This Christmas season, as always, CIA controlled mainstream media is filled with unctuous images of the hungry homeless in America being charitably served food by private citizens and institutions. It has long become an American tradition of kindness during the season celebrating the birth of all loving Jesus along with gift giving Santa Claus, and along with the encouragement and participation of churches, this tradition often receives government support.
The Christmas time Christian tradition of charitable feeding of the hungry homeless in capitalist USA never extends to include those millions of men, women and children made hungry by heartless US sanctions on countries overseas. The hard-hearted Deep State investors in war of the Military Industrial Complex would never allow any of its captive US presidents to be gracious to the hungry in sanctioned nations at Christmas time.
It does no good for those suffering US sanctions to protest even if suffering starvation that always threatens death for their children first, but protests still go on.
“Let Us Eat”: Kabul Protesters Demand Release of Frozen Afghan Assets
CommonDreams reports protests three days before Christmas eve, December 21, 2021.
Hundreds of protesters marched through the streets of Kabul toward the shuttered U.S. Embassy on Tuesday, urging the release of Afghanistan’s frozen assets.
Holding banners reading, “Let us eat” and “Give us our frozen money,” the protesters chanted slogans and marched down a central avenue, with the ruling Taliban providing security. International funding to Afghanistan has been suspended and billions of dollars of the country’s assets abroad, mostly in the U.S., were frozen once the Taliban took control.
The Taliban is again governing all of Afghanistan as it was when the US invaded 20 years ago on the pretext of needing to find Osama bin Laden, who the CIA had welcomed into Afghanistan years before the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
In 1979 President Carter had had the CIA fund, arm and train war lord terrorists to overthrow a popular women-liberating Socialist Kabul government. This brought about a civil war which brought in Soviet Military to aid the beleaguered Kabul government. This was followed by a second even more destructive civil war between US heavily armed war lords causing mayhem and chaos, in which rape was common. In 1992, Kabul came to be a bullet riddled city, a center of lawlessness, crime and atrocities fueled by complex tribal rivalries. This gave birth to the Taliban (‘student’ in Dali language) who defeated the war lords and stopped the raping, instituted strict Islamic dress code, and limited the movement and schooling of women. Though Taliban now promises education for women through university and a relaxed dress code, President Biden sanctimoniously cites Taliban prohibiting women’s education as reason not to release Afghanistan’s bank deposits desperately needed to buy food and medicine.
US Sanctions Against Venezuela Rob People of Basic Human Rights: UN Expert’s Report
The United Nations has protested for Venezuelans against US seizure of Venezuelan bank deposits and sanctions blocking the sale of its oil and imports of almost everything, even medicines and food.
According to the report, unilateral sanctions against Venezuela are politically motivated and violate international law.
The Guardian writes of UN finding that one-third of Venezuelans are underfed.
One of every three people in Venezuela is struggling to put enough food on the table to meet minimum nutrition requirements as the nation’s severe economic contraction and political upheaval persists, according to a new study by the UN World Food Program….
According to the UN Rapporteur sent to Venezuela on their behalf to compile a UN Human Rights Council Report in 2017 and 2018 the United States has used the illegal sanctions and financial blockade against Venezuela to create a humanitarian crisis and are therefore is criminally liable for the increased deaths of children and the infirm being denied vital medical supplies directly because of the sanctions.
His damning report stated categorically that the US sanctions kill and therefore America should face prosecution at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity….
In November 2017 one US bank blocked the transfer of funds to pay for 300,000 doses of insulin. Another retained $1.65 billion Venezuela had paid for the purchase of food and medicine. Another blocked the transfer of over $9 billion profits generated by the US subsidiary of the publicly owned Venezuelan oil company. In May last year, Wells Fargo bank in America cancelled a payment of $7.5 million from Brazil to Venezuela for the supply of electricity and also blocked a $7 million purchase of dialysis supplies for patients in Venezuela, including thousands of children.
UN General Assembly calls for US to end Cuba embargo for 29th consecutive year
A total of 184 countries on Wednesday voted in favor of a resolution to demand the end of the US economic blockade on Cuba, for the 29th year in a row, with the United States and Israel voting against.
Sanctions have made it harder for Cuba to acquire the medical equipment needed to develop COVID-19 vaccines as well as equipment for food production.
US Blockade on Cuba is a Crime against Humanity says the Havana Times.
From Cuba’s draft resolution, “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba,” before the UN General Assembly:
The blockade continues to be a massive and flagrant violation of the Cuban people’s human rights and qualifies as an act of genocide according to the 1948 Convention Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Over the period since the last report the blockade has caused Cuba losses worth 4.305 billion dollars.
The human rights of all Cuban people are being — and have been for nearly 60 years — assaulted. This is a crime against humanity.
The US admits they are to blame for the Syrian hunger
The Syrians see the increasing sanctions as economic-warfare after the US failure to bring about ‘regime change’ by using terrorists supported by the CIA. Damascus declares the sanctions violate human rights and international law as they affect the Syrian population.
Human Rights and US Sanction Against Iran
Over-compliance with United States-imposed sanctions against Iran is harming the right to health, and people with a rare skin disease are among those affected, many of them children, experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council said on Tuesday.
These patients suffer from epidermolysis bullosa (EB), a severe and life-threatening skin condition, which causes extremely painful wounds. Many are children, who are often referred to as “butterfly kids” because of their fragile skin.
A Swedish company which makes the bandages that reportedly are the most effective treatment for their condition, has decided to halt shipments to Iran due to fear of secondary sanctions as part of over-compliance.
The experts explained that many banks and businesses worldwide, including pharmaceutical and medical companies, over-comply to avoid risk of any potential penalties.
“They refuse to finance exempted trade or to conduct the corresponding transactions with sanctioned countries. This has prevented the Iranian business partner of that Swedish company from being able to import the bandages, even though medical and other humanitarian goods were announced to be exempt from the sanctions,” they said in a statement.
The Humanitarian Impact of Sanction on the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea
Women Mobilizing to End the War – Korea Peace Now! write,
In direct contravention of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, sanctions punish North Korean civilians for the actions of their government. Here’s how sanctions harm ordinary North Koreans:
Sanctions hinder urgently needed humanitarian aid and could result in devastating long-term effects.
- According to a 2018 UNICEF report, 200,000 North Korean children already suffer from acute malnutrition, and sanctions put 60,000 of these vulnerable children at risk of starvation due to the disruption in the availability of humanitarian supplies caused by tightening sanctions.
- Unilateral US sanctions delay or outright block vital humanitarian shipments to the North Korean people. One NGO recently reported that it took them over a year and a half to ship 16 boxes of beans to the DPRK.
- Sanctions passed in 2017 prohibit the transport of any metal goods, significantly hampering the shipment of basic medical supplies. A shipment of reproductive health kits was subjected to significant delay because it contained aluminum steam sterilizers —the most important part of the kit.
Sanctions target North Korea’s civilian economy and harm the most vulnerable members of its population.
- Current sanctions have the greatest impact not on the power elites who are the intended targets, but on the most vulnerable North Koreans: working-class families, particularly children and seniors living in remote areas with restricted access to medical supplies, food, and fuel for cooking and heating.
Sanctions do not convey the Christmas spirit!