Raphael John-Lall

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

The Venezue­lan Na­tion­al As­sem­bly (Par­lia­ment) yes­ter­day unan­i­mous­ly ap­proved a de­c­la­ra­tion in re­pu­di­a­tion of US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s “grotesque threats,” as they con­sti­tute an un­ac­cept­able vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law against the sov­er­eign­ty of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela.

Trump on Tues­day an­nounced he was or­der­ing a block­ade of all “sanc­tioned oil tankers” in­to Venezuela, ramp­ing up pres­sure on the Nico­las Maduro gov­ern­ment.

Yes­ter­day, the Venezue­lan Par­lia­ment’s doc­u­ment ac­cused Pres­i­dent Trump of want­i­ng “to steal the oil, land and min­er­als that are the ex­clu­sive prop­er­ty of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela.”

It al­so stat­ed, “This colo­nial­ist con­fes­sion rep­re­sents a reck­less and dan­ger­ous threat to the peace, sta­bil­i­ty, sov­er­eign­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela, fla­grant­ly vi­o­lat­ing the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of in­ter­na­tion­al law, re­spect for sov­er­eign­ty, the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion of peo­ples, ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty and non-in­ter­fer­ence in the in­ter­nal af­fairs of States, as well as free trade and free nav­i­ga­tion.”

They re­it­er­at­ed their sup­port for the de­ci­sion “to de­nounce be­fore the Unit­ed Na­tions and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, this se­ri­ous vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law and the naval mil­i­tary block­ade against the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela.”

The par­lia­men­tar­i­ans called “up­on the Venezue­lan peo­ple to re­main on alert and per­ma­nent­ly mo­bilised in per­fect pop­u­lar, mil­i­tary and po­lice uni­ty for the un­re­strict­ed de­fence of the his­tor­i­cal rights of the home­land, thus en­sur­ing peace and ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty against any threat that seeks to dis­turb our sov­er­eign in­de­pen­dence.”

They al­so asked the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to “re­ject by all means this ex­trav­a­gant threat that un­der­mines glob­al peace and re­veals the true in­ten­tions of plun­der, rat­i­fy­ing the max­im of the Lib­er­a­tor Simón Bolí­var, that for­tu­nate­ly a hand­ful of free men have been seen to de­feat pow­er­ful em­pires.”

Venezuela’s Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Del­cy Ro­dríguez, in a state­ment, ac­cused the US gov­ern­ment of pre­tend­ing to own Venezuela’s nat­ur­al re­sources.

“The cur­rent Pres­i­dent of the US ad­min­is­tra­tion be­lieves he has the right to own Venezuela’s oil, its land, and its min­er­als, how­ev­er, the Venezue­lan peo­ple are pre­pared to de­fend Bolí­var’s lega­cy.”

Venezuela’s rul­ing par­ty, the Unit­ed So­cial­ist Par­ty of Venezuela (PSUV), al­so is­sued a state­ment de­nounc­ing the “very se­ri­ous and reck­less” threat by Trump against Venezuela.

In the doc­u­ment, pub­lished through its In­sta­gram ac­count, the par­ty ex­pressed its strongest re­jec­tion of these ac­tions and point­ed out that the state­ments of Pres­i­dent Trump con­sti­tute a clear vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law, free trade and free­dom of nav­i­ga­tion.