5 Reasons to Reject the US Sanctions

Here we outline five reasons to condemn the unilateral sanctions made by the U.S. toward Venezuela.

- Seventy-three percent of the population rejects them. That is the percentage that, according to Hinterlaces, questions the U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. Namely, the sanctions are looked upon unfavorably by the middle and upper classes, the major social base of the opposition, and whose rights the U.S. says it wants to defend.

- Absence of morals: It is not believable that the intention of the U.S. is to actually protect anyone's human rights. The nation's precedents in this area, in both domestic and international politics, clearly show the way in which the nation has been consistently prepared to violate human rights, or to tolerate its allies that violate these rights, in order to defend their own exemplary interests.

- They increase the risk of violence. The excess visibility of violations against human rights in a country is a tactic of criminalization that in the history of U.S. international politics leads to invasions or the radicalization of conspiracies. With that, the risk of the overflowing of political violence in the country increases.

- The right of self-determination is violated. This right is sacred in the United Nations Charter, and the Organization of American States states that "every State has the right to choose, without external interference, its political, economic, and social system ... No State ... has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State." Venezuela is trying out a political and economic system that varies from liberal democracy, which is representative of market economies, and which the United States promotes. The population has repeatedly supported this trial through various electoral processes. The unilateral sanctions are not against some civil servant, but rather, against that trial and the country that is carrying it out.

- They are one step further for Eurocentric and liberal multilateralism. The multilateral bodies for human rights have been marked by the liberal and Eurocentric vision of the northern countries, which have historically had more power to define human rights standards and monitor "compliance" around the world.

Consequently, southern countries tend to be built up as violators of human rights, and those in the north, as respectful of those rights. The unilateralism is a higher and authoritarian step in this Eurocentric and liberal multilateralism. It is only based on the power and pride of the country that sanctions. The politico-economical emergence of the southern countries (the BRICS) and the increase of political sovereignty in various countries on the continent have broken the historical submission toward U.S. international politics.

The new multilateral bodies on the continent (Unasur, Celac, ALBA) must create mechanisms to protect the human rights that are (re)constructed and that give us a South-to-South look, which effectively contributes to the increase the dignity of our countries.