A former UN rapporteur says that the numerous US sanctions<\/a><\/strong><\/span> (pdf) against Venezuela are devastating and illegal<\/a><\/strong><\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n Mr De Zayas, a former secretary of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) and an expert in international law, spoke to The Independent<\/em> following the presentation of his Venezuela report<\/a><\/strong><\/span> to the HRC in September. He said that since its presentation the report has been ignored by the UN and has not sparked the public debate he believes it deserves.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSanctions kill<\/strong>,\u201d he told The Independent<\/em>, adding that they fall most heavily on the poorest people in society, demonstrably cause death through food and medicine shortages, lead to violations of human rights and are aimed at coercing economic change in a \u201csister democracy\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n On his fact-finding mission to the country in late 2017, he found internal overdependence on oil, poor governance and corruption had hit the Venezuelan economy hard, but said \u201ceconomic warfare\u201d practised by the US, EU and Canada are significant factors in the economic crisis.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The four factors – oil, poor governance, corruption and sanctions – are not unrelated to each other. That Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world makes it a target for U.S. imperialism. Not simply to “take their oil” as Trump wants, but for geo-political reasons. As Andrew Korybko muses<\/a><\/strong><\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n