{"id":295048,"date":"2025-05-12T12:01:32","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T11:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=295048"},"modified":"2025-05-12T08:51:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T07:51:25","slug":"human-rights-watch-outflanks-trump-liberal-ngo-pushes-for-harsher-venezuela-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/05\/human-rights-watch-outflanks-trump-liberal-ngo-pushes-for-harsher-venezuela-sanctions\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Rights Watch Outflanks Trump: Liberal NGO Pushes for Harsher Venezuela Sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been over 100 days since Donald Trump\u2019s return to the presidency. Most NGOs to the left of the Heritage Foundation are alarmed about his confrontational international posture and related erosion of the rule of law.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

5 May 2025\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0Human Rights Watch (HRW), a supposedly liberal organization, is also concerned. But their problem is that the president hasn\u2019t gone far enough \u2013 at least in the case of Venezuela. HRW\u2019s latest report<\/a> on Venezuela calls for intensified illegal measures that cause misery and death, outflanking Trump from the right.<\/p>\n

Ignoring the US hybrid war<\/strong><\/p>\n

At issue for HRW is last July\u2019s Venezuelan presidential election that saw Nicol\u00e1s Maduro declared the winner. Beyond issues with supposed electoral irregularities lies the elephant in the room<\/a> that is utterly disregarded by HRW. The US hybrid war against Venezuela was the biggest obstacle to free and fair elections. Venezuelans were under economic siege with coercive measures aimed at pressuring them into backing the US-backed opposition.<\/p>\n

Also telling is the opposition\u2019s refusal<\/a> to submit their electoral records to the Venezuelan supreme court, when summoned to do so because they do not recognize the constitutional order in Venezuela. Legally, there was no way for them to claim victory even if they had legitimately won.<\/p>\n

Post-election protest demonstrations were predictable<\/a>. The opposition, which has a long history of anti-democratic street violence, threatened them if it lost. HRW characterizes the riots as mostly peaceful<\/a>, while accusing the government of responding with a \u201cbrutal crackdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the widespread damage of public property<\/a> such as health clinics, government offices, schools, and transportation facilities \u2013 along with murders<\/a> of government security personnel and party members \u2013 were inconvenient facts entirely ignored in HRW\u2019s over 100-page report. Such actions can hardly be called peaceful, nor blamed on the government.<\/p>\n

A cure worse than the disease<\/strong><\/p>\n

For argument\u2019s sake, let\u2019s not contest HRW\u2019s claim that the books were cooked in Venezuela\u2019s presidential election in order to examine the NGO\u2019s solution.<\/p>\n

On April 29, the US State Department celebrated 100 days of \u201cAmerica first\u201d accomplishments<\/a>, highlighting the revocation of oil importing licenses and the establishment of potential secondary tariffs on countries that still dare to import Venezuelan oil.<\/p>\n

The next day, HRW\u2019s report demanded even harsher punishment. Frustrated<\/a> that the \u201cTrump administration appears to be prioritizing cooperation\u201d with Venezuela, HRW called for expanding sanctions and deepening pressure. And this is despite Washington\u2019s plans to further maximize<\/em> its maximum pressure<\/a> campaign to achieve regime change in Caracas.<\/p>\n

Specifically, HRW urged the US and other states to \u201ccounter Maduro\u2019s domestic carrot-and-stick incentives that reward abusive authorities and security forces, making them loyal to the government\u201d by imposing even more \u201ctargeted sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further compounding the impact of individual targeted sanctions is the reality of overcompliance<\/a>. Even individual<\/em> sanctions end up contributing to collective<\/em> punishment. A 2019 statement by HRW recognized<\/a> that \u201cdespite language excluding transactions to purchase food and medicines, these sanctions could exacerbate the already dire humanitarian situation in Venezuela due to the risk of overcompliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

But now the 1,028 existing unilateral coercive measures<\/a> (the correct term for sanctions) on Venezuela by the US and its allies apparently aren\u2019t enough for these sadists.<\/p>\n

HRW admits that these coercive measures have \u201cfailed to make a dent\u201d in correcting what they see as bad behavior. Why then persist if ineffective? Perhaps, because they\u2019re very effective in punishing errant states and warning others.<\/p>\n

HRW also lobbied for yet more foreign intervention in Venezuela\u2019s internal affairs: \u201cForeign governments should expand support for Venezuelan civil society groups\u2026 a sustained and principled international response is crucial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Selective sanctimony on sanctions<\/strong><\/p>\n

HRW criticized the Trump administration\u2019s sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court<\/a> (ICC) because they might potentially \u201cchill\u201d the tribunal\u2019s ardor to go after Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Revealingly, this particular HRW report shows no concern that Trump\u2019s sanctions might stifle the court\u2019s prosecution of the US\/Zionist genocide in Palestine. What HRW is instead focused on is having the court \u201cprioritize its investigation\u201d of Venezuela.<\/strong><\/p>\n

HRW never mentions in this report that the US does not accept the ICC\u2019s jurisdiction over itself. In other words, this report fails to criticize Washington\u2019s evading accountability as long as the ICC can be weaponized against Venezuela.<\/p>\n

The ICC has, in fact, been blatantly politicized regarding Venezuela. Caracas has requested in vain that the ICC investigate US coercive measures that have caused over 100,000 civilian deaths<\/a> in Venezuela, constituting a crime against humanity.<\/p>\n

The HRW report is sanctimonious about the \u201cbrave efforts of [opposition] Venezuelans who risked\u2014and often suffered,\u201d but is callously unsympathetic regarding the devastating effects on the population at large of the very measures it is advocating.<\/p>\n

HRW laments the US administration\u2019s cutting funding to astroturf \u201chumanitarian and human rights groups\u201d promoting regime change in Venezuela. But it does not express sympathy for ordinary Venezuelans suffering economic hardship, food insecurity, or lack of medicine due to broader US sanctions. Notably absent from this report is acknowledgement of the humanitarian consequences of Washington\u2019s unilateral coercive measures.<\/p>\n

The human rights organization\u2019s primary critique of the enormous humanitarian toll of the unilateral coercive measures is that they have \u201cfailed to produce a transition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanctions kill<\/strong><\/p>\n

The HRW report frames US sanctions as supposedly justified efforts to enforce imperial restrictions on Venezuela and not as part of a regime-change hybrid war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Venezuelanalysis<\/em> reported<\/a>: \u201cUS economic sanctions against Venezuela are a violent and illegal form of coercion, seeking regime change through collective punishment of the civilian population.\u201d Investigations by the UN\u2019s high commissioner for human rights found<\/a> \u201csanctions that threaten people\u2019s lives and health need to be halted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even HRW\u2019s own World Report 2022<\/a> cited UN findings that sanctions had exacerbated Venezuela\u2019s economic and social crises. Yet HRW apparently considers the burden warranted, which invokes Madeleine Albright\u2019s infamous defense of Iraq sanctions: \u201cwe think the price is worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow-the-flag humanitarianism<\/strong><\/p>\n

HRW has long maintained a \u201crevolving door<\/a>\u201d relationship with the US government personnel. The organization is also significantly associated with George Soros<\/a> and his Open Society Foundations. UN Independent Expert and human rights scholar Alfred de Zayas describes how HRW and similar NGOs have become part of what he calls the \u201chuman rights industry<\/a>,\u201d instrumentalizing human rights for geopolitical agendas.<\/p>\n

Unilateral coercive measures are a major component of the US imperial tool kit. But HRW opportunistically fails to note that such sanctions are illegal under international law. In fact, Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective penalties against protected persons.<\/p>\n

As Mark Weisbrot with the Center for Economic and Policy Research observes<\/a>, HRW has \u201cignored or paid little attention to terrible crimes that are committed in collaboration with the US government in this hemisphere,\u201d while it \u201chas repeatedly and summarily dismissed or ignored sincere and thoroughly documented criticisms of its conflicts of interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

HRW recognizes that the coercive measures against Venezuela, which impact the general populace, have not succeeded in imposing an administration subservient to Washington \u2013 what they euphemistically call \u201crestoration of democracy.\u201d So why continue advocating more sanctions and support for Venezuela\u2019s far-right opposition? The answer is that Washington\u2019s NGO epigones talk \u201creform\u201d but aim at fomenting insurrectionary regime change.<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Roger D. Harris is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network, <\/em><\/a>associate editor at Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), and the immediate past president of the <\/em>Task Force on the Americas<\/em><\/a>, a 33-year-old human rights organization in solidarity with the social justice movements of Latin America and the Caribbean. He is active with the <\/em>Campaign to End US-Canadian Sanctions against Venezuela<\/em><\/a> and is on the state central committee of the Peace and Freedom Party<\/a>, the only ballot-qualified socialist party in California. He recently visited Syria for an international conference on the impacts of economic sanctions by the US and its allies on over 30 countries in the world. <\/em>roger.harris@comcast.net<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original – pressenza.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5 May 2025 – It\u2019s been over 100 days since Donald Trump\u2019s return to the presidency. Most NGOs to the left of the Heritage Foundation are alarmed about his confrontational international posture and related erosion of the rule of law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":295050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3482,1050,923,249,557],"class_list":["post-295048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-human-rights-watch","tag-imperialism","tag-sanctions","tag-trump","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295051,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295048\/revisions\/295051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}