Venezuela continues to deny the existence of a humanitarian crisis in its country

“We were willing to use preventive diplomacy with the United States, but they established an unfounded commercial blockageand they continue to manipulate the media”, said the delegate of Venezuela in UNDPA, asseverating that the image the world has of its country is only a construction made by the government of the US.

Other members of the committee insisted that Venezuela is currently experiencing a crisis that has ended in human rights violations and other violent incidents that have affected democracy and destabilized diplomatic relations in the region, especially with Colombia. In her defense, Venezuela brought up the situation that President Nicolas Maduro experienced on August 4, 2018, when he was victim of a drone attack that, according to him and his security team, was an attempt of assassination. The delegate did not hesitate to blame Colombian President Iván Duque for what happened, arguing that his country was a victim of unfounded attacks sponsored by Donald Trump.

“We have always been willing to talk”, reiterated Venezuela while explaining their wish to maintain peace internally and internationally, in conformity with the principles of justice of the United Nations. Venezuela blames the northern country to remove any possibility of joint cooperation between them in order to prevent the existence of any conflict, they say they have always wanted to find a pacific solution to everything that is going on, but they have not been given the chance.

Venezuela did not missthe opportunity to say that Colombia and the United States were violating the General Assembly of the United Nations resolution 2526, which specifies that other countries cannot intervene on internal affairs of the state members. That means both countries would be violating the principles of international law that seek to establish the guidelines of cooperation between States. According to the point one of the resolution, States must desist from resorting to the threat of use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any other State. “They are using these threats as a form of dominance form the hegemonic powers to continue having control over our government”, said the delegate.

Although most of the state members do consider that Venezuela isgoing through a humanitarian crisis, the country’s representative before UNDPA argues that the migration situation is due to the number of Colombians who years ago, when they went through the most hard time of its internal armed conflict, sought refuge on Venezuelan land. The delegate also classifies the humanitarian crisis as an example of manipulative and exaggerated media coverage, which seeks to damage the image of the Maduro government internationally.

According to the Venezuelan spokesperson on the committee, all this is orchestrated by the US government that seeks to deviate attention from all human rights violations that the United States is committing to Mexican families who intend to cross the border, especially with children. In her words, the United States government is separating families and kidnapping and abusing of children.