Venezuela's Foreign Minister Links Human Rights Violations to Imperialism (+Bolívar)

In an event steeped in symbolism and introspection, the international forum “For a Humane Humanity and Universal Balance” has been successfully launched in Venezuela, with the participation of 117 international guests. The event was held at the Yellow House in Caracas, headquarters of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and was organized based on the 242nd birthday of Simón Bolívar.

During an address at the event this Wednesday, July 23, Yván Gil, Venezuela’s minister for foreign affairs, recalled Simón Bolívar’s ability to “change humanity, to reverse the perverse course—the course of imposition, of domination, of imperialism—to defeat the most powerful empire that existed at the time.” He emphasized that Bolívar was capable of not only understanding and expressing his views, but convincing an entire generation as well.

Minister Gil said that the primary cause of human rights violations, in a world that is witnessing “the worst barbarities,” is imperialism. Gil highlighted Bolívar’s leadership in carrying out his exploits, confronting the colonial apparatus that dominated at the time to achieve freedom, with the belief that “peace is a product of justice.”

He also emphasized that for Bolívar, “peace is not the absence of conflict, as classical theory defines it; rather, Bolívar was the first to propose that peace is a product of justice. And today, more than ever, that belief is alive and well. It is what we Bolivarians and all the inhabitants of this world who call for peace are calling for today.”

Blanca Eekhout, congresswoman and president of the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and Solidarity among Peoples, reiterated President Nicolás Maduro’s call for geopolitics and diplomacy to be a matter for all people. “We are celebrating the 242nd anniversary of the birth of Father Bolívar,” she stated. “A birth that remains with us, because Bolívar is born every day in our struggles, in every battle, in the resistance of our people. His legacy is for us a flag, a banner, a driving force.”

“A permanent birth of Bolívar,” she added, quoting Commander Hugo Chávez. “We had considered that Bolívar awoke, as Neruda’s poem says; but Bolívar remains truly resurrected within his people, and lives on every day.” She noted the geopolitical vision of the Liberator, who “proposed the independence and union of nations, a homeland of equals, just, greater, as Bolívar said, for its virtues and glory, for its breadth and wealth.”

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Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet shared anecdotes about Commander Hugo Chávez, recounting how the bourgeoisie attempted to silence Bolívar’s thought. “When Chávez reawakened Bolívar,” he said, “he brought his thought back to life. He demonstrated that Bolívar’s thought remains subversive, anti-colonial, anti-bourgeois, anti-slavery, and anti-discriminatory even today, in the 21st century.”

He also noted that Chávez’s revival of Bolivarian thought and its continuity under the leadership of President Maduro is what drives the revolution through modernity today.

The event brought together a diverse group of social movements, political parties, grassroots organizations, intellectuals, cultural platforms, and more than 100 international guests from 40 countries.

The forum was organized by the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and People’s Solidarity, and is part of a series of meetings culminating in the People’s Summit for Peace and Against War, scheduled for July 25, the day after the 242nd anniversary of the birth of Liberator Simón Bolívar.

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