Abby Martin interviews the UN’s Rapporteur
March 9, 2019
At The Transnational, we believe in diversity. And in the likelihood that world events are complex and can be seen from more than one – usually US/Western – perspective.
You may have wondered why the, now retired, UN representative for Venezuela, the brilliant lawyer, humanist and poet, Alfred De Zayas, has not been used extensively as an authority of both Venezuela and international law?
Well hardly because, like me, you had not heard of him, had you?
That’s why we should be grateful to Abby Martin and The Empire Files for having given us this conversation.
It debunks – in a fact-based and comprehensive, law-respecting manner – most of what you’ve been told and all of what, as of writing, 54 countries have done in support of the regime policies of the US rather than in support of Venezuela as a sovereign state. And of the UN and its Charter.
If, after watching this you feel better informed, please share this page with your friends and on social media.
That’s a way too to support decency in the world and in the media and the right of the Venezuelan people and leaders to find their own path to the future without the self-appointed “helpers” of what is – fakely – called the international “community”, a term that can be boiled down to a handful of Western governments representatives who increasingly live in their own world but pretend to speak for the real world.
An ocean of lies about Venezuela added by JO on
View all posts by JO →
Before judging Venezuelan politics, one should first get informed. Abby Martin was in Venezuela and she spoke with various experts, such as Alfred de Zayas, who is one of the UN’s independent experts on human rights. Unfortunately, the mainstream media, such as CNN or BBC, fail to talk to such experts. They prefer to let their significantly less educated reporters speak for them on the spot. The video helped me much to get a clearer understanding of the situation.
It is not just the complicity of the mainstream media that leads to a gross misrepresentation of the situation in Venezuela. The media give the key words and influential Western politicians follow suit. Take, for example, the German government that supports the adventurer and self-proclaimed right wing president Juan Guaido. Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who in the past ironically saw himself as a socialist politician, recently said, “The European support for Juan Guaido is unwavering.” Either amateurs are working in the German Foreign Ministry, who are not in a position to get an adequate picture of the situation through their own research, or these people are willing recipients of orders who are supposed to implement what is given to them from Washington. This is both embarrassing.
Is Venezuela a Mafia state? Well, I do not know. Surely, there are several states in which Mafia structures exist. One could also raise the question about the relationship between organized crime and politics in the USA. By the way, the “Insight Crime” investigation was funded by the UK government, the German embassy in Bogotá, several open society foundations and other institutions. These are surely not the best sponsors for an impartial investigation.
But no matter how one answers this question, neither the USA nor any other state, nor the UN have to decide who rules in Venezuela, but only the Venezuelan people.
The source of money to insight crime might be a clue…”Our team is a multinational, multidisciplinary group of reporters, investigators and researchers in Colombia, Mexico and the United States. It is supported by an administrative core and a technical team in Colombia. The Board of Directors has members living in Colombia, Mexico and the United States. And it counts on support from its key partner organization, the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, as well as its key funders, which include Open Society Foundations, the British Embassy in Colombia, the International Development Research Centre of Canada, and the Swedish government.”
I find it strange that there can be *any* discussion of Venezuela without mentioning this:
https://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/venezuela-mafia-state/