Maduro rejects Biden’s criticism
Venezuela on Sunday (March 9) rejected statements made by U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden in a written interview with the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, published the same day. A translation by Progreso Weekly follows.
OFFICIAL NOTE
The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, in the name of the Venezuelan people and government, categorically rejects the statements made by the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, because they constitute a disrespect to Venezuelan sovereignty and a direct attack on the people, who have suffered the onslaught of a fascist sector that moves forward in a strategy of continuous coup d’état.
Those violent sectors, promoted by the most radical wing of the Venezuelan right, are self-confessed authors of the calls to destabilization, who receive financing from offices of the government of the United States to act against the tranquility of the Venezuelan people and harm a solid democracy that has received the people’s backing in 18 elections in the past 15 years.
The U.S. government has joined an international media conspiracy that attempts to generate a false image of war and generalized repression in the Venezuelan territory, when in reality they are pinpoint foci created by the artificers of violence against the people.
In his statements to a Chilean medium, the North American vice president expresses his alleged concern over the behavior of the State Security forces to contain the violent petty groups from the far right, and for this reason we ask ourselves: What would the president of the United States, Barack Obama, do if a political organization called publicly for his overthrow and began to carry out terrorist actions and disrespected the human and civil rights of the people of the United States?
The Venezuelan government is fully certain that if our organs of security confronted the foci of destabilization with the force applied by the North American police, the number of dead and wounded would be incalculable. However, the respect for life, the progressive and selective use of force and the commitment to peace are the values that move most of the men and women who daily maintain the public order in Venezuela.
In the meantime, while those minuscule groups foster violence, the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has made a general call to all sectors to join a Peace Conference that has had the broad participation of businessmen, churches, organizations of the Popular Power and the most diverse social sectors that live in our nation, for the purpose of isolating the fascists whom the United States government defends unenthusiastically and supports with these [Biden’s] statements.
The U.S. government again isolates itself in the hemisphere and tries to revive Monroe-ism in the region, in the aftermath of the overwhelming defeat it suffered recently at the Organization of American States (OAS), which ratified the support that Latin America and the Caribbean give Venezuela in recognition of the integrationist and sovereign vocation bequeathed by the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chávez.
The government of the United States, principal promoter of violence worldwide, expert in invasions, economic blockades, wars initiated for economic interests under the excuse of fictitious threats, creator of lethal weapons of mass destruction and responsible for the deaths of thousands and millions of civilians worldwide, has no moral right to criticize the respect for human rights in Venezuela and the efforts of the Bolivarian government to preserve the peace in our nation.
Nevertheless, the Venezuelan government reiterates its clear willingness to reprise and renew relations with the government of the United States of America by means of a direct and transparent dialogue, based on mutual respect, non-interference in internal affairs and the necessary cooperation, to which end I have decided on the appointment of a new ambassador to that country.
The government and people of Bolivar, the people of Chávez, with their historical feats will fight forever to maintain their independence.
Venezuela respects itself! Chávez lives, the motherland goes on!
Caracas, March 9, 2014
[Photo of President Maduro by the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias (AVN)]
