The sanctions would have imposed an arms embargo, and would have made it impossible for Mugabe and the key figures in the de facto military junta that now rules the country from travelling abroad, or from holding any assets abroad.

Does Lindsey really think that civilised countries should welcome visits by the heads of the Zimbabwean army and police, Constantine Chiwenga and Augustine Chihuri, both of whom openly stated before the election that they would never accept anyone other than Mugabe as President?

Stopping weapons reaching Mugabe’s forces would obviously work in favour of the Zimbabwean people, not against them.

As for the claims that sanctions did not bring down apartheid – nobody ever said they did. They were part of a multi-pronged strategy that included isolating the regime internationally, while democratic forces within South Africa waged all manner of battles (including the ANC’s armed struggle) to overthrow racial tyranny. It was the shifting balance of forces within southern Africa (including the defeat the apartheid armed forces suffered at Cuito Cuanavake in southern Angola in 1988) that was determinent in bringing down apartheid – but sanctions played an important supporting role in this drama.

In Britain, we boycotted South African goods, and stopped South African sports teams from touring, not because it made us feel good, but because that is what the ANC asked us to do.

And sanctions obviously made life very difficult for the apartheid regime. It made it much more difficult for it to acquire fuel, for example. Busting sanctions is always possible – but it can be very expensive.

-there’s a whole lot of union academics in the UK who would disagree with your analysis esp. as its one of the central props of their position re. boycott/sanctions Israel.

And no, sanctions did not bring down apartheid in South Africa. That collapse would have happened long before if the ANC had not been so supported by, and supportive of, the Soviet Union. As things turned out, the Soviet Union collapsed (as it would have done anyway, Reagan or no Reagan and Thatcher or no Thatcher), so no one saw any further need to prop up the old South African regime in order to prevent the gaining of a Soviet foothold there.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/africa-is-giving-nothing-to-anyone%E2%80%94apart-from-aids-1430428.html