Canada’s elbows are definitely not up. Instead, we are purposely passing the puck to their powerplay.
Canada should stop assisting the US war on Venezuela.
Over the past six weeks the US has blown up a handful of alleged drug boats in international waters near Venezuela. The US has also deployed 10,000 troops to the region and the Pentagon notified Congress under the War Powers Resolution that US forces were engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels. A number of outlets have reported that the Donald Trump administration is seeking to overthrow the Venezuelan government.
Canada is assisting in several ways. A Project Ploughshares report shows that Canadian-made camera systems have been used in the US strikes on Venezuelan boats. Additionally, Canadian naval vessels are engaged in counter narcotics patrols with their US counterparts in the Caribbean.
The Canadian military has likely assisted the US strikes. In the 1980s NORAD was given a ‘war on drugs’ mandate. Regional NORAD headquarters, including North Bay, installed new computers to track suspected aerial drug trafficking. The computers enabled instant communication with law enforcement agencies. In 1993 NORAD’s responsibilities were formally extended to “monitoring of aircraft suspected of smuggling illegal drugs into North America”.
During his meeting with Trump on Wednesday Mark Carney smiled and laughed when the US president talked of blasting boats out of the water. Trump said this US violence benefited Canada too.
Ottawa doesn’t appear to have commented directly on the illegal US strikes. Conversely, Global Affairs congratulated the Nobel Committee for recently awarding their peace prize to Venezuelan coup monger Maria Corina Machado.
Machado has been working with Canadian imperialism for two decades. At the start of the year Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly spoke with Machado and she has been in regular contact with Canadian officials. She came to Ottawa in 2014 and in 2005 Foreign Affairs invited Machado to visit. At the time Machado led Súmate, an organization at the forefront of efforts to remove Hugo Chavez as president. Just prior to this invitation, Súmate had led an unsuccessful campaign to recall Chavez through a referendum. Before that, Machado’s name appeared on a list of people who endorsed the 2002 coup, for which she faced charges of treason. She denied signing the now-infamous Carmona Decree that dissolved the National Assembly and Supreme Court and suspended the elected government, the attorney general, comptroller general, and governors as well as mayors elected during Chavez’s administration. It also annulled land reforms and reversed increases in royalties paid by oil companies.
Canada also helped finance Súmate. According to disclosures made in response to a question by NDP foreign affairs critic Alexa McDonough, Canada gave Súmate $22,000 in 2005–06. Minister of International Cooperation José Verner explained that “Canada considered Súmate to be an experienced NGO with the capability to promote respect for democracy, particularly a free and fair electoral process in Venezuela.”
Alongside large sums from Washington, Canada has provided many millions of dollars to groups opposed to the Venezuelan government over the past 20 years. In a bid to elicit “regime change,” Ottawa has financed an often-unsavoury opposition, including Machado.
For multiple years the Justin Trudeau government openly sought to overthrow Venezuela’s government by working to isolate Caracas, imposing illegal sanctions and taking its officials to the International Criminal Court. They even claimed a marginal opposition politician was the legitimate president of the country. On the same day Juan Guaidó declared himself president of Venezuela in a Caracas park in January 2019, foreign minister Chrystia Freeland formally recognized the little-known opposition politician. Additionally, Canadian diplomats played an important role in uniting large swaths of the Venezuelan opposition, as well as international forces, behind a plan to proclaim as president the new head of the opposition-dominated National Assembly.
Ultimately, Ottawa’s remarkable multi-year campaign to subvert the Venezuelan government failed. But Canada has not reestablished diplomatic relations with the country or rescinded its sanctions.
It’s time for Ottawa to stop its bid to overthrow the Venezuelan government. The platform for my NDP leadership bid notes, “End state-sponsored propaganda, fearmongering, and demonization of nations resisting Western domination, including … Venezuela.”
It’s about time we followed the golden rule in our foreign policy. If we do not want other countries to interfere in Canadian politics, we should not be intervening in theirs.
To assist, donate or learn more about my bid to lead the NDP check out yvesforndpleader.ca
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