Open Letter to the Government of the United States and the United Nations

Open Letter to the Government of the United States and the United Nations

Mr. Donald J. Trump
President of the United States

Mr. António Guterres
Secretary General of the United Nations

The global spread of COVID-19 has exposed the illegal and immoral practice of imposing unilateral coercive measures (economic sanctions) by the United States government against more than thirty nations. The government of the United States is now using the public distraction caused by the pandemic to intensify its military actions against the targeted nations.

The economic war against those nations had already resulted in unimaginable suffering of the people in the targeted nations even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the devastation of the global pandemic, the targeted countries — especially Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria and Zimbabwe — are finding it prohibitively difficult to protect and save the lives of their citizens in the face of the ongoing global emergency. These sanctions constitute crimes against humanity.

As a concerned citizen of the world, I call upon the United States government to:

1. End its economic sanctions against all targeted countries immediately.

2. Unfreeze the financial assets and bank accounts of the targeted countries so that they can purchase and receive the necessary food, medicine and medical equipment and supplies needed to combat the pandemic.

3. Stop all military threats and actions against the targeted countries, including the removal of U.S. Navy warships dispatched to Venezuela under the false pretense of “War on Drugs.”

4. Drop the baseless charge of “Drug Trafficking” against President Nicolás Maduro and other officials of the government of Venezuela.

5. Respect the call issued by the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, for a global ceasefire.

I call upon the Secretary General of the United Nations and the leading bodies of the United Nations to invoke the articles of the UN Charter to demand respect for international law by the government of the United States.

I also call upon the UN Security Council to lift all UN-imposed sanctions against those countries as well.