U.S. sanctions disrupt nations’ right to develop

On Oct. 30, 2024, in a forum hosted by the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations, held in person at the United Nations and on U.N. web TV, contributing editor to Workers World Sara Flounders made the following presentation. Flounders is active in the SanctionsKill Campaign and a co-director of the International Action Center. The panel’s moderator was Ambassador H.E. Samuel Moncada, permanent representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United Nations. See webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1x/k1xzdz0rzx

My thanks from the SanctionsKill Campaign to the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations and to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for hosting this important session today at the United Nations.

We are meeting after a world vote once again condemning the U.S. blockade of Cuba. A vote of 187-2 is the world reality. So many countries applauded Cuba’s internationalism.

It is a great honor to speak on this panel, representing social justice organizations in the U.S. It is a big obligation and responsibility to the people of the world to condemn, denounce and expose this U.S. crime against humanity.

U.S. imperialism seeks to dominate the global economy. The policy of “full spectrum dominance” is a projection of the U.S. national security doctrine for corporate profit. It means depriving all developing countries of the Right to Develop.

Sanctions — Economic Coercive Measures — are imposed by the United States and its junior partners against countries that resist their agendas. Sanctions are not an alternative to open warfare but a different form of war that can be as intentionally deadly as dropping bombs.

The Sanctions Kill Campaign — SanctionsKill.org — is an educational project of many social justice and solidarity organizations using mass petitions, union resolutions, demonstrations, books and webinars to educate the U.S. population about this extreme form of hybrid warfare that operates in the shadows — never discussed, debated and barely known.

We seek to work with U.N. bodies and other international bodies to expose this crime against humanity

The U.S. electorate does not get to vote on imperialism’s endless wars. The outcome of the U.S. presidential election will not change this deadly policy of economic strangulation.

Mass pressure on many fronts can force through change — to ban this weapon of mass destruction.

This brutal weapon of economic war intentionally creates chronic shortages of basic necessities. It causes economic dislocation, chaotic hyperinflation, artificial famines, disease and poverty. In every country, the poorest and the weakest — infants, children, the chronically ill and the elderly — suffer the worst impact of sanctions.

All U.S. imposed sanctions violate international law. They are illegal under the U.N. Charter and violate the Geneva Conventions against collective punishment.

Sanctions are imposed by the U.S. Department of Treasury, Department of Commerce, U.S. State Department and U.S. Congressional resolutions that slide through unannounced. There are European Union sanctions resolutions, resolutions by Britain and, by U.S. pressure, U.N. Security Council resolutions.

U.S. sanctions, totaling more than 8,000 measures, impact one-third of humanity in more than 40 countries. They are a crime against humanity used, like military intervention, to topple popular governments and movements and provide economic and military support to pro-U.S., right-wing forces.

The U.S. economic dominance and its 800+ military bases worldwide demand all other countries participate in acts of economic strangulation. They must end all normal trade relations, otherwise they risk having Wall Street’s guns pointed at them.

The banks and financial institutions, who are responsible for the devastation of our communities at home, drive the plunder of countries abroad.

As our book is titled, “Sanctions are a Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy.”

The intention is to smash all normal economic life.

Venezuela is the fifth most sanctioned country in the world, and it has cost the country dearly: 946 sanctions! Some 40,000 to 100,000 people in Venezuela are estimated to have died from lack of food, medicines, clean drinking water and other basic necessities as of 2019, imposed since the Barack Obama administration. (Center for Economic and Policy Research, April 25, 2019) The Joe Biden administration has now imposed new, harsher sanctions on Venezuela for the crime of carrying out free and fair elections.

The sanctions on Gaza, since the population dared to overwhelmingly elect the Hamas slate, the Movement of Islamic Resistance, in 2006, operate consciously with Israel to strangle the whole population. This is collective punishment.

Sanctions, combined with a torrent of U.S. provided weapons, have reached a level of genocidal violence against civilians in Gaza that outrages the whole world. U.S. sanctions against Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen brutally impact all the economies of West Asia. They stretch to Afghanistan, blocking all development after decades of U.S. wars.

Sanctions stretch to Myanmar, Laos and the country with the oldest sanctions: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, since 1950.

Cuba, in this hemisphere, has been strangled for over 60 years. Now Nicaragua is in the crosshairs. Impoverished Haiti remains under sanctions.

The largest number of sanctioned countries is in Africa, countries although resource rich, are already strangled by centuries of colonial looting. From Libya, the Central African Republic, Congo – DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Sudan and South Sudan, Somalia, Tunisia, Uganda and Zimbabwe, sanctions block the Right to Develop.

They harm the most vulnerable citizens: children, the sick, the elderly and the poor.

The world is changing!

The countries of the world, for their very survival, ignored U.S. demands and thousands of U.S./European Union/British sanctions on Russia targeting wheat, grains, fertilizer, gas and oil.

Biden declared there’d be regime change, and Russia would totally collapse in weeks. But the sanctions boomeranged.

The thousands of new threats, sanctions and 100% tariffs on China leave the Global South with a steady determination to develop alternatives.

The BRICS opening document last week, from the meeting in Kazan, Russia, condemned sanctions as illegal and unlawful. I quote from their statement: “We are deeply concerned about the disruptive effect of unlawful, unilateral coercive measures, including illegal sanctions, on the world economy, international trade and the achievement of the sustainable development goals.”

Now, just emerging are commodities trading platforms within BRICS, along with cross-border payment instruments. This development gives hope for the future.

The people of the whole world have a right to demand the end of all the restrictive, prohibitive measures. They must be rallied to speak and to act.

In closing, we condemn the horrendous crimes committed against the Palestinian people, the belts of fire, the bombing of refugee tents, schools, every hospital deliberately destroyed, all with total U.S. support, funding and endless supply of weapons.

It confirms that there are no limits to the crimes imperialist powers will commit against defenseless civilians. The blocking now of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) food and medicines to all Palestinians in occupied lands confirms that international law will be totally blocked with full U.S. support.

U.S. sanctions belong in the dustbin of history! Along with U.S.-supported settler colonial regimes, such as Israel, wreaking such massive destruction in West Asia. This is the future.

Cooperation and development among all the people of the world is the only way forward.