Alternative Insight

The Politics of Starvation

The powerful can't always use military might to suppress adversaries. Their own citizens and world opinion may react unfavorably and undermine the military adventure. If logistics don't favor the armaments of warfare, another hostile method is available to pulverize the foe - economic warfare - a method that can silently crush an antagonist without firing a shot. Gone to its extreme, economic warfare has the force of a neutron bomb; it debilitates a population and disables the infrastructure.

INTRODUCTION
Economic warfare requires preparation before implementation.
First, the "grieved" country accuses its usually weak adversary of great crimes. The adversary is powerless to defend itself and becomes marked with the adjective "rogue state." Since the "rogue state" cannot ameliorate the crimes of which it is accused, being that they may not exist, and since these states are usually proud and will not compromise with their national integrity (one reason for their fate) further action must be taken against them. The next step is isolation. This has several stages.

In an early stage, the "aggrieved" country makes it dificult for all its citizens, except the CIA, to travel to the "rogue state." Although forbidden by law in democratic countries and contradictory to the criticism made by the democratic countries against a policy of the former Soviet Union, which imposed travel restrictions on its citizens, the democratic country uses fear to prevent citizens from traveling to the "rogue state." Procedures, which include democratic actions such as heavy fines, harassment, embarrassing airport searches, letting the neighbors know, and calls from the internal revenue department, complemt the fear factor. The reasons mentioned for these undemocratic actions are: to protect travelers from being contaminated with "rogue" germs, shield them from vicious propaganda and prevent them from being kidnapped for ransom and from accusations of spying. These are valid reasons, The unmentioned reasons are: to assure the "rogue country "doesn't acquire tourist dollars that may enable it to survive, to make certain that the travelers don't learn that all they have read and heard from their government is propaganda, to terrorize citizens against terrorists and prevent rogueidization in which a happy citizen suddenly sympathizes with the rogue and acquires rogue traits.

In the next stage, the "rogue state" is isolated from international agencies, relief efforts, finances and communications. After the "rogue state" is forced into an isolation it doesn't desire, it might achieve the adjective "hermit kingdom." That denomination signifies it is ready for the great strike, economic warfare. The economic warfare punch has many shapes. Most common is sanctions (never used against favored countries that have aroused the wrath of the world community; the reason given that they don't work), which are used with impunity against the disfavored country. If the preferred sanctions cannot be implemented then an illegal embargo is enforced by warships that arrive close to the beaches and dwarf the rowboats of the "rogue country." Sometimes explosive mines are dropped in the rogue's harbors to complete the embargo. If the embargo proves insufficient for the cleansing task, then the "aggrieved" country might arm surrogate warriors inside or close to the "rogue country" and have them add human catastrophes to the natural catastrophes that inflict the "rogue country." Although the laws of the "aggrieved" country might prohibit this rash action, these laws are conviently circumvented and the judicial system may not bother to enforce the laws.

Rogues that have special qualifications earn the title of terrorists. This title sticks to their names like velcro. It appears in all articles, headlines, dispatches, reports and news, as if the word terrorist followed by the country name is one word. The "terrorist nation" earns this title by committing an evil deed that is usually in response to the tens of evil deeds committed against it. No matter! Economic warfare leads to the final step in whipping a "terrorist nation "back into shape - borderline starvation. If the food supply dwindles then certainly the poor unfortunate citizens of the "terrorist nation" will act as those who proclaimed "Liberte," "Egalitie" and "Fraternitie" in the French revolution. They will storm the gates of their oppressors, take away their cake and demand bread. The United States has implemented political policies that have caused food reduction in several countries. The leaders of these nations ate cake while their populations suffered greatly from economic deprivation and, in some cases, starvation.

Since WWII, the United States implemented sanctions against approximately 30 countries.
Intentional interferences and disruptions to a nation's economy and business operations occur often from many sources, and are part of the "white collar" crime that affects the world. Economic warfare, of which sanctions are one part, is certainly more serious than "white collar" crime, and people suffer greatly from this warfare. Reduction to subsistence living, due to interference by a foreign source, is the most serious aspect of economic warfare. It is a major crime and another form of terrorism.

The most punishing U.S. sanctions have been against Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Angola, Libtya, Nicaragua, and Iraq.
Although Washington and its allies have often stated that civilians should not be made to deliberately suffer from a nation's transgressions or from war and strife, Washington's policies have guaranteed that civilians suffer, directly or indirectly, by economic warfare. Economic warfare against the above mentioned countries demonstrates the damages to their populations. The U.S. continues its policy against Cuba. The invasion of Iraq has intensified the impoverishment of Iraq.

Cuba
The United States imposed an embargo against Cuba almost immediately after its revolution. Forty years of embargo have not succeeded in accomplishing the policies for which the United States claims it instituted the embargo - compensation to U.S. firms nationalized By Cuba and the overthrow of the Castro regime. The only result of the embargo has been the deprivation of the unfortunate Cuban people.

Cuban expropriation of American property and its land reform policies motivated the United States into decreasing Cuba's sugar subsidy and implementing an embargo that intended to deny Cuba of spare parts for the U.S. machinery that powered the Cuban economy. The Soviet Union aided Cuba in these unfortunate years by purchasing sugar at inflated market prices and forwarding strategic materials to the island. Cuba's alliance with the Soviet Union strengthened Uncle Sam's determination to cripple Cuba by embargo. Although the reasons for the embargo faded with the years and became totally unnecessary after the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States, still wanting to overthrow the Castro government and catering to the Cuban exile community, tightened the embargo. In 1992, congress passed The Cuba Democracy Act, 1992. This act forbade United States subsidiaries to trade with Cuba, and deprived the island of $700 million in trade, 70% of which had been in food and medicine. The Act also prohibited U.S. citizens to spend money in Cuba, but allowed private groups to deliver food and medicine. Although the United Nations general assembly on November 2, 1995, voted 117 to 3 to recommend an end to the U.S. embargo against Cuba, President Clinton on March 12, 1996 signed into law The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, otherwise known as The Helms-Burton Act. This Act imposed penalties on foreign companies doing business in Cuba, permitted U.S. citizens to sue foreign investors who make use of American-owned property seized by the Cuban government, and denied entry into the U.S. of the investors in Cuba.

The tightened embargo reinforced Cuba's suffering after Russia withdrew subsidies. The pre-90's Cuba had been credited with eliminating hunger and malnutrition and wiping out infectious diseases and had received applause from the World Health Organization for its public health system. Cuba of the mid-90's portrayed another image. The American Association for World Health and the American Public Health Association determined that the embargo caused significant deterioration in Cuba's food production and health care:

New Jersey Congressman Torricelli predicted that his Cuban Democracy Act would bring Castro's downfall within one year. That has not happened. Humanitarians, such as Congressman Torricelli, have been eager to take advantage of the sufferings of the Cuban people for political purposes rather than affording the people a means to recover from their tragedy. This procedure is equivalent to hitting a person you don't know as they are falling down. Cuba claimed that forty years of trade embargo cost the Caribbean island $60 billion. In 1998, they estimated their losses at $800 million.

In 2000, the Clinton administration passed the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000, which allowed the sale of agriculture and medicine to Cuba for humanitarian purposes. According to the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service, U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba reached $380 million in 2004. The U.S.-Cuba Trade Association estimates the total amount exported to Cuba since 2000 at nearly $2 billion.

In 2005, China and Venezuela made mutual trade deals beneficial to Cuba. During September 2006, Russia agreed to grant Cuba credit worth $355 million, as well as to restructure some of its recent debt. The intergovernmental agreement identified seven areas in which the credit will be used: investment cooperation projects, modernization of Cuba’s energy sector, reconstruction of water conservation facilities and railroads, the design and delivery of air navigation systems, and the modernization of the transportation system.

After Castro leaves his office, Cuba will probably invite more private investment. U.S. financial institutions will be eager to invest but might be too late to the party.

Iraq
If Iraq were Pompeii, then the US would be Mt. Vesuvius.

The US, after destroying much of Iraq in a declared war, continued to destroy it further in first an undeclared war and later in another declared total war. The undeclared war contained every imaginable form of warfare: direct military, economic, incitement to revolt, aid to insurgency, blockade, spying, and propaganda.

This suffering has been outlined in a UN Report on the Current Humanitarian Situation in Iraq, submitted to the Security Council, March 1999.
Due to the length of the report, only significant features are mentioned.

Before the Gulf War

After the Gulf War

Observations and recommendations
Data during the 1990's pointed to a continuing degradation of the Iraqi economy with an acute deterioration in the living conditions of the Iraqi population and severe strains on its social fabric. As summarized by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) field office, ""the country has experienced a shift from relative affluence to massive poverty". In marked contrast to the prevailing situation prior to the events of 1990-91, the infant mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world, low infant birth weight affects at least 23% of all births, chronic malnutrition affects every fourth child under five years of age, only 41% of the population have regular access to clean water, 83% of all schools need substantial repairs."

The International Study Team noted, "Most of the babies who lost their lives during the war period must have died from diseases related to poor nutrition, lack of clean water, and related deprivations."

The 2003 invasion of Iraq continued the destruction of Iraq.
Iraq is a war torn nation, with sectarian strife bordering on civil war. As of October, 2006, post-invasion deaths of Iraqi civilians are estimated at almost 50,000. Ref: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/.

Additional information on the effects of the war on Iraqi civilians was noted in a London Guardian report:

Rory Carroll in Baghdad: March 31, 2005, The Guardian

Acute malnutrition among Iraqi children aged under five nearly doubled last year because of chaos caused by the US-led occupation, a United Nations expert said yesterday.
Jean Ziegler, the UN Human Rights Commission's special expert on the right to food, said more than a quarter of Iraqi children do not have enough to eat and 7.7% are acutely malnourished - a jump from 4% recorded in the immediate aftermath of the US-led invasion. Reporting to the commission's headquarters in Geneva, the Swiss professor claimed the situation was "a result of the war led by coalition forces.

Israel has taken the United States policy of politics by starvation and incorporated that policy into a means of control in its occupation of Palestine and war in Lebanon.

Palestine

Since 1967, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has featured destruction and diversion of Palestinian water supplies. Israel has destroyed masses of olive trees, orchards, vineyards and infrastructure, including an airport, roads and factories. Coastal shores have been blockaded, deliveries of vital goods disrupted, taxes withheld, curfews enforced and money confiscated. A separation wall has almost completely isolated Palestinian cities in the West Bank. The West bank and Gaza are being turned into giant concentration camps. In April 2006, the European Union adopted the US-Israeli plan to punish the Palestinian people for its election of Hamas by temporarily suspending aid to the democratically elected Palestinian Authority.

It is not possible to document all of the politics by starvation in a short report. Some dispatches indicate the extent of this nefarious policy.

Palestinian Collapse Hurts All: Raja Khalidi, senior economist with United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Beset by yet another round of shocks, which only intensified as the eyes of the world turned to Lebanon, the Palestinian economy is today undergoing a process of systematic "de-development." The economic decline is sharper and more debilitating than was experienced at the beginning of the second intifada in 2001-2002, with unprecedented poverty, deteriorating living conditions and mounting social strife. If current conditions persist, by the end of 2007 the economy will be 35 percent smaller than in 2005 - in fact, it will be at the level of 15 years ago. Per capita national income will fall to below $1,000 per year, about half the 1999 level. More than 50 percent of the Palestinian labor force will be unemployed.
Life in all Palestinian communities is being totally controlled. The fence reaches deep into Palestinian lands in order to separate illegal settlements from Palestinian communities . Lands have been illegally seized for illegal construction of an illegal barrier that separates Palestinians from illegal Israel settlements and, incidentally from other Palestinian communities, but does not separate Israel from interfering with the Palestinians. Farmers will not be able to till some lands and many olives will not be picked. Israel has already destroyed Palestinian olive groves, hothouses and orchards. In some communities, teachers and students must pass through a gate to get to school. A likely scenario: interruptions and delays of medical emergencies, food for civilians and feed for animals; diminished water supplies for drinking and irrigation; relatives, including grown children and parents in disparate communities unable to conveniently visit one another.

Israeli Human Rights Group B'tselem

Since 28 June (2006) and the beginning of the IDF operation in the Gaza Strip, the IDF fired on average between 200 – 250 artillery shells each day and the IAF conducted more than 220 air strikes including the bombing of the Gaza power plant on 28 June. The destruction of the plant's transformers left Gazans with electricity for an average of between six to eight hours per day. This also led to a water shortage across the Gaza Strip with Palestinians in urban areas receiving as little as two to three hours of water supply per day as the water distribution has not been synchronised with electrical supply.

The IDF operation has caused 5,100 Palestinians to flee from their homes at different times and seek shelter in UNRWA schools. Thousands of other Palestinians are estimated to have been displaced and sought shelter elsewhere. The operation led to the destruction of 34 Palestinian structures and 3,666 dunums (367 hectares) of agricultural land.

Violence also continued in the West Bank with 22 Palestinians killed and 326 injured in June and July of 2006 (compared to 21 killed and 20 injured in May). The IDF conducted over 1,000 search and arrest campaigns in these two months and detained/arrested almost 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank (compared to 360 search and arrest campaigns in May leading to 400 arrests/ detentions).

AMMAN, Sept 27, 2006 (AFP) - The UN commissioner for Palestinian refugees on Wednesday urged the world to put pressure on Israel to end its blockades of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, saying conditions there are going from bad to worse.

Lebanon

Israel applied its policy of politics by starvation to its 2006 war in Lebanon.
The verification is found in an august 2006 Amnesty International Report.

Deliberate destruction or ‘collateral damage’?

During more than four weeks of ground and aerial bombardment of Lebanon by the Israeli armed forces, the country’s infrastructure suffered destruction on a catastrophic scale. Israeli forces pounded buildings into the ground, reducing entire neighbourhoods to rubble and turning villages and towns into ghost towns, as their inhabitants fled the bombardments. Main roads, bridges and petrol stations were blown to bits. Entire families were killed in air strikes on their homes or in their vehicles while fleeing the aerial assaults on their villages. Scores lay buried beneath the rubble of their houses for weeks, as the Red Cross and other rescue workers were prevented from accessing the areas by continuing Israeli strikes. The hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who fled the bombardment now face the danger of unexploded munitions as they head home.

The Israeli Air Force launched more than 7,000 air attacks on about 7,000 targets in Lebanon between 12 July and 14 August, while the Navy conducted an additional 2,500 bombardments. The attacks, though widespread, particularly concentrated on certain areas. In addition to the human toll – an estimated 1,183 fatalities, about one third of whom have been children, 4,054 people injured and 970,000 Lebanese people displaced – the civilian infrastructure was severely damaged. The Lebanese government estimates that 31 "vital points" (such as airports, ports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities) have been completely or partially destroyed, as have around 80 bridges and 94 roads. More than 25 fuel stations and around 900 commercial enterprises were hit. The number of residential properties, offices and shops completely destroyed exceeds 30,000. Two government hospitals – in Bint Jbeil and in Meis al-Jebel – were completely destroyed in Israeli attacks and three others were seriously damaged.

In a country of fewer than four million inhabitants, more than 25 per cent of them took to the roads as displaced persons. An estimated 500,000 people sought shelter in Beirut alone, many of them in parks and public spaces, without water or washing facilities.

Amnesty International delegates in south Lebanon reported that in village after village the pattern was similar: the streets, especially main streets, were scarred with artillery craters along their length. In some cases cluster bomb impacts were identified. Houses were singled out for precision-guided missile attack and were destroyed, totally or partially, as a result. Business premises such as supermarkets or food stores and auto service stations and petrol stations were targeted, often with precision-guided munitions and artillery that started fires and destroyed their contents. With the electricity cut off and food and other supplies not coming into the villages, the destruction of supermarkets and petrol stations played a crucial role in forcing local residents to leave. The lack of fuel also stopped residents from getting water, as water pumps require electricity or fuel-fed generators.
The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of public works, power systems, civilian homes and industry was deliberate and an integral part of the military strategy, rather than "collateral damage" – incidental damage to civilians or civilian property resulting from targeting military objectives.

It is also forbidden to use starvation as a method of warfare, or to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. Some of the targets chosen – water pumping stations and supermarkets, for example – raise the possibility that Israel may have violated the prohibition against targeting objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population.

The complete report is at: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE180072006

Earlier U.S. policies that intended to subdue adversaries by economic means have been terminated. Nevertheless, the polices have left marks on these nations. The two most prominent and affected nations are Angola and Nicaragua.

Angola
Angola is an example of destroying the economic fabric of a nation by creating turmoil.

Independence from Portugal brought civil war to a country that had the resources to become the wealthiest in Africa. The contending rivals had extreme leftist leanings and none could be considered friends of the United States. After the Soviet Union and Cuba gave financial and military support to protect the established MPLA government from the rebel group UNITA, the United States quickly supported the rebel groups. Due to military assistance from South Africa, Jona Savimbi's UNITA evolved from a small army of poorly armed followers in 1976 to a credible fighting force during the '80's. After 1985, the United States' aid to the avowed Maoist leader allowed UNITA to extend its destructive campaign throughout Angola. By the time the factions agreed to a mutual settlement in 1989, Angola had been ravaged. Library of Congress documents describe the human toll:

Added to the human toll are the economic losses:

The havoc committed upon Angola did not stop with the 1988 accords between the warring parties. Although the Angolan government permitted Jonas Savimba's UNITA to enter the government, and many of his followers remained in the capital, Jonas Savimba returned to the battle. His troops seized the diamond mining area and then functioned as a government within a government. Angola's infrastructure remained in shambles. The story has an ironic twist. The United Nations, with United States voting approval, imposed sanctions against UNITA, the organization that the US armed for several years and supported until the mid '90's. Under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1173, member states must freeze all UNITA assets and those of its leadership. The resolution prohibits the importation of illegal diamonds from Angola, and also prohibits the exportation to UNITA of any mining equipment, vehicles and spare parts. The Washington Post, July 25, 1999 (that's '99 and not '79), gave a clue to the US legacy of economic war against Angola:

Luanda, Angola--The staff of the main public hospital here grapples with one epidemic after another. It was cholera a year ago, followed by an outbreak of polio this year. The malaria season is beginning...With thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting in their villages and settling in vast squatter camps, with uncollected garbage, open sewage and contaminated water, Angolan cities can be incubators for diseases such as polio and malaria.  Angola has higher rates of leprosy than almost any other country.

Jonas Savimbi died on February 22, 2002 and Angola is now one of the fastest growing nations in the world. The CIA Factbook estimates the 2005 real growth rate at 19.1% and GDP/capita at $3,200.

Nicaragua
Economic warfare by the United States against Nicaragua consisted of all forms of disruption.

Revolutionary Nicaragua's friendly relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union aggravated Washington. After accusing the Sandinistas of human rights violations and aiding the El Salvador rebels, the United States, which had indirectly assisted the Sandinistas to achieve power by denying Somoza military assistance, started an economic war against the Nicaragua people. In 1981, Carter terminated aid to Nicaragua. In 1984, US Seals mined Nicaragua's harbors in a known "covert" action. In 1986, the World Court awarded damages to Nicaragua (that the US never paid) and confirmed this obvious violation of international law. Although the US House of Representative, in 1982, passed the Boland Amendment that prohibited the US from supplying the Contra rebels in their struggle against the Nicaraguan government, Reagan declared the Contras to be "freedom fighters," and "covertly" provided arms to them. With these "freedom fighters," the US had Nicaragua's borders isolated at land and at sea. Since Nicaragua had previously been a "quasi" colony of its Northern neighbor, its trade occurred principally with the US, and its infrastructure depended on US materials.

Due to the loss of aid and the embargo, Nicaragua's imports dropped from $242.1 millions in 1980 to $122.6 million in 1984. During the same period, exports dropped from 160.2 million to $62.5 million. Meanwhile, the Contra "freedom fighters" sallied from protected bases in Honduras and raided Nicaraguan farms, burnt crops, killed livestock and created havoc. They never held territory or incited the Nicaraguan people to revolt. Finally, a desperate Nicaragua agreed in 1988 to seek an end to the havoc. The Central American countries, with both Nicaragua and Contra approval, adopted the Arias Plan, named after the Costa Rican president. The Arias Plan resulted in a permanent cease-fire, demobilization of the Contras and free elections in Nicaragua. Violetta Chamorro, a previous Sandinista supporter defeated the previous government's president, Daniel Ortega. The United States never approved the Arias Plan that settled the dispute to the U.S. desires. Evidently, the Nicaraguan people had not sufficiently suffered.

The CIA Factbook lists Nicaragua as, "one of the Western Hemisphere's poorest countries, has low per capita income, widespread underemployment, and a heavy external debt burden. Distribution of income is one of the most unequal on the globe."

Daniel Ortega, the previous Sandinista leader made an impressive showing in the last presidential election and is considered to be a leading contender in the November 2006 election.

CONCLUSION
Sovereign nations that suffered from US economic warfare had similar traits:

The economic warfare policies had similar results:

Warfare is visualized in terms of dead soldiers, battlefield blood, eerie noises and bombed-out structures. We can't easily comprehend that warfare can be silent and still be deadly. Economic warfare has equivalents to military war. The country that takes the offense becomes the aggressor, as in any war, and the destruction to the defending state is equally brutal. In most cases, the economic war has worse results: In a one sided manner, the civilian population of the defending nation suffers greatly and the aggressor country suffers few losses. The war rarely achieves the results that the offended party desired and no peace treaty is signed. The economic war remains an open issue.

A limited form of economic warfare may, at times, have a legitimate purpose. A complete economic war, that invades all aspects of a country's life and continues until it debilitates the population, cannot be accepted. In a military campaign, atrocities and human rights violations are often committed. Although no shots are fired and battlefields are not identifiable, economic warfare cannot camouflage its atrocities and disguise its severe human rights violations.

alternativeinsight
July, 1999
updated October 2006

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