To Impose Sanctions: Failures and Fiascoes

Confusion about sanctions--what they mean and what they should accomplish--reigns supreme, particularly in Washington.

The modern concept of sanctions was first devised by the 1919 Versailles Peace Treaty; Article 16 provided for joint “facultative” military and compulsory economic and financial actions against League of Nations’ members who might violate their noble, peace-seeking commitments. For the next 67 years, international sanctions have proved to be a fiasco, both under the league and under the United Nations, even though they were renamed “effective collective measures” to convey a more high-sounding purpose.

The league’s greatest failure came in 1935, when Britain and France did not honor sanctions ordered against Benito Mussolini for invading Ethiopia (then Abyssinia), an aggression that went unpunished.

The United Nations’ two attempts at collective sanctions were a Security Council trade embargo against the People’s Republic of China during the Korean War in 1951 and an embargo against Southern Rhodesia in response to its unilateral declaration of independence in the 1960s; neither effort made the slightest political difference.

Having given up on U.N. actions, the United States has become the world’s leading proponent and organizer of international or unilateral sanctions, applied where America is displeased with the behavior or rhetoric of a foreign government.

But in an “Alice in Wonderland” approach to international law, the Reagan Administration also opposes sanctions where America finds they do not suit the geopolitical purpose. The result is a chaos of definition as well as the disappearance of logical or ethical standards (simple double standards look in retrospect like a blessing) as the Administration consistently confuses sanctions (in their original meaning) with reprisals, a wholly different set of actions in foreign policy and international law. In the process, adversaries often find themselves rewarded (consider the new U.S. grain sales to the Soviet Union) while friends find themselves shoved or insulted (consider Western Europe this month after the American push for collective sanctions against Libya).

Now the Administration must decide whether to apply congressionally instigated sanctions against South Africa’s apartheid regime or veto the legislation before October adjournment on Capitol Hill. Chances are that the White House, which dislikes these sanctions, will produce some odd compromise to escape electoral damage in November. It must also decide whether Poland--subjected to unilateral American sanctions in December, 1981, after the destruction of the Solidarity free trade-union movement--may regain full relations with the United States now that political prisoners have been freed. The Soviets, sponsors of the prior Polish suppression, were not punished.

Theoretically, South Africa and Poland come roughly under the heading of “sanctions” as intended in Versailles, although Woodrow Wilson and company clearly never contemplated international sanctions applied to deal with domestic situations, however praiseworthy the motive.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was a classic case of justified sanctions; President Jimmy Carter imposed them but President Ronald Reagan lifted them because American farmers were hurting. Reagan did not want to punish U.S. farmers with grain embargoes at the approach of elections. At one time, freedom for Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union was a major motivation for continuing U.S. trade with Moscow, but by this summer emigration was at a second all-time low, with only 31 departures.

South Africa is the toughest test because it fits the historic notion of sanctions: The crisis there may soon plausibly pose a danger to international peace in the sense of the U.N. charter, requiring collective measures of some type. But whether sanctions, as currently proposed by the U.S. Congress and some members of the European Economic Community, are the way of ending apartheid is, unhappily, a debatable proposition.

Rhodesia (now independent Zimbabwe) was the most recent example of a ruling white majority impervious to sanctions, especially when many outside parties cheated or ignored the collective punishment. There is no likelihood that the Afrikaners will forsake their racist philosophy in the face of sanctions against South Africa. Reagan himself has admitted that earlier, mild U.S. sanctions have not worked. Perhaps more to the point, radical African nations have refused to participate in collective sanctions for fear of Pretoria’s economic retaliation.

The West Europeans, especially the British, dislike sanctions altogether. Whatever Reagan’s ultimate decision this month, the international community has to decide what to do if a full-blown civil war explodes in South Africa and whether any “collective measures” may work--what to do if Cuba, for instance, offers military support for rebels in nearby Namibia. World peace may be at stake as well as the lives of millions of innocent Africans. Yet nobody is known to be preparing for such a contingency: Today, sanctions are applied or not applied at the convenience of domestic politics.

And the convenience of domestic politics has pushed Reagan to a series of unilateral sanctions, turning America into the role of an enraged policeman. This is the arrogation of the right of intervention by the United States in the domestic affairs of other nations and the application of reprisals where and when the United States finds them appropriate.

Sanctions are being tightened against Cuba and Nicaragua, if not to dislodge their regimes (which, in Cuba, would be impossible), then to at least weaken them. In an unprecedented unilateral fashion, the United States earlier this year rejected the jurisdiction of the World Court over the situation in Nicaragua, where Reagan’s contra “freedom fighters” are attempting to overthrow the Marxist Sandinista government.

American aid was removed this month from Zimbabwe, a crucial player in southern Africa, because the Administration wanted to punish this little nation for saying nasty things about U.S. support for the anti-communist UNITA guerrillas in Angola (also supported by South Africa). The action against Zimbabwe is a reprisal. Support for UNITA is a sort of military “sanction,” the Administration preferring to arm local opposition rather than negotiate with Angola, a leftist government that would some day like to bid farewell to Cuban military assistance without being smashed by the rightists.

U.S. aid, minimal but symbolic, was withdrawn from China (through a U.N. program) because the Chinese encourage abortion to deal with their mammoth population problem--and our President does not believe in abortion.

Then, moving to the side of the angels, the Administration threatens minor economic sanctions (a bank-loan ban) against the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. It helped hasten the removal of dictators in Haiti and the Philippines, but the Administration is already hinting that funds may be held back from President Corazon Aquino if she does not deal with her communist rebels as the United States would want her to.

The sense of what sanctions are, what reprisals are--and what arrogance is--no longer comes clear. Every American governmental body is engaged in sanction politics: the White House, the Congress, the intelligence community, the secretaries of state, defense, commerce and agriculture (at least)--and all the newspaper columnists. Perhaps what Reagan needs is a department of sanctions to coordinate foreign policy. Alas, even Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary adds to the confusion: “Sanction” may mean “something that authorizes, confirms or countenances,” or “coercive intervention” as “a means of enforcing the law.” But whose law?