Sanctions may make us feel good, but they will not topple Mugabe

Margaret Thatcher was right and Thabo Mbeki is right. British-led sanctions against a renegade regime in Central Africa — be it Ian Smith’s when the country was called Rhodesia, or Robert Mugabe’s when it had been renamed Zimbabwe — are a counterproductive response to an unacceptable government.

My family and I lived in Rhodesia from 1958, when I was eight, to 1968, when I was 18. Ian Smith’s unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) was made in November 1965 and we experienced three years in which the economic screw was progressively tightened. Along with much of the black population and a fair few of the white population too, we had vehemently opposed Mr Smith’s election and thought UDI a catastrophic mistake (as it proved to be) but our opposition to Smith could not exempt us from the effects of sanctions.

My father had to try to continue a business selling electric cables, so his commercial life, bound up with making the Rhodesian economy work, was placed in direct opposition to his political beliefs, which were that Rhodesia should be forced to accept the will of Her Majesty’s government. My mother, a tireless campaigner against Smith, nevertheless needed petrol for her Morris Minor, and all of us had to connive in the various dodges which soon became common among fuel-hungry Rhodesians. We became freelance sanctions-busters, making day trips over the Zambesi to Zambia to fill the car and several jerry cans with petrol.

Yet at the same time we were telling friends that we wanted sanctions to succeed. This caused my parents great difficulty when trying to explain to friends how we squared the circle. My classmates would berate me for hypocrisy, and it was hard to know how to answer. The effect on the population at large was less complicated. People felt cornered. Among the majority of whites, resolve was hardened.