En la conferencia de lanzamiento de la campaña internacional No Guerra Fría, en oposición a la agresión de EE.UU. contra China, el 25 de julio de 2020, Carlos Ron, Viceministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Venezuela, habló junto a muchos oradores internacionales, para explicar por qué Venezuela apoyaba la iniciativa.
At the launch conference of the No Cold War international campaign opposing the US aggression against China, on the 25th July 2020, Carlos Ron, Venezuela’s Deputy Foreign Minister, spoke alongside many international speakers to explain why Venezuela supported the initiative.
On 2 July 2020, the High Court in the UK made the outrageous decision to approve the British government’s blatant theft of more than $1bn of Venezuela’s gold reverses deposited in the Bank of England. This is just the latest craven manoeuvre by the British government in its quest to be a loyal junior partner in the Trump administration’s efforts to overthrow the legitimate government of Venezuela.
In their criminal adventures to plunder Venezuela’s gold, oil and other lucrative resources both Britain and the US are exposing themselves before the entire world as having no interest at all in supporting human rights, freedom and democracy in Venezuela. On the contrary, both Britain and the US continue to demonstrate their utter contempt towards the Venezuelan people and their right to determine their own future.
Latin America has become a new epicentre of the global coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, as the death toll rapidly increases in countries with US-backed neoliberal governments. In particular, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru seem to be seriously mishandling the public health crisis.
The coronavirus is spreading rapidly in a number of countries in Latin America – posing a threat to the lives of millions of people across the continent. In this life and death situation the people of Latin America need solidarity and assistance to deal with a crisis that has overwhelmed the healthcare systems of some the world’s richest and most advanced economies in the world.
The response of governments in Latin America has so far varied considerably. Countries with a socialist oriented leadership have adopted strict preventative measures. On the other hand the ultra-right wing President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, is pursuing the opposite approach, joining Donald Trump in totally downplaying the crisis and failing to take action, which risks catastrophe and mass deaths in a country of 210 million people.
In 2018 the US coordinated an attempted coup against Nicaragua’s democratically elected President Daniel Ortega and the left wing Sandinista government. The coup plot failed but the impact of months of extreme violence instigated by right wing opposition groups funded by the US has been to transform Nicaragua’s economic success story into a crisis, with the economy contracting in 2018 and 2019. The imposition of US sanctions through the ‘NICA Act’ of December 2018 has put serious pressure on the Nicaraguan government.
New regime change efforts are underway in Bolivia, this time, bizarrely, aimed at blaming Evo Morales’ leftist government for the fires raging across the Amazon. So far it’s a narrative confined to western funded NGO’s and their contacts in foreign media. However, one should expect an intensification of US intervention and regime change propaganda as the country faces general elections this October. To understand how the US operates in Bolivia, and how they have been defeated, it's worth looking back on the last major CIA-backed effort to get rid of Morales. 2008-2009 was the ‘media luna’ coup - a wave of violence by an elite that knew they couldn’t defeat Morales in democratic elections. It was defeated, in no small part, by the role Venezuela played in helping Bolivia overcome the conflict that very nearly spilled into open civil war.
Last week the Venezuelan people resoundingly defeated the latest US-backed coup attempt against their government. Washington’s puppet and fake ‘interim President of Venezuela’, Juan Guaido, led the ineffective and small attempt to overthrow the legitimate and democratic Venezuelan government. In the face of this tactical defeat, the US administration continues to intensify its offensive against the Venezuelan government and people through harsh economic sanctions, military threats and subversive attacks.
There are mounting fears that under the guise of delivering ‘humanitarian aid’ the US is trying to stage-manage a confrontation to provide a pretext for a US military attack on Venezuela.
In an act of brazen cynicism the US is offering the Venezuelan people, who it is currently attempting to starve through economic sanctions, ‘humanitarian aid.’ The Venezuelan government has rejected this ‘aid’ on the grounds that it is not a genuine offer to help but on the contrary a part of the US plan to achieve “regime change” in Venezuela, in contravention of international law.
The Trump administration is attempting to bully the Venezuelan people into submission through a combination of economic sanctions, military threats and intense international political pressure. The goal of the US administration is to force Venezuela’s democratically elected government out and to replace it with a puppet regime loyal to US imperialism, under the Presidency of the unelected Juan Guaido.
Eyes on Latin America 