He cites 19th-century Spanish colonialism as a precedent for the “subjugation” Washington is now attempting to impose.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has written to the attendees of the EU-CELAC summit, urging them to use the meeting to take a firm stand against the United States’ systematic policy of intervention and the “resurgence” of the Monroe Doctrine, which guided US foreign policy throughout the 19th and much of the 20th centuries.
Sunday’s summit in Santa Marta, Colombia, is marked by the difficulty its participants face in reaching a common position condemning the US military attacks on suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean, which have already left 70 dead and have been denounced by NGOs as “extrajudicial killings.” The summit is also marked by threats against Venezuela from President Donald Trump, who has declared Maduro finished and clearly threatened to order a military intervention against the country.
“When armed and lethal acts are carried out under the justification of ‘security’ or the ‘fight against crime,’ and these acts involve executions at sea, international law is violated and human life is trampled upon,” lamented Maduro, who was absent from the summit, in a letter published by his Foreign Minister, Yvan Gil.
“We do not accept that under euphemisms like ‘security’ or the ‘fight against drug trafficking,’ the old Monroe Doctrine is being imposed, which seeks to turn our America into a stage for invasions and ‘regime change’ coups to steal our immense wealth and natural resources. We strongly reject the resurgence of the Monroe Doctrine,” Maduro declared.
The Venezuelan president, drawing on history, used Spanish colonialism as a precedent for the situation he is currently denouncing, citing the expedition led by General Pablo Morillo in 1815 and its siege of Cartagena de Indias during the Colombian War of Independence as “lessons of imperial violence against American freedom.”
“Today, two centuries later, the forms of the siege have changed, but not its essence,” Maduro warned in the letter, hence the need to make this summit “not a ritual exercise but an act of resolve: let us proclaim the unconditional defense of our America as a Zone of Peace.” “Let us categorically reject any militarization of the Caribbean, demand an independent investigation into the executions reported by UN human rights mechanisms, and establish regional mechanisms for humanitarian cooperation and collective defense that guarantee the protection of our waters, our coasts, and our communities,” Maduro urged.
Finally, the Venezuelan president reiterated his condemnation of the “criminal and inhumane blockade imposed against the people and Government of the Republic of Cuba, a sustained aggression that flagrantly violates International Law and the Charter of the United Nations,” as well as its inclusion, also by the US, along with the blockade, on “a spurious list of countries that supposedly sponsor terrorism.”
