HUMAN RIGHTS

U.S. Economic Sanctions: “The Silent Killer”

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) sponsored a virtual panel discussion on May 24 to address the widespread humanitarian impact of U.S. economic sanctions.

Daniel Jasper of the American Friends Service Committee introduced speakers Arash Azizzada, co-founder of Afghans for a Better Tomorrow; Dr. Aisha Jumaan, president of the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation; Dr. Francisco Rodriguez, director of Oil for Venezuela; Dr. Assal Rad, research director at NIAC; and Ricardo Herrero, executive director of the Cuba Study Group.

Azizzada argued that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan over the past 20 years has rendered the country dependent on foreign aid. “I went to visit Afghanistan in 2019,” he said. “There’s not many ministries you can see. Most institutions or projects are funded by USAID, the U.S. government, the European Union, Japan…So we had a nation state that was heavily—not just influenced—but coerced by Western donors, the primary donor being the United States.”

The collapse of institutions propped up by Washington, coupled with U.S. action against the new Taliban government, have left the country decimated, Azizzada said. “The Taliban is deeply responsible for this incompetence…[and] the fact that Afghans are starving, but the main culprit here is the U.S. which has the most autonomy, the most agency over that country still,” he opined.

According to Azizzada, there have been three pivotal moments regarding U.S. policy toward Afghanistan following the August 2021 Taliban takeover: ending aid, freezing sovereign Afghan assets and sanctions. As a result, an estimated 22 million Afghans are now food insecure and one million children are at risk of death.

The conversation shifted to Yemen, with Dr. Aisha Jumaan, who noted parallels between U.S. economic imperialism in Afghanistan and the Yemeni humanitarian crisis. She said that the U.S.-enabled blockade by the Saudi-led coalition has created restrictions on humanitarian aid and how individuals and organizations can send money to Yemen. U.S. sanctions have meant the destruction of Yemen’s economy, pushing civilians into poverty and mass starvation, she said.

“We only have one bank that is an intermediary,” Jumaan explained. “Individuals are not allowed to send more than $2,000 a month. For organizations like us...it’s very challenging for us to send money to Yemen. We now send it through a bank in Germany, but we lose four percent because it’s in Euros.”

Dr. Assal Rad focused on how sanctions hinder the movement of humanitarian goods to their intended recipients, even though humanitarian aid is exempt from sanctions under U.S. law. “What happens on the ground is that those essential goods, the flow of goods into the country, are impeded,” she said, noting that many banks and other multinational businesses are inherently weary of conducting even humanitarian transactions involving U.S.-sanctioned countries.

“Do not take my word for it,” Rad added. “Take the word of our President Joe Biden, who said this himself in a [campaign] statement in April 2020. While he acknowledged humanitarian exemptions, he also acknowledged the fact that the reality on the ground is that U.S. sanctions impede the flow of humanitarian goods.”

Jumaan noted the subtlety of sanctions, characterizing them as silent killers, unlike transparently bloody wars. “People are dying in their homes, nobody is counting those deaths….[so] you can keep [the sanctions active] for a long time and no one’s going to oppose you,” she said.

To conclude the discussion, speakers addressed how the American public should approach sanctions. “We have this ongoing conversation about endless wars…and it’s maturing in several ways,” Herrero noted. “The conversation around sanctions is much more primeval. It’s imposing sanctions: strong, removing sanctions: weak… we need to move past that.” —Amelia Leaphart

ESSA AHMED/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES A displaced Yemeni receives humanitarian aid provided by the World Food Program in Yemen’s northern province of Hajjah, on June 6, 2022.

Poor People’s Campaign March Includes Justice for Palestine

Amid cool breezes and clear blue skies in Washington, DC on June 18, a coalition of social justice and human rights groups from all 50 states marched under the leadership of Rev. Dr. William Barber II’s Poor People’s Campaign to take their message that “Everybody’s Got a Right to Live” to the U.S. Congress. The gathering of thousands shared the need for a paradigm shift away from investments in weaponized policing,