The Barbarism of US Imperialism Exposed Again
The International Court of
Justice (ICJ) in The Hague
unanimously ruled yesterday that
Washington must let Iran use
international financial payments
systems to buy humanitarian
supplies. When the Obama
administration imposed sanctions
on Iran in 2012-2015, it tried to
strangle Iran’s economy by freezing
it out of all financial transactions
denominated in US dollars. At its
request, the Brussels-based
Society for Worldwide Inter-bank
Financial Telecommunication
(SWIFT) network expelled Iranian
banks, ending Iran’s ability to use
US dollars for international
purchases. Since unilaterally
repudiating the 2015 accord this
May, the Trump administration has
made clear it plans to re-impose
sanctions as part of its prepa-
rations for war with Iran.
The ICJ ruling demands that
Washington not block trade in
critical goods, and makes clear that
the US war drive against Iran—
including calls by US officials such
as White House national security
adviser John Bolton to re-impose
SWIFT sanctions on Iran—violate
international law.
The Iranian foreign ministry
applauded the ICJ decision, stating
that it “vindicates the Islamic
Republic of Iran and confirms the
illegitimacy and oppressiveness” of
US sanctions. The ICJ has no
mechanism or power to enforce its
decision, however, and US officials
immediately made clear they will
defy the ICJ ruling.
The relentless campaign by
Washington to isolate Iran since the
1979 Revolution, and in particular
the 2012-2015 sanctions, have
taken a terrible toll. Between 2012
and 2016, Iran’s critical oil and gas
exports fell from over $9 billion to
under $3 billion, shattering its
November - 2018
economy and its access to critical
food, pharmaceutical and industrial
supplies.
And after Aseman flight 3705
crashed in Iran in February, killing
all 65 aboard, the Guardian noted
that at least 1,985 people have
died in Iranian plane crashes since
1979: “There have been scores of
plane crashes in Iran since the 1979
Islamic Revolution, mainly because
western sanctions for decades
limited its ability to purchase spare
parts or buy new planes.” US
sanctions on Iran have had
devastating
humanitarian
consequences.
Over a span of decades,
economic sanctions have been a
key foreign policy tool for the US
imperialism to inflict untold suffering on innocent people in an
attempt to bully various countries
it targeted for regime change to
force them to fall in line with its
hegemonic policy.
US imperialism imposed
sanctions against Iraq, Cuba and
the former Yugoslavia. They
caused horrific losses. The UN
embargo Washington imposed on
Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War cut off
Iraq’s access to health supplies,
leading to an estimated 500,000
deaths of Iraqi children. Asked
about this number on television in
1996, then-US Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright infamously
defended the sanctions:
“A hard choice, but the price,
we think the price is worth it.”
contd from page 22 In the case of labour laws also
the same tactics was employed. As
many as nine states have
amended their industrial disputes
law as a result of which
retrenchment norms in Madhya
Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat,
Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana
Maharashtra, Assam and Andhra
Pradesh have been blatantly
eased. The central government too
allowed short term contracts in all
sectors which provide no protection
for the workers.
The same spurious argument of
the revival of manufacturing sector
was employed to justify this anti-
worker policy.
Some states have also begun
framing rules for the existing Land
acquisition law 2013 in a way that
give leeway to the bureaucracy.
They include Uttar Pradesh (easier
SIA rules) Jharkhand (easier gram
sabha consent) Odisha and Tamil
Nadu (release of unused land for
land bank use made easier). Some
states like Haryana, Chhattisgarh
and Tripura have reduced the
quantum, of compensation for the
land acquisition.
It was argued that such dilution
of land acquisition law is needed
to revive the India’s manufacturing
sector. Many of the industrially
advanced states as well as
backward states have amended the
state level laws as back as three
years from now. Yet there is no sign
of refival of manufacturing sector
in these states. Even after the
dilution of laws the manufacturing
sector has not picked means only
that the fault or problem of the
sector lies elsewhere; not in the
land acquisition laws.
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