Venezuela amar, Venezuela amar

by Anwar A Khan

Venezuela amar, Venezuela amar (Venezuela is like my soul). Venezuela, officially, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, a country in northern South America that borders the Caribbean Sea in north and the North Atlantic Ocean in east. Neighboring countries are Colombia in west and south west, Brazil in south and Guyana in east. The country shares also overlapping maritime borders with Barbados, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Puerto Rico. With an area of 912,000 km² Venezuela is slightly more than 2.5 times the size of Germany or slightly more than twice the size of the U.S. state of California. Venezuela has a population of 31.1 million inhabitants (in 2015) of whom 6 million live in the capital and largest city Caracas. The country's population is concentrated along the Caribbean coast; only 5% of all Venezuelans live south of the course of Orinoco River. Official language is Spanish.

I still recall the morning view of Kukenán (left) and Roraima table mounts (tepui) in the Guayana Region of Venezuela. Hugo Chavez was the president of this scenic country from 1999 to 2013.

On a trip to Havana sometime in 2010 as a tourist, I also visited Caracas. I met Hugo Chavez (who also visited Bangladesh in the past) and NicholaMaduro there. Hugo Chavez was a great friend of Bangladesh. Similar is the case with Maduro. They took me as their own man and I was overwhelmed with their hospitality during my short stay in Caracas. I recall them with my highest regards.

The right-wing opposition in Venezuela, openly directed by the United States, is attempting a coup to impose an interim president, a figure not recognised in the country’s Constitution, disregarding the will of 6,248,864 citizens who voted for NicolásMaduro.The truth will come out, because its force is overwhelming. In Venezuela on January 23, sectors of the right-wing opposition, openly and publicly directed by a foreign government, the United States, with its president, vice president and secretary of state at the head, orchestrated an utter fallacy to mislead the world.Based on the dissemination of this deception, they have attempted to mount a coup d’état and impose an interim president, a figure not recognised in the Venezuelan Constitution, on the grounds that NicolásMaduro is an illegitimate president.

Mexican academic Fernando Buen Abad, referring to US and OAS scheming in Venezuela, tweeted: “We will regret it for eternity if we do not manage to generate a global movement in defense of the Venezuelan Revolution. It is time to rock the world with a cry for peace and democracy alongside the Venezuelan people who are fighting for their independence.”It is precisely for this reason that the truth must be known, and the grounds of the legitimacy of the democratically elected President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. We should ask ourselves where the notion of his illegitimacy came from.

Let’s recall this so-called text: “The electoral process carried out in Venezuela on May 20, 2018, lacks legitimacy due to the lack of participation of all Venezuelan political actors, without the presence of independent international observers, or the guarantees and standards necessary for a free, fair and transparent process.” But who wrote such a statement, and when? It was January 4, at a summit of the Lima Group, which is as self-appointed as Juan Guaidó, who swore himself in as interim president of Venezuela. Neither this Group nor Guaidó have any legal status. In the case of Guaidó, because he belongs to a parliament in contempt, was not sworn in before any public authority, but merely a group of his followers, and because that act followed the mandate of a foreign government. Meanwhile, the Lima Group cannot act as a bloc or be recognised by any international organisation, as it does not belong to the multilateral system.

Lies are short lived; the truth will always come out. The elections of May 20, 2018, were held under the same electoral system used in the December 2015 parliamentary elections, in which Venezuelan opposition forces won. Thus, there is no moral authority to claim that Maduro is a usurper. The Twitter account of the “Con el mazodando” television program, referring to the President of the National Constituent Assembly of Venezuela, Diosdado Cabello, posted: “@dcabellor states that he talked with Guaidó yesterday (January 22) and that he did not keep his word. And that he also requested a new meeting arguing that the self-swearing-in was due to “a lot of pressure,” that he would only be performing a pantomime in that act and that he knew that Maduro was the legitimate president of Venezuela.”

The US government’s escalating preparations for a military adventure in Venezuela calls on the international community to mobilise to prevent its consummation. It is cleverly directed a stratagem under the guise of a humanitarian intervention in Venezuela.

News agencies reports reveal that between February 6 and 10 of 2019, several military transport aircraft have flown to the Rafael Miranda Airport in Puerto Rico, the San Isidro Air Base in the Dominican Republic, and other strategically located Caribbean Islands, most certainly without the knowledge of the governments of those nations. These flights took off from US military facilities where Special Operation Troops and US Marine Corps units operate.

These units have been used for covert operations, even against leaders of other countries. Media and political circles including within the US have revealed that extremist figures of the government with a long history of actions and slander aimed at causing or instigating wars, such as, John Bolton, US National Security Advisor; and Mauricio Claver-Carone, Director of the National Security Council’s Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs, counting on the connivance of Marco Rubio, Senator of the anti-Cuban mafia in Florida, designed, directly and thoroughly organised, and funded, from their posts in Washington, the attempted coup d’etat in Venezuela by means of the illegal self-proclamation of a President Juan Guaidó.

They are the same individuals who, either personally or through the State Department, have been exerting brutal pressures on numerous governments to force them to support the arbitrary call for new Presidential elections in Venezuela, while promoting recognition for the usurper who barely won 97,000 votes as a parliamentarian, against the more than 6 million Venezuelans who elected Constitutional President NicolásMaduroMoros last May.

After the resistance mounted by the Bolivarian and Chavista people against the coup, evidenced by the mass demonstrations in support of President Maduro, and the loyalty of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces, the US government has intensified its international political and media campaign, and strengthened unilateral economic coercive measures against Venezuela, among them the freezing of Venezuelan funds in third countries banks, worth billions of dollars, and the theft of the this sister nation’s oil revenue, causing serious humanitarian damage and harsh deprivation to its people.

In addition to this cruel and unjustifiable plunder, the US intends to fabricate a humanitarian pretext in order to launch a military attack on Venezuela and, by resorting to intimidation, pressure, and force, is seeking to introduce into this sovereign nation’s territory alleged humanitarian aid which is one thousand times inferior as compared to the economic damages provoked by the siege imposed by Washington.

The usurper and self-proclaimed President shamelessly announced his disposition to call for a US military intervention under the pretext of receiving the aforementioned humanitarian aid, and has described the sovereign and honourable rejection of that maneuver as a crime against humanity.

High-ranking US officials have been arrogantly and blatantly reminding us all, day after day, that when it comes to Venezuela, all options are on the table, including military action. In the process of fabricating pretexts, the US government has resorted to deception and slanders, presenting a draft resolution at the UN Security Council which, cynically and hypocritically expresses deep concern for the human rights and humanitarian situation..., the recent attempts to block the delivery of humanitarian aid, the millions of Venezuelan refugees and migrants, the excessive use of force against peaceful protesters, the breakdown of regional peace and security in Venezuela, and calls for taking the necessary steps.

It is obvious that the United States is paving the way to forcibly establish a humanitarian corridor under international supervision, invoke the obligation to protect civilians and take all necessary steps. It is worth recalling that similar behaviours and pretexts were used to by the US during the prelude to wars it launched against Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya, which resulted in tremendous human losses and caused enormous suffering.

The US government attempts to remove the biggest obstacle - the Bolivarian and Chavista Revolution to imperialist domination of America and deprive the Venezuelan people of the largest certified oil reserves on the planet and numerous strategic natural resources. It is impossible to forget the sad and painful history of US military interventions perpetrated more than once in Mexico, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Honduras, and most recently Grenada and Panama.

As was warned by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz on July 14, 2017, “The aggression and coup violence against Venezuela harm all of Our America and only benefit the interests of those set on dividing us in order to exercise their control over our peoples, unconcerned about causing conflicts of incalculable consequences in this region, like those we are seeing in different parts of the world.” History will severely judge a new imperialist military intervention in the region and the complicity of those who might irresponsibly support it. What is at stake today in Venezuela is the sovereignty and dignity of Latin America and the Caribbean and the peoples of the South. Equally at stake is the survival of the rule of International Law and the UN Charter. What is being defined today is whether the legitimacy of a government emanates from the express and sovereign will of its people, or from the recognition of foreign powers.

The Revolutionary Government calls for an international mobilisation in defence of peace in Venezuela and the region, based on the principles established in the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, which was adopted by heads of state and government of CELAC in 2014. It likewise welcomes and supports the Montevideo Mechanism, an initiative promoted by Mexico, Uruguay, the Caribbean Commonwealth (CARICOM), and Bolivia, which seeks to preserve peace in Venezuela based on the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of states, legal equality of states, and the peaceful resolution of conflicts, as stated in its recent declaration.

It welcomes the positive consideration given to this initiative by President Maduro and the international community, and expresses its concern given the US government’s categorical rejection of the dialogue initiatives promoted by several countries. The Revolutionary Government reiterates its firm and unwavering solidarity with Constitutional President NicolásMaduro, the Bolivarian Chavista Revolution and the civic and military unity of its people, and calls upon all peoples and governments of the world to defend peace and mount a joint opposition, over and above political or ideological differences, to a new imperialist military intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will damage the independence, sovereignty and interests of all peoples from the Rio Bravo to Patagonia.

Washington’s latest act of war and destabilisation – Donald Trump’s announcement to topple Maduro government, destruction of many independent and sovereign countries and assassination of many celebrated political leaders/statesmen all over the world is part of a long-standing history of American establishment, ever since the Second World War. The disrespectful announcement of Trump to tumble downMaduro government in Venezuela is one of the biggest slaps in the face to the international community. When the UN condemned the decision, the President issued threats, and is already cutting off US aid to those countries that voted and want to vote against him/America. Trump has begun by significantly cutting the US funding budget to the United Nations itself.

It is not only an act of justice, it in an inescapable, urgent duty – a commitment for all men and women of good will, of honest persons who believe in, and defend, truth and justice across the world. Let us make solidarity with President Maduro, a common cause of all Venezuelans.I categorically express my solidarity with Maduro and Venezuelan people during the present men-made crisis deliberately created by Trump and his lieutenants. I strongly condemn the Whitehouse establishment for its baneful action against Maduro government. Long live ‘Chavista! Long live Hugo Chavez! Long live Maduro! Long live Venezuela!

-The End –

The writer is a senior citizen of Bangladesh, writes on politics, political and human-centred figures, current and international affairs