A different type of metaphorical storm is wreaking havoc on the bedrock principles that undergird this Organisation. The rising tide of hegemonic, unilateral, interventionist interference now threatens to inundate entire nations, while responsible states stand askance from their responsibilities to speak and act in defence of central Charter tenets.
Everywhere – North, South, East and West – the hegemonic imperial hand is visible and oft-times the metaphoric eagle threatens to unleash war and disorder in unilateralist vainglory. What all the world’s peoples want is peace, dialogue, security and prosperity.
The sustained and coordinated attempts to engage in externallyimposed regime change in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is but one egregious example of the current trend. We are witness to an illegal economic blockade, eerily similar to the one against Cuba that we annually and overwhelmingly decry as immoral and
anachronistic. We are in possession of indisputable evidence of extensive foreign interference in the sovereign affairs of the Venezuelan people, and the frequent, unambiguous threats of military intervention.
We are complicit in an international farce, where the members of the UN General Assembly seat one government as representative of the people of Venezuela while a self-described regional agency within the United Nations – the Organisation of American States – seats a different, ill-defined entity, a fictitious creation of foreign powers. We are mute in defence of the principles that have bound us together, and steered us clear of World Wars for the last 74 years.
Principle, and international law, cannot be sporadically or selectively applied. Whatever the challenges facing Venezuela, they are exacerbated, not remedied, by hegemonic interventionism, and compounded by our inconsistency.
The solutions to the conflict in Venezuela are well known, as they are in all other similar conflicts: the facilitation of peaceful dialogue, the cessation of outside interference or threats of intervention, and firm adherence to Charter principles, including the respect for sovereignty.
Those who advance a different agenda are acting against the interests of the Venezuelan people, and are becoming – willingly or unwittingly – co-conspirators in undermining multilateral diplomacy.
The vulgar and unjustifiable imperialist weaponising of trade and the banking system must be condemned by all right-thinking nations which are keen to uphold internationally-agreed rules-based global trade and financial systems as fundamental to peace, security and prosperity.
