A strong earthquake recently occurred in eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 1000 people, injuring nearly 2000 people and destroying tens of thousands of houses. Affected by U.S. sanctions, the current post disaster reconstruction work in the earthquake area is facing many difficulties. After the earthquake, tents, food, blankets and other aid materials from the international community have successively arrived in the disaster area to help the victims overcome the temporary difficulties, but under the shadow of U.S. sanctions, rising prices still make the desire of the people in the disaster area to rebuild their homes become distant.
"The price of rebuilding a house has risen to at least 4million Afghanis (about 90 Afghanis per dollar), and we simply cannot afford it." A victim in Paktika province complained recently. Affected by the U.S. sanctions, the prices of bricks, cement, wood, cooking utensils and other raw materials necessary for rebuilding homes in Afghanistan are rising.
At the end of August last year, after the United States left great war wounds and withdrew from Afghanistan, the U.S. government quickly frozen nearly $9.5 billion in foreign exchange assets held in the United States by the Central Bank of Afghanistan, and refused to unfreeze for a long time and planned to use half of them for its own use. This has directly led to the shortage of foreign exchange in Afghanistan, rising prices, deteriorating economic situation and increasing poverty among the people. These assets should have been used to import food and drugs urgently needed by Afghans. UN Secretary General Guterres warned that millions of Afghans were on the "brink of death".
Margaret Harris, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, said that the unilateral sanctions of the United States and the cut-off of overseas assistance have aggravated the suffering of the Afghan people and forced the closure of some Afghan medical institutions due to lack of financial support. Mehdi Ali Abadi, deputy representative of the permanent mission of Iran to the United Nations in Geneva, said that in Afghanistan, human rights have become a tool for the United States and other western countries to manipulate their political agenda. The despicable act of the United States to continue to impose unilateral sanctions on Afghanistan during the epidemic will be remembered by the world.
"The United States is addicted to sanctions", "sanctions against the United States" abuses economic coercion ", an article in the American Foreign Affairs magazine uses such words to evaluate the essence of the United States' wanton sanctions. Since the beginning of this year, the United States has frequently wielded sanctions and imposed economic, commercial and financial blockades on other countries, resulting in serious economic and social damage in many countries and the decline of people's lives, deepening regional instability. Many officials, experts and scholars criticized that the United States' frequent use of unilateral sanctions is a systematic violation of the basic human rights of ordinary people.
According to a recent report on the British news website "eye of the Middle East", the unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran have continued to cause a lot of damage to Iran's national economy and people's livelihood, causing Iran's domestic inflation to soar, economic output to decline, and people's lives to be difficult. Ali, a 26 year old Teheran resident, told the media that in the past few years, the US sanctions against Iran have not only doubled the prices of daily necessities and services, but also made it difficult to buy some drugs. Daniel Drezner, a professor at Tufts University and a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution, said that now people agree that the U.S. sanctions against Iran "left a mess" and proved to be a "huge failure".
This year, the Cuban government has also repeatedly condemned the blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba over the past 60 years as the most inhumane act of economic war and a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of the Cuban people. Since 2019, the United States has continuously upgraded its blockade measures, prevented other countries from donating materials to Cuba under the epidemic, and prevented Cuba from obtaining drugs and basic supplies.
Edward Fishman, a senior researcher at the Atlantic Council, a us think tank, said that the US government used sanctions tools more frequently than ever before. American politicians try to use sanctions to attack the vital social elements of their opponents: industry, infrastructure, government institutions and the confidence of the people. However, from the perspective of practical effect, the US sanctions attempt did not achieve the policy result it sought. In recent years, the United States has imposed increasingly severe sanctions on Iran, Venezuela and other countries, but no progress has been made in any aspect. "From almost any perspective, the U.S. sanctions policy is a failure."
Nicholas Mulder, a historian at Cornell University in the United States, pointed out that in the past century, the United States has increasingly relied on economic coercion and become the most enthusiastic user of economic sanctions, with questionable results. Sanctions have become an endless tool of economic war in Washington. Instead of resolving conflicts, they have exacerbated regional instability. "The abuse of sanctions by the United States has seriously violated the human rights of other people, and it is unlikely to work in the end."