4th Special Bulletin How an international crime is manufactured as a pretext for war/ Russia and Chi by Venezuelan Embassy in Nairobi

Bulletin Special

Bolivarian Government Ministry of Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Embassy of the Bolivarian of Venezuela Power for Foreign Affairs Republic of Venezuela

volume 4, 2019

How an international crime is manufactured as a pretext for war

Russia & China contain the US to reshape the world order

Legacy of President Hugo ChĂĄvez: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow

Content 1) Editorial 2) Remembering Hugo Chávez: 3) Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's interview with ABC TV 4) Russia and China contain the US to reshape the world order 5) How an international crime is manufactured as a pretext for war 6) Security Council: The US is committed to the mercenary option 7) Venezuela alerts about possible mercenary incursions in its territory 8) International Peoples Assembly: A Manifesto in Solidarity with Venezuela

Editorial During his 14 years as leader of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Chávez was always wickedly criticised by Western powers because of his socio-economic policies that were designed to serve the masses. Indeed, in the eyes of Western powers, any policy that does not serve their interests is criticised from the start and attacked from all sides. With his vision of La Patria Humana or “Humane Homeland”, Chávez launched a revolutionary programme he called “social missions”, basically transforming all government agencies and ministries into missions to serve the needs of the people. As we commemorate the anniversary of the passing on of President Chávez, it is a good opportunity to reﬂect on his leadership, but also on his vision of a world where ordinary people have the power to build a society whose purpose is not to serve the interests of the top one per cent of the planet’s population, but the basic needs of the masses. It is also an opportunity to remind our leaders that they have the responsibility to serve their fellow Africans and not the interests of multinational companies and other imperialist interests. If we contextualize within the world dynamics the alternative model that Commander Hugo Chávez undertook, his only proposal of a participative and protagónica democracy ignited the alarms of the hegemonic powers, whose societal structures wanted to be exemplary. That is why Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow and always Chávez was, is and will be the embodiment of a people aware of their leading role in the construction of a better and possible world.

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remembering hugo chÁvez: A legacy that lives on in Africa

March 5 marked the anniversary of the death of the revolutionary Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. Revolutionaries are rare. Chávez’s socialist thought and visionary policies aimed at radically transforming his country and meeting the needs of the majority of his people have vital lessons for Africa and the rest of the Global South. On the evening of 5 March 2013 as I rested in my room at Le Ndiambour Hotel in Dakar, Senegal, after a long flight from Nairobi, Kenya, the previous day, I learnt about the terrible news of the departure of President Hugo Chávez. With this news coming barely 18 months after the brutal assassination of Muammar al-Gaddafi, leader and guide of the Libyan revolution, by imperialist forces, it seemed as if all revolutionary leaders were leaving us. Indeed, on 3 August 2013, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was also ending his term in office. The fight against imperialism and neo-colonialism seemed lost, with those three leaders no longer able to defend and present to various international fora the voices of the people of the Global South from the Americas to Africa and Asia. As we commemorate the anniversary of the passing on of President Chávez, it is a good opportunity to reflect on his leadership, but also on his vision of a world where ordinary people have the power to build a society whose purpose is not to serve the interests of the top one per cent of the planet’s population, but the basic needs of the masses. It is also an opportunity to remind our leaders that they have the responsibility to serve their fellow Africans and not the interests of multinational companies and other imperialist interests. Commemorating Chávez’s departure serves as well as a wake up call to young African people, as the welfare of the entire continent depends on their socio-economic visions and the decisions they take

now and in the future while managing Africa’s resources.

LESSONS FROM CHÁVEZ’S SOCIOECONOMIC POLICIES During his 14 years as leader of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Chávez was always wickedly criticised by Western powers because of his socio-economic policies that were designed to serve the masses. Indeed, in the eyes of Western powers, any policy that does not serve their interests is criticised from the start and attacked from all sides. With his vision of La Patria Humana or “Humane homeland”, Chávez launched a revolutionary programme he called “social missions”, basically transforming all government agencies and ministries into missions to serve the needs of the people. Describing the social missions, Chávez said, “The missions, which I consider of strategic importance, must be a way for the creation of a new social state. We come from a bourgeois state. That state served the interests of the bourgeoisie, and even until today, special interests that oppose the revolution inﬁltrate the state. The missions should become an instrument to boost the transformation of the bourgeois state into a social state of rights and justice. The missions should generate a new spirit of service, 4

where plenty of voluntary and creative work is performed; where public servants would act diﬀerently, with a new social and socialist spirit”.

African territories (empires and kingdoms) into countries that are not nation-states. As a result, the basic sense of belonging slowly disappeared after independence and gave way to regionalism, tribalism and ethnic divisions within one country. In some cases, one could see that public servants are happy to serve individuals from their region, community or ethnic group but lack the motivation for doing the same to others even if they all belong to the same country. Therefore, the vision of social missions to make sure that everyone gets the same rights and services from the public service and feels respected and valued in their own country is what is needed to also transform African public services.

The new public service that President Hugo Chávez envisioned is one with the spirit of service and the wellbeing of the whole society at heart. That was an immense project because changing the mentality of the public service, which is responsible for the implementation of government policies, means changing the mentality of the whole society. Employees of the public service are members of the society and they needed to have that vision of a “social state of rights and justice”. Another key element of Hugo Chávez’s social missions is the concept of La Patria Humana itself. Apart from being a vision for Venezuela, the concept of La Patria Humana is very important to look at. If one were to ask any citizen of an African country about the feeling of belonging to their country, how many would consider their country as “a humane homeland”? It can be argued that some would respond that they feel rejected and abandoned by the land in which they were born. That type of segregation against certain categories of people in the same country is what Hugo Chávez rejected with the concept of La Patria Humana, so that every Venezuelan feels proud of their country because they have a place and value in the society and they can have access to resources for their vital needs in that country. The vision of La Patria Humana embodies a social state where justice is applied equally and where all citizens can enjoy their individual and collective rights. It also represents a society where ordinary people can and are able to build a diﬀerent world from the one we currently live in.

Another key lesson that we learn from the policies of President Hugo Chávez is his approach to the management of natural resources of Venezuela. Natural resources whether it is water, land, timber, natural gas and oil among many others can be sources of endless national and international conflicts. Such resources belong to the people of where they are. Unfortunately, natural resources, especially those in African countries barely benefit African people. The African continent has witnessed numerous conflicts that resulted from disagreements on how to use resources of certain countries such as Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Somalia just to name a few. Most of those conflicts whether they were a result of internal actors or foreign ones, were fundamentally a consequence of disagreements on the equitable use of natural resources. Even some conflicts in Africa that appeared to be religious in nature or based on regional and ethnic tensions always had a hidden reason to do with equitable use and access to the available resources in that country or region. In many cases, a certain category of people wants to accumulate wealth and use all the resources alone to the detriment of the rest, often the majority. The fact that Hugo Chávez championed for a fair share of Venezuelan resources did not go well with those who were used to taking more than their share. Social services such as housing for marginalised people, access to health care for the poor and affordable schools for the vulnerable people were part of the main vision of La Patria Humana aimed at ensuring equitable share of the country’s resources and opportunities.

Social missions meant that public servants had to change their approach to public service. Rather than reinforcing a culture of corruption and misuse of resources that is not unusual in many government departments and ministries across the globe, Chávez envisioned changing those ministries and departments into service centres where the ﬁrst priority would be the welfare of the society in general. As mentioned in the introduction of this article, the commemoration of the third anniversary of the departure of Hugo Chávez is an opportunity to reﬂect on how some of his legacies can be applied in African contexts. A policy such as that of social missions is urgently needed in many African countries. It is needed because in many African countries there is lack of a sense of total belonging among certain communities within any given African country. One reason could be the fact that colonisers geographically drew many

Unfortunately, in many African countries, such programmes do not exist and the most vulnerable members of the society are left to suﬀer with limited or without any state support at all. If African countries are to learn from the socio-economic policies of President Hugo Chávez, they will have to start from correcting social injustices that we currently see, ranging from deplorable housing in informal urban settlements that

unable to generate enough resources to fund all its activities. It is not to say that there are no enough resources in Africa to fund the work of the AU, but the AU’s top leadership has not made it their priority to mobilise African people for that noble cause. And AU member states that are supposed to contribute funds for the work of the continental organisation, some of them do it is required, but others do not contribute their dues and even when they do so, their contributions are very little compared to their capacities and usually come in late. As such, AU members’ inability to adequately fund the activities and plans of the AU gives the impression that they do not believe in its vision of seeking “total political and economic emancipation of African people” wherever they are.

we see in many African cities where vital sanitation services are nonexistent. Other vital social services that are almost a given to the middle class and wealthy neighbourhoods of African cities are also absent in those informal urban settlements. Furthermore, there are the poor and marginalised segments of society living in rural areas and who are most of the time very far from centres of power and authority. Those ones are almost not a priority for the ruling classes and their wealthy supporters except when they seek for their votes. That state of aﬀairs is totally unacceptable and if not changed, African countries will never be able to build societies where “ordinary people are able to form a new social order” that President Hugo Chávez was ﬁghting for. In my view, it is an urgent challenge to every member of the society, so that everyone in any African society feels the calling for public service. It is not just a responsibility of the leaders, but also that of every citizen because members of society, who are you and I, are the basis to forming and leading the “social missions” that we seek to have in African societies.

Of course, in the same way the United States of America did not want to see the success of ALBA, there are foreign powers that do not want to see the success of the AU. A strong AU means a strong African continent of more than a billion people, or more than one seventh of the world population that can, if united, be a very strong force in international aﬀairs. In the same way it needed a courageous leader, Hugo Chávez, to establish ALBA, it will require bold leaders to transform the AU into an organisation that can ensure political, social and economic emancipation of the African people. Any other plans of the AU or other African regional economic communities contrary to that do not serve the interests of African people, but those of the ruling elite and their supporters.

The other important lesson from President Hugo Chávez that is worth mentioning here is his ability to “resist foreign influence and interfere”. Chávez’s strong position against imperialism and neo-colonialism brought him the fury of the top champions of those two infamous world policies to the point that he was characterised as an enemy of a number of Western countries. Perhaps the biggest opposition to imperial domination and pressures was Chávez’s idea in 2004 to establish the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA—Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América in Spanish) as a group whose objective was to promote social, political, and economic integration of Latin America and the Caribbean. ALBA, which means “dawn” in Spanish, was conceived by Chávez to be an alternative to the United Sates of America-led Free Trade Area of the Americas so that member states did not have to always rely on the US for their progress. That strong position of theALBA member states is what is needed for Africa. The creation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 was an important beginning to resist colonialism, but the OAU was unable to help Africa fight against neo-colonial policies. Indeed, the transformation of the OAU into the African Union (AU) was an attempt to strengthen the continental organisation to be able to deal with post-independence challenges. The AU is yet to achieve that goal because one of the main steps that needs to be achieved is to be able to fund the work of the AU internally. It would be impossible for the AU to claim that it is an independent Pan-African organisation that is able to resist any foreign influence whereas it is still

IMPLEMENTING CHÁVEZ’S POLITICAL AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC POLICIES IN AFRICA

A professor of International Relations once told me that revolutionary leaders such as Simón Bolívar, Hugo Chávez and Thomas Sankara among others are very rare and that in some cases it might take centuries before another similar leader emerges—in reference to Hugo Chávez coming almost after two centuries after Simón Bolívar. Nevertheless, their legacies live on forever. As was mentioned at the beginning of this article, the commemoration of the third anniversary of the passing on of President Hugo Chávez serves as a good opportunity for Africans to reﬂect on how his political and socio-economic policies can be useful in African contexts in order to establish socialist states that serve the needs of the majority. This article proposes three main conditions that are necessaries for those policies, or some of them, to be successful in Africa. These having visionary leaders, strengthening African solidarity and working on true South-South cooperation. They are detailed in the paragraphs that follow.

Africa might not currently have leaders such as Thomas Sankara, Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah and Gamal Abdel Nasser, but Africans can learn from their exceptional leadership to be able to deal with current challenges that are face continent. In order for Africa to nurture and develop such kind of leaders, there is need to include, in the civic education curriculums, the history and achievements of those visionary leaders so that younger generations can learn from them and embrace them as role models. In addition, instead of only learning about the history of the West and their leaders who colonised Africa, Africans should learn about leaders such as Simón Bolívar, Ernesto che Guevara and Hugo Chávez who vehemently opposed imperial and neo-colonial agendas and fought for the emancipation of the people of the Global South. For that to happen, the education system in Africa has to change because the current curriculum is part of a broader system that looks down upon other types of knowledge and civilisations. Visionary leaders that we aspire to have in Africa have to be nurtured from a younger age, which means that basic education needs to focus on the history of Africa and its exceptional leaders before colonisation and after the independence era. That way potential leaders can grow up appreciating the various leadership talents of Africans and strive to emulate them. It is also essential for eminent African leaders to establish mentorship institutions where they can mentor and develop leadership skills of emerging leaders. Another key element is to develop writing by eminent African leaders so that they can disseminate their thinking through writing. They might not be able to reach everyone in mentorship centres, but their writings can be accessed centuries after they have gone. The second condition for implementing political, social and economic policies of Hugo Chávez — that focus on building socialist states that are able to transform state entities into social missions to serve the masses — in Africa is strengthening solidarity among African people. Solidarity among African people is not only achieved through political pronouncements, but also, and mostly, through promoting free movement of people and skills in Africa, cultural exchanges, intra-African trade and social cohesion among African people. Doing the above reinforces the fact that Africa is not some mass of land with geographical demarcations, but one people. This would in turn inﬂuence government policies so that they do not focus on closing their borders and arming themselves allegedly to protect themselves from their “dangerous” neighbours, but focus more on investing in social services to the beneﬁt of their citizens and their neighbours. 7

Using the example of trade in Africa, the AU estimates that the share of Africa in global trade is only at 3 per cent, an insignificant proportion given the wealth of the continent both in terms of population and natural resources. Nevertheless, that statistic would not be worrying if the percentage of trade among African states were standing at a very high level. The reality is that Africa’s trade is highly externally oriented with relatively low level of intra-regional and intra-country trade. Intra-African trade stands at around 13 per cent compared to approximately 60 per cent, 40 per cent, 30 per cent intra-regional trade that has been achieved by Europe, North America and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations respectively. These statistics demonstrate that there is a certain level of fear and indifference among African countries. That state of affairs heavily influences national policies, which in many cases tend to be very protective and nationalistic in nature as opposed to being welcoming and Pan-Africanist.

non-proliferation among other important global issues. Hugo Chávez’s initiative to create ALBA was not the first attemp to bring together countries from the South, he was only contributing and revamping almost stalled initiatives. As a group of countries that share a common history of having been colonised by people of other races and having been since left at the periphery of world affairs, the Global South’s first initiative to engage in efforts leading to the emancipation of their people was probably profoundly evidenced at the Algiers, Algeria, during the Ministerial Meeting of the Group of 77 in October 1967 where all members, united by common aspirations, determined to pursue a joint agenda of political, social and economic emancipation of their people. In addition, the idea of a Global South as a political bloc became strong at the United Nations General Assembly summit of 1975 when a resolution on development and international cooperation was passed. Cooperation of the countries of the South (or South-South cooperation) was seen in form of political, economic, social and environmental and technical domains and able to take place at bilateral, sub-regional and inter-regional levels (Agbu, 2010).

Strangely, African countries constantly believe that their neighbours are their enemies; they do not give priority to developing social states; they instead focus on developing militaristic states to be able to supposedly defend themselves against the aggression from their “bad” neighbours. That kind of thinking needs to stop because it discourages regional and continental integration, which are key ingredients for developing social states whose first priority is the welfare of their people as opposed to focusing on building strong armies to defend their borders. Finally, encouraging cultural exchanges and movement of African people from one country and region to the other helps to lessen unfounded fears that neighbouring people and countries are enemies. That in return helps to change the priorities of governments from building militaristic states to developing social states as described. The third condition is the promotion of strong alliances of the people of the South, commonly called the Global South. I propose to spend some time on the Global South because the promotion of the emancipation of the people of the Global South was the biggest agenda of President Hugo Chávez. The Global South generally refers to the less developed countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America; a region that is geographically wide, culturally differentiated and politically diverse. A number of Global South countries still suffer from the domination and exploitation of countries from the North (West), but there is increasing momentum within the Global South to resist that domination together with other global challenges such as the negative consequences of global climate change, control of diseases, review of the effectiveness of international financial aid, the fight against radicalisation and nuclear

Mawdsley (2011) analyses South-South cooperation in the following words: “The assertion of a shared experience of colonial exploitation, post-colonial inequality and present vulnerability to uneven neoliberal globalisation, and thus a shared identity as ‘third world’ nations; an explicit rejection of hierarchical relations between states, and a strong articulation of the principles of respect, sovereignty and non-interference as well as an insistence of win-win outcomes of South-South development cooperation and mutual opportunity among others, is what deﬁnes the cooperation among countries of the political bloc of the Global South”. Gore (2013) also believes that South-South cooperation is rooted in “complete equality, mutual respect, mutual interest as well as respect for national sovereignty” in the framework of shared experiences and sympathy towards the enhancement of “collective self-reliance of developing countries”. Furthermore, de Carvalho (2014) explains that South-South cooperation can be conceptualised as those arrangements between countries of the Global South aimed at adjusting actions and behaviours, frequently performed by focusing on reducing international inequalities. That cooperation is also aimed at promoting joint actions that target similar domestic challenges and or joint work with the objective of exerting a higher impact on the international system. 8

The above brief description of Global South cooperation was the main motivation behind the establishment of regional blocs such as ALBA and continental organisations such as the AU. However, there is still a lot to be done for all those regional and continental blocs to work together for the common good of the people of the South. Since structures are already there, the onus is on the people of the South to push their governments to seriously work towards the emancipation of the people of the South and increased inﬂuence by the Global South in international fora in order to change existing systems that heavily favour countries from the West. If the existing organisations from the South such as the AU are unable to achieve their desired objectives, progressive leaders may think about creating new ones the same way President Hugo Chávez established ALBA because the Free Trade Area of the Americas was serving the interests of the few.

the development of visionary leaders, the promotion of African solidarity and working towards eﬀective cooperation among countries of the Global South. Finally, the article proposes to use the opportunity of remembering Hugo Chávez as a way of also celebrating exceptional African leaders and making sure that their leadership skills are passed on to younger African generations.

The article recognises that there might be diﬀerent views and opinions about the legacy of President Hugo Chávez, but it is hoped that it has contributed one or two ideas to the broader debates of building a world that cares for the most vulnerable people in society. The author strongly believes that the vision of establishing social states is what Africa needs to be able to respond to the vital needs of its more than one billion people.

SOURCES

Abayomi Azikiwe. Chávez’s legacy, African solidarity and the African American people: The Bolivarian Revolution reaﬃrms linkages with oppressed around the world. 10 April 2013. Available on: http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86947

The idea of countries of the South coming together to fight against global imperialism is very appealing. But to see that vision actualised needs visionary leaders such as Hugo Chávez. Africa being one of the biggest blocs of the Global South should champion that vision because Africans would benefit more than others. Indeed, among countries of the Global South there are some that are also using the same imperial strategies to dominate other countries of the South, especially those in Africa. Since African countries are exploited by both the North and leading countries of the South, it is impossible for them to think about developing social states because their priority is on protecting their sovereignty. As such, Africans have more to gain by encouraging other countries of the South to live by their commitments of being “members” of the Global South so that they can both fight the bigger threat of global imperialism.

African Declaration of Algiers: The ﬁrst ministerial meeting of the G77 in 1967 when they decided to call the attention of the international community to various challenges that were facing the developing world. See http://www.g77.org/doc/algier~1.htm accessed on 13/01/2016 African Union Commission. (2014). Agenda 2063: The Future We Want for Africa. African Union Commission. (2014). Agenda 2063: The Future We Want for Africa. African Union Commission. Boosting Intra-African trade available on http://www.au.int/en/ti/biat/about#sthash.piHCKva7.dpuf accessed on 12 January 2016 African Union. (2000). The Constitutive Act, Preamble. African Union. African Union. (2000). The Constitutive Act, Preamble. African Union.

CONCLUSION

African Union. (2013). Agenda 2063: Unity, Prosperity and Peace. Addis Ababa: African Union.

This article joins other voices that are commemorating the anniversary of the departure of President Hugo Chávez. In the 14 years that he was in power, he championed various social causes aimed at helping the most vulnerable people of Venezuela. Some of the most important of those policies are social missions that were meant to transform the entire public service. Unfortunately, changing the whole public service is not an easy task and in the middle of that transformation there were abuses of power and resources by some oﬃcials. Considering the positive side of Hugo Chávez’s social policies, this article uses the commemoration of the anniversary of his departure to propose how those policies can be useful for Africa and the conditions that need to be met for that to happen. The conditions are

Agbu, O. (2010). ‘Africa and the Emerging Global South’ in The State of Africa: Parameters and Legacies of Governance and Issue Areas edited by Korwa G. Adar, Monica K. Juma and Katabaro. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa. Ama Biney. L’Afrique peut tirer les enseignements de l’héritage de Chávez. 26 April 2013. Available on: http://pambazuka.org/fr/category/features/87127 De Carvalho, G.B. (2014). ‘The Dynamics of South-South Cooperation in the Context of Africa and Latin America Relations’ in Murithi, T. Handbook of Africa’s International Relations (ed.). New York: Routledge. Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/topic/Bolivarian-Alliance-for-the-Peoples of-Our-America accessed on 15 January 2016

Gore, C. (2013). ‘The New Development Cooperation Landscape: Actors, Approaches, Architecture’. Journal of International Development. Volume 2. Number 6. August.

Mawdsley, E. (2011). ‘The Rhetorics and Rituals of ‘South-South’ Development Cooperation: Notes on India and Africa’ in India in Africa: Changing Geographies of Power edited by Emma Mawdsley and Gerard McCann. Oxford: Pambazuka Press.

Kaul, I. (2013). The Rise of the Global South: Implications for the Provisioning of Global Public Goods. Berlin: Hertie School of Governance.

Ministry of People’s Power for Communication and Information (2014). Social Missions in Venezuela. La Hoyada, Caracas, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Kegley, C.W. and Blantan, S.L. (2013). World Politics: Trend and Transformation. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning. Article by: Yves Niyiragira Executive Director of Fahamu, publishers of Pambazuka News www.pambazuka.org The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's interview with ABC TV Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused the U.S. government of trying to fabricate a crisis, which is "doomed to failure," in an attempt to start a war in South America.

In his ﬁrst interview with an American television network in years, Maduro said, "The extremist Ku Klux Klan government that Donald Trump directs wants a war over oil, and more than just oil," describing Venezuela as a "paciﬁst, humble nation."

Llamas: But I posed you the question, Will you allow Mr. Guaido back into Venezuela? President Nicolás Maduro: He can come and go. He will have to face justice, and justice prohibited him from leaving the country. I will respect the laws. I'll ask you, does any U.S. citizen -- anyone, from Donald Trump to Barack Obama, are they above the law? If a court of law tells Donald Trump or Barack Obama they can't leave the country during a judicial investigation, would they leave? And if they were to violate the order and came back, what would the U.S. justice system do? Nothing more. Let everyone come to their own conclusions.

A lightly edited transcript of Maduro's interview ABC News Anchor and Chief National Aﬀairs Correspondent Tom Llamas, which aired on "World News Tonight," follows here: Tom Llamas: Thank you for granting us this interview, Mr. President. We do appreciate it. I do want to get to the news of the day, Vice President Mike Pence from United States met with Juan Guaido. Will you let Mr. Guaido back to Venezuela?

Llamas: I'd like to ask you directly. Do you think Juan Guaido is a criminal? Will you arrest him?

President Nicolás Maduro: Everything that the United States government has done has been doomed to fail. They are trying to fabricate a crisis to justify political escalation and a military intervention in Venezuela to bring a war to South America. Us using diplomacy have been anticipating all these attacks. This meeting in Bogota is a part of that policy to attempt to establish a parallel government in Venezuela outside of the constitution. When have we seen, in 200 years of relations between the United States and Venezuela, that the United States would decide without going through an election without a popular vote that in Venezuela there would be another president. When have we seen that? Never. I think this is extreme politics doomed to fail that nothing good comes out for the U.S. or Venezuela.

President Nicolás Maduro: It is not Nicolas Maduro who is in the position to arrest anybody in this country. I follow the rules of the law. The courts have their processes and they give orders to the executive branch -- that through the scientific police and the national police -- they take action every day in the face of different crimes against different criminals. No one can be above the law. In this case, Mr. Guaido has to answer before the Justice, not before Nicolas Maduro.

Llamas: Juan Guaido is starting to use phrases that President Trump has used. He says all options are open when it comes to Venezuela. What does that mean to you?

President Nicolás Maduro: That's a military threat. That's a threat for war.

We've been governing democratically for 20 years. Everything that we are, everything that we have, we have because of the popular vote. Direct and secret. We have won 23 elections in 25 electoral processes in 20 years. So I think if President Donald Trump would inform himself a little bit more, he would erase that phrase from his speeches. And I think it would open a new vision about Venezuela. Hopefully -- hopefully that would happen.

Llamas: You're talking about a military invasion. You think the U.S. wants to invade Venezuela? President Nicolás Maduro: The United States wants oil from Venezuela and is willing to go on a war for oil. The United States will not -- let me correct that -- and I apologize to the American people. The extremist government of the Ku Klux Klan that that directs Donald Trump wants a wants a war for oil. This is a war for oil -- and more than oil. Tom, you should know, because of the riches of our country. Look at what was just revealed in the book of Andrew McCabe. He just revealed that since 2017 Donald Trump in private meetings where he, McCabe, was witness, he would say that Venezuela has the oil and that Venezuela would be a good country for war. It's a crazy plan. It's an extremist plan. Because Venezuela is a paciﬁst, humble nation.

Llamas: Do you fear President Trump? President Nicolás Maduro: I fear the people that are around him. John Bolton, an extremist and expert of the Cold War. Elliott Abrams, a liar that traﬃcked arms and drugs in Central America and the world and brought war to the United States. I fear Mike Pompeo, a CIA agent that has an antiquated scheme of old intelligence from the Cold War. I fear Mike Pence, who is a man that does not know world politics, unaware of Latin American politics. I think these people surrounding President Trump and advising him on Venezuelan policies are bad. And I think that at one point, President Trump will have to say "stop, stop, we have to see what happens with Venezuela," and change his policy.

Llamas: So you don't think this is about human rights -you think this is about oil? President Nicolás Maduro: They always invent pretexts, always inventing excuses. To invade Iraq, they invented that there were weapons of mass destruction, and then it was embarrassment when it was known that it was all a lie; it was just an excuse for a pretext. Now about Venezuela they are constructing pretexts. The humanitarian crisis, the violation of human rights, the lack of democracy and supposedly to come to help the Venezuelan people they are going to send the Marines. They are going to bomb us, they are going to destroy the country. They are excuses for an escalation, a military invasion, that is why they say all options are on the table. This violates the Charter of the United Nations. Venezuela is a paciﬁst country. Venezuela is not a threat to the United States or to anyone in this world, and the problems of Venezuelans are our issues and must be solved only by Venezuelans.

Llamas: I'd like to show you something now. This was a tweet sent out by Senator Marco Rubio over the weekend. It shows Muammar Gadhaﬁ in power, Muammar Gadhaﬁ captured, covered in blood. President Nicolás Maduro: First, it is a horrible thing to do to any leader from any country. Everyone deserves justice and deserves respect for their rights. I believe that what they did with Libya was an act of barbarism. More than 200,000 dead, more than 20,000 air raids. And what about Libya? Tom, how is Libya worse now than ever? Divide it into four groups full of terrorist groups that handle drugs, guns, thousands and thousands of Africans leave through the Libyan ports towards Europe -- they left behind a disaster. That is the example that Marco Rubio says that we must do with Venezuela to destroy Venezuela, bomb it. I tell them no. Venezuela wants peace, and Venezuela will have peace.

Llamas: President Trump has had some strong words for you. He has said you are not a Venezuelan patriot, you are a Cuban puppet, that you are a dictator, sir. President Nicolás Maduro: I do not know if Trump believes what is written for him for his speeches that he goes out and reads. Honestly, I am capable to give him the beneﬁt of the doubt that he is repeating what is written for him. I think they are antiquated schemes from the Cold War. We should not return to the 20th Century of the old Cold War. Venezuela is a country with dignity. We are patriots, revolutionaries. We have an ideology, that of Simon Bolivar. Our movement came from the depths from the Venezuelan people.

Llamas: Do you fear for your life? President Nicolás Maduro: I love my life and I think it is more courageous to live to defend the homeland. I think it is more diﬃcult than dying defending the homeland. I am willing to live to defend my country, and I am sure that I will live.

Llamas: Let's go back to this weekend. Your National Guard was able to prevent humanitarian aid coming

ﬁnancial blockade by the United States government that does not allow us to import medicine and food into the country. The European Union along with the United Nations has made a serious oﬀer, not a politicized one, and we have accepted it and we are going to coordinate it.

from Colombia, coming from Brazil into Venezuela. It's a very big moment this weekend. Why is that a victory for you when people in your country are starving and they need medical supplies? President Nicolás Maduro: There are two components your question. What would the United States do if a caravan of trucks tried to cross the border without authorization from the relevant authorities? What would the United States do if Mexico wanted to support -- something that has not happened, nor will it -- wanted to support the forceful entry of trucks at the U.S. border? What would they do? President Donald Trump, when the migrant caravan from Honduras arrived with more than 2,000 people, he said that if they got close to the border, he was going to shoot them. That is the ﬁrst thing I ask. We did what we had to do, to defend the border in peace when we had closed the border. What they were bringing in their trucks has already been shown. Those trucks had disturbance materials. There is a lot of proof of that that the support teams can show you. They wanted to put on a show around a group of trucks. That in the best of cases, Tom, had food that did not pass sanitary authorities. What would the United States do? Allow any kind of food, any kind of medicine? What the United States wanted to do was to escalate with violence to justify subsequent military threats.

Llamas: But by rejecting that aid from the United States, are you putting your pride in front of the needs of your people? President Nicolás Maduro: What the government of Donald Trump is sending is neither aid or humanitarian. I ask you, touch your heart like the American you are. When has Donald Trump been interested in the fate of the world? When? Has his heart been softened? If he cared a lot about the people of Latin America he should open the border's doors to the Mexicans, Hondurans, Guatemalans and Colombians that he chases from the border. He should give them workers' permits, working visas and the permanent visa to the millions of now-Americans that come from our Latin American communities. What does Donald Trump want from Venezuela? To help the people? No he wants the oil, a war for the oil, what he wants is our riches. No one should be fooled that all of this is a Hollywood show of alleged humanitarian aid that covers up the true intentions of an escalation to control and dominate our country. That is the truth.

Llamas: But you are accepting humanitarian aid from China from Russia, you say. Why not accept the humanitarian aid from the United States? President Nicolás Maduro: Look, I can tell you that Venezuela, despite its difficulties, is much, much better than most of the countries that have right-wing governments that critique us. We are much better than Honduras, than Colombia, than Peru, than Ecuador. The international U.N. indexes in relations to the social investment, social equality, health, education, housing, employment, security are the highest in Latin America. Do we have problems? We are going to solve them with double effort. We are ready to receive international help. The People's Republic of China will increase their assistance for medicine, for industrial tools, and food. Russia, 700 tons of medicine arrived, all of that product in some cases were paid for by them or some by us. The European Union has offered us substantial assistance for the sourcing of medicine for the country. But you should remember that we have a commercial and

Llamas: On that point, there is a very good chance that President Trump is watching this interview right now. If he was standing in this room, right in front of you what would your message be to him?

President Nicolás Maduro: I would tell him the same, that through direct and indirect, though private and public ways, I have said to him. President Trump, ﬁx your policy over Venezuela. Venezuela has the right to peace, Venezuela has legitimate institutions. I, as President of Venezuela, am prepared for a direct dialogue with your government and with you to look for, like the Americans that we are. We are South Americans, you are North Americans. To look for 21st-century solutions, not Cold War solutions. The Cold War should stay behind. We cannot have this war of are you a communist, are you anti-communist, inter-communist, anti-communist -- that is not of this century. We are Democrats that believe in a new type of socialism and we have the right to the diversity of criterion and

ideology. And so President Trump should always be ready to see Venezuela's truth -- the other side of the coin and rectify and start a new path. A new start with their relations with Venezuela. The path that got you here is the failed path that Barack Obama left behind, President Trump. It's a path of a coup d'etat, of an intervention -- that is not of the 21st century -- I say to you, fix it. You will always have in me someone that is prepared -- with our differences between us -- to extend my hand and talk about a peaceful dialogue. Llamas: You are saying you would like to shake President Trump's hand, you would like to speak to him. Possibly a summit? President Nicolás Maduro: Summit, however he wants. If it is about Venezuela's peace, our region's peace, of the development of our nation and friendly relations with the United States, I would be willing to go where ever I would have to go. To shake President Trump's hand, always with respect. We have big ideological differences -- very big, well the people that have big differences -- at this hour, President Trump should be arriving in Vietnam. Remember the Vietnam War? The United States went 14,000 kilometers from their border to a disastrous war that went on for more than a decade, and now they have good relations with Vietnam. And why did Donald Trump go to Vietnam? To shake Kim Jong Un's hand, president of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea. So they are signs that I think point to the 21st century. And in Venezuela, their advisers, that group that we have denounced has boxed in Donald Trump's Venezuela policy to a failed Cold War schemes. Llamas: Mr. President, I want to return to what happened this weekend. As Venezuelans were clashing with the National Guard, aid trucks were set on fire. You were salsa dancing on TV. Why? President Nicolás Maduro: Because we always do it. Because we are happy for our fight. Because we love our people. Because as we combat to defend our sovereignty, for the defense of our territorial space, in peace as our national guard fought. Our National Guard was there in peace defending the border. We had an act with more than 300,000 people, 300,000 Caraquenians that mobilized. And when we arrived at the acts, we shared in the passion, the slogans, the yells, the salsa and it will always be like that. It has always been like that and it will continue to be like that. We are happy. Llamas: But what kind of message does that send your people? Some of your people are starving. They need aid. They are fighting with the National Guard, and 14 you're dancing on television.

President Nicolás Maduro: Venezuelans -- we are 30 million -- the 30 million were in the streets, at their workplaces. It was Saturday, at the popular markets. The 30 million were in peace. The virtual reality is what they are trying to fabricate on global television. A small group of delinquents protected by the Colombian government would attack the National Guard. A group that wasn't bigger than 200 people. Criminals, delinquents. It was a speciﬁc action that was attended to and was resolved. That does not symbolize Venezuela. Venezuela is a lot bigger than a group of delinquents or a group of criminals. Venezuela, on Saturday, Feb. 23, was in peace. Sunday the 24th, it woke up in peace and today the people are in peace, working. You can go through the streets, you will see problems like any other part of the world. But you will see a lot of other things that they would tell you that Venezuela is in peace and tranquility and that the Venezuelan people want peace and not an American invasion.

Llamas: You say that you're a country of peace, but the U.N. and human rights groups estimate hundreds of people have died because of your administration. They think hundreds of people have died also since you came into power. Why are people that protest you end up either dead or in jail? President Nicolás Maduro: No human rights organizations has made me responsible for any deaths. You are lying, Tom. Do not lie -- you are just like Trump. You are just like Trump. Llamas: I have the report from the United Nations that says that. More than three hundred. President Nicolás Maduro: Does it make me, Nicolas Maduro, responsible of assassinating people? Llamas: It's your government.

Llamas: We at ABC News have been covering Venezuela for years. We have seen people eating out of the trash in Caracas. People who said years ago that they did not have to eat from the streets. Your own university says that on average, the average Venezuelan has lost 24 pounds. The opposition says you are to blame. President Nicolás Maduro: I can go to New York, and I have walked in New York. You can go to Chicago or Boston. You can go to the streets of Los Angeles or its suburbs and you would see thousands of people, Tom, in Miami, living in the streets, freezing. The United States has 40 million poor people, and why is it not seen on TV? The 40 million people without any type of social security or healthcare. The 40 million people who sleep where they can -- if they have a car they sleep in the car. They don't have a household. And why is that type of poverty that is generated by the strongest country in the world not seen? Oh, because they come to put on a show, Hollywood style. Scene one, show someone eating in Venezuela from the garbage. I can tell you in Venezuela we have the strongest social services system in the region. And it is recognized by international organizations. It is recognized by international organizations that Venezuela has dropped its extreme poverty and misery to 4.4 percent when it was 30 percent. How is it in Colombia? It's 30 percent. It is recognized by international organizations that we have lowered poverty in general from 70 percent to 18 percent. It is a grand ﬁght. We are advancing, but it is not good to not see the spike in one's own eye. Look at the spike that is in the eye of the United States. The immense poverty and how people die in snowstorms, they are frozen to death, and they aren't even a name at a morgue's front door. Look at your reality, you have more poverty than us.

President Nicolás Maduro: No, no, no, you have lied, Tom. You have committed an error as a journalist. Llamas: How did those people die? It's like 500 people. President Nicolás Maduro: When one lies and commits an error, one has to recognize it, Tom. You have committed an error, recognize it. What I can tell you is that in Venezuela that is free expression for political opposition mobilizations. They have delinquent groups that attack public forces, and that is what we put up with in 2017. Groups of delinquents that have been tried and processed according to Venezuelan law. What I can also tell you is that in Venezuela there is full freedom of political expression, of opinion, free press. In Venezuela, there is full freedom to hold public oﬃce. The opposition holds the majority of parliament -- how did they get it if we are supposedly a dictatorship. They got it with votes, with elections. The opposition has four governors. How did they get those four governors? With the popular vote. They have mayors, etc., etc. In Venezuela, there is a democracy with a lot of power, with a lot of force. And it cannot be neglected and ignored that this constitution is the ﬁrst constitution in the history of our country that was approved by referendum and has been full force and is in force today in Venezuela.

Llamas: More than 50 countries call you illegitimate. People by the hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to protest you. Many of your people are starving. They need medical supplies. People are confused, and your oil assets are being frozen by the United States, your largest trading partner. Your American critics say you have run out of moves. Checkmate! Are they right?

country is being attacked by the most powerful force that has ever been known in history. They want to swallow us. They haven't been able to because we are real. They want our oil, they want our wealth, this is and oil war. Do not let that happen. You're a young American, don't let Americans start a war in South America. In the meantime, we're going to be here working, producing, improving our aﬀair, attending our issues and if the elite that governs the United States wants to give some humanitarian aid, they should give it to the 40 million poor people who are suﬀering in the United States without housing, without health and social security and without work.

President Nicolás Maduro: Twenty years of saying the same thing, do you remember when a vinyl record would get scratched? It would start to repeat the same phrase. It is a scratched vinyl record. An antiquated vinyl record. Venezuela has a revolution with a powerful, united citizen military. Venezuela has all the economic capacity to get ahead and we will in this year, 2019. Venezuela has a constitution that is defended by all its institutions. It is a legitimate and powerful state. And Venezuela has extraordinary relations -- we are the president of the Organization of Non-Aligned States that groups 120 countries. We are the president of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries this year. We have grand responsibilities around the world that we will continue to fulﬁll. So that checkmate scheme, Mike Pence can believe that. Mike Pompeo can believe that. John Bolton and Elliott Abrams can believe that. But you should not believe that because you are a young man and knows that history will continue.

Llamas: I've heard you say in previous interviews, about the history of Venezuela, there was Simon Bolivar, Hugo Chavez and now Nicolas Maduro. How will history judge you? President Nicolás Maduro: I do not know, I am not a fortune teller. I've never said that, that ﬁrst was Simon Bolívar after Hugo Chávez and Maduro, no. I am a humble worker, Tom, so that you can see what Venezuelan democracy is like with a labor worker. I am not a tycoon, I am not a millionaire, I am not representative of any lobby -- a worker on foot, a man from the streets, from the barrios, president of the country by popular vote so that you can see the power of Venezuelan democracy. That is how Bolivar, our founding father, our liberator, was. The greatest man in this American continent of all history. If Hugo Chávez was a great revolutionary recognized by millions in the world. I, Nicolas Maduro, am fulﬁlling my task. It's still too early to assess. I'm going to be the one who's going to go through with this whole story. It's too early. What I can tell you is that it does depend on me. I will never surrender, I would never betray our people, I will be loyal to our people in all circumstances, and, in the end, I will be rewarded with victory. I am sure of that. I am a very religious man. Tom, I do not know if you are a believer in God. I am a believer in God -- God the creator. I am a strong believer in the strength of Jesus Christ the Redeemer, Jesus of Nazareth. And always, before I take any action, I pray and I seek a blessing from God for truth. What is the pure truth? Pure for the battle ahead. I am, I say, I carry with me David's sling. You remember David against Goliath. I am being attacked by all the media. And my

Llamas: I've heard you say in previous interviews, about the history of Venezuela, there was Simon Bolivar, Hugo Chavez and now Nicolas Maduro. How will history judge you?

President Nicolás Maduro: I do not know, I am not a fortune teller. I've never said that, that ﬁrst was Simon Bolívar after Hugo Chávez and Maduro, no. I am a humble worker, Tom, so that you can see what Venezuelan democracy is like with a labor worker. I am not a tycoon, I am not a millionaire, I am not representative of any lobby -- a worker on foot, a man from the streets, from the barrios, president of the country by popular vote so that you can see the power of Venezuelan democracy. That is how Bolivar, our founding father, our liberator, was. The greatest man in this American continent of all history. If Hugo Chávez was a great revolutionary recognized by millions in the world. I, Nicolas Maduro, am fulﬁlling my task. It's still too early to assess. I'm going to be the one who's going to go through with this whole story. It's too early. What I

can tell you is that it does depend on me. I will never surrender, I would never betray our people, I will be loyal to our people in all circumstances, and, in the end, I will be rewarded with victory. I am sure of that. I am a very religious man. Tom, I do not know if you are a believer in God. I am a believer in God -- God the creator. I am a strong believer in the strength of Jesus Christ the Redeemer, Jesus of Nazareth. And always, before I take any action, I pray and I seek a blessing from God for truth. What is the pure truth? Pure for the battle ahead. I am, I say, I carry with me David's sling. You remember David against Goliath. I am being attacked by all the media. And my country is being attacked by the most powerful force that has ever been known in history. They want to swallow us. They haven't been able to because we are real. They want our oil, they want our wealth, this is and oil war. Do not let that happen. You're a young American, don't let Americans start a war in

South America. In the meantime, we're going to be here working, producing, improving our aﬀair, attending our issues and if the elite that governs the United States wants to give some humanitarian aid, they should give it to the 40 million poor people who are suﬀering in the United States without housing, without health and social security and without work.

Article by: Tom Llamas, Ignacio Torres, Kirit Radia, Aicha El Hammar Castano and Joshua Hoyos www.abcnews.go.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

Russia and China contain the US to reshape the world order Fortunately, today's world is very different from that of 2003, the decrees of Washington are less and less effective in determining the world order. But despite this new and more balanced division of power between various powers, Washington seems to be more aggressive than ever, both with allies and with enemies, regardless of the president who is in office.

countries is understood. It is essential to accelerate the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar reality, where the damage that imperialism can inﬂict has diminished.

MOSCOW AND BEIJING LEAD THE WORLD BY OBSTRUCTING WASHINGTON Moscow and Beijing, after a complex relationship during the Cold War period, have made arrangements to achieve a conﬂuence of interests in their next objectives. The understanding that we have has come mainly around the containment of the chaos that Washington has been unleashing in the world.

China and Russia lead this historic transition while being careful to avoid direct war with the United States. To succeed in this eﬀort, they use a hybrid strategy that involves diplomacy, military support to their allies and economic guarantees to countries under attack from Washington. The United States has the whole planet its playground. Its military and political doctrine is based on the concept of liberal hegemony, as political scientist John Mearsheimer explains. This attitude is imperialist, with the passage of time, created in a coordinated and semi-oﬃcial front of countries that resist this liberal hegemony. Recent events in Venezuela indicate why cooperation between these counter-hegemonic

The principle of the guidance of the apparatus of intelligence, the use of the media has become a controlled system. This is what the United States has tried to do with Syria, and what it is trying to do with Venezuela.

The Middle East is an area that has attracted global attention for a while, with Washington, with the intention of supporting its Israeli and Saudi allies in the region. Israel has a foreign policy that aims to

dismantle the United States and the Lord. Saudi Arabia also follows a similar strategy against Iran and Syria, which tries to fuel a rupture within the Arab world by deriving its diﬀerences from Qatar.

The economic contribution of China. While the global ﬁnancial system remains anchored in the US dollar, Washington will still be able to cause much pain in countries that refuse to obey its dictates.

Decisions in the foreign policy of Israel and Saudi Arabia have been supported by Washington over the decades, for two very speciﬁc reasons: the inﬂuence of the Israeli lobby in the United States, and the need to ensure that Saudi Arabia and the OPEC countries sell oil in US dollars, thus preserving the role of the US dollar as a global reserve currency.

The effectiveness of economic finances from one country to another. The Russian Federation uses the tasks that are presented in the future as an impetus to obtain a complete, and almost autonomous, refinancing of its main external debt, the same time that occurs in the home. Russia's long-term strategy is to open a large import and export market with China and other Asian countries, thus reducing contact with Europeans and countries such as France and Germany continue their hostility towards the Russian Federation.

RUSSIA AND CHINA IN THE UNITED STATES STATE WITH SEVERAL RESOURCES

Thanks to Chinese investments, along with the planned projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative (RCI), the hegemony of the US dollar is under threat in the medium and long term. Initiatives in the ﬁelds of infrastructure, energy, rail, communications networks and technology connections in a dozen countries. .

It is essential for Washington to maintain its superpower role against its geopolitical rivals. The answers are a good example of how Washington uses the global ﬁnancial and economic system, based on the US dollar, as a weapon against its enemies. In the case of the Middle East, Iran is the main target, with the objective of seeking the Islamic Republic to trade under the foreign banking system. Washington has seen Syria's ability to procure contracts to rebuild the country, with airlines like those that are threatened with options to work more in the United States.

THERE IS A PROGRESSIVE ABANDONMENT OF THE DOLLAR AS A RESULT OF INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS Moscow is in a privileged position, enjoying good relations with all major oil and liqueﬁed natural gas producers, Qatar to Saudi Arabia, including Iran, Venezuela and Nigeria. The good relations of Moscow with Riyadh simplify the creation of an OPEP + agreement that integrated into Russia.

Beijing and Moscow have a clear diplomatic strategy, rejected the countless movements promoted by the United States, the United Kingdom and France in the Security Council of the United Nations, condemning Iran and Syria. On the military front, Russia continues its presence in Syria. The eﬀorts of China's economy, although not everything is seen in Syria and Iran, is the essential part in reviving the countries for the years of war imposed by Washington and its allies.

Particular attention should be given to the situation in Venezuela, one of the most important countries in OPEC. Riad sent to Caracas in recent weeks a truck with 2 million barrels of oil, and Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has had a neutral position with respect to Venezuela, maintaining a predictable balance between Washington and Caracas.

The strategy of containment of China and Russia in the Middle East seeks defenders from Syria and Iran diplomatically using international law, the question of the trampled of the United States and its regional allies. Russia's military activity has been crucial in containing and overcoming the inhumane aggression launched against Syria, and almost a red network that Israel can not weigh in its eﬀorts to attack Iran. The defeat of the United States in Syria has created a precedent for the rest of the world. Washington has been forced to abandon its original plans of Assad's discard.

These joint initiatives, led by Moscow and Beijing, seek use in the United States in countries involved in the ICR and that comply with the OPEP + format. This diversiﬁcation, evading the dollar, to cover future transactions, oil and liqueﬁed natural gas, will testify to the progressive abandonment of the dollar as a result of agreements that increasingly ignore the US currency.

Syria will be recorded in the future as the beginning of the multipolar revolution, why in the United States, the contents, in military terms, as the result of the coordinated actions of China and Russia. 19

For the time being, Riyadh does not seem to be the purpose of the military protection of the state. However, recent events around Khashoggi, and the failure to list the Saudi Aramco on the New York or London stock exchange, have seriously undermined the trust of the royal family in its American allies. The meeting between

FROM THE MIDDLE EAST TO ASIA

Putin and MBS in the G20 in Buenos Aires will send a clear signal to Washington as to the future of the dollar.

Beijing has focused on Asia the diplomatic ﬁeld, facilitating the conferences between North and South Korea, accelerating the internal dialogue in the peninsula, as well as the United States (which only intends to sabotage the dialogues). The military component of Beijing has also played an important role, although it has never been used as the Russian Federation did in Syria. Washington's options against the Korean peninsula are strongly limited by the fact that, the Republic of the Democratic Republic of Korea, that is, the deterrence oﬀered by Russia and China. The combination of the military power of North Korea, Russia and China has a hypothetical invasion and bombing of Pyongyang, an impractical option for the United States.

The military, economic and diplomatic eﬀorts of Moscow and Beijing culminate in the Astana process. Turkey is one of the main countries. But Moscow and Tehran have been incorporated into the process of regional containment in the United States. Thanks to the opportune agreements in Syria known as "demilitarized zones", Damascus has advanced, city by city, in cleaning up the country of terrorists ﬁnanced by Washington, Riyadh and Ankara.

As in the past, the economic support extended to Pyongyang by Moscow and Beijing proved decisive in limiting the effects of the embargo and the total financial war that Washington declared in North Korea. The diplomatic skills of Beijing and Moscow worked with Seoul, producing a similar effect in Turkey in the Middle East, with South Korea, and we put aside the multipolar world of Russia and China, with important implications of prospects for the unification of the peninsula.

Qatar, an economic guarantor of Turkey, which is also a move away from the Israeli-Saudi wing as a result of efforts in the energy, diplomatic and military fields. The Doha action has also been for fratricidal economic-diplomatic war launched by Riyadh against Doha, thus being another example of the contagious effect of the chaos created by Washington, especially with its allies Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Russia and China - through a combination of shrewd play in diplomacy, military deterrence, and oﬀering the Korean Peninsula the prospect of economic investment through the ICR - have frustrated Washington's eﬀorts in the state it is in. its borders vúa The Korean peninsula.

Washington has a military inﬂuence in the region thanks to the presence of Moscow, and this translates into a public relations issue like Washington and Canada. The United States loses its imperialist power, especially in Asia and the Middle East. The military and diplomatic defeat of Washington in the region will be possible, in the long term, will change the economic structure of the Middle East. A multipolar reality that will prevail, where regional powers such as Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran will feel forced and will interact economically with the entire Eurasian continent as part of the ICR.

The United States seems to lose its imperialist power, most significantly in Asia and the Middle East, not only militarily but also diplomatically and economically. The situation is different in Europe and Venezuela, two geographical areas where Washington still enjoys a greater geopolitical weight in Asia and the Middle East. In both cases, the strength of Sino-Russian resistance in military, economic and diplomatic terms - is more limited, for different reasons. This situation, in line with the principle of America First and the return of the Monroe Doctrine., will be the subject of the next article.

Article by: Federico Pieraccini www.misionverdad.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

The basic principle for Moscow and Beijing is the use of military, diplomatic and diplomatic resources for the United States in its incessant drive to kill, steal and destroy. 20

How an interna�onal crime is manufactured as a pretext for war With the entry of "humanitarian aid" as a backdrop, on February 23 another false positive was inaugurated on the border between Venezuela and Colombia to incite a US military intervention.

supposed "humanitarian aid" so publicized the weeks before the operation. The urgency of the government of Donald Trump to unleash a war that breaks the territorial siege in the country leads him to support unfounded accusations against the Venezuelan State to "illegally" hinder the entry of "humanitarian aid", to attack the opposition activists who were pressing for access and, ﬁnally, burn the cargo.

The Venezuelan border in its three exits (Colombia, Brazil and the Caribbean Sea) was the axis of the operation that supposed the consecration of Juan Guaidó as "interim president" and the installation of the parastate built by the US Vice President Mike Pence. While the naval component of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) contained the entry of a vessel from Puerto Rico into Venezuelan territorial waters, and in Brazil the military authorities collaborated with their Venezuelan counterpart to mitigate redoubts of violence on the shared border, Colombia it remained as the only front to forge an excuse for intervention. The failed attempt to access the state Táchira (a day after the pompous display of celebrities in the "Venezuela AID Live" held in Cúcuta) and the dismissal of the scenario of military insurrection, given the null power of convocation to attract considerable fractions of The FANB, resulted in the violent activation that led to the burning of the trucks that moved a cargo with

At ﬁrst glance, the operation of false ﬂag has many inconsistencies, thanks to the fake scene was built on the march without bothering to take care of the forms, in an attempt to quickly position it as a matrix of opinion. DATA THAT DETONATE THE INCIDENT OF THE HUMANITARIAN TRUCKS

The two trucks that were on the Colombian side of the Francisco de Paula Santander International Bridge were set on ﬁre and the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), located on the other side of the road in the Ureña municipality of Táchira state, was immediately held responsible for the entry of these inputs

the director of the National Security Council of the United States, John Bolton.

The group of volunteers summoned by humanitarian propaganda escorted the vehicles, accompanied by extensive media coverage. The volunteer was exposed two days later, when trapped in Colombia after the closure of borders, violent factions began to denounce the abandonment of political leaders.

However, the materialization of that ﬁgure on the day of delivery was felt even more reduced: only two trucks awoke at the entrance of the Santander bridge. Venezuelan Communications Minister Jorge Rodríguez compared it with the 168 trucks that the Bolivarian Government daily moves to distribute CLAP food.

Once the violent event was activated, an NTN24 reporter broadcast a video stating that Molotov cocktails thrown from the Venezuelan border would have ignited the ﬁre.

The inputs that really sought to introduce in the country were, in addition to sweets and injections, logistical material to equip the armed groups. Madeleine García registered the supervision of the cargo remains the day after the ﬁre, where whistles, cables, anti-gas masks, nails and guayas were found.

However, this false statement disagrees with audiovisual materials recorded at the scene. In images it can be seen that it is the violent groups in Colombian territory that use these devices to attack the GNB and not vice versa. In other shots, they appear making incendiary devices with the permissiveness of Colombian security forces, demonstrating the complicity of the Colombian government in this terrorist attack. In addition, the evidence recorded in the confrontation, and shown by the Colombian writer Humberto Ortiz, shows the demonstrators throwing the Molotov cocktails at the Venezuelan army and how they end up impacting the vehicle they were guarding.

The journalist connects this finding with the events that took place during and after the day of 23F. It emphasizes an attack carried out in the early hours of the 24th to Detachment 212 "La Mulata" of the GNB. Around 60 members of paramilitary forces surrounded the border military post and opened fire for one hour. The ambush was mixed with negotiation offerings to press for the surrender of the guards, who did not give in to the resistance and managed to maintain this key space.

On the other hand, aerial photographs show that, at the time of the ﬁre, the cargo was within Colombian borders, far from the location of the GNB.

It is clear that the armed logistics under the humanitarian mantle is one more element to nourish the irregular groups based in Colombia that, from the orders of the US government to their subordinate Ivan Duque, are activating new assaults on Venezuelan territory.

WHAT CONTAINED THE USAID SHIPMENTS?

THE URGENT TASK: TO PROPAGATE THE IDEA OF HUMANITARIAN CRIME Dan Cohen, RT America correspondent, documented the events of 23F at the crossing of the Tienditas bridge. There explained one of the opposition operators, Father Sergio Muñoz, that "humanitarian aid is symbolic and aims to create an uprising inside Venezuela (...) Maduro is 'politically dead' and there will be violence within the country while passing socialism to capitalism. " The provocation behind all the staging recalls the baseless accusations against the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, of attacking his own population with chemical weapons. The White Helmets, subsidiary of Al-Qaeda, produced assemblies to validate before the world cases like the chemical attack in Douma (April, 2018).

At a propagandistic level, the justiﬁcation for US "humanitarian aid" fell on a sector of the international community, since it meant the entry of food and medicine that the Venezuelan population apparently needed urgently due to the "humanitarian crisis". The promise reached 100 million dollars in supplies, a pyrrhic sum compared to the losses of 11 billion that will suﬀer the main oil company in the nation, calculated by

This allowed the United States, along with the United Kingdom and France, under Trump's orders, to respond by bombing Syrian Arab Army installations, even before the evidence showed that the Syrian State was not involved. That is why we witness how the false news of the trucks loaded with medical supplies and food is capitalized at the moment by Senator Marco Rubio, who called on the entire international community to leave the neutral position, stating that "the whole world saw them (at Venezuelan government) to set ﬁre to 3 trucks that transported food and other humanitarian aid ", without having any proof of that. It is a pressing move for Washington to use this argument to expose it in the corresponding global instances, in order to retain the countries that disengage from the armed intervention and form a coalition that does not question the legality of the violent escalation and future violations of international law. .

In fact, the first diplomatic effect left by the false flag operation was presented at the meeting of the Lima Group on Monday, in the city of Bogotá. US Vice President Mike Pence relied on the only positive balance of humanitarian income to add new sanctions against governors of the border states of Zulia, Carabobo, Vargas and Apure, increase pressure against countries that refuse to recognize Juan Guaidó as president and urge the rest of the countries to boycott the country's finances and turn them over to the parallel government. He also thanked the efforts of President Duque, and said that Colombia is its biggest ally in the region and whoever "threatens" it, will be facing the United States. This would seem to confirm that the route chosen so far, to deal with the "Venezuelan situation", is the war by delegation, with Bogotá at the head agglutinating the paramilitary cells for the next confrontations.

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Security Council: The US is commi�ed to the mercenary op�on The Security Council of the United Nations Organization (UN) met in an extraordinary way at the request of the US delegation, with the purpose of submitting to a vote a resolution on the situation of instability induced in Venezuela by the Washington's own government in recent weeks.

Thus, the placement of the Venezuelan issue in this space, again on the initiative of the United States, becomes another component in the road map of pressure against Venezuela and the ongoing coup d'état. But beyond this, it is a component of the positioning of Venezuela as a "target country" and an essential knot in the geopolitical dispute over hegemony and resources between traditional powers and emerging powers.

The relevance of the Venezuelan issue has taken place again in this Council, this time the United States government has pressed in this instance to focus world attention on the escalation that precisely that country promotes against Venezuela, being this instance an inevitable space in moments of geopolitical confrontation.

As is well known, a US resolution on Venezuela, in the current context, would have no basis against the veto power of Russia and China, countries that have consistently denounced the threat of war and interference by the United States. But even so, Washington proposed a resolution as a necessary resource to place the issue of Venezuela as a point of great controversy, a matter of global interest.

RELEVANT ELEMENTS IN THE SESSION The Security Council as a space of controversy. This Council is par excellence the space where in decades the great contradictions and clashes between the blocks of global power have been appreciated. The Venezuelan case at the table is no exception and is now the meeting point of the tectonic plates of world geopolitics.

For the United States, this has a multivalent purpose. It is an act by institutional and diplomatic ways to intensify pressures, to stir up lobbying in that Council, to reﬁne and manage its internal policy and, possibly, to declare and consummate the uselessness and attrition of said entity to act unilaterally as they did in Iraq, Libya and Syria, evading the vetoes and rejections in that forum.

For the United States, it is an indispensable space to leverage its role as the dominant power of the international system, as they did at the time in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, essential foci of the American war expansion plot at this time.

It is a fact. In recent years, the United States has shown a very strong tendency to subjugate the institutional 24

framework of the United Nations System, and for that reason, despite what has been said in that Council, they acted militarily in those countries in violation of international law. In other words, they interact in the institutional setting and then openly violate it, as an open declaration of irrepressible power. This reading is essential to understand the discussion of the Venezuelan issue in that Council. The resolutions banned. The US resolution was emphatic in ignoring the elections of May 20, 2018 in Venezuela, but the call for new elections by default, and at least in this instance, escalates the openly military posture and acts based on the execution of the coup in progress by the ﬁgure of Juan Guaidó as "parallel president" by American bill. In other words, they have proposed a political solution and in fact they are disabling their most recent creation: Juan Guaidó himself.

Moncada referred to actions on the ground by the White House and his "special envoy" to Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, in order to create a mercenary army with supposed "Venezuelan military deserters", a kind of "liberation army" in the germinal stage that would have the presence of Colombian paramilitaries and mercenary elements under US auspice, with the aim of unleashing a warlike conﬂict. Moncada emphasized that the rejection of an intervention in Venezuela supposes the rejection to any form of intervention, including this one, of irregular type, that would be fraguándose also with the active participation of the Colombian government. A very outstanding alert.

That draft resolution obtained nine votes in favor, three against and three abstentions, but it also had a double Russian and Chinese veto in its position as permanent members, which prevented that resolution from coming to fruition.

It is indispensable to consider that the fabrication of an irregular conﬂict in Venezuela presented as a civil war based on the fragmentation of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) is perfectly consistent with the narrative imposed by the destabilization in recent weeks, in which Washington calls to the breakdown of the FANB and, on the other hand, the hyper propagated income of "humanitarian aid" to Venezuela, whose epicenter was not the entry of food and medicine, but precipitate a rupture in the integrity of the Venezuelan military institutionality.

Russia, on the other hand, agreed to the proposal of political dialogue between the forces in conflict in Venezuela promoted by the Montevideo Mechanism by the hand of a group of countries in the region. Also alerting the risk of the development of a military situation in Venezuela. The Russian representative before this instance, Vasily Nebenzya, was emphatic in the promotion of peace mechanisms as instruments for the early disarmament of a fledgling conflict. However, the Russian resolution also failed because of the US veto. He obtained four votes in favor, seven against and four abstentions.

TIME CONSPIRES AGAINST WASHINGTON'S FOREIGN AGENDA WITH GREAT EMPHASIS, AND THAT MAKES IT MORE DANGEROUS

The possibility of an evolution of what is today a political diatribe and an induced institutional crisis, to what could be the detonation of an irregular war, is a true regional security issue, and that is why Moncada gave it due position in that Council. .

It is important to note that, among the majority of the seats in this Council, the positions of distancing the possibilities of military conﬂict in Venezuela prevailed.

OTHER FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCELERATION OF A WAR SITUATION

The probable evolution from a political diatribe to an irregular war. The ambassador in Venezuela present at the Council, Samuel Moncada, was emphatic in warning about the creation of conditions, right now, for the development of a third-party or mercenary war against Venezuela with a starting point on the Colombo-Venezuelan border.

The possibility of evolution to a war stage lies in that it is evident that the United States is seeing frustrated the pressures it has exerted on the Venezuelan government and has not fragmented the political and military leadership of Chavez, in a race against the time that generates wear not only against President Nicolás Maduro: time conspires against Washington's foreign agenda with great emphasis. 25

It is also a fact that, for practical purposes, the para-government of Juan Guaidó is deﬂating as an artiﬁcial instance and each time it is closer to a dead end, and the White House is clear about it.

Meanwhile, Chavismo continues to exert its position of strength, holding onto its center of political gravity, not only reﬁning domestic politics and maintaining its institutional cohesion, but also consolidating its doors outside as setbacks occur, such as the one that recently came from almost all the countries of the Lima Group, which determined their adverse position to the development of a warlike phase in the Venezuelan political conﬂict.

In addition, Washington deals internally with a set of pressures that are prevailing in its internal politics in a transversal manner. The issue of Venezuela, and now by extension, that of Nicaragua and Cuba, that is to say "the troika of evil" by John Bolton, is a thematic axis that is already key to the presidential race in the next two years, and is polarizing domestic politics in that country. Therefore, Washington anxiously needs early victories, and Venezuela is a central space for such purposes.

Venezuela and its political directorate maintain a position strongly linked to the creation of spaces of political detente, also making clear their positions until now irremovable. Chavismo persists in spaces like the Security Council, in a position undoubtedly clinging to the institutional one erected in the country and legitimized in the past presidential elections that the United States and its satellite countries insist on not knowing. www.misionverdad.com

Venezuela alerts about possible mercenary incursions in its territory In an interview made by the multinational chain Telesur, the protector of the state Táchira, Freddy Bernal, denounced that irregular groups of mercenaries and paramilitaries are organized today in the Colombian department of Norte de Santander with the aim of venturing into Venezuela.

cause internal chaos through the incursion of paramilitaries, mercenaries and some traitors," said Bernal, who attributed the responsibility of those plans to the United States government. He said that preparations are underway to attack civilian and military targets in Venezuelan territory in order to generate chaos and destabilization, in a formula of aggression that would include the targeted assassination of political leaders and military oﬃcers.

Bernal said that in three hotels in the town of Cúcuta remain about 435 Venezuelan individuals, among which there are some deserters and military casualties for irregularities, who would be funded by the United Nations Agency for Refugees (UNHCR).

He also stated that the Colombian government protects those paramilitary groups that constitute the spearhead in the aggression against Venezuela.

The leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) stressed the importance of Acnur pronouncing on whether it really has relations with these people, coordinated by the general (retired) and fugitive from Venezuelan justice Clíver Alcalá Cordones.

He also assured that after the violent events reported in the "humanitarian aid" operation of February 23, the border with the neighboring country is "absolutely controlled" on the Venezuelan side.

According to intelligence information provided by sources within the Colombian National Police, these irregular groups would be directed to execute raiding actions on Venezuelan territory.

He also stressed that the FANB has the capacity to guard the borderline and preserve peace in the territory of Venezuela, with the support of the organized people and the Bolivarian National Militia.

"I want to warn the international community that a form of war against Venezuela is being prepared to 27

The representative of Venezuela in the UN, Samuel Moncada, denounced on Thursday before the Security Council maneuvers Washington to induce an "indirect and mercenary war" in the country through armed irregularities groups. Moncada said that spokesmen of the administration of Donald Trump manipulate the ďŹ gures of alleged deserters of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) in order to justify the formation of a so-called Army of Liberation of Venezuela in Colombian territory.

"The organizers of this criminal armed group make a public display in the Colombian media with total impunity," the diplomat said. In December of last year, President NicolĂĄs Maduro revealed that around 734 mercenaries were preparing the territory of Nueva Granada.

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Interna�onal Peoples Assembly: A Manifesto in Solidarity with Venezuela This is this ﬁnal manifesto from the gathering held in Caracas late February 2019. The International Peoples Assembly was held in Caracas from the 24 to 27 February this year and it brought together over 400 leading activists, politicians, academics, journalists and other leading personalities from across the globe.

The following is the Final Manifesto of the Assembly. 1. Assembled together in Caracas, Bolivarian

neocolonial relations that aﬀect our region and the South. With a vision of redistribution of wealth that comes from the plentiful resources that the country produces, Venezuela has attained unprecedented results in its history with universal access to public and free education, eradicating illiteracy and allowing unprecedented access to higher education. Similar achievements are registered in health, housing and other social rights.

2. During the last two decades, the Bolivarian Revolution is moving forward in a process and project of deep transformation, based on participatory and protagonist democracy, focused on peoples interests, which has communal organization and aims the feminist socialism proposed by Hugo Chávez. With this perspective, it has produced changes in the horizon that also involve the construction of a multicenter and multipolar world, with important changes in the

3. US imperialism, guardian of the corporate, financing, military and transnational interests it embraces, is determined to bring the process down in order to take direct control of the natural resources. To give an end to the proposal of sovereignty and self-determination, the United States has unleashed all hybrid and permanent war strategies; it has tried all possible tactics: coups, terrorism, financial speculation, economic blockade, induced inflation, among others. 29

Republic of Venezuela, between February 24 and 27, 2019, delegates from more than 90 countries from the ﬁve continents, representing social and political organizations and movements reaﬃrm our defense of the sovereignty and self-determination of Venezuela, we pronounce ourselves in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution and the legitimate and constitutional President, Nicolás Maduro.

4. Since 2008, there is a clear structural, multidimensional, and historical crisis of capitalism; in this context, the United States seeks to maintain its world hegemony by all means, including war, which results in aggression, invasions and wars to seize natural wealth, and control the markets, the territories and the governments. In this sense, the geoeconomic dispute with China and Russia threatens to lead humanity towards a total war. 5. Thus, in order to protect free market and the freedom of corporations to plunder and exploit our peoples, in various parts of the world, they are moving forward with economic pressures, such as the blockade against Venezuela, Cuba and Iran, and war aggressions, as those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and land occupations such as Palestine. They also impose economic, psychological, and cultural wars, such as the one that has been violating Venezuela for several years. Paradoxically, it is the "defense of human rights and democracy" that has served as a crutch to camouﬂage the most serious collective aggressions. But the peoples resist and have managed to stop these attempts of control as it was the situation in Crimea and Syria. 6. The imposition of the rules of the game of

corporate and globalized capitalism can only be sustained by eliminating democratic possibilities and rights of the working class, spreading chaos, destruction and death. Therefore, we reject the escalation of pressure from the United States government, such as the military action that, disguised as "humanitarian aid", advances against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This is a new phase of the war that seeks to reinstate a model of political subordination, which can be seen in the aim of overthrowing the elected president Nicolás Maduro.

7. A new moment of this interventionist plan is now expressed in the external pressures promoted by ad hoc bodies, such as the so-called Lima group, which, coordinated with sectors of the Venezuelan far

right, seeks to establishing an authoritarian coup d'état ignoring Venezuelan democratic institutions. We note with surprise that even institutions, such as the European Union, succumb to US pressures and, contrary to international law and democracy, proceed to recognize a self-proclaimed "president", who no one has elected. This is supported by an ideological and communicational engineering based on the dissemination of fake news and ﬁctitious scenarios, which are positioned both through corporate media and digital networks.

Today, in Venezuela, sovereignty and self-determination are at issue, these are pillars of the dignity of the peoples that seek to build a future for humanity and fairer and more egalitarian societies. For this reason, and in internationalist solidarity with the people of Venezuela and their legitimate government chaired by Nicolás Maduro, we proclaim:

(i) To stop the economic blockade that leads

to the suﬀering of the people, threatens the economic and productive project and the redistributive policies, and which has already cost Venezuela more than 30 million dollars. (ii) To defend sovereignty, participatory and protagonist democracy and the Venezuelan right to organize its economic project and manage its natural resources with based on sovereign criteria. (iii) The peoples of the world want peace; we do not want another war. Latin America and the Caribbean are peaceful territories, as it has been declared by CELAC in 2014, and as it needs to be projected into the future. Venezuela has the right to solve any diﬀerence through dialog and the multiple mechanisms provided by its own constitution and within the framework of the public international law. (iv) The peoples of the world, represented by the International Peoples’ Assembly, defend the Bolivarian Revolution as a project that provides a sense of ethics and future for humanity. We call the entire world to raise its voice to build on peace and stop the war.

Caracas, February 27, 2019 International Peoples Assembly www.venezuelanalysis.com

EDITORIAL TEAM: Jose Avila, Keyla Castillo, Milka Aweyo, Fredrick Kasuku, CONTACT: UN Crescent, Opposite Diplomatic Police Gigiri, Nairobi Kenya, P. O. Box 2437- 00621, Tel: (+254 - 20) 712 06 . 48 / 712 06 . 49