The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, sent a letter to the American people, where he warns of a military deployment that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has ordered against our country.
In the letter – read this Sunday by Chancellor Jorge Arreaza – the Head of State warns that the Donald Trump government, based on infamies about drug trafficking, “has ordered the largest military deployment in order to threaten Venezuela and take the country to an unprecedented, costly and timeless confrontation”.
“In Venezuela we do not want an armed conflict in our nation, we cannot accept warmongering threats”, said President Maduro, and urged the American people not to believe in the reasons that Trump indicates to attack Venezuela.
“For weeks the world has been paralyzed trying to stop a pandemic. Just like for the people of the United States, to confront it is our priority. In Venezuela, we took early measures and rely on our public health system. The solidarity of Cuba, China and Russia, and the WHO has allowed us to have the necessary supplies, despite the blockade of Donald Trump”, added the National President in the letter.
However, while all nations are focused on stopping Covid-19, the US government is trying to reissue a Vietnam war, “but this time closer to home,” said the President in the brief.
That is why he called on the people of the United States, the cultors, artists and workers to request their authorities to stop the attacks against Venezuelan territory.
Following is the full text:
“Nicolás Maduro Moros
To the People of the United States of America:
For weeks, the world has been paralyzed, trying to control a pandemic that is without a doubt the greatest challenge that we have faced together as a society and international community. As for the people of the United States, to confront it is our priority.
Fortunately, in Venezuela we have had some advantages. We take very early isolation measures and expanded screening, relying on our free public health system, which has family doctors around the country. We also have the invaluable community organization to help raise social awareness and provide support to the most vulnerable.
Likewise, the solidarity of Cuba, China, Russia and the support of the World Health Organization has allowed us to obtain necessary medical supplies, despite Donald Trump’s illegal sanctions.
In expressing my solidarity with this important historical challenge and our dismay and pain at the consequences of the pandemic in the United States, I am forced to also alert you that, as the world focuses on addressing the Covid-19 emergency, the Trump government, once again instrumentalizing institutions to achieve its electoral goals and based on infamies under the pretext of the fight against drugs, has ordered the largest military deployment of the United States to our region in 30 years, in order to threaten Venezuela and lead our region to an expensive, bloody and indefinite war conflict.
As a precedent to this fallacious maneuver, on March 26, William Barr, a Attorney General of questionable independence (who recommended the 1989 invasion of Panama against Noriega and helped cover up the irregularities of the Iran-Contra scandal), presented, without showing any kind of evidence, drug trafficking charges against the United States against me and against senior officials of the Venezuelan State, despite the fact that the information from the Department of Defense itself shows that Venezuela is not a country of primary transit of drugs to the United States, as are indeed, in the contrary, allied countries of Washington such as Colombia or Honduras.
It is clear that the Trump administration builds a smoke screen to hide the improvised and erratic management of the pandemic in the United States. From the beginning Donald Trump downplayed it and denied it, just as he has done with climate change. Today the crisis is exacerbated simply because, despite having resources, he is not willing to transform the health system into one that prioritizes the full care of the population and not the profit-making of private medicine, insurance and pharmaceuticals companies.
We in Venezuela do not want an armed conflict in our region. We want fraternal, cooperative, exchange and respectful relationships. We cannot accept war threats, nor blockades, nor the intention to install an international guardianship that violates our sovereignty and disowns the advances of the last year in the sincere political dialogue between the government and a large part of the Venezuelan opposition, who wants political solutions, and not wars for oil.
For all of the above, I make a call on the people of the United States to put a stop to this madness, to hold their rulers accountable and compel them to focus their attention and resources on urgent attention to the pandemic.
I ask, along with the cessation of military threats, for the end of illegal sanctions and the blockade that restricts access to humanitarian supplies, so necessary today in the country. I ask you, with my heart in my hands, not to allow your country to be drawn, once again, into another endless conflict, into another Vietnam or another Iraq, but this time closer to home.
We are not so different, as they want us to believe with infamy. We are peoples seeking a more just, free and compassionate society. Let us not allow the particular interests of minorities blinded by ambition to separate us.
We, as our leader Hugo Chávez once said, share the same dream. Martin Luther King’s dream is also the dream of Venezuela and its revolutionary government. I invite you to fight together to make that dream come true. Say No to the United States war against Venezuela. No more criminal sanctions. We want peace”.
