By Fr. Nono Alfonso, SJ
38 million deaths for a period of 50 years or 500 thousand deaths annually! That is the horrific finding of a study conducted by the University of Denver and published last August in the reputable scientific journal, The Lancet. According to the study, from 1970 to 2021, the economic sanctions imposed on various countries by the United Nations, European Union and most especially the United States of America had led to those shocking deaths.
Traditionally, sanctions are intended to influence the political behavior of countries. These would include suspension of access to international markets as well as financial assistance. Without these, the economy of the targeted country suffers, resulting in hunger, malnutrition, illnesses, and death. In the past, it was thought that rather than waging war or exacting direct violence, the economic sanctions were a better alternative to punish erring countries and force them to follow international rules. This recent study, however, proves that sanctions are not innocuous or harmless at all. Simply put, they also kill! In fact, as the study finds, the annual death toll of 564 thousand is at par with the annual global deaths from direct armed conflicts. But there were years when economic sanctions resulted in more deaths. In the 1990s for example, there were years in which there were more than a million sanction-associated deaths. In 2021 alone, 800 thousand deaths of this nature had been recorded. In other words, sanctions are just as bad as wars or direct military conflicts.
The bad news, moreover, is that these sanctions have become fashionable over time. In the 1970s, for instance, Western powers like the US had imposed sanctions on 15 countries. From the 1990s to the 2000s, the number went up, with an average of 30 countries being meted out with these sanctions in any given year. Finally, from the 2020s to the present, more than 60 countries, mostly from the so-called Global South have been under these murderous sanctions. From the foregoing, it is clear that these economic sanctions have become the weapon of choice of Western powers. As one writer observes, “hunger and deprivation are not an accidental by-product of Western sanctions… they are the key objective.” And yet, sanctions have not always been successful. Russia, China, and Iran, countries that are significantly involved in the ongoing war in the Middle East, had found ways and other economic sources to subvert the sanctions imposed by the US or UN. It is the less developed ones that suffer the most. It is reported for example that in the case of Venezuela which was isolated by the US from international market, trade, and aid, 40 thousand died in just a year (2017).
Although the Denver study names the United Nations and the European Union as sources of sanctions in the 50-year period, it is basically and mainly the US that has imposed most of these sanctions. In a recent interview, International Politics expert John Mearsheimer was asked about so-called “American exceptionalism.” He said that the concept usually meant that the United States of America was a “noble country” or the biblical “city on the hill.” But no, he quipped, “We are an incredibly ruthless country!” Citing the Lancet article, he added, “the amount of murder and mayhem we have created around the world is just unbelievable.”
This amount however does not yet include the staggering number of casualties from wars that the US had waged even in the last century alone. It’s war against us in the 1900s for instance had resulted in thousands of deaths, including from the so-called Samar massacres and the Batangas concentration camps. In the Second World War, 200 thousand Japanese died when the US dropped atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In the ensuing Cold War period, wherein the US and the USSR fought proxy wars, sponsored low-intensity conflicts (e.g. guerilla war, terrorism) and facilitated regime change through coup d’etats and manufactured civil war, hundreds of thousands, if not millions were killed as well. The US was engaged in all these in almost all the continents in the world, especially in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. In this regard, its most notable war would be its war in Vietnam not only because it lasted for 21 years (the longest) but because it also resulted in 3 million deaths for the Vietnamese, including from the infamous My Lai massacre that killed 500 civilians, mostly women and children. It is by far, the worst in the US’ long record of war crimes. Although, its anti-terrorist war in the 2000s would also result in horrific deaths, such as its war against Iraq that claimed a million deaths, for the life that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Mearsheimer would be right then. The record bears how “ruthless” the US has been, whether through direct war or through economic sanctions and embargoes. That is why it has not ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. For its hands are dripping with so much blood. It now accuses Iran of terrorism, but as its history of violence shows, it could be the most terroristic of them all.
Fr. EMMANUEL “NONO” L. ALFONSO, SJ, is Executive Director of Jesuit Communications, writer and TV and radio host at ABS-CBN (Channel 2), DZMM Teleradyo, Radio Veritas and Radyo Katipunan. In 2008, he was given a Special Citation Award for Best Opinion Column Category at the 30th Catholic Mass Media Awards. Read Fr. Nono Alfonso’s columns here.
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