[News] A Criminal Affair: United States Imposes War on the Venezuelan People

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/15/a-criminal-affair-united-states-imposes-war-on-the-venezuelan-people/ 



  A Criminal Affair: United States Imposes War on the Venezuelan People

by W. T. Whitney <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/gaguwe/> - May 15, 
2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

To replace Venezuela’s government with one to its liking, the United 
States uses special war-making tools. The plan is to make Venezuelans 
suffer enough so that, desperate, they will accept whatever government 
is presented. Troops and weapons aren’t required. That approached worked 
in Chile in 1973, but so far in Cuba it hasn’t – after almost 60 years.

The process has advanced. Citing a report from Venezuela’s National 
Survey on Living Conditions, analysts Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs 
_noted recently 
<http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf> 
_that 40,000 more Venezuelans died in 2018 than in 2017. The death rate 
jumped by 31 percent.

The purpose here is to establish that the U.S. government actually 
intends to make Venezuelans suffer. U.S. deeds and officials’ words are 
revealing. Those responsible need to be called to account.

_Interviewed 
<https://www.voanews.com/a/voa-interview-us-secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo-/4621152.html> 
_on October 19, 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo conceded that U.S. 
sanctions against Venezuela “sometimes have an adverse impact on the 
people of Venezuela.”  But on March 11, 2019 he was celebrating: “_The 
circle is <https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2019/03/290269.htm> 
_tightening, the humanitarian crisis is increasing by the hour. I talked 
with our senior person on the ground there in Venezuela last night … You 
can see the increasing pain and suffering that the Venezuelan people are 
suffering from.”

Answering a reporter’s question in early 2018 about U.S. policies on 
Venezuela, a U.S. Embassy official in Mexico City _commented that 
<https://mx.usembassy.gov/es/sesion-informativa-sobre-viaje-del-secretario-tillerson-latinoamerica/>, 
_“The economic sanctions we’ve imposed on the Venezuelan government have 
caused it to stop making payments as much on its sovereign debt as on 
PDVSA, its oil company … we are seeing a total economic collapse … 
Therefore, our policy is working.”

Interviewed later that year, former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela William 
Brownfield declared that, “_If we are going to 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJBoe3AvSvc> _sanction PDVSA, it will 
have an impact on the entire people … [A]t this moment perhaps the best 
resolution would be to accelerate the collapse, even if it produces a 
period of suffering of months or perhaps years”.

Beginning in 2014, the U.S. government instituted economic sanctions. 
Venezuela was vulnerable. Oil prices had plummeted and inflation had 
skyrocketed. Contributing to inflation were reduced oil prices, hoarding 
of merchandise by commercial interests, and currency manipulation, 
which, according _to Venezuelan economist Pasqualina Curcio 
<https://chicagoalbasolidarity.wordpress.com/2018/01/05/pasqualina-curcio-the-visible-hand-of-the-market-an-invitation-to-a-debate-of-ideas/>_, 
“is one of the main weapons of war that imperialism has used.”

 From 2014 on, Venezuela’s economy contracted by more than 50 percent 
<http://www.sinpermiso.info/textos/cuba-desafio-formidable>. Oil 
production, _two million 
<https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Congressional-Hearing-This-Is-How-Far-Venezuelan-Oil-Production-Could-Fall.html> 
_barrels per day in 2017, had fallen to _431,000 bpd 
<http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf> 
_by March, 2019. Oil exports provide the government with 95 percent of 
its income, which pays for social support.Venezuela imports two thirds 
of the food consumed there. Difficulties in paying for imported food 
promote suffering.

Economic sanctions became a weapon of war. Countries now aligned against 
Venezuela once supplied _46 percent 
<http://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/2019/05/05/muy-importante-documento-base-sobre-el-bloqueo-economico-contra-venezuela/> 
_of the medicines needed there, with the United States providing 34 
percent. Those countries were the source of 45 percent of food imported 
by Venezuela; the United States accounted for 33 percent.

Trouble mounted for Venezuelans after the U.S. Congress passed Public 
Law 113-278 in December, 2014. It authorized the president to 
use executive action to “impose … sanctions … with respect to any 
foreign person … acting on behalf of [Venezuela’s] Government.” The term 
“foreign person” applies to banks and financial institutions abroad.

Sanctions were announced in March, 2015 (by President Obama) and in 
April 2017; March, May, November of 2018; and January, March, and April 
of 2019.Theytarget income generated from Venezuela’s oil exports, assets 
abroad; access to imported goods and credit; and ability to secure, 
reschedule, or repay loans. Foreign banks are crucial to U.S. purposes. 
U.S. dollars are the currency of choice in international trade, and 
Venezuela must use dollars. To avoid penalties, the banks enforce U.S. 
mandates on transactions involving dollars.

Beginning in 2016, banks refused to handle Venezuelan transactions. They 
included Commerzbank of Germany, Credit Suisse, the Panamanian and 
Shandong branches of the Bank of China, Germany’s Deutsche Bank, 
Citibank, Novo Banco in Portugal, and Russian banks. Sanctions in 
January 2019 barred U.S. financial institutions from facilitating 
foreign sales of Venezuelan oil and gold.

Comprehensive reports from _economist Pasqualina 
<https://orinocotribune.com/impact-of-the-economic-war-against-the-people-of-venezuela> 
_Curcio and by others 
<http://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/2019/05/05/muy-importante-documento-base-sobre-el-bloqueo-economico-contra-venezuela/>detail 
multiple instances of foreign banks refusing to process individual 
Venezuelan purchase orders. Among them are: 300,000 vials of insulin, 
food costing $29.7 million destined for the government’s food-support 
program, another order of, food, medicines and other supplies costing 
$39 million, and a $9 million intended purchase of dialysis equipment 
for 15,000 patients. //

Sanctions also blocked delivery of blood products for hemophilia 
patients, immunoglobulin for 200 children with Kawasaki disease, 
equipment for surgical repair of congenital heart malformations, and 
hospital drugs and anesthetic supplies obtainable in Turkey. JP Morgan 
held up $28.1 million to have been used for leasing food transport ships.

U.S. sanctions also led to the immobilizing – actually stealing – of 
Venezuelan resources through which citizens might have been protected 
from sickness and food shortage. Citibank, the Bank of London, Novo 
Banco, Japan’s Sumitomo bank, North Street Capital (a hedge fund firm), 
and the Bank of England confiscated Venezuelan assets. The latter bank 
holds onto Venezuelan gold worth $1.36 billion.

Targeting the state-owned PDVSA oil company, U. S. sanctions in January, 
2019 enabled the confiscation of _$7 billion 
<http://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/2019/05/05/muy-importante-documento-base-sobre-el-bloqueo-economico-contra-venezuela> 
_in assets belonging to PDVSA’s U.S. affiliate CITGO. The fiction was 
presented of their transfer to the nonexistent government of U.S. puppet 
Juan Guaidó. Through sanctions, Venezuela’s government lost access to 
CITGO income and dividends valued at $11 billion 
<http://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/2019/05/05/muy-importante-documento-base-sobre-el-bloqueo-economico-contra-venezuela/>, 
also to imported diluents, other additives, and repair materials – all 
essential for producing oil.

Weisbrot and Sachs report that as late as 2018 the United States 
purchased 35.6 percent of Venezuela’s oil exports. Sanctions now block 
imports of PDVSA oil by U.S. refineries and those of other countries. 
U.S. sanctions interfere with payments from third countries on imported 
Venezuelan oil.

Pasqualina Curcio reports that since 2013 U.S. “coercive measures” have 
deprived Venezuela of $114.3 billion. Of this, $92.9 billion are losses 
due to inflation and reduced oil production. The remaining loss of $21.5 
billion stems from “unilateral coercive measures, financial blockades, 
commercial embargoes, and the theft of CITGO assets and other resources.”

Now Venezuela’s government can’t pay for food, medicines, and hospital 
and school supplies. It can’t rehabilitate water and electricity 
systems. According to Weisbrot and Sacks, food imports in 2018 amounted 
to “_just $2.46 billion 
<http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf>_,” 
down from “$11.2 billion in 2013.” The likelihood of further decline in 
2019 implies that “people with untreated HIV, diabetes, kidney failure, 
severe hypertension, certain types of cancer – 300,000 in all – are at 
extreme risk of death.” Recent sanctions represent “a death sentence for 
tens of thousands of Venezuelans.”

They point out that in 2019, “Imports of goods are projected to fall by 
39.4 percent, from $10 billion to $6.1 billion.” Oil income will be 67 
percent lower than in 2018.  What’s happening is“collective punishment 
of the civilian population.”

Rapporteur and “independent expert” Alfred de Zayas in September, 2018 
submitted a _comprehensive report 
<https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/un-report-on-venezuela-and-ecuador-alfred-de-zayas.pdf> 
_on Venezuela to the United Nations Council on Human Rights. It 
highlights U.S. violations of international law. At issue are 
“principles of non-intervention and non-interference in the internal 
affairs of sovereign states.” He mentions U.S. disregard for the United 
Nations Charter, the General Assembly’s Charter of Economic Rights and 
Duties of States adopted in 1974, the 1993 Vienna Declaration and 
Program of Action, and various General Assembly resolutions.

But more to the point: the U.S. government is abusing innocent 
Venezuelan people, and many die. U.S. officials, it seems here, engage 
in crimes against humanity. They disregard precepts of moral law.

To be violating prevailing ethical and legal norms apparently doesn’t 
matter to the U.S. government. But in an alternative world of justice, 
they do matter. A first step in making things right would be to bring 
into public view the purposes of U.S. intervention in Venezuela and 
methods being used. Ideally, the notion would get around that for 
current U.S. leaders, Venezuela’s oil and U.S. regional domination mean 
more than does human survival. Calling them to account would come next – 
in theory.

What’s possible is to approach some of those who have gotten a pass on 
complicity with crime. They would be the congresspersons who voted for 
Public Law 113–278 and/or aren’t dealing with its grim consequences. 
  Living in all states, they are accessible.

When those activists now fending off sham diplomats at Venezuela’s 
Embassy in Washington eventually leave, they and others, logically, 
would get into a traveling mode. Congresspersons would be confronted in 
their states with demands to undo the Law.

/*W.T. Whitney Jr.* is a retired pediatrician and political journalist 
living in Maine./

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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