In the midst of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, on May 3, a group of mercenaries traveling from Colombia attempted to enter Venezuela in two boats through La Guaira, a coastal area near Caracas. The failed invasion attempt comes alongside with the intensification of the blockade, the inhumane measures imposed against Venezuela by the Trump administration, and the servile interventionism of the Colombian government of Iván Duque to the colonizing plan of the U.S. for Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Venezuelan government reported that it seized assault rifles, machine guns, cartridges, satellite phones, and a military helmet with the flag insignia of the United States. Most of the mercenaries, outsourced by U.S. agencies that are responsible for this kind of destructive activity all over the world, were either killed or detained. Meanwhile, the Fourth Fleet was threateningly proceeding through the Caribbean, on the next day, another group of mercenaries was dismantled in Aragua, four hours from La Guaira. Clearly, the objective of this operation was to install a beach head, a puppet government and invader ships, forcing the Venezuelan people to be on permanent alert while fighting the pandemic and suffering the blockade. They are repelling systematic attacks imposed by the agenda of the powerful party, the United States, that produces more than 38% of the world’s weapons and has zero interest in free and effective public health care, a calculation that has already raised its COVID-19 cases to over 1,200,000, with 70,000 dead and the loss of tens of millions of jobs.
These actions, increasingly perpetrated around the globe over the years, are also unprecedented due to the number of fatalities, their systematic and general character, and their total disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law. In the case of Venezuela, it amounts to, at the very least, a crime against world peace that attempts to force the submission of its population to great devastation caused by the unlawful confiscation of millions of dollars of the country’s credits and accounts held abroad, in addition to the blockade.
The AAJ:
- Strongly repudiates these criminal acts of sabotage that violate the sovereignty of Venezuela.
- Condemns the imperial interference and the attempted coup against the legitimate government of President Nicolás Maduro.
- Demands that the US and Colombia respect the sovereignty and self-determination of the Venezuelan people, as established by the UN Charter to “maintain international peace and security;” the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and Article 1 of the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
- Calls on the United Nations Secretary General to condemn the attack against the sovereignty of Venezuela and to exercise his good offices for the immediate lifting of unilateral, inhumane, coercive and illegal measures imposed by the United States on Venezuela. Such an action would help to combat and overcome the global COVID-19 pandemic and promote peace between nations.
- Calls on the governments of the region to act in the same direction, because these actions against Venezuela threaten the right of all our peoples to decide their own destiny and to pursue the regional integration and dignity of our America.
- Reaffirms the CELAC Proclamation, “Latin America and the Caribbean is a Zone of Peace”.
May 5, 2020
Vanessa Ramos
President, AAJ
Luis Carlos Moro
Secretary-General
Beinusz Szmukler
President of the Consultative Council of AAJ