By Carlos Aznárez on October 6, 2020.
Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Hall at the UN in Geneva. Photo: UN
Since this article was written Alicia Castro, who was Argentina’s ambassador to Venezuela from 2006 to 2011, and recently appointed by the Argentine government as ambassador to Moscow, resigned out of protest against Argentina’s position to condemn Venezuela in the Human Rights Council of the United Nations on Tuesday.
In an openly complacent attitude towards US foreign policy, the Argentine government, through its official representative, voted against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the UN Human Rights Council. Repeating an erratic behavior that has very close antecedents, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs presided over by Minister Felipe Solá, following the strict instructions of President Alberto Fernández, agreed and fully supported a fallacious, lying and interfering report prepared by Michelle Bachelet.
The question that Argentines must ask themselves is: what is the government of the Frente de Todos supporting with its vote? It is very easy to realize, reading the series of barbarities expressed by Bachelet in a text loaded with hatred against a country that is being ravaged by the empire every day of the year. She speaks of “extermination battalions,” “torture,” “assassinations,” “arbitrary detentions,” “rapes,” and she mixes it up with the drama that the population is experiencing, as a result of the sabotage by the right-wing opposition and fascists, or as a result of the permanent blockade, and thus she struts around, expressing critical opinions about “power cuts,” “fuel shortages,” and “lack of water” for 90% of the population. The whole “story” seeks a single objective and that is to challenge the revolutionary process and to contribute, by order of Washington, to the destruction of a sovereign government, which, together with Cuba, are examples in the continent in the face of the current humanitarian contingencies that the world is experiencing.
Bachelet, like that puppet named Luis Almagro who heads to OAS, plays disciplined games for the side of the bar and the stars. Now, with that vote given behind the backs of what millions of Argentines may think, the Fernandez-Fernandez government has crossed a line. Voting like Bolsonaro and Piñera should at least make one reflect on what is happening.
On the one hand, it is worth clarifying that Bachelet wrote this document without having set foot in Venezuela, but rather it responds to an elaboration made from Panama by an entity designated by the Chilean official called the Fact-Finding Mission, which was based on information gathered through social networks and Internet pages, taking away all credibility from its results. In fact, they acted as a private consultant who, in addition to listening to the infamies of the opposition to Chavism, collected so much false information that the UN career officials themselves had to warn them that they should be corrected.
The final text is a true “copy and paste”, not precisely about the Venezuelan situation in terms of human rights, but it could be perfectly applied to what happens daily in Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, Brazil or even Chile, where Bachelet governed with an iron hand and applied harsh measures against the Mapuche people that she now inflicts on the Caribbean country. Sanctions and reprimands from the OAS and the UN will never fall on all those countries with right-wing governments. They are obedient followers of the master of the north.
Hence, it is outrageous the lightness and severe ideological deviation into which the Argentine government has fallen, which in its own name has embarked the country on erroneous and dangerous positions. It is necessary to say “Government” because it is no longer valid to say the Foreign Affair Office when it is well known that no Foreign Minister can have his own way in such delicate matters. And if he does, he would be entering into contradiction with the official discourse, the most logical thing is for that official to be relieved of the position. We must say “Government”, because it is President Fernandez himself who, as the official communiqué from the San Martin Palace reports, gave the instructions to support “with force” the work done by the United Nations High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet. He goes even further, warning the Bolivarian government that it must implement the recommendations of that report, bringing to justice the alleged human rights violators. If this is not interference, what should it be called?
Unfortunately, one cannot remain silent in the face of such assertions. They do not represent the thought and attitude of solidarity that many Argentines (many of whom voted for AF) feel towards Venezuela and its legitimate President Nicolás Maduro. It comes from a position that is born of the understanding that the Great Homeland is one and that in that framework, the Bolivarian Revolution accompanied Argentina during very hard times, when the country was also suffering from the destabilizing maneuvers of the oligarchy and imperialism.
For that reason, this improper vote means a new concession before the Empire, in the same way that it made before the IMF with regard to the foreign debt or against Zionism, by giving it resolutions like those carried out by the Foreign Ministry with regard to the definition of anti-Semitism, or by taking it up again in the UN against the Islamic Republic of Iran. What can one say about Felipe Solá’s attitude before the US ambassador Edward Prado, thanking him for “his efforts” of support before the IMF.
To vote against Venezuela today is to shatter the Drago Doctrine which, it is worth remembering, was a dignified response given in 1902 against the naval blockade of Venezuela by the English, Italian and German pirates, and the implicit collaboration of the United States. To vote against Venezuela today is to throw overboard the tradition of solidarity and revolution of the Peronist people, who in the worst circumstances of the imperial advance against the continent knew how to support Allende’s Chile, Socialist Cuba, by breaking the blockade, Sandinista Nicaragua and so many other peoples who were fighting for their liberation.
Finally, it is worth reiterating that in the face of the constant attacks on the Venezuelan people and their government by Donald Trump, the European Union and the countries of the Lima Group, beyond the erroneous attitudes adopted by the governments, it is worthwhile for the peoples of our America to say, as we have done on other occasions, “Not in our Name”. Bolivarian Venezuela that of Simón Bolívar, of Commander Hugo Chávez Frías and of President Maduro, cannot be touched.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano, translation North America bureau