Bag's Rants

What do sanctions do in reality?

I've just been reading this article about Zambia. It appears that here is an African country which is fertile and, should be, able to look after itself a little like Zimbabwe. Clearly in a much better situation than some of the others.

Reading this article it appears that the West is making a bad situation much worse. We have put sanctions on the country in the form of World Bank and International Monetary Fund conditions which are impacting food production. Pretty much a punishment on the citizens but has little impact on the Government. It happens all the time.

It seems that we like to encourage starvation on a countries citizens and then come along at a later date and have a concert to save them. Does that make sense? Is our reason then just to have the concert. If so could we just have the concert and show some pictures from the 1980s and 1990s. That way we could save thousands of lives.

Surely, giving a smaller amount of aid at this point will save many lives and the requirement for a large amount later on. I know I'm not a Politician and don't understand the modern world but I just don't see any logic behind this. Or is being logical my problem?

Does this make sense or am I just being naive?

posted by Bag @ 3:44 pm