TEHRAN (Iran News) – For decades world arrogance mainly Westerners have weaponized “sanctions” and they use sanctions against the countries and nations to bring them down rather than resorting to waging war and using military force because this is an effective and cheapest means for war without suffering casualty. Of course this weapon may be ineffective against those countries which have strong economic infrastructures and in this case, the Westerners may be forced to resort to military force.
War by itself is not essentially good no matter in the form of military or other forms because it destroys nations and their wealth and infrastructures but war of sanctions is against humanity that the U.S. and its Western allies are leaders in this form of war.
In recent decades many countries and their nations have suffered due to sanctions either unilateral or the UN-approved ones and currently countries like Syria, Yemen and North Korea and to some extent the Islamic Republic of Iran are suffering from this type of crime which is fully against humanity.
On Monday an Iranian envoy to the United Nations denounced as “crime against humanity” the imposition of sanctions against the nation, saying such unilateral restrictive measures have put the lives of vulnerable people at risk by hampering their access to medicine.
Zahra Ershadi, deputy permanent representative of Iran to the UN, made the remarks at the UN Commission for Social Development.
She complained that illegal sanctions have made it very difficult for vulnerable groups in countries such as Iran to access basic medical items and thus put their lives at stake.
The Iranian envoy also said that the import of medicines as well as medical equipment and hygiene products have been severely hindered by restrictions on foreign exchange resources.
The illegal measures have a direct negative impact on the lives of the most vulnerable Iranian citizens, including women, children, and patients, she said, adding that many children have died as a result of such inhumane bans.
“As our president stated in his address to the UNGA session, unilateral sanctions against the Iranian people, particularly sanctions on medicine and humanitarian items, are criminal acts on par with crimes committed against humanity. Those who sanction countries should not go unpunished for such heinous crimes,” Ershadi asserted.
“As the representative of a country whose people are subjected to the most brutal form of economic terrorism and illegitimate unilateral coercive measures by the United States, I call for the complete and immediate lifting of all unilateral coercive measures including sanctions in order to ensure the full achievement of economic and social development and enable the targeted countries to repair their economies while guaranteeing the well-being of their people in the aftermath of the pandemic.”
She further noted that despite the sanctions, the Iranian government has managed to provide poor and vulnerable people with special financial packages and social and economic rehabilitation programs, in addition to devising economic support measures, especially for small businesses.
The government, she said, has also prepared medical treatment programs for about 4 million legal and illegal Afghan refugees.
Iran has repeatedly denounced the sanctions as an act of “economic war”, “economic terrorism”, and “medical terrorism”.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been challenging with the U.S. sanctions from it’s the very first day of its establishment but the pressures have been increased since 2018 when former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA and reimposed and even stepped up sanctions.
Despite these efforts, the Islamic Republic of Iran has endured the sanctions and to some extent has thwarted them but it has had negative impact on the daily life of people especially in the medicines.
Syria has been under sanctions since 2011 and its people are suffering from its effects. Yemen is the other country which badly suffers from sanctions. And now the West led by the U.S. threatens to sanction Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
As long as countries fail to have strong economic infrastructures and fail to cut dependence on trade with the West and their currencies, the U.S. and its allies will use sanctions as their main weapon to bring the countries down and this inhumane tool will be used against the nations.
Americans in recent decades have realized that they are better to use sanctions rather than their troops against the countries without having casualty and military expenditure, and countries to defend themselves need to strengthen their infrastructures and cutting their dependence on the West to make sanctions ineffective.
As long as governments and nations remain dependent on the West and its economy specially its banking system, the U.S. crimes against humanity, namely sanctions, will continue and people in the countries will suffer from this brutality which happens under the guise of defending so-called human rights.
The Islamic Republic of Iran in recent years have done its best to cut its economic dependence to the West by focusing trade and economic exchanges with its neighbors and those countries which are defiant to the West threats and are independent in making decisions.
