The Mast, By Larry Moonze on February 16, 2019. CUBA says it is imperative to halt the US imperialist military adventure against Venezuela. The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba warns that 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 rules of International Law and the UN Charter,” Havana said, in a February 12 declaration. “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 mobilization in defense of peace in Venezuela and the region, based on the principles enshrined in the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, which was adopted by the Heads of State and Government of CELAC in 2014.”
Cuba condemned the escalation of pressures and actions of the US government in preparation for a military adventure under the guise of a “humanitarian intervention” in Venezuela and called on the international community to mobilize to prevent its consummation.
“Between February 6 and 10 of 2019, several military transport aircraft have been flying to the Rafael Miranda Airport in Puerto Rico; the San Isidro Air Base in the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean Islands that have a strategic location, most certainly without the knowledge of the governments of those nations. These flights took off from US military facilities from where Special Operation Troops and US Marine Corps units operate. These units have been used for covert operations, even against leaders of other countries,” Cuba stated. “Media and political circles, even in the US, have revealed that extremist figures of that government with a long history of actions and slanders 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 of Florida, designed directly and thoroughly organized and obtained the funds from their posts in Washington, for the attempted coup d’ etat in Venezuela by means of the illegal self-proclamation of a president. They are the same who, either personally or through the State Department, have been putting 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 hardly earned 97,000 votes as a parliamentarian, against the more than six million Venezuelans who elected Constitutional President Nicolás Maduro Moros last May.”
On humanitarian aid, Cuba argued that it was obvious that the United States was 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 resorted to by the US during the prelude to the wars it launched against Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya, which resulted in tremendous human losses and caused enormous suffering,” the Cuban government stated.
“The US government attempts to remove the biggest obstacle -the Bolivarian and Chavista Revolution- to the imperialist domination of Our America and deprive the Venezuelan people from the largest certified oil reserve of the planet and numerous strategic natural resources. It would be 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.”
Havana also reminded the global community on how the US government has intensified its international political and media campaign and strengthened unilateral economic coercive measures against Venezuela, among them the blocking of Venezuelan funds in third countries banks, which are billions of dollars-worth, and the theft of the oil revenues of that nation, which are causing grave humanitarian damages and harsh deprivations 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 aggression against Venezuela and is seeking to introduce in the territory of that sovereign nation, by resorting to intimidation, pressures and force, an alleged humanitarian aid which is one thousand times inferior as compared to the economic damages provoked by the siege imposed from Washington,” read the declaration.
“The Revolutionary government reiterates its firm and unwavering solidarity with Constitutional President Nicolás Maduro Moros, the Bolivarian and 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 put up a joint opposition, over and above political or ideological differences, to a new military and imperialist intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean which will harm the independence, sovereignty and interests of all peoples from Rio Bravo to Patagonia.”