Chancellor Arreaza: UNASUR Would Have Helped Stop Covid-19 in the Region
The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) was a useful mechanism that would have faced the current Covid-19 pandemic in South America. “How useful would UNASUR have been to face the pandemic in unison,” Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza tweeted on Thursday.
Arreaza explained that “those governments that insisted on destroying it will have to render accounts to their peoples.”
The Chancellor stressed that the attacks on the institutions, founded in 2007, were carried out with alleged “ideological fictions.”
Regarding this, he pointed out that the governments promoting its “destruction” will also have to clarify it “given the history of South American integration.”
“The waters will return to their course,” he said through a message posted on the social platform Twitter.
Cuán útil hubiese sido la @unasur para enfrentar en conjunto la pandemia. Aquellos gobiernos que se empeñaron en destruirla alegando ficciones ideológicas, tendrán que rendir cuentas ante sus pueblos y ante la historia de la integración suramericana. Las aguas volverán a su cauce pic.twitter.com/KbS7c6FF1L
— Jorge Arreaza M (@jaarreaza) August 13, 2020
The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) was founded in April 2007 on the Island of Margarita, an insular region of Venezuela as an integrationist political idea of President Hugo Chávez.
RELATED CONTENT: Germany Defies Threat of US Sanctions Over Controversial Pipeline
The countries that initially formed it were: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.
In mid-2018 Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Paraguay announced their withdrawal from the body, all of them under the yoke of Washington at the moment.
In relation to this, the withdrawal was driven by pressure from right-wing governments against the government of Venezuela.
On the other hand, in 2019 Ecuador announced its withdrawal from the block and asked the UNASUR headquarters building to be returned to its government.
The Lenín Moreno government also reported that it would remove the statue in honor of former Argentine President Néstor Kirchner.
Last March, the Executive of Uruguay announced that his country would withdraw. To date, Guyana, Suriname, Bolivia and Venezuela are part of the multilateral organization.
Featured image: UNASUR headquarters in Ecuador with the statue of Nestor Kirchner. File photo.
Translation: OT/JRE/EF
