by
Marjorie Cohn, Truthout
Part
2 - Sanctions Constitute Illegal Collective Punishment
Meanwhile,
the Trump administration has increased punishing sanctions on
Venezuela as a step toward forcible regime change. “Statements
from the [Trump] administration indicated that the purpose of the
sanctions was to provoke a military rebellion to topple the
government,” according to a new report by the Center for
Economic and Policy Research.
Those
sanctions are exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe in Venezuela.
They have led to more than 40,000 deaths
from 2017-2018 and oil production has fallen more than
36 percent since January 2019.
The
report says the economic sanctions Trump imposed in August 2017
“reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and
mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of
Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening
economic depression and hyperinflation.” In addition, “They
exacerbated Venezuela’s economic crisis and made it nearly
impossible to stabilize the economy, contributing further to excess
deaths. All of these impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest
and most vulnerable Venezuelans.”
According
to the report, “Even more severe and destructive than the broad
economic sanctions of August 2017 were the sanctions imposed by
executive order on January 28, 2019, and subsequent executive orders
this year; and the recognition of a parallel government.”
Seeking
to pressure Cuba to cease its solidarity with Venezuela, Trump has
slammed Cuba with more sanctions, stiffening the economic and travel
blockade and activating Title III of the Helms Burton Act to allow
thousands of lawsuits that will discourage tourism and investment in
Cuba.
Trump
has threatened Cuba with “a full and complete” embargo if
it does not “immediately” stop supporting the Maduro
government. Cuba called Bolton a “pathological liar” for
alleging that Cuban troops are stationed in Venezuela. Cuban Foreign
Minister Bruno Rodriguez stated at a news conference, “This is
vulgar calumny. Cuba does not have troops nor military forces nor
does it participate in military or security operations of the sister
Republic of Venezuela.” Indeed, the CIA has determined that
Cuba is much less involved and its solidarity is much less crucial to
Venezuela than U.S. officials think, according to a former official.
In
December 2018, Trump signed a bill levying sanctions to block
Nicaragua from obtaining loans from the World Bank, the
Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The U.S. government is targeting Nicaragua’s Bancorp, which has
ties to Venezuela.
All
of these sanctions constitute collective punishment of the civilian
population, which is prohibited by the Geneva and Hague Conventions.
They also violate the Charter of the Organization of American States,
which prohibits intervention in the internal or external affairs of
another country and the use of economic or political coercive
measures “to force the sovereign will of another State.”
This is
not the first time the U.S. government has interfered and intervened
in these three sovereign socialist countries. In 1960, responding to
a secret State Department memo, the Eisenhower administration imposed
an economic embargo on Cuba. The memo proposed “a line of action
which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the
greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease
monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and
overthrow of government.” The cruel U.S. economic blockade
against Cuba, which continues to this day, has never led to the
overthrow of the Cuban Revolution.
In the
1980s, the Regan administration illegally assisted the Contras, who
sought unsuccessfully to overthrow Daniel Ortega’s socialist
government in Nicaragua.
And in
2002, the CIA during the George W. Bush administration mounted a
failed coup attempt against socialist president Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela.
The
United States uses a double standard for its human rights concerns
and its attacks on socialist countries.
Source,
links:
Comments
Post a Comment