Venezuelan Government Rejects “Permanent U.S. Aggression”

By Rachael Boothroyd - Venezuelanalysis.com

Coro, 27th July 2011 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan foreign affairs minister Nicolas Maduro has criticised the U.S. government for having an “absurd and extreme” policy with regards to Venezuela.

Maduro made the comments following the publication of a report earlier this week which outlines the U.S. government’s tactics for dealing with transnational criminal organisations. The document cites Venezuela as a country that promotes a “permissive environment for narco-trafficking and terrorist organisations”.

Venezuela’s government has consistently maintained that the U.S. is singling out Venezuela for political reasons and accuses the U.S. government of having a hypocritical attitude with regards to its own record on human rights, terrorism and narco-trafficking.

“We strongly reject the steps taken by the ultra-rightwing, which pulls a good part of Congress and the U.S. government towards an absurd and extremist policy against Latin America and against our nation, hoping to attack and intimidate us,” said Maduro, who added that the U.S. had adopted a policy of “permanent aggression” towards Venezuela.

U.S Latin American Policy

Last Wednesday, the House Committee on Foreign Relations also voted 22 to 20 to withdraw this year’s funding of $48.5 million to the Organization of American States on the basis that the organisation is suposedly controlled by left-wing states such as Venezuela and Cuba.

The House Committee also passed multiple amendments to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, including; cutting off all U.S. aid to the governments of Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and to those countries that oppose the U.S. more than 50% of the time in the United Nations. Obama’s travel reforms allowing increased travel to Cuba were also retracted.

“The five amendments passed through the full committee will send the right message from our government through the region, in the absence of any coherent foreign policy from this Administration. Prohibiting taxpayer dollars from corrupt governments like Venezuela and Nicaragua; while helping our allies is the right approach,” said Republican Connie Mack, who spearheaded some of the amendments.

Mack was also influential in engineering U.S. sanctions against Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA in May this year and has consistently demanded that Venezuela be named on the “state sponsor of terrorism” list.

The Senate and the House of Representatives will have to vote on the amendments before they are approved.

This Wednesday Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez also condemned the U.S. government’s stance towards Venezuela after U.S. Military chief, Admiral Mike Mullen, expressed “concern” over it's relationship with Iran.

“Go and worry about your own affairs, decadent empire,” said Chávez, who also dismissed U.S. conservative Roger Noriega’s claims that he is suffering from an advanced form of cancer and has 18 months to live.

“This is all just feeding the macabre show of the rightwing. Here, the sub-imperial rightwing keeps repeating that I don’t even have anything, that my illness is just a show, a strategy mounted by Chávez and Fidel Castro,” said the president.

“I will be standing as the candidate for the 2012 elections and I will win,” he added.