Canada’s policy toward Venezuela is shameful
by William S. Geimer - VIPDN
February 27, 2019
It was 1985, and I was there with a group called Witness for Peace. I was an American then and the idea was that if a bunch of U.S. civilians were put in the most active part of the war zone, violence might not come to people there, for a time. The U.S. proxy force, the Contra, might recognize the bad “optics” of killing their sponsor’s countrymen. In San Juan Del Rio Coco, it worked.
Elliott Abrams, (background):
Canada’s new Venezuela working partner.
The village had changed hands several times, and we could hear gunfire, but there were no Contra attacks during our stay.
I went to Nicaragua out of anger at my country’s blatant imperialism. I went to “do something for those people.” Instead, the families who took me into their homes did something immensely meaningful for me.
This is all by way of explaining why I am stunned and angered by the latest example of Canada’s blind obedience to the U.S. with regard to Venezuela. Our leaders are apparently unable to appreciate how rich it is to hear would-be dictator Donald Trump, of all people, claiming that a phony election produced a would-be dictator.
My experience in Nicaragua familiarized me with some of the major villains who have resurfaced in the Venezuela story. One is Elliott Abrams, Trump’s new special envoy for Venezuela. Abrams was a major architect and defender of the Contra war, and he publicly defended right-wing death squads in El Salvador, including one that murdered Archbishop Oscar Romero as he was saying mass in 1980.
An El Salvador government unit, the Atlacatl Battalion, committed mass rape, then murdered more than 100 children in a place called El Mozote. On a wall, soldiers wrote in blood:
“One dead child is one less guerrilla.”
Abrams characterized first-hand reports of this massacre by U.S. journalists as propaganda:
“El Mozote appears to be an incident that is at least being significantly misused … by the guerrillas.”
An “incident.”
Another figure from long ago that one might have hoped never to see again is Trump’s “national security” adviser, John Bolton. He cancelled a trip to Korea to focus on Venezuela. Bolton was recently seen holding a notepad with “5,000 troops to Colombia” on it. Bolton has threatened to invade Venezuela and imprison its president in the infamous Guantanamo gulag. John Bolton: Canada’s new Venezuela working partner.
Is anyone really having trouble understanding the reason for all this? Bolton observed:
“It will make a big difference economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities of Venezuela.”
There is one newer player in this sorry saga: Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. She has been a leader in this unholy alliance that continues decades of Canada’s subservience to U.S. domination in Central and South America. Her recent justification that Venezuela is “in our neighbourhood” is just a Canadian variation of the standard U.S. characterization of sovereign countries as in its “backyard.”
The next time you hear Freeland or any government official prattle on about “the rule of law,” consider Art. 2, Sec. 4 of the Charter of the United Nations: “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
It is up to Canadians to stand against this violation of what we so smugly like to call “Canadian values.” In my respectful submission, those responsible for the current policy should be sentenced to spend a few days in a South American refugee camp. Any camp, I am sure, will resemble San Juan Del Rio Coco.
William S. Geimer is a veteran of the U.S. 82d Airborne Division and a Canadian citizen and advises Green Party leader Elizabeth May on war and peace and international law. He is the author of Canada: The Case for Staying Out Of Other People’s Wars
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