Delcy Rodríguez, Executive Vice President of the Republic, reiterated that Venezuela is the victim of a vile blockage of its resources abroad, for which it has tirelessly undertaken actions to release funds that currently amount to more than 7 billion liquid dollars and all its assets and wealth, which would be used to face the serious impacts of the coercive measures imposed against the people and the purchase of vaccines against COVID-19 through the COVAX mechanism.
The senior official of the Bolivarian Government explained that since January 2019, the extremist right wing under a criminal structure, whose leader is former deputy Juan Guaidó, (has been acting in order) to enrich themselves and finance conspiratorial actions that include destabilization plans, a frustrated attempt at assassination, mercenary actions for the invasion of Venezuela as Operation Gideon, with an added that was the dispossession of the resources and patrimony of Venezuela, ordered by the White House.
She pointed out that the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) and Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) have been victims of criminal dispossession that has been denounced on various occasions and that since March 2020, when were registered the first cases of the COVID-19 pandemic that plagues humanity, the Venezuelan government and institutions have sought alternatives to release the blocked funds, but they have been denied.
“It is a criminal gang that has decided to satisfy Washington’s mandate to steal Venezuela’s resources,” emphasized Rodríguez, who highlighted that these criminal actions have caused the people of Venezuela great damage in the enjoyment of their right to food, health, education, housing, which have been systematically violated by the illegal exercise of this criminal blockade.
As part of the chronology of the dispossession of resources and assets of the Venezuelan State by the extremist right wing, she recalled that in 2019, were frozen the BCV’s resources in Citibank, which ended up being diverted to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Likewise, it began the illegal appropriation of Venezuelan companies abroad such as the Monómeros company in Colombia, Venezuelan assets in the Caribbean, and the illegal appropriation of CITGO, as part of the intensification of coercive measures and the blockade against Venezuela in the last two years, mainly since humanity faces the COVID-19 pandemic.
She denounced that with the resources of the Republic stolen by Juan Guaidó not even a single cotton swab was bought to attend the pandemic.
In contrast, she recalled that the Bolivarian Government is in the middle of a trial against the Bank of England for their refusal to hand over the resources to attend the pandemic.
Rodríguez also added that through the National Assembly a was given the installation of a technical board where are participating the Government of Venezuela, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Unicef, a representative of the opposition and representatives of the academic and sciences world, in order to accompany all efforts to release resources and address the need to massively immunize the people of Venezuela.
The Executive Vice President assured that Venezuela has been one of the main promoters of multilateralism and also she is convinced that participation in the Covax mechanism is ideal for the provision of vaccines in the country.
“Venezuela is not begging for alms,” clarified the Executive Vice President.
Finally, she called on the Public Ministry to thoroughly investigate these criminal actions of theft, of kidnapping the resources of the Venezuelan people to attend to the pandemic, which are carried out by the Venezuelan extremist right in the midst of the blockade and the fight against COVID-19.
The Executive Vice President was accompanied by the Foreign Minister of the Republic, Jorge Arreaza, the Attorney General, Reinaldo Muñoz, and the president of the Central Bank of Venezuela, Calixto Ortega.
