Word: rhodesia
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Only twice before has the U.N. leveled mandatory sanctions to try to humble a recalcitrant state. Both attempts were flops. A ban on trade with Rhodesia was in effect for 13 years, beginning in 1967, after the white racist government unilaterally declared independence from Britain. Neighboring South Africa kept Rhodesia -- now Zimbabwe -- supplied with arms, gasoline and vital consumer goods while acting as middleman for the country's tobacco exports. In 1977 the U.N. banned arms sales to South Africa to protest apartheid, and independently, many countries restricted their economic ties in the mid-1980s. Still, South Africa's economy...
...country is vulnerable because its economy is staggering under the weight of $70 billion in war debts and the $10 billion-a-year cost of keeping 1 in 17 Iraqi citizens under arms. In addition, the sanctions against Iraq, unlike those against South Africa, are comprehensive. And unlike Rhodesia, Iraq derives its income almost entirely from one commodity, oil, which accounts for 95% of its exports. Unlike each of the other countries, Iraq lacks the industrial or agricultural base necessary to achieve a significant degree of self-sufficiency...