ForeignPolicy | The scenario in South Sudan
is hardly unique. Something similar plays out across many African
countries torn by conflict, including the Central African Republic, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan. Oil, gold, diamonds,
cobalt, copper, and a variety of other mineral deposits and trafficked
wildlife provide immense opportunity for those in power to line their
own pockets. Brutally repressing all forms of opposition is seen as the
only way to maintain control of the spoils.
Remarkably,
there is currently no coordinated strategy to disrupt the illicit
siphoning of money by leaders and their foreign business partners. For
leaders, giving up power almost certainly means losing access to their
spoils, and it might even mean facing prosecution. Every year, billions
of aid dollars pour into Africa: taxpayers and donors around the world
fund peacekeeping forces, state-building programs, humanitarian
assistance, elections, and peace processes. But none of this support has
been able to keep corrupt leaders and their network of beneficiaries from stealing billions of dollars.
Every
year, billions of aid dollars pour into Africa: taxpayers and donors
around the world fund peacekeeping forces, state-building programs,
humanitarian assistance, elections, and peace processes. But none of
this support has been able to keep corrupt leaders and their network of
beneficiaries from stealing billions of dollars.
This is the fatal flaw of peacemaking in Africa: those supporting mediation lack the leverage
necessary to stop corrupt figures from using their forces to bomb,
burn, imprison, silence, torture, starve, impoverish, kill, and rape to
maintain or gain power. South Sudanese peace talks, for example, are
currently stuck because Kiir and his allies have rejected any notion of
sharing power with the rebels, since such an arrangement would require
giving up their exclusive grip on the crudely-constructed looting
machine masquerading as a government.
For years, the tool of
choice for building leverage against actors undermining peace or human
rights has been to impose targeted sanctions. But sanctions have been
used sparingly in Africa. They have been applied to only a few
individuals at a time, with very little enforcement, and are rarely
extended to predatory commercial collaborators, both inside and outside
Africa, who facilitate and enable official misdeeds. Over time, warring
parties have come to regard sanctions as a vague annoyance for their
public relations rather than as any serious threat to their power. The
Obama and Trump administrations recently removed comprehensive sanctions
against neighboring Sudan, but were unable to extract meaningful
changes in Khartoum’s behavior. This move is a potent example of the
folly of current peace efforts in Africa, which have for the most part
eschewed the use of readily available tools for applying pressure that
are both more sophisticated and better focused.
This
standard but failing approach can change. Serious financial pressure
with real bite is not only possible; it has proved effective in the
past.
As a start, sanctions must be levied against
entire networks, not just individuals. That was the approach the United
States took with Iran and North Korea in order to drive them to the
negotiating table. The United States deployed extensive sanctions
targeting Iran’s leadership and military networks in an effort to
disrupt the illicit funding streams used by the country’s ruling elites
to maintain their grip on Iran’s economy. For example, in June 2013, the
U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s
Order, a state-owned entity that includes 37 ostensibly private
businesses located around the world, many of which were used as front
companies meant to evade sanctions. They generated and controlled
massive, off-the-books investments that they hid from both the Iranian
people and international regulators.
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