[News] Saab Case Shows Western Media’s Casual Acceptance of US Atrocities

[Anti-Imperialist News]

venezuelanalysis.com <https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15272> Saab
Case Shows Western Media’s Casual Acceptance of US Atrocities
By Joe Emersberger - FAIR - July 28, 2021
------------------------------

A Colombian businessperson named Alex Saab was traveling to Iran on behalf
of the Venezuelan government in June 2020. His official mission
<https://chicagoalbasolidarity.wordpress.com/2021/07/10/statement-by-the-american-association-of-jurists-aaj-on-the-illegal-detention-of-venezuelan-diplomat-alex-nain-saab-moran-by-cape-verde-for-extradition-to-the-united-states-english-and-spanish/>
was
to negotiate shipments of medicine and other essential products
<https://orinocotribune.com/dan-kovalik-lawyer-human-rights-specialist-alex-saab-case-exposes-lawlessness-of-the-united-states/>
to
Venezuela.  He was arrested in Cape Verde at the behest of the US
government, where he remains to this day; President Joe Biden has continued
Donald Trump’s effort to extradite him to the US.

Western corporate media have been frank about the fact that Saab was
targeted for helping Venezuela get around US sanctions. Though you’d
struggle to learn it from those media, these sanctions have been directly
linked to tens of thousands of Venezuelan deaths since 2017 (*FAIR.org*,
6/14/19
<https://fair.org/home/study-linking-us-sanctions-to-venezuelan-deaths-buried-by-reuters-for-over-a-month/>).
Articles about Saab’s case have also ignored all the powerful arguments
that the sanctions are illegal
<https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-us-sanctions-united-nations-oil-pdvsa-a8748201.html>
under
both US and international law.

Imagine being imprisoned for nonviolently attempting to prevent a heinous
crime. That sums up the absurdity of Saab’s predicament–and Western media’s
coverage of it.

In January, a *Wall Street Journal* article (1/5/21
<https://www.wsj.com/articles/dealmaker-for-venezuelas-maduro-can-be-extradited-to-u-s-court-rules-11609861512>)
about Saab’s case quoted Martin Rodil, who it described as “a Venezuelan in
Washington who works with federal agencies to recruit witnesses to build
cases against corrupt Venezuelan officials.” Rodil told the *Journal* that
US prosecutors want  to “go after the banks that have been helping
Venezuela to sidestep sanctions.” Rodil explained that “Alex Saab was the
guy who would go to China, he’d go to Turkey, he’d go to Dubai, Iran and to
Eastern Europe, Serbia, that’s what’s valuable about him.”

*Reuters* (3/15/21
<https://www.reuters.com/article/venezuela-politics-saab-idAFL8N2LD50U>,
3/18/21
<https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-venezuela-politics-saab-idUSKBN2BA0HQ>)
has casually reported that Saab “faces extradition to the United States,
which accuses him of violating US sanctions,” and that he has been
“repeatedly named by the US State Department as an operator who helps
Maduro arrange trade deals that Washington is seeking to block through
sanctions.” A *Reuters* article (8/28/20
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-iran-idUSKBN25O1Q9>) about
Saab’s case in 2020 mentioned in passing that “the United States this month
seized four cargoes of Iranian fuel bound for Venezuela, where fuel
shortages are once again worsening.”
*Possible crimes against humanity*

Apparently *Reuters* could not find an independent source to dispute the
legality or condemn the extreme cruelty of seizing desperately needed fuel
shipments to Venezuela (*FAIR.org*, 6/4/21
<https://fair.org/home/us-sanctions-against-venezuela-cause-shortages-in-diesel/>).
Was the news agency unaware that Alfred De Zayas (a former UN investigator
assigned to Venezuela) has spent years arguing that the US violates the
legally binding UN Charter
<https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text> by attempting to
overthrow Venezuela’s government (*Democracy Now!*, 1/24/19
<https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/24/former_un_expert_the_us_is>)?

In fact, De Zayas said in 2019 that US sanctions on Venezuela should be
investigated by the International Criminal Court as possible crimes against
humanity (*Independent*, 1/26/19
<https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-us-sanctions-united-nations-oil-pdvsa-a8748201.html>
).

Article 2 of the UN Charter says: “All Members shall refrain in their
international relations from the threat or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” Note that
even *threats* are illegal under international law, never mind an actual
*use* of force. Presumably, the Western media would consider it an illegal
“use of force” if Venezuela were suicidal enough to seize urgently needed
shipments to the US.

De Zayas, an expert on international law, has explained
<https://dezayasalfred.wordpress.com/2019/06/30/unilateral-sanctions-and-international-law/>
 that

nothing in the UN Charter can be read as authorizing in any way unilateral
coercive measures [sanctions], which are incompatible with general
principles of international law, violate the prohibition of interference in
the internal affairs of other states and violate their sovereignty.

He added that the repeated, near-unanimous UN General Assembly resolutions
<https://www.un.org/press/en/2021/ga12341.doc.htm> condemning the US
embargo on Cuba “can be seen as a restatement of the law on unilateral
sanctions.” De Zayas noted that even when sanctions are approved by the UN
Security Council–as the Venezuelan sanctions are not–the Security Council
itself

is not above international law, as its mandate is circumscribed by Article
24 <https://legal.un.org/repertory/art24.shtml> of the Charter.  Thus the
imposition of sanctions regimes that are tantamount to “collective
punishment” and cause widespread death and suffering of innocent people are
contrary to Article 24 of the Charter and therefore *ultra vires* [beyond
its authority].

*‘Coercive measures of an economic character’*

In 2019, Idriss Jazairy (*Ethics & International Affairs*, 9/6/19
<https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ethics-and-international-affairs/article/abs/unilateral-economic-sanctions-international-law-and-human-rights/77DF5AD157ED1BFBA3952C9235171CCB>),
another former UN special rapporteur, took the same position as De Zayas:
that unilateral sanctions violate international law. So did a resolution
<http://docstore.ohchr.org/SelfServices/FilesHandler.ashx?enc=dtYoAzPhJ4NMy4Lu1TOebIM8c1X4GZjGEGHV9SBM9XQWKKGSSR2gX04EHeF210nv7SHKBUUurW5rNhEqfiyd6%2BCa%2Fe8r3lXgwUfA9W2KnzmpQoBOkZZ84ohI3sI%2BBCsq>
passed
last year by the UN Human Rights Council (*Canadian Dimension*, 4/10/21
<https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/does-canadas-unilateral-sanctions-regime-violate-international-law>
).

Moreover, the OAS Charter
<https://www.cidh.oas.org/Basicos/English/Basic22.Charter%20OAS.htm>, which
the US has signed, also has very strong anti-sanctions language:

Article 19

No state or group of states has the right to intervene, directly or
indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of
any other state. The foregoing principle prohibits not only armed force but
also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the
personality of the state or against its political, economic and cultural
elements.

Article 20

No state may use or encourage the use of coercive measures of an economic
or political character in order to force the sovereign will of another
state and obtain from it advantages of any kind.

Again, if the US were the country being victimized, the media would not
need legal experts to say that seizing fuel shipments, threatening military
attack, deliberately inflicting economic hardships on the public and
encouraging generals to overthrow the government were all gross violations
of international law. The same applies to openly targeting a businessperson
for trying to carry out business in the face of illegal sanctions.
*‘Extraordinary’ lie*

How could *Reuters* and other big Western outlets also have missed the detailed
report <https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15126> written in 2021 by UN
special investigator Alena Douhan, which called on the US to end its
fraudulent “national emergency”
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/03/a-letter-on-the-continuation-of-the-national-emergency-with-respect-to-venezuela/>
regarding
Venezuela? Independent journalist Slava Zieber interviewed
<https://youtu.be/MyJUhqRFUhU> Douhan about her report, but prominent
Western media ignored it (*FAIR.org*, 6/4/21
<https://fair.org/home/us-sanctions-against-venezuela-cause-shortages-in-diesel/>
).

In US law, the outrageous lie that Venezuela poses an “extraordinary threat”
<https://monthlyreview.org/press/repeated-attempts-at-a-coup-by-a-powerful-few-excerpt-extraordinary-threat/>
to
the US is the legal basis for a “national emergency” that justifies
imposing sanctions. US aggression against Venezuela therefore shows as much
contempt for US law as it does towards the UN Charter.

A *New York Times* article (12/22/20
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/us/politics/navy-cape-verde-venezuela.html?searchResultPosition=1>)
last year about Saab’s case was nonchalant in mentioning US crimes :

The showdown over Mr. Saab is the latest twist in the tense relationship
between the United States and Venezuela. In 2017, Mr. Trump said he would
not rule out a “military option” to quell the chaos in Venezuela. In 2018,
the Trump administration held secret meetings with rebellious military
officers from Venezuela to discuss their plans to overthrow Mr. Maduro.

And in August, the United States seized more than 1.1 million barrels of
Iranian fuel that was headed to Venezuela in a high-seas handover that
blocked two diplomatic adversaries from evading American economic sanctions.

Describing a “tense relationship” between the US and Venezuela is like
saying an armed robber has a tense relationship with their victim.
*It’s the empire, stupid*

The US has been trying to overthrow Venezuela’s government since 2002 when
the *New York* *Times* (4/13/02) and other US newspapers applauded a US-backed
coup <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzSnH4_p0PY> that temporarily ousted
President Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013 (*Extra! Update*, 6/02
<https://fair.org/extra/u-s-papers-hail-venezuelan-coup-as-pro-democracy-move/>
).

One tactic the US has deployed against Venezuela, many years before it
dramatically intensified its tactics to truly barbaric levels under Trump
(and now Biden), is to claim jurisdiction over any use of the US financial
system, however incidental.

The US indictment
<https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/two-colombian-businessmen-charged-money-laundering-connection-venezuela-bribery-scheme>
against
Saab alleges that as far back as 2011, he was involved in paying bribes to
Venezuelan officials *in Venezuela*. How on earth can the US claim legal
jurisdiction over corruption that foreign officials and businesspeople (as
opposed to US-based corporations) allegedly perpetrated in Venezuela?

When you have the world’s dominant financial system, you can (when it suits
you) act as if you had jurisdiction over the whole world. That financial
power is key to making US sanctions so devastating. For example, out of
fear of violating US sanctions, Swiss Bank USB blocked payments
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15253> that Venezuela made to the United
Nations COVAX program to purchase Covid-19 vaccines.

Greg Wilpert <https://twitter.com/gregwilpert> and Joe Sammut
<https://www.cepr.net/staff-member/joe-sammut/> explained in the book
*Viviremos:
Venezuela vs. Hybrid War*
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15205> (*International
Publishers*, 2021), that “with more than 60% of central bank reserves, and
most of commerce, in dollars,” the US government is well positioned to
“weaponize” any use of its financial system to behave like a global
dictator. US economist Michael Hudson argues that the US could use the
SWIFT bank clearing system to make Europe “permanently dependent” and
“under US control” (*Grayzone*,  5/12/21
<https://thegrayzone.com/2021/05/12/new-cold-war-super-imperialism-michael-hudson/>
).

Writing for *Grayzone *(4/27/21
<https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/27/us-extradite-foreign-businesspeople-sanctions-saab-wanzhou/>),
US activist Stanfield Smith reviewed Saab’s case, along with the similar
prosecutions of North Korea’s Mun Chol Myong and Huawei executive Meng
Wanzhou of China. Smith noted that the US has even used its financial might
to threaten the International Criminal Court for moving to investigate US
war crimes in Afghanistan:

National Security Advisor John Bolton bullied them, stating: “We will ban
its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States. We will
sanction their funds in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them
in the US criminal system…. We will do the same for any company or state
that assists an ICC investigation of Americans.”

This turned out to be no idle threat: The Trump administration ultimately
slapped sanctions on the ICC and its staff.

*Focus on fake critics*

Informed critics of US aggression can easily be found to comment on Saab’s
case, if you read alternative media
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/case-alex-saab-us-abduction-venezuelan-diplomat-global-challenge>,
but major corporate outlets in the West aren’t interested; they prefer to
cite anonymous US officials claiming that fake critics exist online. A
*Financial
Times* article (3/17/21
<https://www.ft.com/content/2281f1d6-27df-40f9-8db2-4667a3ef5972>) about
Saab’s case stated:

According to one intelligence analysis recently seen by the *Financial
Times*, Caracas has used scores of false *Twitter* accounts in a bid to
sway public opinion and pressure the Cape Verdean authorities into sending
Saab to Venezuela.

A few years ago, the US media, aping Washington, expressed alarm that China
might use its growing economic strength to assert “veto authority” over
governments in Latin America (*FAIR.org*, 6/6/18
<https://fair.org/home/the-empires-media-and-the-quest-for-veto-authority-in-the-americas/>).
But Wilpert and Sammut (actual experts, not the “false *Twitter* accounts”
that anonymous US official described to the *Financial Times*) expressed a
much more urgent and reality-based concern–one that’s highlighted by Saab’s
case:

Venezuela and other countries suffering from US aggression cannot wait for
these world-historical shifts toward a more multi-polar world. The United
States will also have to change from within.

US financial hegemony cannot end too soon, nor can the Western media’s
casual acceptance of US brutality and criminality.

*The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not
necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.*
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