Public opinion is rising in the streets of Bamako against these iniquitous sanctions, as is Guinea, which refuses to participate, brandishing the risk of precipitating the country into crisis. According to them, the first affected by international sanctions against a country are not the leaders, but clearly the population.
Firstly, and this is of course its role, the United Nations Security Council can take measures to maintain or restore international peace and security under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Since 1966, the Council has taken thirty sanctions measures. The Security Council applied sanctions “to support peaceful transitions, discourage unconstitutional change, fight terrorism, protect human rights and promote non-proliferation.”
The oldest sanctions still in force date back to 1992 and concern Somalia, during the fall of President Siad Barré. Being frozen, travel bans, embargo on arms, but also on coal, constitute the heart of the sanctions.
MALIAN—“What’s happening here is a fight to preserve our sovereignty & a fight against #English neocolonialism. There’s so much propaganda around what’s truly happening. These sanctions are illegal illegitimate & an attack on the sovereignty of #Mali” #oneafrica
Jan 14 pic.twitter.com/cmJvjidEeH—Mika Chavala (@MikaChavala) January 15, 2022
(Translation : “What is happening here is a fight to preserve our sovereignty and a fight against French neocolonialism. There is so much propaganda around what is really happening. These sanctions are illegal, illegitimate and an attack on sovereignty of Mali.”)
Twelve countries are concerned in Africa, sometimes in several ways. In general, these are sanctions in the context of serious violations of human rights. But the sanctions can also come from an interregional organization or from a State. ECOWAS, European Union, United States… Sometimes, the request for sanctions comes from the legal government which thus intends to assert its authority. In 2017, the government of Mali requested and obtained a series of targeted sanctions against those who opposed the Peace and Reconciliation agreement in the north of the country.
“The interest of sanctions does not lie solely in their effectiveness. Sanctions are often a means of clearly indicating reprobation, a foreign policy position, more moderate than an embargo, less dangerous than military retaliation “, explains the Robert Schuman Foundation. “No wonder the European Union, continues the text, has made it a privileged instrument of its foreign policy.“
The sanctions are individual and do not affect, a priori, the life of the inhabitants of a country concerned. Above all, we find the freezing of assets abroad, the travel ban and of course, very often, an arms embargo. Thus, in the measures taken by ECOWAS, there is no question of an embargo on basic necessities or medicines. The caciques of power and their financial supporters are targeted.
But these sanctions can still have indirect consequences. What does a Libyan tanker crew and port staff live on when illicit oil exports are banned?
In Zimbabwe, some businessmen and politicians accuse the American and European sanctions, in place for twenty years, of weighing heavily on the country’s economy. US sanctions thus prohibit banks from lending to Zimbabwe. “Without capital, there are no jobs. And no investor ventures into a country under sanctions”, says Zimbabwean economist Gift Mugano.
All the more difficult to accept that these sanctions date back to a bygone era, when Robert Mugabe reigned supreme. But the new regime led by Emmerson Mnangagwa does not convince Washington, which expects a better human rights record and democratic elections.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price told AFP. “blaming US sanctions for Zimbabwe’s problems only diverts attention from fundamental questions about better governance”. Isn’t this also the heart of the problem in Mali with the ECOWAS sanctions?