It is imperative to halt the imperialist military adventure against Venezuela

The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba condemns the escalation of ‎pressures and actions of the US government in preparation for a military adventure ‎under the guise of a “humanitarian intervention” in the Bolivarian Republic of ‎Venezuela and calls on the international community to mobilize in order to prevent its ‎consummation.‎

Between February 6 and 10 of 2019, several military transport aircraft have been flying ‎to the Rafael Miranda Airport in Puerto Rico; the San Isidro Air Base in the Dominican ‎Republic and other Caribbean Islands that have a strategic location, most certainly ‎without the knowledge of the governments of those nations. These flights took off from ‎US military facilities from where Special Operation Troops and US Marine Corps units ‎operate. These units have been used for covert operations, even against leaders of other ‎countries.‎

Media and political circles, even in the US, have revealed that extremist figures of that ‎government with a long history of actions and slanders aimed at causing or instigating ‎wars, such as John Bolton, US National Security Advisor; and Mauricio Claver-Carone, ‎Director of the National Security Council’s Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs, ‎counting on the connivance of Marco Rubio, Senator of the anti-Cuban mafia of Florida, ‎designed, directly and thoroughly organized and obtained the funds, from their posts in ‎Washington, for the attempted coup d’Etat in Venezuela by means of the illegal self-‎proclamation of a president.‎

They are the same who, either personally or through the State Department, have been ‎putting brutal pressures on numerous governments to force them to support the arbitrary ‎call for new presidential elections in Venezuela, while promoting recognition for the ‎usurper who hardly earned 97 000 votes as a parliamentarian, against the more than 6 million Venezuelans who elected Constitutional President Nicolás Maduro Moros last ‎May.‎

After the resistance put up by the Bolivarian and Chavista people against the coup, ‎evidenced by the mass demonstrations in support of President Maduro and the loyalty of ‎the National Bolivarian Armed Forces, the US Government has intensified its ‎international political and media campaign and strengthened unilateral economic ‎coercive measures against Venezuela, among them the blocking of Venezuelan funds in ‎third countries banks, which are billions of dollars worth; and the theft of the oil ‎revenues of that sister nation, which are causing grave humanitarian damages and harsh ‎deprivations to its people.‎

In addition to this cruel and unjustifiable plunder, the US intends to fabricate a ‎humanitarian pretext in order to launch a military aggression against Venezuela and is ‎seeking to introduce in the territory of that sovereign nation, by resorting to ‎intimidation, pressures and force, an alleged humanitarian aid which is one thousand ‎times inferior as compared to the economic damages provoked by the siege imposed ‎from Washington.‎
The usurper and self-proclaimed “president” shamelessly announced his disposition to ‎call for a US military intervention under the pretext of receiving the aforementioned ‎‎“humanitarian aid”; and has described the sovereign and proud rejection of that ‎maneuver as a “crime against humanity”.‎

US high officials have been arrogantly and blatantly reminding us all, day after day, that ‎when it comes to Venezuela, “all options are on the table, including military action”.‎

In the process of fabricating pretexts, the US government has resorted to deception and ‎slanders, for it presented a draft resolution at the UN Security Council which, cynically ‎and hypocritically expresses deep concern about “the human rights and humanitarian ‎situation..., the recent attempts to block the delivery of humanitarian aid, the millions of ‎Venezuelan refugees and migrants, the excessive use of force against peaceful ‎protesters, the breakdown of regional peace and security” in Venezuela, and urges “to ‎take the necessary steps”.‎

It is obvious that the United States is paving the way to forcibly establish “a ‎humanitarian corridor” under “international supervision”, invoke “the obligation to ‎protect” civilians and take “all necessary steps”.‎

It is worth recalling that similar behaviors and pretexts were resorted to by the US ‎during the prelude to the wars it launched against Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya, which ‎resulted in tremendous human losses and caused enormous suffering.‎

The US government attempts to remove the biggest obstacle –the Bolivarian and ‎Chavista Revolution– to the imperialist domination of Our America and deprive the ‎Venezuelan people from the largest certified oil reserve of the planet and numerous ‎strategic natural resources.‎

It would be impossible to forget the sad and painful history of US military interventions ‎perpetrated more than once in Mexico, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, ‎Honduras, and most recently Grenada and Panama.‎

As was warned by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz on July 14, 2017:

“The aggression and coup violence against Venezuela harm all of Our America ‎and only benefit the interests of those set on dividing us in order to exercise ‎their control over our peoples, unconcerned about causing conflicts of ‎incalculable consequences in this region, like those we are seeing in different ‎parts of the world.”‎

History will severely judge a new imperialist military intervention in the region and the ‎complicity of those who might irresponsibly support it.‎

What is at stake today in Venezuela is the sovereignty and dignity of Latin America and ‎the Caribbean and the peoples of the South. Equally at stake is the survival of the rules ‎of International Law and the UN Charter. What is being defined today is whether the ‎legitimacy of a government emanates from the express and sovereign will of its people ‎or from the recognition of foreign powers.‎

The Revolutionary Government calls for an international mobilization in defense of ‎peace in Venezuela and the region, based on the principles enshrined in the ‎Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, which was ‎adopted by the Heads of State and Government of CELAC in 2014.‎

It likewise welcomes and supports the Montevideo Mechanism, an initiative promoted ‎by Mexico, Uruguay, the Caribbean Commonwealth (CARICOM) and Bolivia, which ‎seeks to preserve peace in Venezuela based on the principles of non-interference in the ‎internal affairs of States, legal equality of States and the peaceful resolution of ‎conflicts, as stated in its recent Declaration.‎

It welcomes the positive consideration given to said initiative by President Maduro ‎Moros and the international community and expresses its concern about the categorical ‎rejection by the US government of the initiatives of dialogue promoted by several ‎countries, including this.‎

The Revolutionary Government reiterates its firm and unwavering solidarity with ‎Constitutional President Nicolás Maduro Moros, the Bolivarian and Chavista ‎Revolution and the civic and military unity of its people and calls upon all peoples and ‎governments of the world to defend Peace and put up a joint opposition, over and above ‎political or ideological differences, to a new military and imperialist intervention in ‎Latin America and the Caribbean which will harm the independence, sovereignty and ‎interests of all peoples from Rio Bravo to Patagonia.‎