By: Ricardo Abud
The debate surrounding the humanitarian consequences of the international sanctions imposed against Venezuela, mainly by the United States, since 2017 constitutes one of the most complex economic and political issues in recent history.
Analyzing this controversy requires examining the practical repercussions of these measures on the population and the participation of internal political actors, apart from partisan narratives.
The figure of more than 40,000 deaths attributed to US sanctions against Venezuela has sparked intense political debate. For some, it is proof that Washington caused a humanitarian catastrophe; for others, it is statistical manipulation intended to blame the United States for a crisis that began long before. Neither of these positions, presented without nuance, allows for a proper understanding of the issue.
The source of the figure is easily identifiable. On April 25, 2019, economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs published a study through the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) analyzing the consequences of the US financial sanctions imposed in August 2017. They estimated that more than 40,000 deaths during 2017 and 2018 were linked to the impact of these measures. By restricting the flow of foreign currency and blocking essential international transactions, the sanctions hampered the regular import of food, medical supplies, high-cost medications, and spare parts essential for maintaining public services such as electricity and water.
The data presented in the study by Dany Bahar, Sebastián Bustos, José Ramón Morales and Miguel Santos, published by Brookings, are difficult to ignore: food imports had fallen by 71% compared to their peak in 2013, imports of medicines and medical equipment had been reduced by 68%, and infant mortality showed a considerable increase.
Although the country was already experiencing a prior economic collapse stemming from internal policies accumulated over years, the sanctions added an additional restrictive factor that made managing the crisis more expensive, raised social costs, and reduced the state's capacity to respond to health and food emergencies that directly affected the most vulnerable sectors of the population.
Simultaneously, the actions of sectors within the Venezuelan opposition constitute a central element in the political dimension of this process. Various opposition factions and leaders publicly advocated for increased international pressure and requested the application of economic and financial sanctions against the Venezuelan state, under the premise of using external sanctions as a coercive mechanism to force a political transition. While proponents of this strategy argued that it was a way to weaken the Nicolás Maduro administration, critics and various sectors point out that this request and active support fostered a scheme of economic strangulation whose consequences affected the general population across the board, regardless of party affiliation, intensifying human suffering and limiting the alternatives for national recovery.
On the international stage, Washington's implementation of unilateral punitive measures, which progressively escalated from individual restrictions to sectoral sanctions on PDVSA, was intended to influence Venezuela's internal political dynamics, a practice strongly criticized for contravening fundamental principles of international law such as state sovereignty and non-interference.
The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela cannot be reduced to a narrative that obscures responsibility or to technicalities that dilute guilt. In political and historical analysis, analytical rigor runs the constant risk of becoming disconnected from the moral weight of the damage inflicted on ordinary people, who ultimately pay the true price for the erratic decisions of their own leaders, the coercive pressure of foreign governments, and the partisan gamble of an opposition that endorsed economic strangulation. Far from neutralizing blame, the evidence exposes a chain of direct and inescapable responsibility, where every actor from the exercise of internal power to external aggression and local complicity will historically bear the burden of the suffering inflicted on an entire nation.
The Venezuelan tragedy doesn't need a lie to be condemned. The facts, the investigations, and the sheer magnitude of the human suffering are serious enough. What is needed is to study them rigorously, even when the conclusions are uncomfortable for those who prefer a simplistic narrative of good guys and bad guys.
THERE IS NOTHING MORE EXCLUSIONARY THAN BEING POOR.
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