Letter to my Senators about Sanctions/Unilateral Coercive Measures

Jonah Blaustein *, NicaNotes, March 7, 2024
https://afgj.org/es-LA/nicanotes-letter-to-my-senators-about-sanctions-unilateral-coercive-measures?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=85c36b0a-7422-42a1-b2c9-223a57f29a3a

After so many years of calling or writing the United States Congress attempting to shift the political mind-scape of this country away from the rightward, anti-democratic march, my cynicism won. I accepted the view that the political system in the US is corrupted and broken and that trying to work within this same system for significant change can be a fool’s errand. But I also recognized that to the ruling elites who have captured all branches of the government, plus the media and finance, this attitude is a gift. They would rather see people simply give up rather than continue the struggle against grand corruption, injustice and inequality. So, I would much rather struggle and continue being a pain to the elites and oligarchs than to give up, so I wrote the letter included below to my US Senators.

Nicaragua has been dealing with meddling and interventions from the US for 170 years and it continues still. One of the latest attempts to intervene and punish Nicaragua is Senate Bill 1881 which if passed would add to the sanctions already imposed on Nicaragua. Senators Tim Kaine and Marco Rubio are co-sponsors of this bill. A comparable bill has been introduced in the House, H.R. 6954.

There’s a chance that these bills will be voted down (or not voted on at all) which would be a good thing. The foreign policy elites are preoccupied with disasters taking place in Gaza and Ukraine where their hegemonic power has been bruised, and opinion in this country and the world has become bitter after years of the West’s reckless warmongering.

So, attention to a small country like Nicaragua has diminished (we hope). But Congress could still try to pass this legislation when they think nobody is looking. More people calling or writing their Congressional reps about these bills could make them think twice about approving them. Numbers matter.

Here is my letter:

Dear Senator,

I’m writing to you in hopes that you and other senators will be able to overcome the current attitude that war is good for our national security. One variation of war that is used with increasing frequency is to impose sanctions on the target country. This is also known as imposing unilateral coercive measures (UCMs). A bill that is being considered in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is S. 1881, cosponsored by Senators Kaine and Rubio, would impose new UCMs on Nicaragua.

My interest in Nicaragua comes from traveling and learning about this country over the past few years, speaking with Nicaraguans who live there and others who have lived there or have visited Nicaragua. I’ve been in contact with people who have studied Nicaragua’s history, politics and culture in depth for a long time. Learning about and seeing this country with my own eyes convinced me that the reason the US is afraid of Nicaragua and considers it an enemy is simply that we can learn much about democracy and much about solving social and economic problems from them. Seeing this country for myself also dispelled deceptive notions that Nicaragua is suffering under a cruel dictatorship.

Not very long ago, the idea that UCMs were not as bad as war started to take hold. They were portrayed as a “kinder and gentler” form of war. But many have recognized that UCMs can be as deadly as war and cause widespread suffering and serious destruction to the target country’s economy and society. It has been acknowledged today that UCMs kill far more people than most of us realized. Despite much of the rhetoric, they cause great suffering to innocent people. The US has targeted more than 30 countries with UCMs in recent years and continues today.

The most alarming outcome of these measures is the extreme harm they cause to mostly ordinary people, despite being promoted as only targeting specific government leaders. It has been shown that UCMs have been devastating to target countries’ economies and societies causing hunger and lack of medicines and parts for medical equipment. Another consequence of UCMs is their contribution to displacement and migration of people due to economic hardships. Furthermore, UCMs are considered illegal in terms of international law. The severity of suffering they cause, including preventable deaths, is very similar to illegal wars or wars of aggression for which the US is famous, like Reagan’s war against Nicaragua in the 1980s.

Why does the US continue to employ this failed policy when such measures have been proven not to work, when the supposed “un-targeted” populations in these countries, the innocents, are the ones who suffer, and when such measures are in fact illegal?

Foreign policy in the US has been an example of insanity in which failed policies are repeated over and over despite the fact that they are wrong morally and legally.  Besides the evidence that UCMs cause death and suffering, and go against international law, they have been shown to have the opposite effect to one of the intended goals – the citizens in these countries more often than not rally around their own governments instead of mounting insurrections. This is not surprising when it’s clear to the targeted citizens that the suffering is caused by a foreign state, not by their own government.

US foreign policy would be considered to be a failure if success were measured by how much good will it generates around the world as opposed to how much hate; how much well-being it generates as opposed to how much needless suffering; and how much money it invests in peace as opposed to how much it wastes on war.

Senators Kaine and Rubio have cosponsored S. 1881 to add to the UCMs already affecting Nicaragua. For the reasons I noted above, this is a bad piece of legislation. I have seen no reason to harass Nicaragua and meddle in its affairs when it is number seven in the world in gender equity, one of the highest countries in Latin American in social infrastructure and has 90% food self-sufficiency. Ninety-four percent of families now have electricity in their homes and more than 70% of that electricity is produced by clean energy. And aside from these advances Nicaraguans have universal free health care and education. The corporate media has been spreading lies and distortions related to Nicaragua which ignore the facts on the ground and the will of the majority of Nicaraguan citizens. If Nicaragua were considered an apartheid country, I would not be criticizing legislation to impose such measures as was done to apartheid South Africa.

I see US foreign policy as relying on war for profit, disdaining actual diplomacy, and catering to the billionaire class who will not accept any alternatives to the astonishing systemic inequality of wealth we have today.

Would you vote for such bills knowing they are failed attempts to dominate other sovereign nations, and that most of the people here in the US and around the world are sick of the bellicose ways the US uses war to solve problems? Unilateral coercive measures are forms of war and I’m asking you to help stop this destructive policy before it destroys us.

My friends working with the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, Friends of Latin America, and other groups have been in touch with your staff to discuss these matters. We have given them resources that back up the statements I made here and I urge you to look into them if you have doubts.

If our goal in this country is to push for measures that improve relations with other countries, work cooperatively with other countries to try to solve the most pressing problems that plague the world and restore the credible standing the US once had in the world, these sanctions should be voted down.

Thank you for your attention to this issue.

Now is the time for US-based friends of the Nicaraguan people who care about peace and justice to tell their members of Congress to vote NO on S.1881 and H.R.6954!  Also, visit Nicaragua to learn what is really going on!

* Jonah Blaustein lives in Maryland and has been a peace and justice activist since the 1970s. He has been learning about Nicaragua’s significant social and political achievements for the past several years.