Venezuela's
Right to Self-Determination
Important Legal Victory in Effort to Recover Gold Seized by British Government
- Margaret Villamizar -
Demonstration in London,
August 16, 2020 demanding British government return
Venezuelan
gold.
On October 5, a Court of Appeal in London
granted the
Venezuelan government's appeal of a decision handed down in July
by the British High Court that "unequivocally recognized
opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the president of
Venezuela." The
decision that was overturned effectively blocked the government
of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela from accessing the
country's 31 tonnes of gold reserves stored in the vaults of the
Bank of England. The Venezuelan government's intent is to use
part of the reserves, currently valued at around U.S.$1.8 billion,
for humanitarian purposes by exchanging gold for funds that will
be channeled through the United Nations Development Program to
import food, medications and other supplies which the government
cannot obtain directly because of the criminal U.S. blockade.
 The appeal was
launched by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV)
against what it called the "absurd" and "unusual" decision by the
British High Court rejecting its right to repatriate the
country's gold and denying the Venezuelan people access to the
means they urgently need to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
The
perversity of the British government's legal-political operation
in this case is revealed in the recently published memoir of former
Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton who said that in 2019
British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt expressed enthusiasm about
participating in the U.S. economic war against Venezuela, offering to
assist "for example [by] freezing Venezuelan gold deposits in the Bank
of England." In 2018 and again in 2019 the
Venezuelan government asked the
Bank of England for access to its gold for humanitarian purposes
and was denied both times. The second request, made after the
U.S., supported by Canada and others in their Lima Group, put
Juan Guaidó up to proclaiming himself president, was refused
on
the basis that Britain recognized the imposter and not
Nicolás
Maduro as the legitimate head of the country. It was in response
to this spurious and illegal action of the British that the BCV
launched its legal battle on May 14. The October 5
decision of the Appeal Court calls on the
government of Boris Johnson to clarify who exercises the de
facto powers of head of state and head of government in
Venezuela before a decision is made on who is entitled to have
access to the country's gold reserves. The court has directed the
British Commercial Court to establish this before any decision on
the disposition of the reserves is taken. The BCV
applauded the Appeal
Court's decision, saying in a statement on October 5 that it
trusts the court's investigation will confirm its argument that
while Britain may have recognized Guaidó as head of state in
2019 in words
it in fact still recognizes Nicolás Maduro as the person who
exercises that role. Evidence of this is that the British
government has not broken diplomatic relations with the Maduro
government; both governments continue to maintain regular
consular relations with ambassadors in each other's capitals.
According to the Venezuelan legal team, the initial ruling
ignored "the reality of the situation on the ground" in which the
Maduro government is "in complete control of Venezuela and its
administrative institutions."  The BCV said it
would continue taking all actions necessary to
safeguard its "sovereign international reserves and the sacred
patrimony of the Republic, which belong to the people of
Venezuela."
While it is premature to declare
victory in this fight,
winning the appeal is an important step in dismantling the
imperialist fraud by which the U.S. puppet Guaidó is
recognized
as the "legitimate" president of Venezuela by the U.S. and a
shrinking handful of other countries, including Canada with
its assigned role as gang leader of the cartel known as the Lima
Group. During the past week another blow was struck
against the
regime change operation. The new Ambassador to
Venezuela from the Swiss Confederation, Jürg Sprecher,
presented
his credentials to President Nicolás Maduro in a televised
ceremony held in Miraflores Palace. Switzerland had been one of the
first countries to recognize Guaidó after he proclaimed
himself
"interim president" on January 23, 2019.
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