Some economic implications of the sanctions on Libya, Iraq, and Sudan
Regional, International, 1/29/1998

An academic study was issued by the Center for the Political and Strategic Studies in Al Ahram Press Establishment on the development and the implications of the economic sanctions on development in Libya, Iraq, and Sudan. The study dealt with the sanctions and their role in maintaining international order.

Regarding the sanctions imposed on Sudan, the study said those sanctions started with Sudan in the form of isolation imposed on Sudan by the US after the coup d'état of Omar Al Bashir. This isolation was followed by another step by the European Union, which stopped its assistance to the Sudanese regime. Those measures resulted in great economic duress in Sudan which compounded with the passage of time as Sudanese currency became weaker and inflation increased with shortages of basic goods.

Economist Ibrahim Nawar believes that the deterioration of the standard of living in Sudan was not simply the outcome of international sanctions. He blames the changes on two factors: the military nature of the government, and internal and external policies applied by the government.

The Sudanese government adopted tough measures to confront the implications of the sanctions, decreasing food supplies such as sugar. The Sudanese citizen's share of sugar was decreased from 20 to 5 kilograms per year.

As for the implications of the sanctions on the Iraqi economy, Nawar says that the national sovereignty of the state shrank. The blockade prevented it from establishing economic relations with the external world, thus the ability of the state to use its resources and its productive capacity decreased.

The blockade affected the oil sector as well as all the other sectors. Iraqi industries and economic policies were paralyzed by this blockade. It resulted in lowering the per capita income from $1,935 in 1990 to $870 in 1994 which improved in 1996 as it reached $910.

The inflation rate soared as a result of the decline of production, thus prices increased about 30 percent.

In Libya, the losses resulting from the imposition of sanctions were great. An official Libyan report issued last December by the Libyan Foreign Ministry said the international sanctions caused Libya a loss of $24 billion and that 17,000 sick Libyan citizens have been on the waiting list for treatment abroad. The death toll increased among the sick as a result of those sanctions.

We have have covered extensively the amount of economic damage that Israel has cost the embryonic Palestinian economy through its sanctions.

The USA placed Libya on the list of countries that support terrorism. The number of resolutions taken and applied by the USA against Libya was 8 resolutions. The USA continues to strongly support the sanctions against all of these countries.

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