Newsletter 17 by Venezuelan Embassy in Nairobi

Newsletter

Vol. 4: Issue 17, 17th Sept, 2018

Bolivarian Ministry of People’s Embassy of the Bolivarian Government Power for Foreign Affairs Republic of Venezuela of Venezuela

Weekly

Venezuela closes with positive balance agenda in the UN Human Rights Council

What’s inside Venezuela closes with positive balance agenda in the UN Human Rights Council The Venezuelan State will hold monthly meetings to address joint issues with the United Nations system. PDVSA consolidates investment projects with China Development Bank Social movements raise their voice in Geneva after coercive measures against the Venezuelan people

Sanctions & Blockade

A Crime against Humanity Aimed at Venezuela

Inside Africa:

China offers another $60 bln to Africa

The agenda of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela’s Foreign Minister, Jorge Arreaza, culminated with a positive balance at the 39th Session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (UN) in Geneva. “It has been a very important visit, because the multilateral organisms must be present to reject the aggressions against the countries, against their sovereignty, the intromission in their internal affairs; the multilateral organisms are to fight the unilateralism, the unilateral coercive measures, to fight any attempt of intervention”, the venezuelan diplomat said in declarations to Telesur. He recalled, in this sense, the threats of military intervention that have been uttered from the United States against Venezuela, and denounced the alleged meetings between Venezuelan military officers with US officials to discuss a coup in the Bolivarian Republic.

In this regard, he emphasized that the United Nations should promote the dialogue, equality and protect it’s member countries and their human rights. “And, precisely, the Human Rights Council must have a much more impartial and objective approach to Venezuela”, he suggested. In this context, FM Arreaza expressed his confidence in the new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the former chilean president Michelle Bachelet. “We are willing to establish a new method of work, approximation, information with the Human Rights Council, with its offices, experts and rapporteurs, so they can know the very reality of Venezuela and we can work together”, he added. http://mppre.gob.ve/en/2018/09/12/venezuela-closes-positive-agenda-un-human-rights-council/

The Venezuelan State will hold monthly meetings to address joint issues with the United Nations system. The Vice President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez and the Minister of Popular Power for Foreign Affairs, Jorge Arreaza, held a meeting with Peter Grohmann, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations System and Resident Representative of the United Nations Program for the Development (UNDP) in Venezuela, where they agreed to strengthen coordination mechanisms in the field of social protection programs, which will be evaluated monthly with the UN Agencies and Programs. During her speech, Vice President Rodríguez reported that the meeting addressed issues related to education, health, food, environmental preservation and all social issues in general, framed in the protection carried out by the Bolivarian Government through of the multiple Social Missions created by the commander Hugo Chávez and deepened by President Nicolás Maduro. “In this meeting, issues related to all areas of cooperation were addressed, with a common goal between Venezuela and the United Nations, which is the right to peace and the right to development of peoples,” said Rodríguez. The vice president the social investment granted by the National Government for the protection of the people, which has been the victim of a voracious economic war promoted in part by the unilateral sanctions imposed by the US government and the European Union, is not expressed in formal indicators. “We have addressed aspects of the social investment that Venezuela makes in the area of health, education and the social and we saw how many times that is not reflected in formal indicators, which is what is called non-monetary. It is not expressed in the subsidies granted by the Bolivarian Revolution and particularly the model of Bolivarian Socialism for the direct attention of the population, “he said. She nnounced that they asked the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for their intervention before the governments that impede the procedures for the execution of the airlift – carried out by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry – for Venezuelans who wish to return to the country through the Plan Back to the Fatherland. “When we met, we said that we have to guarantee the human rights of our compatriots in other countries who have violated their rights to dignity, work, wages, human rights and guarantees in general. , we have asked for that technical support, “he said. For his part, the Chancellor of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Jorge Arreaza, stressed that the 2030 agenda promoted by the United Nations Organization for Sustainable Development, is intended to strengthen peace and access to justice and is combined with the Plan of the Motherland 2013-2019. “The 20-30 agenda and the Plan de la Patria are instruments that can be combined almost perfectly, like few national development plans that can be combined with the United Nations. If the world were to achieve sustainable goals by 2030, we would be in the presence of a Revolution from our point of view and Venezuela will set the example, “said Arreaza. The Foreign Minister assured that they will maintain contact with the agencies and agencies of the United Nations, which have responded to the unilateral aggressions and the economic blockade that the United States maintains, a government that has violated the human and social rights of the Venezuelan people. “The United Nations has always been on the side of the Venezuelan government, and it is precisely what the UN must do when it comes to imposing unilateral force; multilateral force must be activated. Cooperating with Venezuela and countries that suffer unilateral aggressions we will be able to safeguard their sovereignty and social rights of the peoples, “he said. After the meeting ended, the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations System, Peter Grohmann, expressed his pleasure to strengthen the integration mechanisms between the international organization and the Venezuelan government, which is why he described the meeting as a constructive meeting. first hand the programs that Venezuela executes for the protection of its citizens. “We are in a phase to identify the priorities for the future, within the framework of cooperation for the country and obviously we will address both the urgent issues, medium and long term, always under the sustainable development scheme. We are going to follow up on the challenges the country is facing”, he said. http://mppre.gob.ve/en/2018/09/05/the -venezuelan-state-will-hold-monthly-meetings-to-address-joint-iss ues-with-the-united-nations-system/

PDVSA consolidates investment projects with China Development Bank Representatives of China’s highest financial entity discussed with the economic team of the Venezuela’s Government to realize strategic alliances aiming at increasing investments and oil production in the country. This meeting would consolidate the discussion of agreements between Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) and representatives of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), aimed at strengthening joint projects for gas trade. The People’s Power Minister for Petroleum and President of Petroleos de Venezuela S.A (PDVSA), Manuel Quevedo, met with directives of the China Development Bank to consolidate important investment projects. Such work meeting took place following instructions of the President of the Republic, Nicolas Maduro, and within the framework of the 16th China-Venezuela High-Level Meeting which is being developed in the Asian nation, and for which the President departed this last Wednesday.

The strengthening of companies such as Sinovensa, Petrourica and Petrozumano was considered in such work agenda, where the CNPC participates. PDVSA

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Social movements raise their voice in Geneva after coercive measures against the Venezuelan people Venezuelan people for having exercised their right to free determination, thus they are being punished”. “We, Cubans, have wide experience in this matter; for more than 60 years, the U.S. Government has imposed a hard blockade against our people, and that is why today we are demonstrating our solidarity with the Bolivarian people and Government”, expressed the Cuban Association representative. In the framework of the 39th Period of Sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), a group of worldwide social movements organized a forum rejecting the unilateral coercive measures imposed against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela by the United States and the European Union. The meeting was headed by the SURES social organization and the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) with the aim of explaining how such measures affect human rights in Venezuela. In this sense, the representative of the United Nations Cuban Association, Azalia Arias, pointed that “we are here in this activity to denounce the blockade imposed to the

For his part, the representative of the French Organization Le Pont, David Lopez, who was as well an international observer in the last presidential elections held on May 20th, expressed that during his stay in Venezuela he was able to see how these economic measures affect the Venezuelan people. “The first thing you can notice arriving to Venezuela is that there are economic hardships arising from these imposed measures, but there is no humanitarian crisis. I am a Colombian and I have seen that, in Colombia, the amount of displaced persons who leave the country as a result of the warfare and the hunger reaches around 10 million persons”, noted Lopez. Lastly, these organizations called the United Nations Organization to make a statement against these unilateral coercive measures. http://mppre.gob.ve/en/2018/09/13/social-movements-raise-their-voice-in-geneva-after-coercive-measures-aga

Sanctions & Blockade A Crime against Humanity Aimed at Venezuela

VENEZUELA IN THE SIGHTS OF THE EMPIRE

With Executive Order 13692 of March 2015, which has since been renewed by both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the U.S. regime legalized what had been until then an unofficial policy that was carried out through covert financial, political, media, paramilitary and diplomatic operations, as has been demonstrated by information from Wikileaks and hundreds of declassified U.S. Government documents. The Donald Trump administration, influenced by powerful lobbies from the state of Florida and global interests such as those of oil company Exxon Mobil, has escalated this policy of hostility, openly declaring its intention to remove the legitimate Government of Venezuela from power, using any means possible. In August 2017, Donald Trump himself declared he was keeping open “all of the options” against Venezuela, including a possible military operation.

The following report contains arguments and facts which demonstrate the deepening of the policy of hostility and aggression by the United States of America towards the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This policy is expressed with particular intensity through the adoption of legislation in 2015 that authorizes the imposition of unilateral coercive measures (sanctions) against the Venezuelan economy. These unilateral measures, which violate international law and the human rights of the Venezuelan people, are aimed at disrupting the economic and political stability of Venezuela’s democracy as part of a plan that seeks to overthrow the constitutional Government of President Nicolás Maduro and take control of our economic resources. This is part of the strategy of recolonization of Latin America and the Caribbean through the reimposition of the Monroe Doctrine throughout the continent. The United States sanctions against a small country like Venezuela constitute an inhuman blockade against our people, a gross violation of our sovereignty and an international crime against humanity.

“Regime Change”

Since the Bolivarian Revolution came into power through the presidential election of Hugo Chávez in 1998, Venezuela has been in the sights of U.S. interests in the continent and occupies a privileged position as a priority objective in its strategy of global hegemony.

As of 2000, the U.S. has established a policy of “regime change” towards Venezuela that makes it impossible for the U.S. Empire to coexist with Venezuelan popular democracy. It considers this model - with its nationalist policies of sovereignty, independence and social justice - to be a threat to its system of domination and control of the region in the 21st century. This strategy led the administration of George W. Bush to finance and support the failed coup d’état against President Hugo Chávez in April 2002. As of 2015, the policy of “regime change” was accelerated when President Obama issued a decree that considers Venezuela “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

This strategy led the administration of George W. Bush to finance and support the failed coup d’état against President Hugo Chávez in April 2002. As of 2015, the policy of “regime change” was accelerated when President Obama issued a decree that considers Venezuela “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” With Executive Order 13692 of March 2015, which has since been renewed by both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the U.S. regime legalized what had been until then an unofficial policy that was carried out through covert financial, political, media, paramilitary and diplomatic operations, as has been demonstrated by information from Wikileaks and hundreds of declassified U.S. Government documents. 4

The Donald Trump administration, influenced by powerful lobbies from the state of Florida and global interests such as those of oil company Exxon Mobil, has escalated this policy of hostility, openly declaring its intention to remove the legitimate Government of Venezuela from power, using any means possible. In August 2017, Donald Trump himself declared he was keeping open “all of the options” against Venezuela, including a possible military operation.

Unilateral coercive measures by State or group of States 2014-2018.

Since then, high level officials of the Trump administration, such as Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, Nikki Haley and John Bolton, have reiterated that the U.S. objective is to “remove from power” the president of Venezuela. More recently, Senator Marco Rubio, one of the most influential politicians in Washington, claimed that the time had come to act militarily against Venezuela. These reckless declarations constitute a grave threat to hemispheric peace as they place Venezuela - a small country in the continent - as a U.S. military objective. Seen as a whole, and considering its multiple, growing and aggressive forms, U.S. policy towards Venezuela in the past two decades can definitively be considered a warmongering policy. The United States has defined Venezuela as a “hemispheric enemy” and has carried out an undeclared war against our country. A war whose objective is the destruction of Venezuela’s democratic model, the annihilation of popular movements and the leadership of the Bolivarian Revolution, and the reappropriating and taking control of Venezuela’s immense riches.

From sanctions to blockade

In this context, the U.S. has opted, since 2017, to punish Venezuela through the application of unilateral coercive measures, particularly in the economic and financial fields, along the same lines as those it has applied against countries such as Cuba, Russia, Iran, Syria, Sudan and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. These unilateral, coercive, unjust and illegal measures that violate international law have been presented by the Trump administration as being timely actions that target individuals: officials from the Venezuelan Government as well as people or businesses identified as political and economic partners of the Venezuelan Government. The Trump administration argues that these measures do not create negative impacts upon the Venezuelan people, and on the other hand, are designed to improve the country’s situation and accelerate its “return to democracy.” The measures include: 5 • A prohibition on entering U.S. territory.

• A prohibition on entering U.S. territory. • The freezing and seizing of financial assets, bank accounts in the U.S. financial system and goods in the United States such persons may possess. • A prohibition on having commercial or financial relations with U.S. entities. • The sanctions, officially imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Treasury Department, are authorized by executive orders of the U.S. administration. • In every case, these sanctions have been extended to the relatives of the people sanctioned. As of 2017, the individual sanctions have been extended to include general aspects of the Venezuelan Government’s management and impede the normal operation of the Venezuelan economy, such as: • A prohibition on U.S. persons and financial sector entities from carrying out operations with the sovereign debt bonds of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, or with any financial instrument issued by the Government of Venezuela, like PDVSA bonds. • A prohibition on U.S. persons and entities of the financial sector from carrying out operations or transactions with the “Petro” cryptocurrency, or any cryptocurrency or monetary instrument issued or backed by the Government of Venezuela. The extension of these sanctions toward the economic field and the international financial and commercial activities of Venezuela, represent an escalation of the U.S. policy of hostility. This escalation fits in perfectly with the military concept that holds that one of the first tasks in a war is to “cut the enemy’s supplies.”

Since 2014, fourteen legal acts have been issued: laws, decrees, executive orders that sanction Venezuela.

Thus the United States attempts to block and suffocate the Venezuelan economy and spur destabilization or an internal conflict of such magnitude that it will require an “international response” in terms of “humanitarian collective action.” In other words: an intervention in Venezuela.

General effects of the sanctions

Based on the prerogatives established in the Obama Decree, the United States’ sanctions against Venezuela generate serious disruptions to the national life, specifically in the economic sphere. This phenomenon, which has been called economic aggression or the economic war, has the following effects: • Impeding commercial trade, depriving the country of access to food, medicine and essential goods. • Blocking of accounts, financial operations and transactions that impede or disrupt international payments for the Republic’s legitimate commitments, or the payment of claims that international suppliers or nations have with Venezuela.

• Freezing or retaining legitimate resources belonging to Venezuela in banks and financial entities. • Delays in the carrying out of buying and selling operations, which not only affects Venezuelan businesses and the Government, but foreign trading partners as well.

economic sabotage. These measures are complemented by a global plan to isolate the Venezuelan Government political and diplomatically, along with a renewed media campaign of criminalization and symbolic destruction that includes the manipulation and exploitation of the migration issue.

The unilateral coercive measures demonstrate U.S. involvement in Venezuelan politics, aggravating the paralysis that has marked relations between the two States for several years. The Trump administration has led a genuine escalation of tensions in the bilateral relationship. It should be noted that, having not even reached the halfway point of his presidential term, the Trump administration has already carried out four rounds of sanctions against Venezuela.

In light of the terrible effects the sanctions have on the Venezuelan people, it is perverse to affirm that the U.S. regime is worried about the well-being of Venezuelans. Upon holding hundreds of millions of dollars of Venezuela’s money hostage in foreign banks, prohibiting transactions with Venezuela’s sovereign debt bonds and unleashing financial persecution against the Republic’s accounts in the global financial system, particularly with regards to the entry of food and medicine into the country, the United States has demonstrated its contempt for the Venezuelan people

The overall aim of these sanctions is to harm the Venezuelan economy, promoting a collapse of international trade, blocking and hindering Venezuela’s financial operations, impeding the country from obtaining access to sources of financing, and sabotaging the purchase of food, medicine and essential goods. All of this is done to spur an internal economic crisis that can be used as an excuse for destabilizing actions in the political arena.

The cynical strategy of economic aggression against Venezuela also has an essential element of promoting and encouraging the migration of an important number of Venezuelan citizens to neighboring countries. This condition is fundamental for placing the narrative of “humanitarian crisis” in the international community, which would therefore “require” an international “humanitarian” intervention in Venezuela.

Politically, these sanctions are applied during a time in which Washington has begun to recognize the failure of Venezuela’s opposition. With the sanctions against Venezuela, the U.S. has accepted the inability of its internal allies to produce “regime change” and has assumed the de facto political leadership of the Venezuelan opposition.

In this context, President Trump uses the Organization of American States (OAS) to continue attacking Venezuela and pressures Latin American countries when he demands they support aggression against a sibling nation. While he insists on walls, persecutes migrants and separates families on the border, President Trump demands the absolute subordination of the continent’s governments for the policy of blockade and sanctions. This is the explicit resurrection of the “big stick” policy.

The failure of the violent strategy of 2017, when there was an attempt to spark a “Color Revolution” in Venezuela, is addressed in 2018 with a strategic plan to suffocate the Venezuelan economy, push the population to mass migration or to internal civil conflict, and create the conditions for the so-called “humanitarian intervention.”

The measures imposed by President Trump and his international allies against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela are causing harm and suffering to the people of Venezuela while they are presented as actions to save Venezuela from the hardships caused by an alleged “dictatorship” or “failed state.” This is a cynical attitude that is impossible to deny, and it is a new attack on the principles that govern the coexistence of States. This is a crime against the Venezuelan people; a crime against humanity.

The unilateral coercive measures seek to impede and block any initiative at dialogue between the Government and opposition, and therefore close any road to constitutional and peaceful solutions to the situation in Venezuela. The sabotage by the United States of the dialogue in the Dominican Republic in 2017 and 2018, which would have enabled the country to begin its path toward the normalization of politics, proves that the only policy acceptable to the U.S. administration is the removal of the President Nicolás Maduro Moros’ Government through unconstitutional and violent means.

The internationalization of the aggression against Venezuela

The policy of sanctions against Venezuela has been internationalized from Washington through a fierce lobbying campaign and pressure against many countries and Governments.

The United States is not looking to “restore democracy” in Venezuela as it so demagogically claims. The plan of an “economic war” attempts to force a situation of chaos and violence to make the country ungovernable and delegitimize constitutional, democratic and electoral paths, provoking a “surrender of Chavismo.” This is what the U.S. calls a “transition” for a “return to democracy.”

The United States has managed to get the European Union, the European Parliament and a group of conspiratory governments in the self- proclaimed Lima Group to form an international coalition to establish and promote sanctions, diplomatic isolation and political actions to destabilize Venezuela’s democracy.

The escalation of aggression

The U.S. strategy consists of presenting as “sanctions on individuals” what is actually a massive, comprehensive and global strategy of economic and financial blockades and

Countries such as Canada have joined in on the unilateral 6

coercive measures that seek to break the national economy, which has imitated the Obama and Trump executive orders and established its own legislation to criminalize and punish Venezuela.

Thus, the United States seeks to pressure countries in the region to act concertedly to criminalize the Venezuelan Government and justify an international action for “humanitarian” reasons.

Additionally, under pressure from the European Parliament, the European Union has adopted unilateral sanctions, just as specific decisions have been made by some Latin American countries that have given in to Trump’s pressure to “punish” Venezuela and depose its legitimate Government.

At the same time, the manipulation of migration statistics and the creation of a narrative in the media of an alleged “humanitarian tragedy” are used by some Governments to request international aid, which represents a shameless attempt to benefit from international resources while engaging in propaganda against Venezuela.

Sanctions and Migratory Flows

The economic effects of sanctions, coupled with sabotage to the Venezuelan economy from Colombia, the United States and other countries, has induced, over the last three years, an increase in the migratory flow of Venezuelan citizens to foreign countries. Although Venezuela is below the international average in terms of emigration and essentially continues to be a receptor country of migrants and refugees, mainly from Colombia, the increase in the number of Venezuelan citizens who cross borders is a new phenomenon.

In addition to these phenomena are the actions of criminal organizations that traffic in persons, which capture people and move them across borders with the aim of exposing the “Venezuelan problem”, a phenomenon that is joined by xenophobic campaigns against Venezuelan migration. All of these problems are directly associated with the grave effects the sanctions have on the economy and the Venezuelan people; sanctions that are the direct responsibility of the U.S. government.

www.mppre.gob.ve

In their campaign of aggression against Venezuela, the U.S., the so-called Lima Group and international corporate media - with the support of some officials from the United Nations system have framed international opinion to manipulate the migratory situation and attempt to turn it into a “humanitarian problem” for the entire region.

INSIDE AFRICA:

China offers $60 bln to Africa Chinese President Xi Jinping offered another $60 billion in financing for Africa and said Chinese companies will be encouraged to invest no less than $10 billion over the next three years, but he also warned against “vanity projects”. Speaking at the opening of a major summit with African leaders, Xi promised development that people on the continent could see and touch, but that would also be green and sustainable.

“I hope that our entrepreneurs will act to fulfil social responsibilities and respect local culture and tradition,” he said. “I also hope you will do more in staff training and bettering lives for the local people and will put more emphasis on the environment and resources,” Xi said. ‘AFRICA KNOWS BEST’ Chinese officials say this year’s summit will strengthen Africa’s role in Xi’s Belt and Road initiative to link China by sea and land with Southeast and Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa through an infrastructure network modelled on the old Silk Road.

China has denied engaging in “debt trap” diplomacy, and Xi’s offer of more money comes after a pledge of another $60 billion at the previous summit in South Africa three years ago. Xi, addressing leaders at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, said the new $60 billion will include $15 billion of aid, interest-free loans and concessional loans, a credit line of $20 billion, a $10 billion special fund for China-Africa development, and a $5 billion special fund for imports from Africa.

China loaned around $125 billion to the continent from 2000 to 2016, data from the China-Africa Research Initiative at Washington’s Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies shows.

Chinese companies will be encouraged to invest no less than $10 billion in the continent in the next three years, he said. “China-Africa cooperation must give Chinese and African people tangible benefits and successes that can be seen, that can be felt,” Xi said.

State media has accused the West of sour grapes over China’s prominent role in Africa and has angrily rejected claims of forcing African countries into a debt trap. Xi said the plan, for which Beijing has pledged $126 billion, would help provide more resources and facilities for Africa and would expand shared markets.

Chinese officials have vowed to be more cautious to ensure projects are sustainable. China defends continued lending to Africa on the grounds that the continent still needs debt-funded infrastructure development.

“In terms of cooperation with China, African countries know best,” widely read tabloid the Global Times wrote in an editorial on Monday.

Sponsored Stories Speaking earlier at a business forum, Xi said China had to be careful about where money was spent.

“Western media deliberately portray Africans in misery for collaborating with China and they appear to have discovered big news by finding occasional complaints in the African media about Sino-Africa cooperation,” it said.

“China’s cooperation with Africa is clearly targeted at the major bottlenecks to development. Resources for our cooperation are not to be spent on any vanity projects but in places where they count the most,” he said. Beijing has also fended off criticism it is only interested in resource extraction to feed its own booming economy, that the projects it funds have poor environmental safeguards, and that too many of the workers for them are flown in from China rather than using African labour.

www.af.reuters.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy

Xi told business leaders Chinese firms in Africa had to be aware of their social responsibilities and make sure their investments served the community and improved their wellbeing. 8