PM Trudeau’s Donors’ Conference on Venezuela: An Exercise in Deception

June 16, 2021, Toronto – “Canada must immediately cease its aggression against Venezuelans and stop deceiving Canadians and the world about what the government is truly up to,” declared Maria Paez Victor, spokesperson for the Canadian Campaign of Venezuelans and Friends Against Sanctions (CCVFAS). The sanctions have contributed to 100,000 deaths according to former UN Rapporteur Alfred de Zayas, as well as significant outward migration. The New York Times recently determined that those sanctions were a key generator of migrants.

The International Donors’ Conference in Solidarity with Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants (June 17, 2021) is a disingenuous “humanitarian aid” charade. It is yet another chapter in the 20-year US-led failed attempt to overthrow duly elected governments. It’s true function is to create a new vehicle for dismantling Venezuelans’ chosen model of governance. As more and more Latin American peoples elect similarly inclined governments, including Peruvians, the factitious Lima Group is dead; long live the Donors’ Conference!

This Chrystia Freeland contrived confab is a thinly-veiled attempt to revive the dreams of the finance, oil and mining industries’ barons. These merchants of 21st century colonialism seek to take over Venezuela in order to cannibalize its many precious resources. One of their stars, lithium-hungry Elon Musk, famously said to non-compliant governments: “We will coup whoever we want.”

Meanwhile, the Biden government, through its control of the international money transfer apparatus, has just cancelled the Venezuelan purchase of $10 million worth of COVID-19 vaccines to protect its people, including Freeland’s “refugees,” by directing the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) to illegally block and seize Venezuela’s payments. “The message from the US (and its enabler, Canada) is clear: the global health system is a geopolitical weapon that will be deployed against any of its enemies, real or imaginary” said Pierre LeBlanc of the CCVFAS.

Canada must immediately cancel all of its sanctions against the Venezuelan State, its officials and its citizens. Prime Minister Trudeau must reestablish bilateral relations with Venezuela, including the provision of credentials to the Maduro government-designated ambassador and consuls-general to Canada. He must insist that Britain release the $1.8 billion worth of gold that it stole from the Venezuelans so that their government may purchase the vaccines and medical supplies needed to fight COVID-19.

Featured image: Protest against American attempts at a ‘regime change’ in Venezuela and Canada’s complicity in the campaign, Toronto, 16 September, 2017. © Global Look Press / ZUMA Press / Creative Touch Imaging Ltd.

(The Canadian Campaign of Venezuelans and Friends Against Sanctions) By Maria Paez Victor (mpaez@sympatico.ca)

The Canadian Campaign of Venezuelans and Friends Against Sanctions is a collective of Venezuelans and friends in Canada who oppose all unilateral coercive measures, euphemistically called sanctions, imposed on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. These coercive measures are aimed at forcing regime change in Venezuela against the popular will of the majority of Venezuelans as expressed repeatedly in free and democratic elections. The Canadian government’s position that the Maduro government is illegitimate is not based on truth and is politically motivated.