Venezuela – a message from the directors

Dear Colleague

We are writing to you in our personal capacities to request you sign a petition to the Canadian government to withdraw sanctions against the Venezuelan government, and named Venezuelan individuals, imposed on September 9^th last year. If you are not a Canadian resident, we urge you to call it to the attention of your Canadian colleagues and friends.

With public attention focussed elsewhere – the Middle East, Russia, or China – we perhaps forget that the risk of war, unfairly-imposed economic hardship and not least, gross violation of human rights on a scale not seen since the dictatorships of the 1970s – is every bit as great, if not greater, in Latin America. The cause, we and many others argue, is not the actions of the governments of the region but the ill-judged and dangerous intervention of governments foreign to the region, most notably the USA, eagerly and unfortunately aided by Canada.

Details of the petition can be found at the website www.nosanctions.org; following the links there will take you to the official Canadian government website where you will be able to sign.

The petition must, under Canadian law, be heard provided it receives sufficient signatures; we are currently just 190 short of what is required by March 24^th, when the petition closes.

The petition was unanimously agreed by a meeting of delegates to the September ‘Revolutions’ conference of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group. The strength of feeling was motivated by several points. In addition to those spelled out in the petition itself we would draw the following to your attention:

– The decision to impose sanctions was never approved by any elected Canadian government body and has never been discussed by parliament. It has been taken behind closed doors with no scrutiny or challenge either by Canadian citizens or those targeted.

– Canada has acted virtually unilaterally; the only international basis for the decision was the Economic Special Measures act under which it established an ’ association’ with the United States to create a permissible rationale for the sanctions.

– The US’s poorly-disguised agenda is to overthrow of a friendly sovereign government by military force. Success would open up a period of catastrophic civil strife in the region. In his recent visit to Latin America, Rex Tillerson explicitly commended the past role of military dictatorships in Latin American and openly canvassed the prospect of military intervention in Venezuela

– The sanctions, allegedly motivated by human rights concerns, are themselves a significant attack on human rights. The named, sanctioned individuals have not been informed of the charges against them and have no right to challenge them. The decision is that of the Governor in Council alone. The measures thus grant to a single unelected individual the right to take punitive measures against any individual on the planet, without stating the evidence and without any legal right of redress.

– It makes no sense to address an alleged ‘humanitarian’ crisis whose origin is economic in nature, by imposing economic sanctions. What would be required, if the (challengeable) premises of the act’s promoters are accepted, is humanitarian aid.

We urge you not to leave the people of Venezuela to the tender mercies of the current US government, in their hour of need, and to do everything in your power to persuade the Canadian government to take an independent line, to judge its decisions fairly, and above all to desist in its support for the US’s current agenda in the region.

Petition to the Government of Canada

Whereas:

– On September 22, 2017, the Government of Canada imposed new sanctions against Venezuela, Venezuelan officials, and other individuals under the Special Economic Measures Act in violation of the sovereignty of Venezuela;

-Such sanctions impede dialogue and peace-building in Venezuela and in the region more generally;

– These sanctions impede the normal operation of Venezuela’s duly constituted political processes including elections;

– The Government of Canada has supported the U.S. government’s sanctions against Venezuela

– The Government of Canada has met with, supported, and continues to echo the demands of Venezuela’s violent anti-government opposition;