The Minister of People’s Power for Foreign Relations of Venezuela, Jorge Arreaza, proposed this Monday to consider the “Mano a Mano” plan with countries that are subject to unilateral coercive measures and which, for reasons beyond their control, have to experience difficulties that must be addressed by the multilateral system:
“Venezuela would propose a modality that would be considered “mano a mano” (hand-in-hand) for countries that are subject to sanctions, blockades, coercive and unilateral measures, and which, for reasons beyond their own control, have to experience difficulties that have to be addressed by the multilateral system, since these measures are outside the Public International Law”, he pointed out.
At the 36th Regional Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Venezuelan Chancellor stressed that Venezuela is making an effort to fulfill all the objectives of sustainable development, while highlighting that hunger and poverty are the most important objectives, where FAO is a fundamental instrument to achieve it.
“In Venezuela, FAO works to improve seed production capacities, in this area the Government has promoted a peasant-scientific alliance, which is made up of Research Centers, peasants, scientists and, of course, experts from FAO and the United Nations Organization (UN) that help to strengthen this system”, he said.
He pointed out that Venezuela rejects coercive and unilateral measures, due to the negative effects, on social rights, on human rights and fundamentally the right to food, in particular those measures that directly and indirectly affect production, transformation and marketing of food raw materials, agricultural inputs and relevant technologies for agricultural and food development.
In the case of sanctions against Venezuela, he pointed out that they not only harm the country but also the countries of the Eastern Caribbean and beyond, the countries of Central America, which had a strong tool for their integral development, such as Petrocaribe, where it is in a reengineering process to relaunch it under other modalities.
He recalled that Venezuela recently approved the Anti-Blockade Law for national development and guarantees of the human rights of the Venezuelan people.
He explained that the resources obtained through this law will be allocated as a priority to the feeding of the Venezuelan people, the production of food and the distribution of the same through the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP), which exceeds the 7 million households.
He thanked FAO for the work it has done in the region so that the Covid-19 pandemic does not translate into a greater magnitude food crisis, while highlighting that Venezuela is one of the countries of the South that has the lowest number of cases, where the figures indicate that it has been achieved through cooperation in a manageable situation.
He also indicated that Venezuela has welcomed in recent months more than 200,000 Venezuelans who have returned to the country and who have been treated with a very strict health protocol.
Arreaza added that the (PAE) Alimentation Program is also being strengthened, as well as are being worked on proposals with the United Nations World Food Program, for their incorporation in the country, in turn ratified that public investments and purchases, and also imports, have been protected to guarantee the food of the Venezuelan people.
