The US has deployed illegal economic sanctions aimed at undermining democratically elected progressive liberal, social democratic, and leftist governments and limiting their self determined collaboration with Russia and China in Latin America and the Caribbean. Combined with hybrid war interventions, these coercive economic measures are responsible for mass deaths, suffering, emigration, and billions of dollars in asset theft. These measures are illegal under international and humanitarian law. They violate human rights by disrupting elected governments in their efforts to provide citizen access to food, pharmaceuticals, fuel, and sanitation supplies. This panel will address the political, legal, ethical, and economic dimensions of sanctions and their devastating impact on general populations. It will also address the politics of liberation and policy projects by Latin American and Caribbean governments and citizens to circumvent sanctions and advance their own approaches to development, foreign policy, trade, and security, despite the hardships.

Speakers

Francisco Rodríguez, PhD

Professor Francisco Rodríguez is a Venezuelan economist with decades of experience in public service, academia and the private sector. Currently, he is the Rice family professor of the practice of international and public affairs at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies and director and founder of Oil for Venezuela, a non-profit organization focused on finding solutions to Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis. Rodríguez has held prominent positions in the public and private sectors, including head of the Economic and Financial Advisory of the Venezuelan National Assembly (2000-2004) and head of the Research Team of the United Nations’ Human Development Report Office (2008-2011). He received an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Frederick B. Mills, PhD (Moderator)

Frederick B. Mills, PhD, is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of History and Government at Bowie State University and Deputy Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. He specializes in the philosophy of liberation; early Greek philosophy; modern philosophy; and existential phenomenology, with interests in Buddhism, Latin American Philosophy and Political Theory. He has published an introduction to philosophy, a book on Enrique Dussel's ethics of liberation, and articles on the philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Enrique Dussel, and Mario Bencastro. He has also published articles and lectured on US policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean and on the Bolivarian cause of regional independence and integration. 

Liz Oliva Fernández 

Liz Oliva Fernández is an award-winning Cuban journalist and producer with Belly of the Beast. She has won a Gracie Award and was co-winner of a One World Media Award for her work presenting the documentary series The War on Cuba. Apart from her journalism and filmmaking, Fernández is a dedicated anti-racist and feminist activist.

Mark Weisbrot

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He is author of the book Failed: What the “Experts” Got Wrong About the Global Economy (Oxford University Press, 2015), co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and has written numerous research papers on economic policy. He writes a regular column on economic and policy issues that is distributed to over 550 newspapers by the Tribune Content Agency. His opinion pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and almost every major US newspaper, as well as in Brazil’s largest newspaper, Folha de São Paulo. He appears regularly on national and local television and radio programs.

Steve Ellner, PhD

Dr. Steve Ellner is an American scholar who has taught economic history and political science at the Universidad de Oriente (UDO), Venezuela, since 1977. He is the author of numerous books and journal articles on Venezuelan history, political parties, and organized labor. He is also an Associate Managing Editor of the journal Latin American Perspectives. Ellner received his MA at Southern Connecticut State University and his PhD at the University of New Mexico. All his degrees are in Latin American history.

Sara Flounders

Sara Flounders has been active in peoples' movements for change since the 1960s. Presently she coordinates the International Action Center, the SanctionsKill Campaign and works with United National Antiwar Coalition. She is a Contributing Editor of the Marxist newspaper: Workers World - Workers.org and challenges U.S. wars on alternative and corporate media outlets. She has organized past solidarity delegations to countries devastated by U.S. wars and sanctions. She recently returned from sanctioned Nicaragua. Flounders has co-authored and edited 10 books on U.S. wars, sanctions and expanding NATO. She recently released the anthology: "Sanctions – a wrecking ball in a global economy" and worked on a Chinese/U.S. documentary with Chinese, English, Spanish subtitles: Vaccines and Sanctions.