Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 05/Jan 02:32

Venezuelan Ambassador joins protest demanding Maduro’s release

RYAN HAMILTON-DAVIS Venezuelan Ambassador Álvaro Enrique Sánchez Cordero joined protesters made up of a host of social and political groups, including the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) led by David Abdulah and activist Abeo Jackson, in solidarity with President Nicolas Maduro and the Venezuelan government, calling for Maduro’s immediate release and an end to years of financial suffocation through sanctions. “This is a political kidnapping designed to terrorise a nation that refuses to surrender,” Cordero said at the protest, at the Venezuelan Embassy on Victoria Avenue, Port of Spain, on January 4. “He (Maduro) is not a criminal. He is a President illegally targeted for the crime of defending his motherland. We must state this truth until every ear hears it. Nicolas Maduro continues to be the constitutional president of Venezuela. He was elected by the Venezuelan people, he leads our institutions and no foreign power, no matter how powerful, has the right to appoint its own puppets. “This attack is the sharpest edge of a years-long war and illegal economic blockade designed to starve a people into submission. This is aggression rooted in the neo-colonial arrogance of the Monroe Doctrine.” Cordero spoke a day after United States military forces swooped into Venezuela and detained its president on charges of narco-terrorism, a culmination of months of military action in the region against Venezuela. Abdulah condemned the military action in Venezuela and pointed the finger directly at Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar as an accomplice to the US military action in the region, despite claims by the TT Government that it had nothing to do with the extraction. “The imperialist action by Trump to bomb Venezuela and kidnap President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, was an act which is criminal, against the UN Charter, against all international law, and we stand here to condemn it unreservedly. “That act in Venezuela, similar to what is happening by the Zionist state of Israel through the genocide against Palestinians—bombing indiscriminately, engaging in war crimes—and ultimately, Trump, Netanyahu and others will have to pay a price for the crimes they are committing against humanity,” he said. “As a patriot of TT, I am condemning the Prime Minister of TT for continued complicity in this regard with Trump,” he added. “She says that TT did not participate in the attack. Of course, the police and army did not participate, but if someone is in a house and one of the people in that household is abusive and you did not participate actively in abusing other people, you cannot say you are not participating if you stood by and supported the abuser. Therefore, the Prime Minister of TT is complicit in everything that has been happening from August to now.” Jackson also condemned the TT government for siding with the US, warning that TT will face repercussions for standing on the wrong side of history. She called on the public to speak out against the government’s support of the US. “This is the moment to unite—to chart a new course to reject the hegemonies that have profited from our dispossession. This is especially a moment for the people of TT… we must ask ourselves plainly: will our silence continue to prop up a system that thrives on party politics, weaponised ignorance and manufactured division; a system that has empowered an administration to infantilise and wag its finger contemptuously at us, disregard our freedom and place our country on the wrong side of history? “Our silence is not neutrality, it is consent. The future will be decided right now, so let us not miss this moment.” Those at the Venezuelan Embassy dismissed footage of Venezuelans celebrating Maduro’s arrest in various parts of the world as “paid players” and said that several Venezuelans are actually standing in solidarity with the President. “The images of Venezuelans protesting in support of Maduro’s kidnapping are outside of Venezuela. That would be different from what you have seen inside Venezuela,” Abdulah said. “Multiple things can be true at the same time,” Jackson added. “We are not discounting the experience of the people within the space. We are also not discounting the experience of those who are now outside of the space, whether they are paid players or not, and we know that propaganda is a well-oiled machine. So it is very likely that some of them are paid players. “(However) the old people have a saying: ‘peeing in our faces and calling it rain,’ where the people who were the architects of the situation, the economic situation and the strangulation that happened inside Venezuela—the architects of that—are swooping in to be the saviour. “I feel as though you could pick sense from nonsense from that in terms of what you are seeing outside of Venezuela, with regard to the celebrations and the ‘propaganda’ that is coming out of mainstream media.” Also present at the protest was Shabaka Kambon, founder and executive director of the Caribbean Freedom Project. He added that on January 4, he contacted some colleagues in Caracas who said they were on their way to Miraflores to participate in a solidarity vigil in Caracas. “We know that in Venezuela itself, people are standing with the government.” Although the protest action outside the Embassy was intimate—with less than 30 people joining in solidarity with the Ambassador—police officers were high in number. From as early as 10 am, when protesters began gathering, police officers were seen stopping and asking questions of them. Police expressed concern over the gathering of protesters at the Embassy in light of the tensions between the US and Venezuela, but protesters scoffed at the concerns raised by police. “Imagine I am a citizen of this nation and these police are telling me that they don’t know me and I could be a terrorist,” said one elderly protester. “They don’t know who the real terrorists are.” “I parked my car across the road from the Embassy and a police officer told me that I couldn’t park there. I told him there was no rule or signage that said I couldn’t,” another protester said. Abdulah and Cordero were seen speaking to police officers about the gathering of people in front of the Embassy. Police even asked the Ambassador for identification to ensure he was who he claimed to be. Cordero complied and shared his identification and said if their protest was in contravention of any law, he would welcome them inside the Embassy. Abdulah noted that they still had the right to protest as long as they did not obstruct the thoroughfare on the pavement. Protesters then lined up in front of the walls of the Embassy to ensure people could pass. The post Venezuelan Ambassador joins protest demanding Maduro’s release appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.