’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa at the ongoing 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Mnangagwa emphasized that the West’s « illegal economic sanctions » imposed on Zimbabwe upends its climate goals and demanded that the « unwarranted and punitive » measures be lifted. »In 2021, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Unilateral Coercive Measures Alena Douhan said in a report she compiled after visiting Zimbabwe that Western sanctions were undermining the human rights of ordinary Zimbabweans because the government had been forced to cut funding, » Salameh noted. « She said that sanctions have prevented the Zimbabwean government from using resources to develop and maintain essential infrastructure thereby affecting the country’s whole population especially those in extreme poverty. »Zimbabwe « lost well over $42 billion in revenue over the past 19 years because of the sanctions » with a negative influence on most sectors of its economy and the investment climate, according to a 2020 report by the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Meanwhile, 63% of Zimbabwe’s 15.6 million population live below the poverty line and 24% of the country’s children between six months and five years face malnutrition. »The sanctions against Zimbabwe aren’t justified in any shape or form because they aim to protect and perpetuate the relics of Western imperialism in Africa, » argued Salameh.Sanctions Have Become West’s Weapon of ChoiceHowever, Zimbabwe is just one among dozens of countries subjected to a unilateral sanctions regime by the US and its NATO allies and partners. Sanctions have become nothing short of a tool used by the West to achieve its geopolitical objectives, punish countries that don’t toe the US foreign policy line, and contain potential competitors, according to Salameh.After the collapse of the USSR, the US adopted a triumphalist approach and unleashed a unipolar world order on the international community. Nonetheless, some countries like Russia, Venezuela, and Iran have managed successfully to undermine US sanctions and minimize their adverse impact on their economies; others, like Zimbabwe are still suffering from restrictions, according to the energy expert.Meanwhile, the sanctions spree has by no means been helpful for the international community’s joint interests such as combating terrorism, global crime, pandemics, and climate change. While the latter issue has become the focus of the Global North over the past few years, the negative impact of Western unilateral restrictions on the climate has been routinely overlooked by the architects of sanctions.
