Oppose the Dirty Work Against Venezuela by the Agents of Violent Regime Change and Their Backers in Canada
Join a discussion to be held in Montreal on Friday, October 4 and an information picket on Tuesday, October 8 to oppose the dirty work against Venezuela by the agents of violent regime change and their backers in Canada. The actions are prompted by the holding, during the election campaign, of an anti-Venezuela conference which claims to deal with the current crisis in that country. This conference is organized on October 8 by Concordia University’s Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies and the Montreal Branch of the Canadian International Council. The speaker is Orlando Viera-Blanco who the organizers misleadingly call the Venezuelan ambassador to Canada. He was appointed by the self-proclaimed imposter president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, who Canada recognizes in an act of gross interference into Venezuela’s sovereign internal affairs.
While Canada’s diplomatic corps are advised not to intervene in Canada’s election campaign, that does not seem to apply to Viera-Blanco, a member of the foreign-backed opposition forces attempting to overthrow Venezuela’s constitutionally elected president Nicolás Maduro. The October 8 Conference aims to win support for that unjust cause in Canada. Viera-Blanco gave an indication of what this means on his return from a recent junket to Israel as an official guest of that government when he wrote glowing accounts announcing that Israel is an example for Venezuela to emulate.
All of it is part of an offensive taking place at and surrounding the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly aimed at stepping up the U.S.-led siege of Venezuela and making a case for the Security Council to approve the illegal coercive measures currently in effect and the eventual use of force against the government of Nicolás Maduro.
On September 23, the foreign ministers of 16 Latin American countries and the U.S., which are signatories to the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, also known as the Rio Treaty, met in New York to approve the activation of provisions of that treaty against Venezuela. A vestige of the cold war, the Rio Treaty was imposed on Latin America and the Caribbean by the United States in 1947 as an instrument for “containing communism” in its “backyard.” Following the same logic as NATO’s Chapter V, it commits state parties to engage in collective defence if any one of them comes under armed attack and allows for the authorization of a range of punitive measures up to and including military force. It was used in the past by the U.S. to invade the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama and Nicaragua.
Canada is not a signatory to the Rio Treaty but agreed to its use at a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) called earlier in the month to discuss its invocation. Canada said that Venezuela represented “a clear threat to peace and security in the region” — language crafted to get the UN Security Council on board, despite this having failed miserably in several prior attempts.
On September 25 Colombia’s warmongering president Ivan Duque, engaged in destroying the peace process in his country and presiding over the massacre of former guerrilla members and social leaders that continues with impunity, dedicated the bulk of his UN address to painting Colombia as the victim of an impending armed attack from Venezuela. His “proof” rested on photographs he displayed that he said were of Colombian guerrillas operating inside Venezuela. Within hours they were exposed to all the world as having been taken in his own country. (It is worth noting that Colombia has the status of being NATO’s first and currently only “global partner” in Latin America.) In his speech to the General Assembly Donald Trump contributed his own venomous lies to the cause, targeting Cuba who he and Duque both blame for their inability to bring the Venezuelan government, its Bolivarian armed forces or the people, to their knees.
This is the cesspool in which the meeting at Concordia put on by a cabal of Canadian and Venezuelan regime change forces is taking place. One of the organizers, the Canadian International Council, is headed at the national level by Canada’s last ambassador to Venezuela, Ben Roswell, who spent his time there violating the norms of diplomacy by using the embassy as a base for interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs in support of the regime change forces. Since his return to Canada in 2017 he has been leading the charge for the same cause as a media pundit and serving as a cheerleader for what he says is the Trudeau government’s “uniquely Canadian approach to democracy promotion” in Venezuela. This is touted as contrasting with the U.S. approach and its threatened military intervention even though the aim is the same.
The other organizer, The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, hosts a project called The Will to Intervene co-headed by General Romeo Dallaire. It was created to allegedly “prevent another Rwanda” by promoting foreign intervention to stop mass atrocities and human rights abuses based on the controversial Responsibility to Protect doctrine Canada promotes to justify foreign aggression and intervention in the name of humanitarian causes. The meeting announcement says Viera-Blanco will discuss “risks of mass atrocity crimes and the failure of the current government to uphold its responsibility to protect.”
Canadians oppose this vile pro-war activity carried out under U.S. dictate. What Canada is up to in Venezuela needs to be raised as an election issue by those who want Canada to be a factor for peace, not of war and aggression.
This article was published in:
Renewal Update No. 24, October 2, 2019
Article Link:
Oppose the Dirty Work Against Venezuela by the Agents of Violent Regime Change and Their Backers in Canada
