US sanctions as key tool of empire and their devastating effects
Sanctions and the World Economic Order: a conversation with Prabhat Patnaik
Economist Michael Hudson on decline of dollar, sanctions war, imperialism, financial parasitism
Sanctions within a regime of neo-liberalism
Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela
THE ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES OF ECONOMIC SANCTIONS ON THE ENJOYMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS.pdf
After extensive countrywide surveys, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found that the Iraqi mortality rate for children under five has doubled in southern and central Iraq, largely as a result of the Gulf War, its impact, and the sanctions. In a country of twenty-two million people over nearly ten years, that translates into five hundred thousand “excess” deaths.1
A “spectacular lie” – this is how an August 4, 2017 article in the Washington Post1 called UNICEF’s 1999 finding that 500,000 children were killed as a direct result of UN-imposed sanctions on Iraq. The article builds on a study published in the British Medical Journal of Global Health, which is alleged to be an academic work but sadly builds on a seriously incorrect and dangerous assertion distorted by political motivation. Geneva International Centre for Justice (GICJ) is dismayed at the study’s conclusion, which can only be seen as part of the tenacious attempts to cover the appalling crimes committed against the Iraqi civilian population under the sanctions regime.2
Tens of millions of Afghans now face food insecurity, even starvation, as the US has seized its US$9.5 billion central bank reserves. President Biden’s 11 February 2022 executive order gives half of this to 9/11 victims’ families, although no Afghan was ever found responsible for the atrocity.3
Nearly 23 million Afghans, including 1 million children, are facing hunger and starvation brought on by U.S. sanctions.4
As many as 40,000 people may have died in Venezuela as a result of US sanctions that made it harder for ordinary citizens to access food, medicine and medical equipment, a new report has claimed.5
The report, published by the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) a progressive, Washington DC-based think tank, says those deaths took place following the imposition of sanctions in the summer of 2017. It said the situation had probably worsened since the imposition earlier this year, of tougher sanctions targetting Venezuela’s vital oil industry, as part of the Trump administration’s effort to oust president Nicolas Maduro.