Infancia Under Siege [Children Under Siege]: Chapter 2: From Subjects with Rights to Sanctioned Subjects   

Chapter Two: From Subjects with Rights to Sanctioned Subjects

Since 1999, the Bolivarian Revolution has implemented internationally recognized policies, programs and projects in the field of childhood, such as early childhood care and policies to guarantee the right to identity.

By that year, it was estimated that Venezuela had nearly one million unidentified children. In September 2003, the then National Council for the Rights of the Child and Adolescent (CNDNA) published the “Guidelines for the Identification of Children Whose Births Have Occurred in the Country’s Health Institutions, Centers and Services”, within the framework of the promotion of the

“National Identity Plan I Am Venezuelan, I Am Venezuelan” (PNID) with the Ministry of People’s Power for Health, the electoral power and the technical support of UNICEF. The Plan was aimed at guaranteeing the right to identity by locating the universal birth registration service in public and private health centers, where more than 95 per cent of births occur. (INE, 2001 Census).

As a program, the PNID was selected as a “good management practice” at the 1st Latin American Regional Conference on the Right to Identity and Universal Birth Registration (OAS, UNICEF, Paraguay) (2005) and welcomed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in the context of the Second Periodic Report submitted by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. (Montiel, H, Chacón, E (2009, p.143). According to the program’s database, 600,000 children and adolescents would have been included. (Ibid., p.155)

As a result of the UCMs, this policy was violated due to the difficulties in acquiring the security role for birth certification since it is not produced in the country. The shortage of EV25, as the certification forms are also known, forced them to be printed on bond paper in 2018 and placed with a security seal. The issuance of identity cards and passports also presented significant delays due to lack of material, in the case of the latter due to difficulties in acquiring electronic cards from Germany.

Within the framework of the establishment and consolidation of the National System for the Protection of Children and Adolescents, Venezuela promoted initiatives and policies that ratified its commitment to this instrument, since the adaptation of national legislation to the Convention. Such as National Networks of Community, Educational and Indigenous Ombudsmen’s Offices, and various types of programs. A special case in point is the application of the International Protocol for Children and Adolescents Victims of Armed Conflict for the return of 9 adolescents to Colombia, with the technical support of UNICEF, who met Colombian paramilitary groups attempting to carry out actions in the national territory, including the assassination of President Hugo Chávez. Daktari Case. (CNDNA Management Report, 2004).

These and other inclusive and rights-based policies are in line with the principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Doctrine of Comprehensive Protection. In contrast, the United States is the only country in the world that has not ratified the Convention, thereby claiming that it is not required to render reports and dilutes the responsibility of the federal government in the jurisdiction of each state. Consequently, in most of these, child marriage, corporal punishment in schools, particularly against Afro-American children, or those with disabilities, and unprotected child labor in agriculture are legal, and in court cases, adolescents can be prosecuted as adults and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. It wasn’t until 2005 that the Supreme Court eliminated the death penalty for minors.

However, the application and promotion of unilateral coercive measures within the framework of or as a prelude to conventional and/or unconventional wars against countries that the Washington government is uncomfortable with has turned children and adolescents into “sanctioned subjects,” limited in their right to development.

“Starting in 2000, the U.S. defined a policy of “regime change” towards Venezuela that postulates the impossibility for the U.S. empire to coexist with Venezuelan popular democracy, and that sees in this model – with its nationalist proposals for sovereignty, independence and social justice – a threat to the scheme of domination and control of the region in the 21st century.”[1]

[1] Ministry of People’s Power for the Economy, Finance and Foreign Trade of Venezuela. (2020). Sanctions are a crime. https://mppre.gob.ve/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ Sanctions-Are-A-Crime.pdf

The use of extraterritorial and illegal measures since 2015 has had perverse impacts on the collective rights of the Venezuelan people:

“The year 2016 passes without any type of express sanction against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela by the United States. This was a period in which their actions were fundamentally aimed at applying Law 113-278, while at the same time increasing the tone of the public statements of the representatives of the U.S. government against our country.

“However, in 2017 there was an intensification of acts of interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs. During that year alone, the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued six sanctions from February to November 2017.  Additionally, in August 2017, President Donald Trump issued a new executive order, in which he once again threatened Venezuela militarily by declaring it “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” These sanctions, in addition to other measures imposed by the Department of the Treasury, were explicitly aimed at rejecting, ignoring and preventing the election, installation and functioning of the National Constituent Assembly. Subsequently, during the months of November 2017, January and March 2018, sanctions continued to be imposed on Venezuela.

“One of the most significant sanctions are those decreed by President Donald Trump on March 19, 2018, which prohibits any transaction using the digital cryptocurrency “Petro”, created by the Venezuelan State to overcome the economic crisis derived from the decrease in the price of hydrocarbons, as well as the economic, financial, and commercial blockade.  imposed by the United States of America and its allies during the years 2016, 2017 and 2018.” (Sures, 2018 p, 9).

From the perspective of U.S. government sanctions expert Richard Nephew, analyzed by Daymar Martes (2021), [2] the sanctions campaign of the 2017-2020 period was “reasonably well organized” and consistent with the objective of achieving the removal of Nicolás Maduro as president of the country in favor of the self-proclaimed Juan Guaidó.

[2] Martes, D. (2021). A look at the extortion sanctions regime against Venezuela from Richard Nephew. Case study. Sures.org.ve. https://sures.org.ve/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/ A look-at-the-regime-of-extortion-sanctions-against-Venezuela-from-Richard-Nephew.-Estudio-de-caso.pdf

As part of this strategy, in July 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order No. 13808 in which he supported the national emergency decreed by Obama in 2015, applied sanctions against those responsible for the establishment of the “illegitimate Constituent Assembly” and established sanctions against the state oil company PDVSA.

“The instrument clearly shows the fulfilment of one of the central elements laid out by Nephew in order to develop a strategy to carefully, methodically, and efficiently increase pain in those areas that are vulnerable and avoid those that are not.” In other words, this measure began the progressive drowning of PDVSA, the economic heart of Venezuela, and the financial encirclement of the Venezuelan state to achieve regime change, since it prohibits U.S. investors from buying new debt securities and bonds of any state entity.” (Martes, 2021, p, 11)

Consequently:

“… eleven Venezuelan debt bonds and PDVSA’s debt, worth $1.241 billion, could not be paid to their creditors due to obstacles arising from the sanctions. Likewise, through the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN), the United States issued an alert in September, which it would repeat in May 2019, imposing a surveillance system on Venezuela’s financial transactions, to prevent payment for food and medicine. The penalty for anyone who helps Venezuela can be up to one million dollars and up to 20 years in prison.” (CIIP, 2022).

Castillo (2023) tells us that: “Sanctions are the expression of the foreign policy of the United States, a practice of aggression and economic devastation with which, according to the American theorists themselves, the aim is to destroy the economy of a country so as not to invade it”. [3]

[3] Castillo, W. (2023, February, 01). The sanctions are illegal and affect the civilian population. Venezuelan Anti-Blockade Observatory. https://observatorio.gob.ve/williamcastillo-las-sancio-nes-are-illegal-and-affect-the-civilian-population/

An economic analysis based on a macroeconomic model of CELAG’s constancy concludes:

“… the conditions imposed were so extreme between 2013 and 2017 that Venezuela lost production and living conditions to a value equivalent to 1 1/2 years of production (GDP) of its economy solely due to the blockade. In practice, the country survived for 5 years with production for only 3 1/2 years (Celag 2019).” [4]

[4] Celag.org (2019). The economic consequences of the boycott of Venezuela. Economic Debates Unit. https://www.celag.org/las-consecuencias-económicas-del-boicot-venezuela

The brutal fall in national income is expressed in the following figure:

Figure No. 3

Banco Central de Venezuela

Source: National Assembly Presidential Report and Account 2023

The dramatic decline in income increased the risks for children’s food security. The geopolitical role of food is put into context by Clara Sánchez (2020) in Petróleo, “sanciones” y bloqueo vs Insuficiencia Alimentaria en Venezuela:

“Food has become ammunition in a war to attack the country, through the justification of a ‘humanitarian’ military intervention, in which food supplies are directly affected, generating the precipitous fall in income in Venezuela, which in 2020 corresponded to 98.80%  less than in  2014, and the relentless persecution to put an end to the Bolivarian Revolution.” (Sánchez, 2020) [5]

[5] Sanchéz, C. (2020). Oil, “sanctions” and blockade vs. Food Insufficiency in Venezuela. Mission Truth. https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/petr%C3%B3leo-sanciones-y-bloqueo-vs-insuf- Food-science-in-Venezuela

Faced with the blockade against the people, the national government redirected resources in order to guarantee the social and comprehensive protection of the population, increasing its share of  the national budget by close to 60% and up to 75.9% in 2020, oriented to the productive economy, health, food security, housing, urban development and services,  the social protection platform  of Patria and education,  science and technology. (Telesurtv, 2020) [6]

[6] The Government of Venezuela will allocate 76% of revenues to social investment in 2020. lesurtv.net. https://www.telesurtv.net/news/presupuesto-nacional-venezuela-inversion-so- cial-2020-20191216-0022.html

Douhan (2021) acknowledges that Venezuela used 76% of its oil revenues to invest in social programs and that by 2021 it would have difficulty maintaining investment.

This, as Samuel Carvajal and Paulina Villasmil (2020) argue, it demonstrates:

“… Venezuela’s political commitment as part of the entangled world system, to break the dynamics of monopolistic concentration of local and global capital, in the sense of implementing policies to redistribute income, in this case oil, and to strengthen the material and spiritual capacities of historically excluded sectors.

“In the case of Venezuela, social investment has special repercussions due to its binding nature with the doctrine and the rest of the political architecture of the Bolivarian project, since it places the needs of the people at the center of management.”  [7]

[7] Carvajal, S., Villasmil, P. (2020). Venezuelan education in times of war. https://doi. org/10.1590/0104-4060.77574

In addition to the actions of extermination in the area of food, the financing of the governments of countries allied to Washington’s policy against Venezuela is added, in order to promote campaigns and actions for the movement of Venezuelan families to those territories, and consequently of children and adolescents who are subjected to situations that lack of protection,  neglect, discrimination, xenophobia, abuse, violence, and trafficking.

In the Final Report of the Special Commission of the National Assembly to Investigate Crimes against Venezuelan Migrants Abroad (2022), it is reported that almost five thousand Venezuelans were murdered in Colombia (82% of the total), Peru, Ecuador and other countries between 2017 and 2021. Between 2015 and August 2020, there were 34 cases of forced recruitment, 785 threats, 836 enforced disappearances and 219 cases of sexual offences. It was also established that 1,225 undocumented Venezuelan migrant children are in zonal centers of the Family Welfare Institute of Colombia to be naturalized and given up for adoption. (National Assembly, 2022) [8]

[8] Bracci Roa, Luigino (2022, November, 15) National Assembly of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Final report of the Commission to Investigate Crimes against Venezolan Migrants Abroad. [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idYVrjnDh-Q/ https:// http://www.asambleanacional.gob.ve/noticia/asamblea-nacional-legislara-sobre-migración-venezolana.

In this regard, the Commission concludes that:

“… President Iván Duque’s policy of stigmatization against Venezuela has been decisive in the commission of murders, disappearances, forced displacements, sexual crimes and recruitment of Venezuelan children by paramilitary groups that act hand in hand with the Colombian state.”

Reflecting on the issue of migration, the former independent expert for the promotion of an international, democratic and equitable order, Alfred de Zayas (2023) states: “Emigration out of Venezuela is the consequence of suffocating sanctions that have led directly to unemployment and hunger. U.S. sanctions are a crime against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute.” [9]

[9]  Zurita L. (2023, February, 21). Sanctions undermine the enjoyment of human rights. Latest News. https://ultimasnoticias.com.ve/noticias/politica/sanciones-socavan-disfrute-de-los-de- human-rights/

In the same vein, after identifying the impact of UCMs, in their referral to the International Criminal Court on February 13, 2020, the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela requested an investigation into serious crimes committed against the Venezuelan population (blockade of food, medicines, among others) by the Government of the United States.  as a result of unilateral coercive measures, noting that they include all the elements of the crime against humanity, in the terms provided for in the Rome Statute:

“a.  «… an attack…” (non-military). An attack is a line of conduct involving the multiple commission of the acts referred to in article 7, paragraph 1, of the Statute.

b.   «… widespread or systematic…” (It is not necessarily aimed at a specific group and is spread over time.)

c.  «… against a civilian population…”

d. «… in accordance with the policy of a State or an organization…” (As the U.S. government has effectively executed, through laws, decrees, executive decisions, regulations, threats, and other multifaceted actions.) (Sanctions are a crime. MPPFCE (2020).”

In such circumstances, the rights of Venezuelan children are under threat. Coercive measures violate fundamental rights to life and the right to development of children in Venezuela but also in the world. As the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations proclaims, quoted by Misión Verdad, “the tactical purpose of a given sanction may be to deter, force, point out and/or punish”. [10] In this criminal punitive game, millions of children and adolescents die or are at risk.

[10] Misión Verdad, human rights NGO Sures and Pascualina Curcio. (2019) Venezuela: Economic Blockade as a Weapon of War and a Crime Against Humanity. Brasil de Fato. https:// http://www.brasildefato.com.br/2019/05/06/articulo-orvenezuela-bloqueo-economico-comoar-war-ma-and-crime-against-humanity

In the case of Iraq, it is estimated that in 1996 more than 500,000 children under the age of five died as a result of coercive measures imposed by the United States to prevent the development of nuclear weapons. (Daymar, M, 2021). [11]

[11] Daymar, M. (2021). Humanitarian consequences of coercion. Iraq Case. Sures.org.ve. https:// sures.org.ve/consecuencias-humanitarias-de-la-coercion-caso-irak/

Denis Halliday, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in the country, called the sanctions regime genocide. It denounced the monthly deaths of between 5,000 and 6,000 children, citing World Health Organization (WHO) figures, and found poor maternal health, the collapse of health services, the high incidence of waterborne diseases and the lack of power in the country’s water system as the main direct causes of high mortality.

“The victims are innocent civilians. There is a tragic incompatibility [of sanctions] with the UN Charter, human rights conventions and the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” he denounced in 1998 (Inter Press Service, 1998, cited by Daymar, M. 2021). [Ibid.]

Another country whose children are victims of these inhumane measures is Cuba. In the report pursuant to resolution 75/289 of the United Nations General Assembly, entitled “Need to end the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba” August 2011-February 2022, the following are established among the impacts of the blockade in terms of pediatric affectations:

•              Dozens of Cuban children are diagnosed every year with Retinopathy of Prematurity, and are at risk of going blind if they are not treated with the appropriate means. The treatment of these patients is limited by the fact that Cuba cannot acquire the IQ 577 Laser System, from the U.S. company IRIDEX CORPORATION, intended for the treatment of retinal conditions and glaucoma.

•              Cuban children suffering from infantile spinal atrophy could aspire to a higher quality of life and life expectancy if Cuba could access the drug Nusinersen, produced only by the U.S. multinational company BIOGEN. This drug has been shown to be effective in keeping alive more than half of the children who suffer from this deadly disease.

•              In the period analyzed, eight Cuban children with different types of cancer could not receive the most appropriate chemotherapy treatment for their disease, and had to resort to second-line protocols, due to difficulties in accessing drugs such as Actinomycin D, Ifosfamide and Procarbazine.

•              Cuban children with cardiovascular conditions cannot use biological cardiac implant materials, such as U.S.-made biological heart valves. This situation requires the use of mechanical valves, which require treatment with anticoagulants and expose patients to greater complications.

•              Newborn and low birth weight children have to undergo complicated surgeries without use of essential devices, such as very low-profile catheters, marketed by U.S. firms such as NU-MED, BOSTON SCIENTIFIC, COOK.” [12]

[12] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba. 2022, (October, 19) Report of Cuba pursuant to United Nations General Assembly resolution 75/289, entitled “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.” (August 2011-February 2022) https:// cubaminrex.cu/es/informe-de-cuba-en-virtud-de-la-resolucion-75289-de-la-asamblea-general-of-the-United Nations

Similarly, the government determined that the damages accumulated during six decades of application of this policy, since Presidential Proclamation 3447 of February 3, 1962 by U.S. President John F. Kennedy decreeing a total “embargo” on trade between the United States and Cuba, pursuant to section 620(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act,  They amount to $150,410,800,000, equivalent to more than $1,326,432,000,000 when taking into account the depreciation of the dollar against the value of gold in the international market. [Ibid.]

Syria is also on the list of “sanctioned” countries and during a war promoted by the United States. Following his visit to Damascus in September 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, Ahmed Al-Mandhari, confirmed that unilateral coercive measures aggravate malnutrition and health complications among Syrian children. He also stated that more than 20,000 children under the age of five across Syria are suffering from malnutrition, including 1,500 children who are at risk of developing medical complications due to the lack of medical supplies resulting from economic sanctions, adding that the blockade leaves medical equipment inactive due to the impossibility of importing spare parts needed to repair them.  It also causes shortages of fuel, water and electricity. The official called on the international community to lift these punitive measures and show solidarity with the Syrian people and give them the opportunity to live a dignified life in which they enjoy health and well-being (Prensa Latina, 2022). [13]

[13] The WHO confirms harsh impact of the blockade on children in Syria. (2022, September, 22). Prensa Latina. https://www.prensa-latina.cu/2022/09/22/la-oms-confirma-duro-impacto-del- Blockade-on-children-from-Syria

On the other hand, the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,  Michelle Bachelet (2022), points out that between 2011 and 2021 the direct victims  as a result of the war amounted to 306,887 civilians, not counting many more civilians who died due to lack of health care, food and water. [14]

[14] Naciones Unidas. (2022, Junio, 28). Niños en conflictos, víctimas en Siria, migrantes en Melilla y San Antonio… Las noticias del martes. https://news.un.org/es/story/2022/06/1511012

Likewise, Iranian children do not escape these imperial condemnations that prevent access to medicines and vaccines, as the UNICEF study group explains:

“To enable UNICEF to continue distributing inactivated anti-myelionitic vaccines (IPVs) and other medical supplies to children amid sanctions imposed on Iran’s seafood sector, alternative routes through Turkey have been used since 2019, at a cost of approximately 2.5 times the cost of shipping supplies to the port of Bandar Abbas, and with significant delays.

“This combination of financial and supply problems means that sanctions against Iran have led to a deterioration in national health standards, affecting children the most.” (UNICEF, 2022, p. 13)

In 2021, independent experts appointed by the UN Council on Human Rights argued that the punishment of innocent civilians must end, referring to the impact of unilateral sanctions on countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Syria and Iran, and called on countries that impose unilateral sanctions to withdraw them or reduce them to a minimum. (United Nations Press 2021) [15]

[15] Naciones Unidas. (2021, Agosto, 11). Hay que poner fin al castigo de civiles inocentes, asegu[1]ran expertos en derechos humanos al referirse a las sanciones unilaterales. https://news.un.org/es/ story/2021/08/1495352

The impact of these continued sanctions on Venezuelan children is described in the UNICEF team study (2022): “The effects of the sanctions have been felt throughout the population, especially the most vulnerable, and according to some experts, this could amount to collective punishment, which is a violation of international law.” A condemnation that undermines the foundations and principles of the Convention.