The US seems to have launched a coup in Venezuela, the firing pistol has been fired by Venezuela’s Juan Guaidó, the President of the National Assembly who announced himself President in effect seeking to usurp the elected President, Chavista, Nicolás Maduro. The US issued Maduro with an ultimatum to hold new elections within 8 days. This ultimatum has been echoed by the US’s useful idiots in Europe, Germany, France and Spain joined belatedly by the UK.
Maduro’s record on human rights and economic policy management is not good, but then neither is May’s; and we need to review the threshold at which foreign intervention can be authorised. The rule book on this is the UN Charter which forbids aggressive war, we should honour these rules. The UN Human Rights Council condemns the sanctions against Venezuela and the US and Russia are looking at how to get their way in the Security Council.
The BBC reports that
Britain has issued the embattled Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, a stark ultimatum, warning him it would throw its weight behind the country’s self-declared interim leader unless he called an election within the next eight days – as the US government called on the world to “pick a side” in the crisis.
I can’t find the witty riposte that the Venezuela Government has reciprocated by stating that unless May calls a General Election in 8 days, they will recognise Jeremy Corbyn as the Government of the UK.
The Venezuela Solidarity Campaign will be central vehicle for expressing solidarity with the people of Venezuela and they have launched a petition.
We, the undersigned, condemn the open support of the US administration for ‘regime change’ in Venezuela, which is illegal under international law.
Alongside harsh sanctions which have hit the people of Venezuela hard, comments from Trump himself, VP Pence, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo amongst others have included threats of military action, threatened to put Venezuela on the state sponsors of terrorism list and invoked the possibility of a right-wing military coup.
We stand for peace and dialogue, not Trump’s war and ‘regime change’ agenda.
History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, although we don’t know where this might end. But the morality lessons can and should be learned from Chile, Iraq & Syria as should the legal questions. Aggressive War is illegal, as are sanctions. The European nations, including the UK, is moral cowardice.
I commented on the election and its use of software on this blog.