Orinoco Tribune: Venezuela Condemns Weaponization of Human Rights by UN and Washington (statement here) For the US government, human rights are simply a tool used for political convenience, based on distorted narratives. Once again, this report is published to attack sovereign countries, whose decisions are not made with the consent of Washington, while the United States, internally, fails to contain the growing poverty, fails to mitigate the brutality of institutionalized police racism, fails to abandon arbitrary measures of deprivation of liberty of undocumented migrants and does not stop applying illegal and unilateral coercive measures against at least 30% of the world population.
Statement: Venezuela Rejects False Accusations of the so-called Fact-Finding Mission before the UN This pseudo Mission is a tangible example of double standards and the political use of international human rights mechanisms, attacking Venezuelan institutions as part of of the “regime change” policy promoted by the US authorities. This hostile mission squanders the resources of the UN and transgresses the principles and purposes enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.
The Grayzone: Bad faith UN report on Nicaragua whitewashes violent US-backed coup UN report denouncing Nicaragua’s government whitewashes the brutal US-backed 2018 coup against it while refusing to interview victims of sadistic opposition violence. Practically the entire UN human rights system is consistently abused to supply pretexts for US economic and even military aggression against one country after another. That system depends substantially on reporting by partisan Western government and corporate funded NGOs, abusing their nonprofit status to serve as political opposition to their respective governments, often in support of opposition violence and terrorism.
Sign Petition: UN Human Rights Report on Nicaragua is Fatally Flawed and Should be Withdrawn Join Alfred de Zayas, Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University, Daniel Kovalik, Ann Wright, US Army Colonel (Ret) and former US Diplomat (Kawsachun News: Human rights experts call for withdrawal of biased UN report on Nicaragua)
Peoples Dispatch: UN Human Rights Council [except US and underlings] condemns unilateral sanctions Among the countries that rejected the text were the US, UK, Belgium, France, Finland, Germany, Ukraine. “Unilateral sanctions are brutal and inhumane by their very nature and they collectively punish and undermine national socio-economic progress,” said Adem Osman Idris, Eritrea’s Permanent Representative to the UN. “These powers that give lip service to [a] rules-based international order use unilateral sanctions [as] forms of warfare [to] bully and intimidate those nations that pursue independent national policies and programs to the benefit of their people.”
Venezuela
Reuters: US plans no wider easing of sanctions on Venezuela, US official says “There have been limited changes in specific sanctions and we can take them back in any moment…I can categorically say that we don’t have any plans to liberalize further on Venezuela…In this moment, there are no plans to ease the sanctions more.”
AntiWar.com: Venezuela’s Opposition Envoy Calls on Biden to Ease Sanctions Fernando Blasi, the new envoy for Venezuela’s US-backed opposition, calls on Biden to ease the crippling sanctions, saying not doing so could turn the country into another Cuba, which has been under a US trade embargo since 1962. Blasi said sanctions relief could provide much-needed relief for ordinary Venezuelans and incentivize President Maduro to make concessions to the opposition related to the upcoming 2024 election. “We have to begin now with a coherent plan whereby we give something and the government reciprocates,” he said.
Cuba
Resumen: What If the Protests in France Were in Cuba? 300 demonstrations with more than three million people, 500 people arrested in a single day. If it were Cuba, Belarus or China… the headlines would be filled with terms such as “social outburst”, “popular uprising”, “repression”, “regime” But since they are in France, they speak of “serious riots”, in which the only people injured – 440 in a single day – were “policemen”. Only policemen.
Nicaragua
Video: Nicaragua at UN Emergency Session on Ukraine Defend the territorial integrity of countries, condemns US/NATO provocations going back to 2014 coup, condemns all sanctions.
Bolivia
Kawsachun News: Meta (Facebook) vs. Bolivia Without prior warning, 1,041 Facebook accounts, 450 Pages, 14 Groups and 130 Instagram accounts were deleted in December 2022. All the banned accounts belonged to supporters of the Movement Towards Socialism, the party of government. Those who have been banned have not been able to return. Meta’s cyber intelligence officer, and one of the authors of this recent report, Mike Torrey, worked at the NSA from 2003 to 2006 when that agency spied on its own citizens and the entire planet. Torrey then went on to become a high-ranking official at the CIA from 2010 to 2018, specializing in cyberwarfare against China, Russia, and other official enemies of the US State Department.
Events
Thursdays: WTF is Going on in Latin America & The Caribbean with Teri Mattson (or watch here or here)
April 11: Minneapolis Venezuela delegation report back
April 18: Los Angeles – Meet Representatives from Cuban Embassy
April 27: Labour Friends of Latin America: End Sanctions on Venezuela; US Out of Latin America
April 28-29: Burying 200 Years of the Monroe Doctrine
Delegations/Tours
April 25-May 7: Building Relations with Cuban Labor: Celebrating Labor and May Day
April 27-May 6 Nicaragua delegation by Friends of the ATC
May 25- June 4: Lessons from Cuba: Exploring Art, Healthcare, Sustainability, Education
May 13-22 and June 19-26 delegations to Nicaragua
June 17-27 Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast Delegation with Friends of the ATC
June 26-July 6: Pastors for Peace Climate Change tour to Cuba
July 15-29 IFCO/ Pastors for Peace US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravan
July 21-30, Sept 8-17, December 1-10, Dec 8-17: Witness for Peace delegations to Cuba
If you have events to publicize or find helpful articles for readers on the ALBA countries, please send them to [email protected], or you can post them on Facebook here: Venezuela; Nicaragua; Bolivia; Latin America in general (here or here) Or send them to [email protected]
