Last week, Russia, China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres with a request to call for lifting unilateral sanctions that are complicating the ability of some countries to cope with the raging pandemic. Even though the eight countries refrained from naming any particular state responsible for the sanctions, most of them are sanctioned by either the United States or the European Union, or both.
The letter was sent after Guterres delivered a speech to the G20 leaders in which he urged them to waive sanctions to ensure that the nations affected have access to food and essential health services.
Since then, the initiative to lift sanctions has been supported by other high-ranking UN officials. Among them is UN General Assembly President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, who in an interview with Sputnik called for the cancellation of the sanctions that are negatively impacting developing countries during the pandemic.
Sanctions Pose a Threat to Public Health Globally
Mark Sleboda, international relations and security analyst, in his comments said that the unilateral restrictions were seriously affecting the global fight against the coronavirus and hindering public access to basic needs.
"There is no question that the US' illegal sanctions should be lifted, or at the very least eased, during the COVID-19 pandemic on humanitarian grounds … The sanctions cripple several states' ability to access medical supplies necessary to help protecting and treating their people as well as preventing access to international finance for loans necessary to gather resources, food, and ease the suffering of their people at this critical time. Many will certainly die who could have been saved if the sanctions were not in place", Sleboda said.
Thomas G. Weiss, a former UN official and the presidential professor of Political Science with the Graduate Center of The City University of New York, also backed the UN calls to lift sanctions.
"There are two sensible arguments to support the [UN] Secretary General. First, humanitarian values say help others regardless of their political orientation. Second, self-interest dictates getting the virus under control everywhere; there will be a recurrence in the late fall unless it is wiped out", Weiss said.
Unilateral sanctions should not even exist without due consent from the UN Security Council (UNSC), according to Sleboda.
"Economic sanctions are an extreme measure reserved under the international law and the UN Charter for the right of the UNSC as a whole to utilise only when necessary to preserve international peace and security. Unilateral sanctions upon another member state without the remit of the UNSC are an act of aggression, the capital crime of international law under the UN Charter. The US makes itself a rogue state by its continual waging of economic war on other states in this way", the expert said.
US at Fault for Unveiling New Sanctions Amid Pandemic
Last week, Washington added five organisations as well as 15 people to its sanctions over their alleged ties with Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, despite several congressmen penning a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin asking them to suspend sanctions on Iran, one of the countries most affected by COVID-19.
The administration of US President Donald Trump is exploiting the ongoing pandemic in order to put even more pressure on crisis-hit states such as Iran and Venezuela, Sleboda said.
"The Trump administration has made clear that it will not be moved to lift or ease its illegal sanctions on other states under humanitarian or international stability and security grounds. Instead, it views the pandemic as an opportunity to further damage and destabilise the states it has targeted for regime change. It has indeed, brazenly defying the international community and endangering us all, imposed new sanctions on Iran and Venezuela since the pandemic crisis started. The US is weaponising the COVID-19 pandemic as an instrument to inflict economic and political damage", the analyst said.
As for Venezuela, the US, on top of the existing measures against the Latin American country, indicted last week Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and four associates for "narco-terrorism". Washington accused the Venezuelan leader of trafficking drugs and also announced a reward of $15 million for information leading to Maduro’s arrest.
The Venezuelan president has rejected the US accusations and said that Venezuela had been at the forefront of the fight against drug trafficking in the region.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has called the US sanctions, when used during a pandemic, "an instrument of genocide", and vowed to continue assisting Venezuela in dealing with the fallout from COVID-19.
