Most observers of international politics with a morsel of integrity and the inherent capacity for independent thought recognise the United States making statements, spouting pontifications, and spreading platitudes regarding support for ‘Ukraine’s sovereignty’ as a pile of stinking and hypocritical manure. The nation that has invaded, bombed, and helped organise internal violent military coups in more countries than any other in the history of humanity is in no position to lecture anyone about respecting the sovereignty of nations. And now that the world has been alerted to the fact that sanctions in all their forms are an act of aggression and war by other means perhaps, we can at long last focus media attention on the illegal, immoral, and deadly sanctions the most powerful nation on earth imposes on sovereign nations like Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and others simply because the US disagrees with the governments in those countries.
On the 3rd of February 1962 ‘Proclamation 3447 – Embargo on All Trade with Cuba’ was authorised by President John F. Kennedy and within days the longest blockade in history started and is still enforced today. Economic warfare has been waged against the Cuban people for daring to support a government that invests in universal healthcare, education, and eradicating homelessness rather than weapons of mass destruction and bullying the world.
America Exports Missiles – Cuba Exports Doctors
Small and underdeveloped Cuba has had a socialist government since their glorious revolution of 1959 led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara overthrew the brutal military Junta of President Batista who was an American supported puppet and dictator. Such has been the success of the small socialist island’s free healthcare system that they now boast a higher life expectancy than their obscenely rich near neighbour https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/#countries-ranked-by-life-expectancy and a higher rate of literacy and educational achievement per head of the respective populations.
Whilst the US concentrates on weapons of mass destruction to lead its world exports Cuba concentrates on doctors and helping others with over 50,000 Cuban doctors in 67 countries across the world helping to save and improve lives https://time.com/5467742/cuba-doctors-export-brazil/. While big Pharma companies in the US sought to take advantage of the Covid19 pandemic to boost already huge profits socialist Cuba developed effective and safe vaccines for the poorest parts of the world free or at affordable prices https://cuba-solidarity.org.uk/news/article/4362/big-pharma-vs-little-cuba-why-cubans-trust-vaccines-and-how-theyrsquore-helping-vaccinate-the-world.
Joe Biden pledged to “reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families” https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/13/politics/biden-cuba-review/index.html but has maintained all of the previous administration’s 243 extra sanctions and punitive measures imposed against Cuba. On 23rd June 2021 the world’s parliament, the United Nations General Assembly, debated the US sanctions on Cuba and voted to condemn them for the twenty ninth year in succession https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094612.
Condemned By United Nations 29 Years in Succession – US Doesn’t Care
Think about that fact for a moment. The country that swans all around the world lecturing the planet about respecting the independence and sovereignty of individual nations was condemned for the twenty ninth year in succession for imposing illegal and immoral economic sanctions on Cuba which has caused severe shortages of foodstuffs, medicines and other essential supplies for the Cuban people leading to thousands of needless and premature deaths.
These sanctions are cruel and deadly. They flagrantly abuse Cuba’s sovereignty. By a margin of 184 to 2 the General Assembly of the UN voted to condemn the United States for their actions. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla said that the blockade was:
“a massive, flagrant and unacceptable violation of the human rights of the Cuban people” https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094612.
Reflecting the tenor of last June’s almost unanimous vote amid the stresses and additional strains caused by the Covid19 pandemic Oxfam America said:
“Continuing to maintain these unjust sanctions is an assault on the Cuban population and an obstacle to controlling the pandemic,” … “Changing these policies would enable the island to more effectively address the COVID health emergency and procure the goods needed to improve the individual and collective wellbeing of Cuban women and men.” https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/oxfam-calls-for-an-end-to-us-sanctions-against-cuba-in-the-face-of-the-countrys-covid-health-emergency/.
They further described US attempts to defend the deadly sanctions as a “shameful embarrassment” and produced a comprehensive report calling for US sanctions against Cuba to end https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/research-publications/right-to-live-without-a-blockade/.
Apartheid Israel Backs Illegal US Sanctions – Ukraine Abstains
The only country to side with the US and support the illegal and immoral sanctions regime against Cuba was apartheid practicing Israel, the country that has illegally occupied Palestine for over 70 years, and which daily denies the most basic human rights to the Palestinian people. The three countries who couldn’t muster the courage to vote against America and its continued assault on the freedom and sovereignty of Cuba were Brazil, Colombia, and Ukraine….
Of course, although socialist Cuba has suffered the longest programme of brutal economic sanctions by the mighty United States it is not alone in suffering from this modern form of warfare which has been referred to as ‘economic terrorism’ by United Nation’s observers.
Any country which elects a remotely socialist government or administration not willing to jump into line when ever ordered to by the US and adhere to their neo-liberal capitalist privatisation and anti-worker’s rights policies is subjected to sanctions without UN support or discussion. The US unilaterally imposes economic sanctions packages that breach international laws and contravene the human rights of the citizens within those nations. In other words, US economic sanctions are literal abuses of human rights.
Brutal American Sanctions Against Venezuela Have Cost 40,000 Lives
Venezuela has been a very prominent US target recently as the September 2018 United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Report graphically documents. It exposes the modern day piracy and gross violation of human rights by the US against Venezuela file:///C:/Users/citiz/OneDrive/Alfred%20de%20Zayas%20Venezuela%20Report.pdf and further detailed analysis in 2019 suggests at least 40,000 innocent lives have been lost as a result of the sanctions preventing essential medicines and staple foodstuffs reaching the Venezuelan people https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14446.
Former special rapporteur Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, who compiled the extensive Report referenced above, finished his term at the UN in April 2018 https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/ie-international-order/mr-alfred-maurice-de-zayas-former-independent-expert-2012-2018. He criticised the US for engaging in “economic warfare” against Venezuela which he said is hurting the economy and killing Venezuelans.
Mr De Zayas, a former secretary of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) and an expert in international law, spoke out publicly https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-us-sanctions-united-nations-oil-pdvsa-a8748201.html about the human cost of sanctions following the presentation of his Venezuela report to the HRC in September 2018. He said that since its presentation the report has been ignored by the UN and has not sparked the public debate, he believes it deserves.
“Sanctions kill, and they fall most heavily on the poorest people in society, demonstrably cause death through food and medicine shortages, lead to violations of human rights and are aimed at coercing economic change in a “sister democracy”.
Paragraphs 10 and 11 of the Report merit lengthy quotation as they set the real context and background to America’s imposition of illegal and immoral economic sanctions regimes. They are not about ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’ or concerns about ‘human rights abuses’ they are about ensuring free market capitalism is imposed everywhere and the altar of profits before all else is adhered to:
“The present report considers the relevance of General Assembly resolutions on international order, including 2625 (XXV) on friendly relations, 72/4 on the United States embargo against Cuba, and 60/1 on the 2005 World Summit Outcome, which reaffirms that democracy is a universal value based on the freely expressed will of people to determine their own political, economic, social and cultural systems and their full participation in all aspects of their lives, that democracy, development and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, and that while democracies share common features, there is no single model of democracy. Thus, the models of democracy of the “Revolución Bolivariana” in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the “Revolución Ciudadana” in Ecuador deserve attention. The socioeconomic models prevalent in both countries, as well as in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua, reveal possibilities of greater regional integration and cooperation with international organizations, particularly the United Nations system, which can assist governments to achieve social progress and strengthen civil liberties. The Independent Expert noted the eradication of illiteracy, free education from primary school to university, and programmes to reduce extreme poverty, provide housing to the homeless and vulnerable, phase out privilege and discrimination, and extend medical care to everyone” file:///C:/Users/citiz/OneDrive/Alfred%20de%20Zayas%20Venezuela%20Report.pdf.
The real ‘crimes’ countries like Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua, and other commit in the eyes of the United States is to try to eradicate poverty and homelessness and prioritise the needs of the poor above the greed of the rich.
First Fact Finding Mission to Venezuela in 21 Years Ignored Because the Narrative Was Not Pro-Regime Change
On his fact-finding mission to the country in late 2017, he found internal overdependence on oil, poor governance and corruption had hit the Venezuelan economy hard but said “economic warfare” practised by the US, EU and Canada are significant factors in the economic crisis.
In the UN HRC report, Mr de Zayas recommended, among other actions, that the International Criminal Court investigate economic sanctions against Venezuela as possible crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute.
The US sanctions are illegal under international law because they were not endorsed by the UN Security Council, according to Mr de Zayas, an expert on international law and a former senior lawyer with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. He further speaks excruciating truth to power in paragraph 37 when he states:
“Modern-day economic sanctions and blockades are comparable with medieval sieges of towns with the intention of forcing them to surrender. Twenty-first century sanctions attempt to bring not just a town, but sovereign countries to their knees. A difference, perhaps, is that twenty-first century sanctions are accompanied by the manipulation of public opinion through “fake news”, aggressive public relations and a pseudo-human rights rhetoric so as to give the impression that a human rights “end” justifies the criminal means. There is not only a horizontal juridical world order governed by the Charter of the United Nations and principles of sovereign equality, but also a vertical world order reflecting the hierarchy of a geopolitical system that links dominant States with the rest of the world according to military and economic power. It is the latter, geopolitical system that generates geopolitical crimes, hitherto in total impunity. It is reported that the United States is currently training foreign lawyers in how to draft legislation to impose further sanctions on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in an effort to asphyxiate Venezuelan State institutions” file:///C:/Users/citiz/OneDrive/Alfred%20de%20Zayas%20Venezuela%20Report.pdf.
Mr De Zayas’s findings in his Report are based on his late-2017 mission to the country and interviews with 12 Venezuelan government minsters, opposition politicians, 35 NGOs working in the country, academics, church officials, activists, chambers of commerce and regional UN agencies.
The US imposed new sanctions against Venezuela on 9 March 2015, when President Barack Obama issued executive order 13692, declaring the country a threat to national security.
The sanctions then intensified under Donald Trump, who also threatened military invasion and discussed a coup.
After backing Mr Guaido, a man who didn’t even stand for election in the 2016 Venezuelan Presidential election, Mr Trump said on 23rd January 2019, “I will continue to use the full weight of United States economic and diplomatic power to press for the restoration of Venezuelan democracy.”
US Sanctions are Barbaric and Illegal
Venezuela has also described US sanctions as illegal. In 2018, foreign minister Jorge Arreaza said they were “madness, barbaric, and in absolute contradiction to international law” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-sanctions-idUSKCN1IM2FZ.
Since 2015 around 1.9 million people have fled the country and on 23 October 2018 inflation reached 60,324 per cent, while the civilian death toll is unknown.
Despite being the first UN official to visit and report from Venezuela in 21 years, Mr de Zayas said his research into the causes of the country’s economic crisis have largely been ignored by the UN and the media and caused little debate within the Human Rights Council.
He believes his report has been ignored because it goes against the popular narrative that Venezuela needs regime change.
“When I come and I say the emigration is partly attributable to the economic war waged against Venezuela and is partly attributable to the sanctions, people don’t like to hear that. They just want the simple narrative that socialism failed, and it failed the Venezuelan people,” …
“When I came back [the UN and media were] not interested. Because I am not singing the song, I’m supposed to sing so I don’t exist … And my report, as I said, was formally presented but there has been no debate on the report. It has been filed away.” https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-us-sanctions-united-nations-oil-pdvsa-a8748201.html.
There you have it in black and white. When anyone seeks to expose the treachery of the US at an international level and its consistent abuse of human rights and violation of the sovereignty of other nations through illegal, immoral, and deadly sanctions they are simply ignored, and their thoroughly researched and independent findings are “filed away”. These are real crimes against humanity. These are real infractions against human rights. These are real infringements of the sovereignty of other nations. But because the US is the aggressor, the culprit, the international criminal the evidence is shunned, and the media falls silent. The next time you hear the media amplify US ‘concerns’ for human rights abuses and breaches of sovereignty in Ukraine try not to puke. Their stomach-churning hypocrisy and double standards are enough to make you nauseous.
Tommy Sheridan – Former MSP (1999-2007) & Glasgow City Councillor (1992-2003)
A Time To Rage 
Leave a comment