By Ángel Guerra Cabrera on October 21, 2021
Venezuelans call for Alex Saab’s freedom. photo: UM
The arbitrary extradition to the United States by the government of Cape Verde of Venezuelan businessman and diplomat Alex Saab, on October 16, is actually a kidnapping, as accused by the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. Saab was arrested and illegally detained on June 12, 2020 while the plane he was flying was refueling en route from Tehran to Caracas. There was no international arrest warrant at that time, but rather a mendacious official version of the US. The warrant was issued by Interpol the day after the arrest and withdrawn shortly thereafter. In fact, the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States, to which Cape Verde recognizes jurisdiction, ruled in March 2021 that Saab’s detention was illegal, since “the Interpol alert requesting his arrest was issued the day after his arrest” and in June of the same year the UN Human Rights Council asked it to refrain from extraditing Saab to the US while his case was being examined. Moreover, it was reported that the United Nations Working Group against Arbitrary Detention and four special rapporteurs of the organization had warned the kidnapping government: “the situation created by the highest authorities of Cape Verde would violate in a serious, unlimited and prolonged manner Cape Verde’s commitments to the most elementary principles of human rights”.
Why -especially from Washington and Bogota- has there been a huge media campaign against this man who they cynically and shamelessly takes for granted his condition of “Maduro’s henchman” and key figure of a “corruption network linked to the inner circle” of the Venezuelan president? Why was he “sanctioned” by the US Treasury Department, in July 2019, for having “overpriced contracts” for the construction of low-income housing in Venezuela, and for allowing Maduro to “significantly benefit” from the importation and distribution of food, through the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP)? In truth, those entities have been decisive for the fair distribution of food and medicines to the most vulnerable families in the face of Washington’s crude blockade. Why, having been born and having carried out an important part of his business career in Colombia, does Saab have the status of Venezuelan diplomat? He has told the media portal Russia Today how he started in 2011 his business activity in Venezuela and in what way he successively gained the trust of the Venezuelan government for conducting his business with it in the agreed time and within the established budget. “Although I am proud of my Barranquillero and Lebanese-Palestinian origin and, although in Colombia I had one of the largest fashion clothing manufacturing companies and more than 300 stores throughout the country… when I founded my company, which I alternated with investments in construction projects, it was in Venezuela where…. I was able to establish my greatest business initiatives and make them prosper with a magnitude that made a difference… I am equally proud and honored to be a Venezuelan citizen who has been able to give back to the country and the people what they have given me”.
Clearly, Saab’s seriousness as a businessman over the years merited that Maduro entrusted him with important negotiations in Russia and Iran to deliver desperately needed food and medicines to the Venezuelan people, who are suffering from the intensified US blockade. They were so important that he received the category of special envoy, through which he was endowed with official representation and diplomatic immunity, and also a relative form of protection for the businessman in the face of the fierce persecution by Washington of all economic, commercial and financial operations of Venezuela and perhaps calculating an eventual retaliation against him, as finally happened.
Washington, with great approval from Bogota, is trying to break Saab so that he will slander President Maduro, something the businessman has assured he will not do. In crisis the slipping US hegemony tries with this act of force to demonstrate the power it retains.
Maduro, who has denounced physical and psychological torture against Saab by Cape Verde, adopted additional measures to protect him by appointing him ambassador to the African Union and then added him as a member of the Venezuelan delegation to the dialogues in Mexico between the Bolivarian government and the Guaido opposition. The Venezuelan president has also stated that the U.S. assured the latter’s representatives that it would not act against Saab. The rude provocation by Washington in violating that commitment was what motivated the withdrawal of Caracas from the negotiation process.
“Sooner or later, this tremendous persecution will be revealed and all the tricks that are being used against me will be exposed”, Saab said.
Source: La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English