Venezuela
Letter to the Peoples of the World
- Nicolás Maduro Moros, President
of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela -
The anti-blockade law is
received by President Maduro, October 9, 2020,
from
the National Constituent Assembly following
its deliberations.
Brothers and Sisters:
I greet you
affectionately on the occasion of informing you
about the recent
actions undertaken by Venezuela to confront and
overcome the illegal
blockade that the government of the United States
of America has been
imposing against my country for almost twenty
years now, with special
radicalism during the last five years, leading to
serious effects on
the normal performance of the Venezuelan economy,
with subsequent
impact on the population's well-being.
In this
regard, I want to inform you about the approval of
very important
legislation that has been named "Anti-Blockade Law
for National
Development and the Guarantee of the Rights of the
Venezuelan People,"
which is focused on defending the patrimony,
sovereignty and dignity of
our Homeland as well as our people's right to
peace, development and
well-being.
It is a necessary legal response from
the Venezuelan State, in perfect harmony with
International Law, that
will allow for the creation of mechanisms to
improve the nation's
income and generate rational and adequate
incentives, under flexible
controls, to stimulate internal economic activity
and enter into
partnerships, through foreign investment, that
favour national
development.
A workers' assembly
approves the anti-blockade law as part of broad
consultations.
At the same time, in the area of politics, I am
honoured to
reiterate that in the face of the external
aggression against Venezuela
by the United States with its unilateral coercive
measures, our banner
is, and will continue to be, strengthening and
deepening our democracy.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, preparations for
our
legislative elections on December 6, for which the
population will turn
out in massive numbers, to fulfill the
constitutional mandate of
electing a new national parliament, are moving
ahead steadily.
In this election, whose conditions were agreed to
with broad
sectors of the democratic opposition of my
country, over 90 per cent of
the organizations registered with the National
Electoral Council will
participate, for a total of 107 political parties
-- 98 of them in
opposition -- and over 14,000 candidates who will
compete to obtain one
of the 277 parliamentary seats.
The result of this
electoral race will undoubtedly grant more
strength to our nation and
to our people, who have resisted foreign
aggression with dignity and
firmness and despite everything, maintain their
spirit of love and
solidarity.
Compañeros
and compañeras, having
updated
you on these two elements of the real situation in
Venezuela,
allow me to share with you some information of
interest, to broaden the
range of your knowledge on the general context
that explains the
current reality of my country.
Since 2014, the
United States has approved a law and seven decrees
or executive orders,
as well as 300 administrative measures, which
together make up a
sophisticated policy of multi-faceted aggression
against Venezuela.
In five years, the blockade succeeded in cutting
off financing
to Venezuela, preventing it from accessing the
required currency to
acquire food, medicine, spare parts, and essential
raw materials for
economic activity. During that period, Venezuela
experienced the
sharpest fall in its external income in all of its
history, close to 99
per cent.
The United States has decreed a ban on
the commercialization of Venezuelan hydrocarbons,
its main export
product and source of tax revenues. In this
context, since the
beginning of the new coronavirus pandemic, on
different occasions the
United States has publicly boasted of having
assaulted ships bringing
Venezuela the required products to produce
gasoline and supply the
internal fuel market, aggravating even more the
economic situation.
Invoking this illegal regulation, the United
States has
confiscated money and assets from PDVSA, the
Venezuelan State oil
company, including several refineries on U.S.
soil, whose worth exceeds
$40 billion.
These legal instruments are the arm
that applies a cruel blockade against the
Venezuelan people, which
Alfred de Zayas, an independent United Nations
expert on Human Rights,
describes unequivocally as "crimes against
humanity."
In
this regard, in an investigation by the Center for
Economic and Policy
Research of the United States on the blockade on
Venezuela, the U.S.
economist Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to the
United Nations
Organization on the Sustainable Development Goals,
determined that the
blockade against Venezuela is responsible for at
least 40,000 deaths in
my country, for which the sanctions must be
considered as a "collective
punishment of the Venezuelan people."
In a
surprising official statement in January 2018, the
U.S. State
Department admitted its illegal intentions:
"The
pressure campaign against Venezuela is working.
The financial sanctions
that we have imposed have forced the Government to
begin to default,
both in its sovereign debt as well as that of
PDVSA, its oil company.
And what we are seeing [...] is a total economic
collapse in Venezuela.
Therefore, our policy works, our strategy works
and we will maintain
it."
This is a confession of an international
crime, an act of economic savagery, a crime
against humanity, with the
only purpose that of hurting my country and the
people of Venezuela.
The illegal application of unilateral coercive
measures,
euphemistically called "sanctions," is a policy
repeatedly rejected by
the United Nations General Assembly, that is
contrary to International
Law and a violation of the United Nations Charter.
For
all the above-mentioned reasons, on February 13,
Venezuela went to the
International Criminal Court to denounce those
who, from the United
States, have committed these atrocious crimes
against humanity. I am
confident that sooner rather than later,
international justice will
look upon Venezuela with objectivity and will see
the great damage that
the United States has done to a peaceful, loving
and hard-working
people.
I want to express my appreciation for your
consideration in reviewing the content of
this letter, which I
hope has been useful in order to keep you
correctly informed on the
real situation of Venezuela, and at the same time
I would like to take
the opportunity to thank you for your permanent
solidarity towards
Venezuela. Together we shall overcome!
Sincerely,
Nicolás Maduro
Moros
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 39 - October
17, 2020
Article Link:
Venezuela: Letter to the Peoples of the World - Nicolás Maduro Moros, President
of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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