Whom Are the Sanctioners Sanctioning?

The truth is that the “sanctions” of certain governments against others are just euphemisms that politicians use in order to disguise what are, strictly speaking, measures directed at their own citizens. For example, the blockade against Cuba means that the United States government is restricting the liberty of its [own] citizens, thereby preventing them from having any sort of business relations with the island. Yet another example are the “sanctions against Russia,” which among other things, prohibit firms or citizens from the 28 European Union countries from buying, selling, serving as an intermediary, or providing direct or indirect assistance in the issuance of financial instruments from Russian banks. This always makes the situation worse.

Not only did the American blockade on Cuba curtail personal relations among many other things, but it also made it significantly difficult for the development of the Internet to take place there, considering the globalization that such a network requires. Before 1959, the island had a submarine cable with the United States, through which calls could be made. However, up until very recently, the island was unable to use fiber optics to connect to the Internet, having to establish communications via satellite links instead, which is much more expensive and inefficient; this made it the only country in the Western Hemisphere not connected to the rest of the world through fiber optics, despite being surrounded by dozens of submarine cables.

Thus, the Greater Antilles were forced to ally with Caracas, which funded a cable of more than 1,600 kilometers between Venezuela and Cuba — a “flagship project,” according to a Venezuelan civil servant, which will afford “unity for all nations, unity for integration.” Fiber optics will increase Internet connection capacity 3,000-fold, a limitation that Havana had put forth in order to prohibit access to the entire population. However, this in itself will not result in widespread Internet access to Cuban citizens, according to Granma, the country’s official newspaper.

In response to the “sanctions against Russia,” the Russian government announced a year-long ban against all imports of meat, fish, dairy products, fruits and vegetables from the United States, the EU, Norway, Canada and Australia. This is not insignificant, given that since the fall of the USSR, Russia is the world’s largest consumer of fruits and vegetables from the EU, the second largest purchaser of poultry, and an important consumer of fish, meat and dairy products. In fact, the ban has already affected countries like Germany, resulting in economic decline, which had already begun as of June of this year.

Turkey and South America could be the main beneficiaries of the Russian ban, particularly Mercosur, which, during its last summit in Venezuela, seemed to have become a political entity and an ALBA — Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America — sound box. Shortly before the BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — met in Fortaleza, Brazil, Russian and Chinese leaders made symbolic visits to the region. This situation is forcing the Russian president to become a good ally of the new Mercosur and the other BRICS countries. Argentina and Brazil will benefit from new exports of grain and meat to the Russian market; however, they run the risk of suffering negative consequences, which could be incurred as a result of helping the Kremlin avoid the effects of economic and technological sanctions, especially if they involve banking mediation in transactions and payments resulting from business operations.