By Rutendo Matinyarare

MANY Zimbabweans often bring up the comparison between Rhodesian and Zimbabwean sanctions to drive the narrative that Rhodesia had more stringent sanctions that they managed better than Zimbabwe is managing under ZDERA, EO13469, EU, IEEPA and extra-jurisdictional third party secondary sanctions.

Well, the facts are that sentiment is an ill-informed failure to appreciate colonial history, the purpose of colonialism and objectives of economic blockades or sanctions by a sanctions sender.

How do you sanction a tool?

An immediate question that should arise is: Could Europeans practically sanction (blockade, restrict or punish) an instrument they created specifically to syphon wealth out of an African territory for the enrichment of Europe?

I use this as the fulcrum of discovery because Rhodesia was a commercial instrument created by the Britons, through the British South Africa Company, to enrich Britain and other European countries through the exploitation of this Southern African territory.

The people who called themselves Rhodesians were British subjects and Europeans administering a system of looting MaDzimbabwe.

Everything these Britons had in Rhodesia was looted from that country. What they built was derived from exploiting our resources, labour, livestock, taxes and depriving Africans of progress for the benefit of Europe.

The only thing that belonged to these Rhodies was just an instrument, a system and administrative mechanism to loot Africa and enrich their home, Europe.

Rhodesia never existed

In many ways, Rhodesia was a mythological territorial creation formed out of the land of MaDzimbabwe and the exploitation of its natives for the enrichment of the British, and once they had extracted all the wealth, the British would have left as quickly as they did Nyasaland (Malawi) and Northern Rhodesia (Zambia).

 Almost everything the Europeans looted in Rhodesia was externalised and stashed in Europe, where they could benefit from it in the commonwealth of their nations. The little that was reinvested in Rhodesia (electricity, roads, railways, telecommunication which only served five percent of the people) was to facilitate the transfer of wealth from MaDzimbabwe to Europe.

Once we understand the nature of the colonial system of exploitation that prevailed in Rhodesia, it becomes clear that it was almost impossible for Europeans to sanction their own cashcow (Rhodesia) in the strictest sense of the word because it would mean sanctioning their own lifeline.

Rhodesia supported Europe

British survival and standards of living were greatly dependent on the systematic exploitation of colonies like Rhodesia. This is illustrated by how Britain has fallen economically ever since the end of colonialism.

Therefore, if Rhodesians were sanctioned and didn’t have to repatriate wealth back to England, they would have elevated their standards of living to some of the highest levels in the world and they might have even elevated the lives of the Africans they were impoverishing, to stop them from ultimately overthrowing them in the end.

That’s why, when people say Rhodesia was under punitive sanctions, it’s an oxymoron because Britain would not survive without exploiting colonies like Rhodesia.

Additionally, that illogical perspective also fails to recognise the simple reality that Zimbabwe exists today and Rhodesia doesn’t, precisely because Rhodesia fell when the majority got tired of Rhodesian exploitation and rose violently to overthrow the exploitative establishment.

Why were Rhodesian sanctions lenient

Now that we have laid down the foundation of why there were no real sanctions on Rhodesia, let me now qualify my argument with empirical data.

Legal sanctions vs illegal imperial sanctions

Rhodesian sanctions were imposed by the UN, meaning they were legal as the UN’s multi-national General Assembly and Security Council, guided by the Human Rights Commission’s Human Impact Assessment, are the only bodies in the world that can legally impose sanctions on a nation, according to the UN Charter.

In Rhodesia’s case, the country was placed under sanctions by the UN General Assembly and Security Council for perpetrating a crime against humanity upon the people of MaDzimbabwe. 

These were unlike the illegal, unilateral US and the EU sanctions on Zimbabwe or unilateral coercive economic measures that have not been sanctioned by the UN and contravene human rights law by collectively punishing civilians for political ends.

The unilateral illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe are essentially neo-colonial restrictions imposed by the same Berlin Conference cabal which imposed similar restrictions on Africans during colonialism, to create tools like Rhodesia and other colonial territories for the raping and pillaging of Africa.

This time, as before, their collective restrictions and punishment are designed to force the Zimbabweans to capitulate to exploitation of their land, resources and labour, to enrich Europe.

Byrd Amendment

During the Rhodesian sanctions, the US Congress wrote a special bill amendment called the Byrd Amendment to circumvent the UN sanctions on Rhodesia.

This was done to enable America to continue to buy strategic minerals — which were the engine of the colonial economy — from Rhodesia, to keep their manufacturing industry viable.

Between 1967 and 1980, the US bought more than 37 percent of their high grade chrome used in their military, automotive, aerospace, steel and chemical industries from Rhodesia since Rhodesia held 83 percent of the world’s high grade chrome. This was done over a period in which sanctions were supposed to have been at their tightest on Rhodesia.

Multi-national companies

The biggest companies and land owners in Rhodesia, controlling in excess of 80 percent of the economy, were British, American and apartheid South African proxy companies such as BAT, Rothmans, Lonhro, ITT, Union Carbide, Anglo-America, Barlow, Old Mutual and Rio Tinto. These European, US and apartheid South African Western proxy companies never left Rhodesia so that they could continue exploiting MaDzimbabwe on behalf of their Western owners.

Instead, Rhodesia created two private State companies called UNIVEX and Rhodesian Corporation, which held foreign accounts in Europe and South Africa to control some of these foreign entities.

Nevertheless, when we look at Zimbabwe, we witnessed how, many Western companies like Holiday Inn, Sheraton, VISA, Coke, Schweppes, Shell, BP, Mobile, SASOL, Microsoft, Paypal, BHP and many other multinational companies divested from Zimbabwe the moment 

land was returned to its rightful owners and sanctions imposed.

This was done to isolate and suffocate the Zimbabwean economy, accompanied by the fear of nationalisation of these companies to compensate black Zimbabweans for colonial exploitation.  

It’s always vital to understand that since independence of colonies in Africa, colonialism evolved from Western governments governing territories politically, to their companies exploiting the same territories commercially, to harvest these markets and extract supernormal returns without European governments assuming political responsibility for social ills emanating therefrom.

Mining interests

According to the 1976 US Congress Hearings on Rhodesian sanctions, Western countries were afraid to fully enforce Rhodesian sanctions because they feared that they would result in the flooding of mines and them losing their mining investments due to a lack of maintenance of the mines.

The US government Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Commerce highlighted that if sanctions were fully implemented to stop Rhodesian mines from operating, mines in the Great Dyke and Selukwe (Shurugwi) areas would be flooded within six months and those mines could not be resuscitated after two years.

As a result, this would lead to the US losing access to 480 000 tonnes of high grade chrome per year, while investments of companies, like Anglo-America, Rio Tinto and Union Carbide subsidiaries would be lost in the process.

For that reason, he and other experts did not recommend the US fully enforcing sanctions by divesting from Rhodesia or repealing the Byrd Act because Western investments (in this case American and British investments) would be lost.

Agencies busting sanctions

Taking it a step further, companies, like Rio Tinto, Anglo-America and Union Carbide, remained in operation, forming resource trading agencies in Europe, particularly Switzerland, to bust sanctions and transfer money out of Rhodesia into European banks.

Anglo-America, for example, had two companies based in Switzerland called Salg and Incontra AG, while Rio Tinto Zimbabwe had Centrametall AG. All three formed to sell Rhodesian and Botswana’s nickel and copper to Europe and America.

Using these entities established outside Rhodesian law, metals which were being produced by slave labour in Rhodesia and Botswana would now be sold through the Rhodesian’s arm to these three Swiss entities at a fraction of the price. From here, these Swiss entities would then pass them on to other subsidiaries at a higher price in a corrupt transfer pricing value chain.

The Rhodesian government, politicians and business people would then get their cuts in overseas bank accounts and that money would then be accessible for future transactions and sanctions busting outside the sanctioned territory.

The loser here was clearly not Rhodesia or sanctions senders but the owners of the resources, MaDzimbabwe, because that money, made off their resources, never came back to reinvest or compensate them for their labour or the resource that was lost.

To expand its monopoly and extend apartheid South African sphere of influence into Africa during the period of #TotalOnslaught or SADC destabilisation, Anglo-America, Barlow, Rothmans, Old Mutual and Sanlam expanded their industries into Rhodesia as a means of import substitution and controlling African value chains.

In reality, it was a means of building a white/Western monopoly bulkhead and market penetration lance into Africa with a Western-backed apartheid State license. This is why, even when Zimbabwe got independence, unbeknown to most Zimbabweans, these five South African companies owned most of the manufacturing companies that were in Zimbabwe and through them Zimbabwe’s industrialisation policy was influenced.

Anglo-America, with a 22 percent shareholding in ZISCO and majority in Haggi Randi, together with Voest from Austria, were greatly influential in the collapse of Lancaster Steel and ZISCO because of their level of value chain control in the global steel industry.

Loans for Kariba Dam

It’s through these sophisticated tactics that Rhodesia was able to continue the Kariba Dam second phase under sanctions with loans from the IMF and the mining companies that needed the electricity.

These were loans taken at the exorbitant interest rate of five percent per annum on the dollar in 44 biannual payments, for electricity that was all used by the same transfer pricing mining companies, industry and the remainder in white suburbs.

Again, exorbitant commissions were paid overseas to the deal makers and guess what, Zimbabweans are still paying off the same debt (50 years later) with a US$115 million bond which was issued in 2017 to finish off the payments to Zambia that amortized the debt.

Collusion

Another very smart party trick used by the West to circumvent these sanctions was allowing the Rhodesian government to set up State owned companies called Univex and Rhodesian Corporation, to take over management of some key British, American and European companies.

These companies were not nationalised as such, but the Rhodesian government just took over managing them to remove liability for contravening sanctions from Western countries.

So, in essence, these companies continued to be going concerns in a sanctioned country to assist the Rhodesian economy. Money would be transfer priced overseas to shareholders, while the Rhodesian government made its cut in overseas accounts.

What is interesting is how, at no point, no Western country took action against the Rhodesian government for these purported hostile take overs of their companies.

Many countries were not enforcing sanctions

Over and above that, countries like Switzerland, South Africa, Israel, Brazil, Jordan, Italy, Germany, Japan, Portugal, Poland, Iran and many others did not adhere to the sanctions. Hence they were used to bust sanctions by other Western allies to keep propping up the Rhodesian regime and ensuring that it wasn’t overthrown by the guerillas.

All this was done to ensure a negotiated transfer of power to black majority rule, in a manner that safe guarded Western property rights and investments to protect the exploitation apparatus.

This is how a loan of US$700 million was eventually given to Zimbabwe to build Hwange Phase 1, 2 and 4 for the benefit of Anglo-America with the construction contract being given to a British company without a competitive bid.

Capital purchases

During the same period, Air Rhodesia bought three  Boeing 720s through a Swiss company called Jet Aviation, all at a time no country in the world should have been selling Rhodesia machinery.

They also continued to buy arms from France, America, South Africa, Israel and even Britain, to keep fighting the war to try and stop black Rhodesians from getting independence. In the process they clocked up a debt of US$800 million (US$2,7 billion in today’s terms) that the black Zimbabweans they were fighting and exploiting are still paying off today.

So how was this possible if UN sanctions were being fully implemented? 

Many writers have postulated that the Americans, Europeans and Britain signed off on Rhodesia’s UN sanctions but also turned a blind eye on such illegal loans and sanctions busting, so that the new black government would inherit the debt. This would then be used as a means for Western countries to maintain hegemonic influence by debt and reconstruction aid on the newly independent country.

Under the US Treasury’s #EO13469 and the EU regime of sanctions, Zimbabwe can’t even buy riot gear from Western nations because of prohibitions placed upon sales of military equipment to Zimbabwe.