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US Sanctions

Venezuela Fiercely Rejects US Senate’s Passing Of BOLIVAR Act

December 19, 2022 Orinoco Tribune. , , ,
This Friday, December 16, the US Senate unanimously approved the Law to Prohibit Operations and Leasing with the Illegitimate Authoritarian Regime of Venezuela (BOLIVAR Act), presented by the ultra-conservative Floridian senator, Rick Scott. The discussion of the interventionist act in the lower house of the US Congress is still pending. “The regulations prohibit federal agencies from doing business with anyone who supports the oppressive Maduro regime,” reported the official website of Scott, who was one of the primary promoters of the law. Scott was joined by far-right Senator Marco Rubio as well as other far-right congressmen. The bill had been unanimously approved by the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs in March 2021, as a preliminary step before being discussed in the Senate.

US Trial Of Venezuela’s Alex Saab Exposes Diplomatic Espionage

December 18, 2022 Anya Parampil, Orinoco Tribune. , , ,
Authorities in Cape Verde, opened official government communications which Venezuela intended for Iran, including a sealed letter sent by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following the arrest of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab in June of 2020. The revelations came to light during a December 12 evidentiary hearing in Saab’s federal trial in Miami, Florida, focused on determining whether or not his claims to diplomatic immunity are legitimate. The Grayzone is attending Saab’s trial in the Wilke Ferguson federal courthouse in downtown Miami. The US Department of Justice has accused the Venezuelan diplomat of conspiracy to commit money laundering, painting him as a corrupt business asset of a socialist government Washington aims to topple. But Saab and  his only crime was violating sanctions to provide affordable food and medicine for a population suffering under a crushing US economic blockade. Saab’s trial is therefore a critical test of the legitimacy of the US sanctions regime targeting nations from Venezuela to Iran.

We Charge Imperialism: The International People’s Tribunal

December 15, 2022 Helyeh Doutaghi, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
Since the end of the Cold War, the world has witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of sanctions regimes, particularly by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union, and the United States. This is due in part to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which ended the deadlock between superpowers at the Security Council. Over the past few decades, sanctions were slowly reconfigured from war time weapons into peacetime policy instruments. In order for this effort to materialize, policymakers, legal scholars, and government officials campaigned to legitimate sanctions as a lawful weapon to punish nations who refuse to submit to the United States and Europe. A rich body of literature investigates the use of multilateral coercive measures by the Security Council, and the bilateral and unilateral measures exercised by regional and state actors.

Day Two Of US Political Prisoner Alex Saab’s Legal Hearing

December 14, 2022 Stansfield Smith, Popular Resistance. , , ,
On Tuesday, December 13, the second day of the hearing (see first day here), the prosecution presented its case why the US rejects Saab’s status as a diplomat. The prosecution presentation initially focused on Saab being a “cooperative source” for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) between 2016-2019, meeting with DEA agents several times. The prosecutor asserted that Saab explained to the DEA how he conducted business, how he paid off Venezuelan government officials, and that he paid the DEA millions of dollars.  The Saab defense did not respond to this, an issue that is entirely out of the domain of this hearing. The corporate media has covered this in the past (here and here).

Day One: Hearing About US Political Prisoner Alex Saab’s Diplomatic Status

December 13, 2022 Stansfield Smith, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The long delayed official hearing on the question of the Venezuela Special Envoy Alex Saab’s status as a diplomat finally began December 12, 2022. The US government had him seized in Cape Verde two and a half years ago, June 12, 2020, in violation of his  diplomatic immunity as guaranteed in the Geneva Convention. At present, a hearing - which occurs before a judge, who makes the determination, not before a jury, as in the case of a trial -  is taking place in Miami over the question of Alex Saab’s status, which the US prosecutors dispute. If this were a simpy case of deciding if a person with a diplomatic passport, carrying a sealed official letter from one head of state to another head of state, were on a diplomatic mission, it would be a no-brainer.

Venezuelan Political Prisoner On Trial In Miami Refuses To ‘Sing’

December 12, 2022 Roger D. Harris, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Starting December 12, an evidentiary hearing before the US Southern District Court of Florida is considering a case of historic importance. Is the US above international law? Can international conventions on diplomatic immunity be violated by US courts and prosecutors? The fate of Alex Saab, a special envoy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is being contested, but larger questions that could affect the lives of diplomats around the world will be decided. Most prisoners with a get-out-of-jail-free card would have played it, but not Alex Saab. The Venezuelan diplomat has been incarcerated for two and a half years. On June 12, 2020, Alex Saab was on a mission from Caracas to Tehran to procure supplies of food, fuel, and medicine denied the Venezuelans by sanctions imposed by the US.

The Volatility Of US Hegemony In Latin America, Part II

December 3, 2022 Roger D. Harris, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The US has long considered Latin America and the Caribbean to be its “backyard” under the anachronist 1823 Monroe Doctrine. And even though current US President Biden mistakenly thinks that upgrading the region to the “front yard” makes any difference, Yankee hemispheric hegemony is becoming increasingly volatile. A “Pink Tide” of left electoral victories since 2018 have swept Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Honduras, Chile, Columbia, and Brazil. At the same time, China has emerged as an economic presence while tumultuously inflationary winds blow in the world economy. In this larger context, the socialist triad of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are addressed below along with the importance of Haiti. Henry Kissinger once quipped: "To be an enemy of the US is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal."

Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball In A Global Economy

November 30, 2022 Popular Resistance. , , ,
Join a discussion of the latest developments in key regions of the world with several authors of the new anthology: SANCTIONS: A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy.  Intensifying US sanctions, imposed on a third of humanity, are sending shock waves through the world economy. Now this brutal form of economic warfare on civilian populations is being contested. US dollar dominance is being challenged as the currency of global trade. Sanctions have boomeranged back on the US and EU countries with inflation, supply chain shortages, and a looming recession causing hardship at home. But by far the greatest burden is borne by 40+ sanctioned countries. The US response is doubling down on harsher sanctions. What are the implications?

Venezuelan Government And Opposition Sign ‘Social Agreement’

November 28, 2022 Andreína Chávez Alava, Venezuelanalysis. , , ,
Following the renewed talks in Mexico, Washington issued an expanded sanctions waiver for Chevron to partly resume its Venezuela operations. The Nicolás Maduro government and the US-backed rightwing opposition have signed a partial agreement focused on social issues following the resumption of the dialogue process. After a year-long hiatus, the government delegation disclosed that the agreement had been “exhaustively discussed” in Caracas with Norway as a mediator. On Saturday, they traveled to Mexico City to present a new deal that relates to the management of US $3 billion in Venezuelan funds seized by Washington. The document established a joint commission to follow and verify the correct implementation of the agreement.

US Always Knew Alex Saab Was A Diplomat

November 21, 2022 Eligio Rojas, Orinoco Tribune. , , ,
At the time of writing this interview, Alex Saab has already been incarcerated for 885 days in a prison in Florida, United States, according to leaderboards laid out on the social media of the people campaigning for his release. Saab is being held there until the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida determines whether or not the United States accepts his diplomatic status; their acceptance would obligate them to release Saab, says his legal defense team. Indhriana Parada, a lawyer who is part of Alex Saab’s legal team, spoke to Últimas Noticias about his case, where she discussed a declassified document that records Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State for Donald Trump, admitting to Alex Saab’s diplomatic status.

Venezuelan Migration: Resisting US Economic War And Media Manipulation

November 12, 2022 Andreína Chávez Alava, Venezuelanalysis. , , ,
Migration has become one of the many heroic ways in which the Venezuelan people have resisted the US blockade. I would know, my own family left as their living conditions deteriorated more and more under Washington’s economic terrorism. My family’s migration story, hoping to find new opportunities in a foreign land, is not unique. Many Venezuelans left their homes in recent years looking for a respite from the countless hardships caused by US sanctions. These non-military tools have turned out to be quite deadly as they were designed to inflict pain and coerce whole populations into pursuing regime change. The “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuela began with Trump in 2017 after Obama laid the ground for sanctions when he awarded us the grand title of “unusual and extraordinary threat” in 2015. Biden carries the murderous torch today.

US Again Isolated On UN Vote Against Its Cuba Blockade

November 4, 2022 Roger D. Harris, Popular Resistance. , , ,
For the 30th consecutive United Nations vote, the US again lost. A landslide margin of 185 to 2 condemned its blockade of Cuba on November 3. Only the apartheid state of Israel voted with the US, while Brazil and Ukraine abstained. Since 1960, the bipartisan policy of the US has been to overthrow the Cuban Revolution by fomenting “disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship.” According to the US State Department, punitive economic measures are imposed to deny “money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of [the] government.” The US blockade daily costs Cuba $15 million; $6.3 billion since Biden took office. Cuba’s income for the first quarter of 2022 exceeded $493 million, but imports of goods amounted to more than $2 billion.

New US Sanctions Are Designed To Hit Nicaragua’s Poorest Citizens

November 3, 2022 John Perry, Alliance for Global Justice. , , ,
The Biden administration has announced new sanctions which are intended to hit the poorest Nicaraguans – both in their pockets and in the public services on which they depend. This latest attack on a small Central American country is, as usual, dressed up as promoting democracy saying that the sanctions will “deny the Ortega-Murillo regime the resources they need to continue to undermine democratic institutions in Nicaragua.” But everyone knows the real target is ordinary Nicaraguans who voted overwhelmingly to return a Sandinista government to power in last year’s elections. Anyone hearing or seeing the NPR news item on the sanctions will have read that they are aimed at “Nicaragua’s gold industry,” with an implicit message that this hits President Daniel Ortega’s personal treasure chest.

Why The United States Imprisoned Venezuelan Diplomat Alex Saab

October 14, 2022 Roger D. Harris, Dissident Voice. , , ,
A year ago, October 16, the long arm of US extra-territorial judicial overreach abducted Alex Saab and threw him into prison in Miami, where the Venezuelan diplomat has languished ever since. The official narrative is that Saab had bilked the Venezuelans in a “vast corruption network” and the US as the world’s self-appointed cop was simply enforcing good business practices. However, commentary by Washington insiders corroborates that Saab’s “crime” was trying to obtain humanitarian supplies in legal international trade but in circumvention of the illegal US sanctions on Venezuela. Back on June 12, 2021, Mr. Saab was on a humanitarian mission to procure needed food, fuel, and medicine for the people of Venezuela who had been suffering from an unconscionable blockade of their country.

Lessons Learnt In Iran

October 4, 2022 Hamid Shahrabi, United National Antiwar Coalition. , , ,
After the overthrow of Shah’s regime, a dictatorship installed and fully backed by the government of US, Iran has been a main target of imperialist sanctions. Although sanctions took place as a tool among a broader agenda of US aggressions against Iran — including but not limited to attempt on direct military intervention through Operation Tabas on 24 April 1980, support for military aggression of Iraq (1980-88) and providing support to terrorist acts through which thousands of innocent people were killed — however, sanctions have been used for more than 4 decades to bring immense suffering on the entire nation. A 98 page report by “Congressional Research Service” (CRS), updated on 6 April 2021, details the account of Iran sanctions.
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