United States and Europe have long used unilateral sanctions as a means of imperial power to discipline and even overthrow Global South governments that seek to end Western dominance, chart a free path, and establish any kind of meaningful sovereignty.
In any given year, there were on average about 15 nations subject to unilateral sanctions from the West during the 1970s. In many cases, these sanctions sought to stifle trade and finance, destabilize industries, and exacerbate crises to stoke state collapse.
The US government, for instance, harshly retaliated against Chile when the popular socialist Salvador Allende won the election in 1970. US President Richard Nixon stated at a White House meeting in September 1970 that the goal was to “make Chile’s] economy scream.” The sanctions, according to historian Peter Kornbluh, were an “invisible blockade” that deposed Chile of access to international money, sparked social unrest, and opened the door for the US-backed coup that erected the brutal right-wing dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
The US and Europe have since used sanctions in a significant way. In any given year, an average of 30 nations were subject to unilateral sanctions from the West during the 1990s and 2000s. It is more than 60% of the countries in the Global South as of the 2020s, which is a staggering high proportion.
Sanctions frequently have a significant impact on people. Scholars have demonstrated this in a number of well-known cases, including the US’s sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, which caused widespread malnormation, a lack of clean water, and a shortage of medicine and electricity. More recently, US economic strife against Venezuela has caused a severe economic crisis, according to a study that found that 40, 000 extra-dead deaths occurred between 2017 and 2018 in one year.
Researchers have focused on understanding the human toll of sanctions on a case-by-case basis up until now. This work is challenging, and it only ever provides a glimpse into the finished product. However, this has changed with the release of new research, which was first published in The Lancet Global Health this year. The University of Denver study, led by economist Francisco Rodriguez, calculates the total number of extra-deaths caused by international sanctions between 1970 and 2021.
The outcomes are astounding. According to their principal estimate, the authors discover that the US and the EU have since instituted unilateral sanctions that have resulted in 38 million deaths. More than a million people died in the 1990s, some years. Sanctions were responsible for more than 800 000 deaths in the most recent year of data, 2021.
According to these results, sanctions cause approximately 100, 000 deaths annually, which is more than direct casualties of war (on average, around 100, 000). Children and the elderly, who are most susceptible to malnutrition, account for more than half of the victims. According to the study, more than one million children have been killed by sanctions since 2012 alone.
Hunger and poverty are a key goal of Western sanctions, not an accidental result. A State Department memo from April 1960, which explains the purpose of US sanctions against Cuba, makes this clear. According to the memo, Fidel Castro and the revolution in general enjoyed acclaim in Cuba. It argued that “every possible means should be taken seriously to weaken the economic life of Cuba,” that “distribution of resources to Cuba, a reduction in monetary and real wages, hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of government should be taken seriously.”
The effectiveness of Western sanctions depends on their dominance of the world’s reserve currencies (the US dollar and the euro), their dominance of SWIFT, and their monopoly over key technologies (such as satellites, cloud computing, and software). Countries in the Global South will need to take steps to lessen their dependence on these things and protect themselves from negative feedback if they want to chart a more independent path towards a multipolar world. Such a strategy can be successful, according to recent Russian experience.
By establishing new payment systems outside Western control, establishing South-South trade and swap lines between the main currencies, using regional planning to develop necessary technologies, and establishing new payment systems, governments can increase their independence. In fact, several nations are already implementing this strategy. Importantly, new Chinese systems (such as CIPS for international payments, BeiDou for satellites, Huawei for telecom) now offer other world South countries alternative options that can help them break Western dependence and the sanctions net.
These actions are both morally necessary and necessary for nations that want to experience sovereign development. We cannot accept the fact that half a million people are murdered annually to advance Western hegemony. This kind of violence must be replaced and eliminated from an international order.
Source: Aljazeera
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