Washington
and the Convict Appointed to Overthrow Venezuela Continue the Lies
Paul
Craig Roberts.
Don’t you
think something is fishy when the presstitutes orchestrate a fake news
“humanitarian crisis” in Venezuela, but totally ignore the real humanitarian
crises in Yemen and Gaza?
Don’t you
think something is really very rotten when the expert, Alfred Maurice de Zayas, sent
by the UN to Venezuela to evaluate the situation finds no interest by any
Western media or any Western government in his report?
Don’t you
think it is a bit much for Washington to steal $21 billion of Venezuela’s
money, impose sanctions in an effort to destabilize the country and to drive
the Venezuelan government to its knees, blame Venezuelan socialism (essentially
nationalization of the oil company) for bringing “starvation to the people,”
and offer a measly $21 million in “humanitarian aid.”
As the
United States is completely devoid of any print or TV media, it falls upon
internet media such as this website to perform the missing function of honest
journalism.
As for
the alleged starvation and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, Zayas has this to
say:
The
December 2017 and March 2018 reports of the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the UN (FAO) list food crises in 37 countries. “The Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela is not among them.”
“In 2017,
the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela requested medical aid from the Global Fund
to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the plea was rejected, because
Venezuela ‘is still a high-income country … and as such is not eligible’.”
The
“crisis” in Venezuela “cannot be compared with the humanitarian crises in Gaza,
Yemen, Libya, the Syrian Arab Republic, Iraq, Haiti, Mali, the Central African
Republic, South Sudan, Somalia, or Myanmar, among others.”
In order
to discredit selected governments, failures in the field of human rights are
maximized so as to make violent overthrow more palatable. Human rights are
being “weaponized” against rivals.
In
paragraph 37 of his report, de Zayas says: “Modern-day economic sanctions and blockades
are comparable with medieval sieges of towns with the intention of forcing them
to surrender. Twenty-first century sanctions attempt to bring not just a town,
but sovereign countries to their knees. A difference, perhaps, is that
twenty-first century sanctions are accompanied by the manipulation of public
opinion through ‘fake news’, aggressive public relations and a pseudo-human
rights rhetoric so as to give the impression that a human rights ‘end’
justifies the criminal means. There is not only a horizontal juridical world
order governed by the Charter of the United Nations and principles of sovereign
equality, but also a vertical world order reflecting the hierarchy of a
geopolitical system that links dominant States with the rest of the world according
to military and economic power. It is the latter, geopolitical system that
generates geopolitical crimes, hitherto in total impunity.”
He
expresses concern about the level of polarization and disinformation that
surrounds every narrative about Venezuela. “A disquieting media campaign seeks to
force observers into a preconceived view that there is a ‘humanitarian crisis’
in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. An independent expert must be wary of
hyperbole, bearing in mind that ‘humanitarian crisis’ is a term of art
(terminus technicus) that can be misused as a pretext for military
intervention.”
In order
to discredit selected governments, failures in the field of human rights are
maximized so as to make violent overthrow more palatable. Human rights are
being ‘weaponized’ against rivals.
A
political solution is blocked because “certain countries [the US] do not want
to see a peaceful solution to the Venezuelan conflict and prefer to prolong the
suffering of the people of that country, with the expectation that the
situation will reach the threshold of a humanitarian crisis and provoke a
military intervention to impose a regime change.”
Washington’s
attack on Venezuela is in violation of established international law. “The
principles of non-intervention and non-interference in the internal affairs of
sovereign States belong to customary international law and have been reaffirmed
in General Assembly resolutions, notably 2625 (XXV) and 3314 (XXIX), and in the
1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. Article 32 of the Charter of
Economic Rights and Duties of States, adopted by the General Assembly in 1974,
stipulates that no State may use or encourage the use of economic, political or
any other type of measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it
the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights.” Chapter
4, article 19, of the Charter of the OAS stipulates that “No State or group of
States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason
whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. The foregoing
principle prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of
interference or attempted threat against the personality of the State or
against its political, economic, and cultural elements.”
Zayas
reports that an atmosphere of intimidation accompanied the mission, attempting
to pressure him into a predetermined matrix. He received letters from
American-financed NGOs asking him not to proceed on his own, dictating to him
the report he should write. Prior to his arrival in Venezuela, a propaganda
campaign was launched against him on Facebook and Twitter questioning his
integrity and accusing him
of bias. https://off-guardian.org/2019/02/09/what-the-press-hides-from-you-about-venezuela/
As
Washington’s sanctions and currency manipulations constitute geopolitical
crimes, Zayas asks what reparations are due to the victims of sanctions. He
recommends that the International Criminal Court investigate Washington’s
coercive measures that can cause death from malnutrition and lack of medicines
and medical equipment.
“Despite
being the first UN official to visit and report from Venezuela in 21 years, Mr de
Zayas said his research into the causes of the country’s economic crisis has so
far largely been ignored by the UN and the media, and caused little debate
within the Human Rights Council.
“He
believes his report has been ignored because it goes against the popular
narrative that Venezuela needs regime change.” https://off-guardian.org/2019/02/09/what-the-press-hides-from-you-about-venezuela/
Venezuela
has the largest oil reserves in the world and an abundance of other natural
resources including gold, bauxite and coltan. But under the Maduro government
they’re not accessible to US and transnational corporations.
