Double Standards and Weapons of Mass Hypocrisy : Economic Sanctions as a Tool in International Relations - The Case of Smart (Targeted) Sanctions on Zimbabwe 2000-2008

The last four years into the 2000 new millennium ushered in a new era disbelief, discontent and despair in the eyes on one hand, of Zimbabwean state as an actor in the international system and on the other hand of the international community. Some international actors chose (besides other forms altering the behavior i.e military force, political coercion, covert action and diplomatic persuasion) to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe citing misdeeds that the country was committing. Sanctions as such were targeted at altering the behavior of Zimbabwe as an actor in international relations to more desirable state of affairs from the point of view of the imposers. It is the purpose of this paper to analyse the justifications and implementation of sanctions as a tool of altering behavior of international actors. The paper holds that though the sanctions had a considerable impact on Zimbabwe, the intended objectives were not achieved. The paper seeks in the final analysis to investigate the factors that contributed to their failure from both the imposer and the target