The Rhodesian plan

Three times during the 1990s, the world stood by while heart-rending – and preventable – African tragedies unfolded in Liberia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone.

President Robert Mugabe's ongoing assault on human rights and democracy in Zimbabwe offers the latest test of whether the world community, and the West in particular, will act aggressively to avert tragedy.

Mr. Mugabe's behavior does not surprise people familiar with his record. In 1982, less than two years after being elected as newly independent Zimbabwe's first prime minister, Mugabe unleashed his North Korean-trained 5th Brigade against "dissidents" in the province of Matabeleland. Conservative estimates reckon 15,000 Matabele were murdered.

Mugabe has subsequently intimidated the opposition, stolen elections, and squandered his country's vast natural wealth. He is destroying the economy and creating a famine.

On human rights abuses in black Africa, one simply hasn't seen the same manifestations of protest and pressure by Western governments and private organizations directed against tyrants on other continents – or even like those used against South Africa's apartheid regime.

The European Union has enacted sanctions against Mugabe, but they're too narrow and too late. Ironically, the template for dealing with him is the one used to bring about regime changes in Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe was called before independence), and later, in South Africa. In both cases, wide-ranging economic and financial sanctions were crucial. Sanctions don't work quickly, but they are more or less effective, depending on the degree the regime is willing to use repression to survive.

The broader the sanctions, the better.

A plan based on the Rhodesia model would include the following:

• Financial sanctions. Because the basic source of power in any tyrannical regime is access to finances, an effective sanctions campaign against Mugabe must target his money.

Impose strict controls on financial transactions involving Zimbabwe. The countries dominating the global banking system are quite capable of financially isolating a country and tracking fund movements. Even if multilateral cooperation is difficult, the US Treasury's controls against designated countries are an effective device, and the US can bring along many of its allies in an effort against Mugabe. Compared with elusive drug dealers and terrorists whose finances are now targeted, going after a clearly identified target is a far simpler task.

Hold financial institutions accountable. Targeted regimes will strenuously seek to evade sanctions by using proxies and front operations to move funds. Thus, it is essential to require financial institutions and other intermediaries such as lawyers and accountants to vet the source of funds they accept.

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