The most bru­tal­ly mov­ing aid poster I’ve ever seen is of an ema­ci­at­ed child sit­ting with an emp­ty food bowl. The cap­tion reads: “I was hun­gry and you formed a com­mit­tee to dis­cuss the mat­ter. Thank you.” Afghanistan calls for an update: “I am dying, and you imposed sanc­tions to solve the matter…’

It ought to be dis­played in meet­ings where the U.S. and oth­er West­ern donors are deal­ing with what some term a “del­i­cate ques­tion”; avert­ing a human­i­tar­i­an cat­a­stro­phe in Afghanistan with­out hand­ing mon­ey over to the Taliban.
That’s despite the fact that “last month, the World Food Pro­gramme (WFP) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF)warned that with­out imme­di­ate life-sav­ing treat­ment, one mil­lion chil­dren risked dying from severe acute mal­nu­tri­tion.” By way of com­par­i­son, about 71,000 civil­ians were killed in the unsuc­cess­ful 20-year war against the Taliban.
Sanc­tions intend­ed to hurt the Tal­iban into chang­ing its ways have effec­tive­ly “dis­ap­peared” bil­lions of dol­lars in for­eign aid lav­ished on the West­ern-backed Afghan gov­ern­ment. The Tal­iban is iso­lat­ed from the glob­al finan­cial sys­tem. Afghan banks are paral­ysed, which seri­ous­ly impedes relief work by human­i­tar­i­an organisations.
Deputy U.S. Trea­sury sec­re­tary Wal­ly Adeye­mo told the Sen­ate Bank­ing Com­mit­tee in Octo­ber: “We believe that it’s essen­tial that we main­tain our sanc­tions against the Tal­iban but at the same time find ways for legit­i­mate human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance to get to the Afghan people.”.
Giv­en the record of the effi­ca­cy of sanc­tions, that’s seri­ous­ly mal­nour­ish­ing the def­i­n­i­tion of “essen­tial”.
                            MORE IRRITANT THAN DETERRENT

Sanc­tions are a debate­able weapon at best. 
The Trump administration’s “max­i­mum pres­sure” pol­i­cy to curb Iran’s nuclear ambi­tions was built on crip­pling sanc­tions. The Wash­ing­ton Post recent­ly cit­ed unnamed Israeli secu­ri­ty sources as say­ing the pol­i­cy failed.
Regimes tar­get­ed by sanc­tions can and do use them as scape­goats for the suf­fer­ing their cor­rupt and often bru­tal rule impos­es on their cit­i­zens, which the stric­tures are alleged­ly intend­ed to ulti­mate­ly relieve. Sanc­tions only real­ly both­er dic­ta­to­r­i­al rulers when they bite so deep that the pop­u­lace has noth­ing to lose by rebelling.
A case in point were UN embar­goes on Sad­dam Hussein’s regime. In dozens of report­ing trips to Iraq, I nev­er met or even saw a hun­gry or in any way deprived senior gov­ern­ment offi­cial. The rul­ing clique con­trived devi­ous ways to get what­ev­er they want­ed. The most ubiq­ui­tous was per­suad­ing for­eign com­pa­nies doing sanc­tions-reg­u­lat­ed busi­ness to pad the bills and pass on the difference.
The 18th cen­tu­ry Ger­man drama­tist Friedrich Schiller summed it up neat­ly: “The rich become rich­er and the poor become poor­er is a cry heard through­out the whole civ­i­lized world.”

Wide­spread eco­nom­ic sanc­tions, boy­cotts and pri­vate divest­ment imposed on South Africa dur­ing the 1980s are often cit­ed as major con­tribut­ing fac­tors to end­ing apartheid. Hav­ing lived in and report­ed on South Africa for pro­longed peri­ods from the ear­ly 1970s to the mid-1990s, I tend to agree with the view that the pres­sure of organ­ised oppo­si­tion, both out­side and inside the coun­try played a larg­er role.
The will­ing­ness of Black activists to face the bru­tal­i­ty of the South African secu­ri­ty forces wore the author­i­ties and the econ­o­my down. Inten­sive for­eign Press cov­er­age brought the feroc­i­ty of the strug­gle into the homes of peo­ple who oth­er­wise paid lit­tle atten­tion to South Africa.
The effect helped com­pel West­ern gov­ern­ments to ratch­et up diplo­mat­ic pres­sure, which ulti­mate­ly hurt as much if not more than sanctions.

                                              A BETTER WAY TO SOLVE THINGS?

I’ve report­ed on wars, famine, drought and con­comi­tant refugee crises so dire they made me weep. I’ve stood along­side sea­soned war cam­era­men with tears ooz­ing out from under their viewfind­er eye­piece as they record­ed human mis­ery. To the Tal­iban and West­ern politi­cians argu­ing and pos­tur­ing over pol­i­cy and ide­ol­o­gy while inno­cent peo­ple suf­fer, we offer Mercutio’s curse from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juli­et: “A plague o’ both your houses!”
Nego­ti­a­tions between the Tal­iban and West­ern nations allied to the U.S. stut­ter on in the lux­u­ry of Qatar. Del­e­gates have access to any­thing their palettes desire at the press of a room ser­vice button.

Per­haps they’d have bet­ter focus if they had to watch the del­i­cate bal­ance of a child on the brink of dying of star­va­tion, skin hang­ing in folds from bones with­out flesh, eyes wide with fear and incom­pre­hen­sion, too weak even to cry.
Fail­ing that, how about putting the nego­tia­tors up in a mud­brick build­ing with no heat, elec­tric­i­ty, run­ning water or prop­er san­i­ta­tion, sit­ting on the floor and fed on half rations occa­sion­al­ly sup­plied by an aid agency until they resolve the issue at hand? Any bets on how long it would take?
No doubt the Afghans could hold out longer. They did after all fight with next to noth­ing and live in caves for the twen­ty years it took them to regain pow­er. Maybe that’s part of their excuse for being will­ing to sac­ri­fice chil­dren on the altar of politics.
I won­der what the West’s excuse might be?

Com­ments are wel­comed. Click CONTACT on the site header.
To receive e‑mail alerts to new posts, Click SIGN-UP on the header.