BY
KATUMBA GERALD.
For the past years Western countries have been imposing tough sanctions on African Governments and leaders on accusations of Corruption, Human Rights abuses and Coup D’état which has become rampant mostly in West Africa.
Amongst the countries targeted on sanctions for years include, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Zimbabwe, Uganda and others but on some occasions, they are lifted basing on terms and conditions.
Imposing sanctions on African leaders has become a common policy used by USA, European Union and Western governments in a battle to fight Corruption and abuse of Human rights, but the most important aspect to dwell on is how these sanctions help Africa.
In the first instance Africa is largely affected by corruption but when you critically look at these sanctions, they do not tackle corruption and actually discriminative.
One wonders why the US does not impose sanctions on countries like China, which he says is undemocratic. They allow China free access to international financial markets, Western technology and international markets, borrowing enormous sums of money at very low interest rates with which they have been developing their infrastructure and economy.
Additionally, according to a 2022 Institute of Security Studies Africa (ISS) report concluded that sanctions have largely failed to improve democratic behaviour among the ruling elites in Africa. Human rights violations persist and political freedoms remain severely curtailed.
Amnesty International regularly highlights the threats to freedom of expression, arrests of journalists and harassment of members of the opposition, African leaders still uses security forces to intimidate and harass the opposition despite the sanctions in place.
Corruption is still at a high level in Africa despite the sanctions, Human rights abuse is becoming a policy for the survival of African Governments, Abductions and Kidnappings of the opposition is still on-going a case of Uganda, a number of opposition supporters disappeared until today their whereabouts are unknown.
Just a year ago USA and EU imposed sanctions and travel ban on Uganda’s officials including the security personnel but until today the situation has not changed when it comes to human rights.
One would wish these sanctions help in preventing Coups in Africa, in response to the resurgence of Coups since 2019, African Union [AU] and regional blocs issued sanctions against errant states, predominantly by suspending their membership.
But despite an impressive record of taking action, the persistence of coups and other unconstitutional changes of government raises doubts about their effectiveness.
Between June 2019 and August 2023, the AU suspended the membership of Sudan, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger and most recently Gabon. The regional blocs for West and Central Africa took similar steps against Mali, Guinea and Gabon, in 67% of recent Coups the Economic Community of West African States [ECOWAS] also imposed economic sanctions against transgressing states.
To determine whether sanctions work, the motivations for using them are worth considering, USA and regional bloc sanctions aim to change the behaviors of defaulting states and promote democratic norms, but until today Africa is witnessing un ending Coup D’état almost every year.
To Be Continued….
