Venezuela & ALBA News 10.22.2021 Update on US Seizure of Alex Saab; Maduro letter to Spain condemning Spanish genocidal invasion; Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua

 

Statement from the Free Alex Saab Committee: US Illegally Extradites Venezuelan Diplomat from Cabo Verde to the US The Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab was renditioned, kidnapped to the US on October 16 without waiting for a final extradition decision. The action was taken in secret, without notifying his defense team and without relevant documentation. The reason the US is persecuting Alex Saab, revealed by Forbes, is because he is “the key that unlocks the Venezuelan monetary mystery—that is, how a country facing sanctions from the US, the UK, and the European Union—is still able to export things like gold and oil…and really the only man who can actually explain how the country [Venezuela] survives today.”

Orinoco Tribune: President Maduro Condemns Illegal Extraction of Alex Saab ‘When the Blockade Intensified, He Brought Food & Gasoline’ “The food that arrived, which had an international label, was brought by Alex Saab, in silence” said the Venezuelan president. “And he did it out of love for our country. The gasoline that came to us at that difficult time, June-July of last year, was brought by Alex Saab. The medicines that arrived for diabetics, catastrophic diseases, cancer treatments, and for children, were brought by Alex Saab from various parts of the world. He was persecuted by the Colombian drug oligarchy in combination with the North American [US] government.”

Orinoco Tribune: ‘State Terrorism’ Alfred de Zayas on Alex Saab Kidnapping “What the United States does against its opponents Assange, Meng, or Saab is a form of state terrorism,” concluded the lawyer. “Someday perhaps there will be a whistleblower who will reveal to us how much the United States paid Cape Verde to participate in the legal deviation of this aberrant extradition. The abuse of extradition procedures threatens human rights defenders like Assange and diplomats like Saab.  ’Lawfare’ is a modern epidemic. In the past, governments did what they wanted and got away with it. Today they attempt to throw a cloak of legality over their abuse of extradition treaties and subvert the administration of justice in the process,” wrote the historian.

COHA (Dan Kovalik): The US flies Alex Saab out from Cabo Verde without court order or extradition treaty  To put it simply, Saab was kidnapped in Cabo Verde nearly a year and a half ago, and there he was detained, until his “extradition” to the US on October 16th, despite the lack of any valid extradition treaty and any valid arrest warrant at the time of capture. It appears that Alex Saab’s very adeptness in helping Venezuela to get around these sanctions – sanctions which Alena Douhan notes are illegal under international law — is the real reason for Washington’s interest in having him detained and extradited

 

Orinoco Tribune: President Maduro sends Letter to King of Spain condemning that Spain “intends to minimize and falsify the events that occurred during the so-called Conquest of America in the 15th century.” It is unacceptable that in the 21st century a nation that prides itself for being civilized worships the worst of its past: robbery, pillage, racism and hate crimes, committed during more than three centuries of Spanish imperial occupation in the territory of Abya Yala.The arrival of Spain and the forced occupation of the American lands represented the most terrible physical and symbolic annihilation of entire peoples that the history of mankind remembers. Europe must recognize that its modernity and its vertiginous industrial, commercial and financial growth, that is, the rise of Western capitalism, had its foundations in a crime against humanity against the peoples of Indo-America and Africa. Massacres, displacement, wars, new diseases, forced labor, killed more than 90 million indigenous people. The slave trade abducted, expatriated and enslaved nearly 50 million Africans. These figures exceed the holocausts and wars caused and suffered by Europe in the 20th century.

Orinoco Tribune: PDVSA Revenues Increase by 62% in 2021 In comparison with last year, Venezuela’s publicly owned oil and natural gas company PDVSA has increased its profits by more than 60% in 2021. The levels of production and exports of crude oil by PDVSA stands at 625,959 barrels per day. These figures, together with the rise in oil prices worldwide, have increased the foreign exchange earnings of the illegally blockaded company by 62%. The income received represents less than 25% of what PDVSA would have received if it operated free from coercive economic measures, and with full access to the international market.

Ultima Noticias: Maduro: the first Communal City will be created During the activity, the head of state announced that the milestone of 49,000 Communal Councils had been reached, “in Venezuela there is a democratic Revolution that has handed power over to the people. Commander Chávez’s main dream was for all the Communes to be productive and we are living that today, “he said. With the Law of Communal Cities that is being debated in the National Assembly (AN), 309 Communal Cities will be decreed throughout the country.The President detailed that there are 3,491 organized communes, “which have fulfilled the requirements for their constitution, of which 2,620, which represents 65% of the communes, have instances of self-government and communal parliament.”

 

Bolivia
Peoples Dispatch:  Bolivians march in defense of the Wiphala and socialist government
On October 12, Decolonization Day, thousands of Bolivians marched in different cities of the country in defense of the indigenous Wiphala flag, the democratic and cultural revolution, and in defense of President Luis Arce and the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) govt. These protests came a day after working class and popular sectors in Bolivia organized counter protests to a strike called by right-wing sectors against the MAS govt.

 

Nicaragua
NicaNotes: Facebook Provoked Violence in Nicaragua in 2018
In 2018, Facebook was at the height of its popularity in Nicaragua, accounting for eight out of ten social media posts. Using it for mass manipulation had only become possible a year or two earlier as smartphones became cheap enough for young people to buy and as the government made free Wi-Fi access available in public parks. Facebook, in particular, quickly became the main source of news as it already had in other countries. The government, hit by what was quickly labelled a ‘tsunami’ of social media posts, was totally unprepared, relying still on its own TV channels which young people increasingly ignored.

 

Cuba
US-Cuba Normalization Committee: Cuba responds to new Miami-based provocation
A Granma editorial notes that those who seek the fall of socialism in Cuba, having failed in their efforts on July 11, now are promoting diverse actions to destabilize the country in November, in order to provoke an incident that would culminate in a social breakout that would bring about long-desired military intervention.

 

Delegations
Nicaragua Solidarity delegation, November 2-9
Witness for Peace 2021 delegations to Cuba
IFCO Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba, November 13-26

 

Webinars
Webinar video: October 18: Bolivia Shows There is An Alternative: Putting People & Planet First
Jeremy Corbyn, with guests from Bolivia, including Ollie Vargas, Claudia Turbet-Delof, Wiphalas Across the World
October 31: Nicaragua’s Election – US Hands Off! Let the People Decide
December 4 (London): Latin America Conference – ¡Adelante! 2021 Peru, Cuba, Argentina, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Colombia, Brazil

 

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