March 25, 2021
Delcy Rodriguez
The government of Venezuela presented a report this Wednesday concerning the looting of Venezuela’s assets located in other countries, a situation that has made acquisition of vaccines against COVID-19 more difficult, and which was caused by the machinations carried out by Juan Guaido.
Venezuelan Executive Vice-president Delcy Rodriguez stated that the blockade of more than 7 trillion dollars in liquid assets located outside Venezuela, promoted by Juan Guaido, is blocking the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines.
She declared that the government of President Nicolas Maduro has carried out intensive efforts to free up financial resources seized/retained by international banking institutions. Meanwhile, Venezuela has made enormous efforts to acquire vaccines in the face of the difficulties that have been caused by the retention of the assets by international bodies, Rodriguez emphasized.
Venezuela, now as never before, has the right to access to their own resources in order to provide all the necessary medications and equipment for treating COVID-19, as well as for access to vaccines.
In the press conference in which Rodriguez participated, along with Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and Attorney General Reinaldo Muñoz, she stated that Venezuela would begin a lawsuit against the Bank of England in order to free the Venezuelan funds to be used in the battle against COVID-19.
She further explained that, since January of 2019, the extreme right-wing, led by a criminal gang whose ringleader is ex-deputy Juan Guaido, has operated to enrich themselves and to finance destabilization actions that have included a frustrated attempt at assassination of the head of state, actions of mercenaries invading Venezuela such as Operation Gideon, accompanied by looting the resources and the national heritage of Venezuela, on the orders of the White House.
She noted that the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) and Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA) have been victims of criminal looting that has been denounced on multiple occasions and that, since March 2020, when the first cases of the COVID-19 pandemic currently battering the world occurred, the government and institutions of Venezuela have been seeking possibilities for liberating the blockaded funds; these efforts have been denied.
The Vice President claimed that opposition leader Juan Guaido is directly responsible for the fact that the country does not have the resources belonging to us, because of the illegal and genocidal efforts that he has carried out in other countries.
“We have requested that the Public Ministry do in-depth investigations in order to determine Juan Guaido’s responsibility in blocking the people of Venezuela’s right to health and life,” she said.
The resources of Venezuela were transferred to the Federal Reserve Bank of the U.S. by orders of Juan Guaido, and from these funds “he derived the assets to pay for the invasion of Venezuela in order to turn over the country to foreign powers,” she summarized.
She noted that the looting of assets began in March 2019, when funds that the Central Bank of Venezuela had in Citibank were transferred, and then this account was frozen, and later moved to the Federal Reserve Bank of the U.S.
Rodriguez indicated that “we have met with the representatives of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to inform them that Venezuela has not approved the AstraZeneca vaccine. On March 15 together with the Chancellor, we met with the PAHO representative and informed them of our decision to not receive AstraZeneca vaccine. Venezuela will choose which vaccine to authorize for use on the people of Venezuela.”
We have put in place a technical board through the National Assembly that includes participation of PAHO, UNICEF, the political opposition, scientists, and scholars, in order to support the efforts of the government of Venezuela to release our resources and attend to the immediate need to immunize our people, she stated.
Source: Telesur, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English