Dec. - The countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, and Saint Lucia, categorically condemn the theft and hijacking of a second vessel transporting Venezuelan oil, perpetrated by military forces of the Government of the United States of America, who, acting as privateers, have also illegitimately deprived its crew of their freedom.
This serious act of piracy committed in international waters violates both the letter and the spirit of the United Nations Charter, the fundamental principles of International Law, and the text of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation. It constitutes an unacceptable aggression against legitimate trade and the sovereignty of States.
ALBA denounces that this act exposes a deliberate intention to plunder the natural resources of a sovereign country and sets a very serious precedent for the region and for the international system as a whole. It is a supremacist strategy of neocolonial domination aimed at forcibly imposing an anarchic order in which violence prevails, undermining International Law and replacing norms with intimidation and dispossession.
The Bolivarian Alliance expresses its full and active solidarity with the people and the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, supports the exercise of all corresponding legal and diplomatic actions before the competent multilateral bodies, and demands the immediate cessation of these illegal practices, as well as the determination of responsibilities in accordance with International Law.
ALBA warns that this reprehensible action does not only attack Venezuela but constitutes a direct aggression against all nations by violating International Law and infringing the principles that uphold peaceful coexistence among nations.
(Taken from Granma)
