The Executive Vice President of the Republic, Delcy Rodríguez, reported that this Monday a second report on the damage caused by the unilateral coercive measures to the country was delivered to the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court, a report called the Venezuela II case, which presents the evidences of the damage that the coercive measures have caused to the Venezuelan people:
“We have been denouncing the systematic attack on the population for several months and we are based, among other things, on article 7 of the Rome Statute. On February 13, a document was presented to the International Criminal Court where we presented the case”, she recalled.
She explained that the report presented contains all the elements that show that a crime against humanity has been committed, but also establishes responsibilities because “the US is aware of the damage it is causing to the Venezuelan people”, she said.
She also pointed out that the report is the product of a process that began in February 2020: “We have completed the cycle to demonstrate that there are reasonable causes to affirm that crimes against humanity have been committed against the Venezuelan people”, she said.
She pointed out that two laws and 7 decrees by the US support all the sanctions against Venezuela, and that they have been compiled in the document.
She explained that the 7 executive orders issued by the US government produced the blockade of the oil industry, a drastic and severe fall in foreign exchange incomes to the country, the dispossession of more than 31 tons of Venezuelan gold in England, as well as the blocking of more than 7 billion dollars in banks abroad.
Sanctions to people and companies:
It also establishes that have been sanctioned 192 people, 150 companies (10 State-owned and 140 from the private sector), 69 boats, 30 oil tankers, 58 aircrafts.
She detailed that are also given details of the damage that the blockade has caused to the Venezuelan people: “In January 2018 the United States Department of State assumed responsibility for the economic instability of Venezuela”, said Rodríguez while recalling that the former secretary of National Security of the United States, John Bolton, said: “Let’s freeze all the assets of the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela, SA, within US territory, let’s block 7 billion dollars in assets, more than 11 billion dollars estimated in export earnings during the next 2019”, which the Vice President classified as confessions of a crime: “These are crimes against humanity”.
Rodríguez emphasized that the US attacks against Venezuela have a political objective, which is “to defeat a government not aligned with their interests, not subject to their mandates, not extortionable”.
“Craig Faller, head of the Southern Command, said in March this year that the sanctions were aimed at the destruction of the Venezuelan economy but have not produced the desired result”, she recalled.
In her exhibition, she showed evidences of March 25 of this year when the president of the Central Bank of Venezuela sent a letter to Citibank, where Venezuela has 342 million dollars, requesting the use of these resources for the purchase of vaccines against Covid-19.
She also presented the variation of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of Venezuela compared to other regions of the world, showing that it was even above other countries until 2017, when it fell due to “maximum pressure” policies against the country.
Another of the harmful effects presented was based on the fact that more than half of the pharmaceutical transnationals with presence in the country (15 subsidiaries) have left the country from 2016, as a result of the illegal sanctions affecting the national immunization and vaccination plan.
She also showed the letters sent to the Novo Banco of Portugal requesting the use of resources from Venezuela for the payment of vaccines to the Pan American Health Organization, and they replied that the resources were frozen.
Finally, she showed a graph that reflects the impact on the acquisition of food, raw materials and proteins for the Local Committees for Productive Supply (CLAP) feeding program for the Venezuelan population:
“May the Venezuelan people have the certainty of the Bolivarian Government’s commitment to defend the legitimate rights of our Homeland, the happiness of our people and the inalienable sovereignty and national independence”, she said.
