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valign="top"> <strong><span
style="font-size:20px"><span
style="color:#ba2025"><span
style="font-family:lato,helvetica neue,helvetica,arial,sans-serif">Unilateral
Coercive Measures and
the War on Women: The
Twelfth Newsletter
(2025)</span></span></span></strong>
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style="text-align:center; margin:3em 0;">
<div id="attachment_120756"
class="wp-caption alignnone"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-120756"
class="wp-image-120756 size-full img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/01_alejandra-laprea.jpg"
alt=""
srcset="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/01_alejandra-laprea.jpg 552w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/01_alejandra-laprea-212x300.jpg 212w"
sizes="(max-width: 552px) 100vw, 552px"
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
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<p
id="caption-attachment-120756" class="wp-caption-text"
style="text-align: center;margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><small>Alejandra
Laprea (Venezuela), <i>El
acuerpamiento de las
mujeres es nuestra
estrategia de
defensa</i> (Women’s
Embodied Solidarity Is
Our Defence Strategy),
2022.</small></p>
</div>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Dear
Friends,</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Greetings
from the desk of <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=044632561a&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">Tricontinental:
Institute for Social
Research</a>.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">In
1945, when the United
Nations <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=18f64d5cdc&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">Charter</a>
was drafted, its authors and
those who first adopted it
carefully crafted language
on how to deal with armed
conflict in the world.
Between the signing of the
charter in June and its
coming into force in
October, the United States
dropped atomic bombs on two
Japanese cities: Hiroshima,
on 6 August, and Nagasaki,
on 9 August. It is hard to
digest the fact that as the
charter’s solemn preamble
was being formalised,
setting out to ‘save
succeeding generations from
the scourge of war, which
twice in our lifetime has
brought untold sorrow to
mankind’, the United States
armed forces were preparing
to destroy two civilian
cities in a country already
on the brink of surrender.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Nonetheless,
the authors of the charter
thought long and hard about
the problem of belligerent
states and produced Chapter
VII, which outlines two
approaches to prevent war.
The first approach was to
use as many non-military
methods as possible (Article
41) before the United
Nations could authorise
violence against a
belligerent state (Article
42). The charter noted that
the UN Security Council
(UNSC) ‘may decide’ to call
for the ‘complete or partial
interruption of economic
relations and of rail, sea,
air, postal, telegraphic,
radio, and other means of
communication, and the
severance of diplomatic
relations’. The only time
that the UNSC has used the
full weight of Article 41
has been against the racist
government of Southern
Rhodesia from 1968 (UNSC <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=70cb1e3033&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">Resolution
no. 253</a>) to 1979 (UNSC
<a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=4b11e826b3&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">Resolution
no. 460</a>), with near
full use of the article
against Iraq from 1990 to
2003 and Yugoslavia from
1992 to 1995. The most
important thing about this
resolution is that the use
of sanctions (a word that
does not appear in the
charter) must be authorised
by the UNSC. One state can
apply its own sanctions on
another state in a bilateral
dispute, but it cannot
legally force other states
to abide by them. To do so
is a violation of the UN
Charter.</p>
<div
class="single-post--content--media-block single-post--content--image"
style="text-align:center; margin:3em 0;">
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class="wp-caption alignnone"><img decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-120746"
class="wp-image-120746 size-full img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/02_valentina-machado-e-valentina-lasalvia.jpg"
alt=""
srcset="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/02_valentina-machado-e-valentina-lasalvia.jpg 552w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/02_valentina-machado-e-valentina-lasalvia-212x300.jpg 212w"
sizes="(max-width: 552px) 100vw, 552px"
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
width="552" border="0">
<p
id="caption-attachment-120746" class="wp-caption-text"
style="text-align: center;margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><small>Valentina
Machado and Valentina
Lasalvia (Uruguay), <i>Untitled</i>,
2021.</small></p>
</div>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">The
last point is pertinent
because the United States
currently imposes sanctions
(a form of Unilateral
Coercive Measures) against
about <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=59b53149c2&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">forty</a>
countries without a UNSC
mandate. And these have been
increasing: from 2000 to
2021, the last period
reviewed by the US Treasury
Department, the number of US
sanctions <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=75ba701a16&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">increased</a>
by a remarkable 933%. The
reason why US sanctions,
which would be legal if they
were merely bilateral, are
illegal is that the United
States chastises and
punishes third countries
that violate them and
transact normal commerce
with sanctioned countries.
Because the United States is
at the centre of the
international financial
system (with the dollar, the
SWIFT global payments
system, and its veto power
in the International
Monetary Fund), it is able
to strangle countries that
otherwise would be able to
compensate for the loss of
trade with the US by trading
with the rest of the world.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">The
use of the word ‘strangle’
is not innocent. It is
important to understand how
these sanctions work: there
are primary sanctions on
targeted countries;
secondary sanctions on firms
or countries that trade with
the targeted country; and
tertiary sanctions on firms
or countries that face
secondary sanctions. This is
endless. It is what has
garrotted Cuba since 1962.
Study upon study <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=dcf7b65eec&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">shows</a>
that they hurt the poorest
of people in the societies
under attack. They are as
‘targeted’ as the ‘smart
bombs’ that destroy entire
neighbourhoods and wipe out
entire families. The gap
between these unilateral
coercive measures (UCMs) and
a war with bombs is
certainly great since the
latter are far more
destructive to the <i>material</i>
infrastructure of the target
country, yet the essence of
the assault is the same: two
forms of war, one with the
harshness of blockades and
the other with the
viciousness of bombs.
Sometimes people in power
openly acknowledge the
devastation. When US
Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo was asked in 2019 by
the Associated Press’s Matt
Lee about the UCMs imposed
on Venezuela, Pompeo <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=8f4ef6a272&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">replied</a>,
‘The circle is tightening.
The humanitarian crisis is
increasing by the hour. …
You can see the increasing
pain and suffering that the
Venezuelan people are
suffering from’. What do
these illegal UCMs do? They
create <i>pain and
suffering</i>.</p>
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class="single-post--content--media-block single-post--content--image"
style="text-align:center; margin:3em 0;"><img decoding="async"
class="alignnone wp-image-120736 size-large img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/03_D86_Launch_EN_IG-1024x1024.jpg"
alt=""
srcset="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/03_D86_Launch_EN_IG-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/03_D86_Launch_EN_IG-300x300.jpg 300w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/03_D86_Launch_EN_IG-150x150.jpg 150w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/03_D86_Launch_EN_IG-768x768.jpg 768w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/03_D86_Launch_EN_IG.jpg 1080w"
sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px"
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
width="1024" border="0"></div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">We
have ample evidence of the
impact of illegal UCMs on
society. Since she took up
the post in 2020, the UN
special rapporteur on the
negative impact of
unilateral coercive measures
on the enjoyment of human
rights Alena Douhan has <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=b1109e9358&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">produced</a>
an important body of work
documenting the effects of
UCMs from Syria to
Venezuela. In 2021, Douhan <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=0c37de0131&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">told</a>
the UN Human Rights Council
that the impact of UCMs ‘is
especially severe for
vulnerable groups’,
including women and children
as well as ‘indigenous
people, people with
disabilities, refugees,
internally displaced
persons, migrants, people
living in poverty, the
elderly, people affected by
severe diseases, and others
who confront particular
challenges in society’.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Our
latest dossier, <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=f9e767045d&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true"><i>Imperialist
War and Feminist
Resistance in the Global
South</i></a> (March
2025), highlights the use of
UCMs to attack states and
societies that – by their
very existence – defy the
Global North. Our study on
the impact of UCMs reflects
what Douhan found in 2021,
which is that these
mechanisms harshly strike
the most vulnerable groups.
These groups, the
‘vulnerable’, lead the fight
against UCMs: far from
defenceless, they are at the
forefront of mobilising
against and resisting the
cruelty of the hybrid war.</p>
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<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">This
dossier is largely focused
on Venezuela, where we spoke
with leaders of peasant and
worker organisations such as
Heroines Without Borders
Organisation (Organización
Heroínas sin Fronteras) and
Venezuelan Housing Assembly
Jorge Rodríguez Padre
(Asamblea Viviendo
Venezolanos Jorge Rodríguez
Padre). Forced to hold
together families in
distress due to the atrocity
of UCMs and the patriarchal
obligations for women to
overwhelmingly carry out the
work of social reproduction,
working-class and peasant
women formed a variety of
mutual aid groups as a way
to build political power in
their society. When they did
not have running water or
medicine, or indeed food,
they set up collectives of
clinics and food banks that
had some state support but
were largely the work of the
women themselves.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">In
December 2021, I visited the
Altos de Lídice Commune,
where I met with a group of
women who had gathered to
confront the difficulties of
the COVID-19 pandemic. The
commune is made up of more
than 6,000 people who are
organised into eight
communal councils (<i>consejos
comunales</i>). Built on
democratic assemblies,
Venezuela’s communes (<i>comunas</i>)
are envisioned as local
spaces of self-governance
and the building blocks for
the construction of
socialism. Mobilising the
population, rather than just
solving problems
bureaucratically, is part of
their philosophy. The women
I met that day talked about
the clinic they set up,
which drew doctors from
nearby hospitals to provide
consultations and free
medicine (sent from
connections they had built
with a women’s hospital in
Chile). Women led this work;
‘we utilise the men’<!-- Translators note: the original Spanish is not available, as this came from Vijay’s notes. -->,
said a leader of the group,
Alejandra Trespalacios, in
jest. One of their most
moving and effective
campaigns was an <i>arepazo</i>,
where arepas (a round,
stuffed cornflour patty)<b>
</b>were distributed to the
most vulnerable in the
community. They would weigh
children and the elderly
every three months and give
an arepa to anyone who was
underweight as a symbol of
their commitment to every
person in the community; the
data allowed them to know
where to channel the food
support in the
neighbourhood. ‘These are
times of struggle’,
Trespalacios said. The <i>arepazo</i><b>
</b>was part of the
commune’s struggle against
malnutrition and hunger.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">At
the same time, our dossier
notes that there must also
be serious thought about how
gender ‘reinforces the
sexual division of political
labour’ in important efforts
such as these. ‘While women
have an important presence
and leadership role in
community organising, this
does not necessarily extend
to other spheres of
political representation and
state management’. The
struggle to ensure that
women leaders move from the
community level to greater
responsibility and power is
part of the essential fight
of working-class and peasant
women.</p>
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<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">At
the age of twelve, Olga
Luzardo (1916–2016) joined a
Marxist group in the
northwestern city of
Maracaibo. In 1931, she
became one of the founders
of the Communist Party of
Venezuela (Partido Comunista
de Venezuela, PCV). A young
Luzardo taught at the PCV’s
Ho Chi Minh School and
brought her ‘travelling
school’ across Venezuela to
take Marxism to the people.
In 1937, she participated in
the Congress of Women of
Venezuela (Congreso de
Mujeres), which emerged out
of the PCV’s women’s
cultural groups. Arrested
during the dictatorship of
Marcos Pérez Jiménez,
Luzardo was exiled to the
Soviet Union and then
returned to Venezuela in
1958. She had several
pseudonyms, such as ‘Jorge’,
which she used in her fight
against the Venezuelan
bourgeoisie, and ‘Petrovna’,
inspired by the October
Revolution, under which name
she built a reputation for
herself as a journalist and
poet in her desire to craft
new language for rebellion.
While in prison between 1950
and 1952, she wrote the
poems that later appeared in
the 1998 collection <i>Huellas
frescas</i> (Fresh
Footprints), one of which
urges her daughter Iguaraya
Pérez, and indeed all girls,
to be a ‘soldier’, a fighter
for justice<!-- hija mía: yo quiero que seas soldado. Que la sangre tuya bañe las banderas de muchos colores que ondulan al mundo si por nuestra causa se hace necesario. Que la paz, imposible entre tanto que hayan patrias y existan fronteras, no te encuentre nunca, soñando inactiva y sin un buen fusil a la espalda. Porque el día en que todos nosotros tengamos un arma y un deseo de vida distinta, será toda la tierra una sola patria. Para que haya la paz, es preciso hija mía, que los pobres del mundo tomemos las armas. Y por esto, yo quiero que seas soldado. -->:</p>
<blockquote
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">My
daughter: I want you to be
a soldier.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">May
your blood soak the<br>
many-coloured flags that
wave around the world<br>
if it becomes necessary
for our cause.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">May
peace, impossible as long
as<br>
there are nations and
borders,<br>
never find you dreaming
idly<br>
and without a good rifle
on your back.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">For
the day when we all<br>
have a weapon and a desire
for a different life,<br>
the entire Earth will
become one homeland.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">In
order for there to be
peace, my daughter,<br>
the poor of the world must
take up arms.<br>
And, for this reason, I
want you to be a soldier.</p>
</blockquote>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Warmly,</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Vijay</p>
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