Lima Group Is Not Welcome in Canada!

Montreal protest, February 20, 2020, against Lima Group's Gatineau ministerial meeting.

On February 20, Canada hosted a ministerial meeting of the Lima Group at the Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec. Global Affairs said the meeting was to "discuss the ongoing political, economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and express their solidarity with the people of Venezuela."

This comes a few weeks after the Trudeau government brought shame on itself by meeting, January 27, with the imposter Juan Guaidó, who calls himself the interim president of Venezuela. This imposter is more and more despised at home as a corrupt and untrustworthy individual, even by those who a year ago supported his phony presidency, to the extent that one of his rivals was elected to replace him as president of the national assembly. Yet in Canada, he was received by the Prime Minister in his Parliament Hill office and paraded around as "President Guiadó."

It is shameful that the Canadian government, under the guise of returning democracy to Venezuela, continues to organize and promote the Lima Group and to follow the policy of interference and aggressive threats against Venezuela and to push for regime change on behalf of U.S. interests against the democratically expressed will of the Venezuelan people. It is the height of hypocrisy for the Canadian government to suggest that the continued sanctions and other gross forms of interference to cripple Venezuela's economy represent an effort to support democracy in Venezuela “by peaceful means.”

The U.S. has tightened the sanctions with a full blockade after all other illegal attempts to remove the democratically elected Venezuelan government failed. The Lima Group of countries is playing a nefarious role in trying to justify the ongoing U.S.-led threats of a coup and further acts of violence in Venezuela. These actions of the Canadian government and the Lima Group not only contravene the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, they are also in grave violation of the UN Charter and the Charter of the OAS. The collective punishment of populations, in this case the Venezuelan people, is a crime against humanity.

Canadians support the democratic rights of all people to decide their own destiny and to live in a system of their own choosing, and the hostile actions of the Canadian government towards the Venezuelan people are not acceptable. The Canadian government does not speak or act in the name of Canadians.

ALBA Social Movements Canada organized a demonstration in Gatineau and actions were also held in Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, Waterloo and Hamilton to say that the Lima Group is not welcome in Canada and to demand that the government of Canada end all sanctions against Venezuela and promote dialogue and genuine diplomacy instead of economic interference and other kinds of coercion. The next day, February 21, a rally outside the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations conference where Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, François-Philippe Champagne, was speaking on Canada’s foreign policy demanded Canada get out of the Lima Group.

This article was published in

Volume 50 Number 5 - February 22, 2020

Article Link:
Lima Group Is Not Welcome in Canada!

    

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