Illegal US, EU sanctions on states amount to financial terrorism, destroy lives: MEP

A Member of the European Parliament from Ireland has lashed out at the United States and the European Union for “increasingly using sanctions as a weapon” against other independent countries, saying such unlawful bans amount to “financial terrorism.”

“The #US and #EU are increasingly using #sanctions as a weapon against countries that don’t bow to their financial imperialism,” Mick Wallace said in a post on his Twitter account on Tuesday.

“Without #UN approval, these sanctions are illegal — whether in #Venezuela or #Syria, #Iran or #Cuba, this is “financial terrorism” that destroys lives,” he added.

The #US and #EU are increasingly using #sanctions as a weapon against countries that don't bow to their financial imperialism

Without #UN approval, these sanctions are illegal - whether in #Venezuela or #Syria, #Iran or #Cuba, this is "financial terrorism" that destroys lives.. pic.twitter.com/aUWANsRFvG

— Mick Wallace (@wallacemick) March 2, 2021

He also attached a video clip to his tweet, in which he criticized the excessive use of sanctions by individual states or groups of states on third countries and private entities over the past 20 years, usually under the guise of human rights violations countermeasures.

“The use of these different forms of sanctions was traditionally facilitated through the United Nations Security Council and this is clearly provided for in customary international law,” the MEP said in his remarks.

“However, since 1990s, in particular, we have seen a dramatic rise in the application of unilateral sanctions outside of the forum of the UN Security Council, mainly by the US and sadly now increasingly by the EU. This is a total breach of international law,” he added.

Wallace pointed to the EU’s move this week to impose more “targeted sanctions” on Venezuela over claims of deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Latin American country following the 2020 elections.

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He quoted EU officials as saying, “The individuals added to the list are responsible notably for undermining the opposition’s electoral rights and the democratic functioning of the National Assembly and for serious violations of human rights.”

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Venezuela

The Irish politician rejected the claim as “a lot of nonsense” and said, “It’s not the newly sanctioned individuals who have weakened the opposition but rather the sanctions themselves because they have helped consolidate [President Nicolas] Madura’s hold on power.”

He described opposition figure Juan Guaido, former president of the National Assembly, as a “US puppet” who refused to stand in the elections “because he was not going to like the result just as the EU condemned the elections before they even took place because they too were not going to like the result.”

The truth is that the majority of the opposition did stand in the election and become weakened largely thanks to Western interference, Wallace added.

He, however, emphasized that the ordinary people of Venezuela suffered the real impact of the US and EU sanctions.

Venezuela descended into political turmoil after Guaido unilaterally declared himself “interim president” in January 2019, arguing that Maduro's reelection in 2018 was fraudulent.

With Washington’s greenlight and help from a small number of rogue soldiers, Guaido later launched a botched putsch against the elected government.

Pointing to a 10-day fact-finding visit by the United Nations Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan to Venezuela two weeks ago, the MEP said the UN envoy blasted Washington’s sanctions regime.

“In her preliminary findings, Alena Douhan concluded that Washington’s 2015 state of national emergency and the US, EU and allies’ subsequent sanctions regime violates international law and the principle of sovereign equality of states while also constituting an intervention in the domestic affairs of Venezuela,” he said.

Douhan especially highlighted the devastating impact of the blockade on all of Venezuela’s population, human rights, the economy and social coverage and directly linked it to the “recent migration levels, increased poverty and deteriorated living conditions.”

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This week, the European Union’s foreign ministers imposed sanctions on 19 Venezuelan officials, froze their assets, and banned them from traveling to the bloc.

According to the MEP, she specifically explained how the blockade prevents the earning of revenues and the use of resources to develop and maintain infrastructures and for social support programs which has a devastating effect on the whole population of Venezuela, especially those in extreme poverty, women, children, medical worker, people with disabilities or life threatening or life diseases and the indigenous population.

He emphasized that the human rights lawyer concluded the report by urging that sanctions be revised and lifted.

“It’s about time the EU started to listen,” Wallace pointed out.

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