[News] US Sanctions Killed Over 40,000 Venezuelans Since 2017

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/US-Sanctions-Killed-Over-40000-Venezuelans-Since-2017-20190425-0015.html 



  US Sanctions Killed Over 40,000 Venezuelans Since 2017

April 25, 2019
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The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) <http://cepr.net/> 
released Thursday a study revealing that President Donald Trump’s 
actions against Venezuela are mostly affecting not President Nicolas 
Maduro’s administration but the civilian population, as more than 40,000 
deaths have been brought about by U.S. economic sanctions.

“The sanctions are depriving Venezuelans of lifesaving medicines, 
medical equipment, food, and other essential imports,” said Mark 
Weisbrot, the CEPR Co-Director and co-author of the report. “This is 
illegal under international laws and treaties that the U.S. has signed. 
Congress should move to stop it.”

The “Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela” 
<http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf> study 
was also written by Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned economist who 
teaches at Columbia University and was a director of the Harvard 
Institute for International Development at the Kennedy School of Government.

Besides pointing out that the U.S. actions have been rapidly worsening 
the humanitarian crisis, the CEPR study notes that a new set of 
financial and trade sanctions have been deployed to devastate the 
Venezuelan economy since the U.S. recognized Juan Guaido’s parallel 
government in January 2019.

“Venezuela’s economic crisis is routinely blamed all on Venezuela but it 
is much more than that. U.S. sanctions are deliberately aiming to wreck 
Venezuela’s economy and thereby lead to regime change," the Columbia 
professor said and explained that "it’s a fruitless, heartless, illegal, 
and failed policy, causing grave harm to the Venezuelan people,” the 
authors write.

Nevertheless, by prohibiting international transactions with the 
Bolivarian government, the United States has "efficiently" affected 
Venezuela's oil production, which can be clearly seen when a correlation 
is drawn between oil production levels and the dates when the sanctions 
went into effect.

The loss of oil-based incomes has prevented the Venezuelan government 
from not only improving the country's balance of payments but also 
buying food and medicines at international markets.

“Since the January 2019 sanctions, oil production has fallen by 431,000 
barrels per day or 36.4 percent. This will greatly accelerate the 
humanitarian crisis, but the projected 67 percent decline in oil 
production for the year, if the sanctions continue, would cause vastly 
more loss of human life,” the report warned.

The CEPR report also reveals that Venezuela's economic contraction is 
clearly not a "natural fact" but rather a consequence of the current 
U.S. foreign policy, which represents a "very serious harm to human life 
and health."

“The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease 
and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of 
Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic 
depression and hyperinflation. They exacerbated Venezuela’s economic 
crisis and made it nearly impossible to stabilize the economy, 
contributing further to excess deaths. All of these impacts 
disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans,” 
the Weisbrot & Sachs study denounces.

CEPR estimated more than 40,000 deaths prompted by U.S. actions since 
August 2017. That figure is based on an estimated 80,000 people with HIV 
who have not had antiretroviral treatment since 2017, 16,000 people who 
need dialysis, 16,000 people with cancer, and 4 million with diabetes 
and hypertension, many of whom cannot obtain insulin or cardiovascular 
medicine.

-- 
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