China and 29 other countries against international sanctions applied mainly in Africa. Serious political error of the Latin American left.
The Latin American socialist democracies have joined the initiative of Russia and China at the United Nations to demand an end to the unilateral sanctions of the Western powers. Too bad that among the signatories of the request there are brutal Asian and African dictatorships. By mixing with these primitive dictators, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela, they worsen their international image and betray their revolutionary ideals.
On September 30, 2021, Chinese Ambassador Zhang on behalf of a group of 29 countries submitted to the UN Security Council a declaration against coercive measures and unilateral sanctions decided by Western powers. Among the signatory countries, various African states stand out, including some very questionable ones: Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Namibia, South Africa, Sudan, Zimbabwe. In addition to African countries, the declaration was signed by Antigua and Barbuda, Belarus, Cambodia, North Korea, Iran, Laos, Pakistan, Russia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sri Lanka, Palestine, Syria. As far as Latin America is concerned, we find the signing of four countries that are bulwarks of the left: Cuba, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.
The declaration, taking as an excuse the Covid-19 pandemic, in fact calls for the lifting of all economic sanctions against various countries sanctioned “unilaterally” by Western powers. These sanctions are defined as contrary to the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law. They would create a serious economic, social and humanitarian impact on the affected countries, severely hampering their efforts to promote and protect human rights.
According to the signatories of the declaration, Western economic sanctions would create a worsening of the pandemic from Covid-19 causing severe shortages of essential supplies such as food, water, electricity, medicines, vaccines, exacerbating poverty and making it difficult for the victim countries to provide an adequate response. pandemic health care or life-saving assistance to the most vulnerable people and families.
The 29 countries that signed the declaration urge the Western powers to immediately reverse the current unilateral coercive measures against the targeted countries in order to guarantee them adequate resources and support to fight the pandemic. The West is also urged to avoid imposing future sanctions that do not comply with international law and the Charter of the United Nations. According to these 29 countries, solidarity and unity among nations is needed to overcome the pandemic.
This appeal would be 100% acceptable given the devastating effects of Western sanctions on democratic countries such as Cuba and Venezuela. All the considerations enunciated in the declaration are applicable for these two Latin American countries guilty of having a left orientation in the management of the country and their economies.
Unfortunately, the presence of notoriously fascist and genocidal countries among the signatories of the declaration makes the request to cease unilateral coercive measures very little credible. North Korea is a sick nation where human rights are not even in the vocabulary. Iran is under the yoke of a theocratic government where dissidents are hanged. Eritrea and Ethiopia are committing genocide in Tigray and a civil war that is killing thousands in Oromia and other parts of Ethiopia.
Burundi is governed by a military junta that follows the doctrine of Power to the Hutus which, translated into simple words, means ethnic domination. The military junta of Gitega since 2015 has been slaughtering its own population to strengthen the ethnic power of Hutu extremists in close collaboration with the Rwandan terrorists FDLR, responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
In Cameroon, the President — Dictator Paul Biya, in power for 39 years, is slaughtering the Anglophone minority in the north of the country. In Egypt, General Al-Sisi came to power through a coup d’état and leads the country with an iron fist that prevents any constitutional freedom.
In Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (in power for 42 years) has subjugated an entire people by making them slaves to take away all the wealth of the country, especially oil revenues. While Theodore, his son and his family live in the most unbridled luxury with real estate and bank accounts scattered around the world, 1.4 million people live in absolute poverty, victims of the terror of Obiang. In Equatorial Guinea, human life is worth less than a beer.
Sudan and Zimbabwe have just emerged from despotic dictatorial regimes (those of Omar El Bashir and Robert Mugabe) but the military component within the transitional governments is strong. A military current led by the Generals who have collaborated for decades with Bashir and Mugabe, slaughtering their own population. Only at the last moment, they got rid of their leaders in order to continue to govern and escape justice.
I understand the need for Cuba and Venezuela to fight Western sanctions but I cannot understand that these two governments (along with Bolivia and Nicaragua) are joining Asian and African brutal dictatorships. There is a big difference between the government of Cuba, supported by the people, and the military junta of Burundi which rules through violence and terror. Just as there is a big difference between Venezuela, attacked by American imperialism, and Ethiopia where a mono-ethnic Amhara government tries to impose its rule with a genocide in Tigray. The Latin American socialist countries have nothing to share with these primitive African dictatorships.
By adhering to this declaration, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela risk ruining their reputation and betraying their ideals, associating themselves with dictators and primitive regimes where human rights are a blasphemy. Latin American democracies have every right to demand an end to sanctions and it is our duty as Western citizens to support their demands.
Unfortunately they make a serious mistake in demanding an end to the sanctions aimed at African dictatorships that are massacring their own populations. The sanctions against Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Egypt are just and sacrosanct as weapons of deterrence to try to impose peace and democracy in these countries.
Going further, the sanctions against these dictatorships risk becoming a soft weapon. The populations of these countries victims of brutal dictatorships need radical help to establish democracy, respect for human rights and economic development. A radical aid that in some cases must be realized with an energetic military response to wipe out these regimes and their apparatuses of repression.
Miguel Díaz-Canel, Luis Arce, Nicolás Maduro Moros and Daniel Ortega, joining these rogue states commit a grave mistake that penalizes their just causes and their right to independence and non-interference in the internal affairs of their countries. By joining the Eritrean dictator Isaias Afwerki, the bloodthirsty nationalist leadership Amhara, life-long dictators like Biya or Obiang or Generals who have taken power with arms (see General Al-Sisi in Egypt), they betray the revolutionary ideals and the confidence that their respective peoples have granted. It is as if they had allied themselves with Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Hugo Banzer Suárez, Marcos Pérez Jiménez.
I can understand that Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, must satisfy the “friendly” countries (Russia and China) their only source of economic support due to the American and European sanctions, but everything has a limit. To the calls from Beijing and Moscow, aimed exclusively at strengthening their struggle for world domination with the clear objective of replacing the current Western capitalist powers, it would be necessary to prioritize the dignity and moral decency of the revolutions that have created truly representative nations of the people, compared to the questionable claims for a loaf of bread …
