Caracas, Nov 19 – The Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter urged the United States to desist from its covert and overt actions currently aimed at destabilizing and provoking a regime change in Venezuela.
In a special statement circulating in this capital, the group of countries expressed their “deepest concern” over the ongoing escalation of tensions in the Caribbean, marked by an increased military concentration of aerial and naval assets, including those with nuclear capability and more than 15,000 soldiers.
In addition to the presence of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and its accompanying group as part of the so-called “Southern Lance Operation,” a military deployment comprising a joint force not seen in the region since the invasion of Panama in 1989, the statement indicated.
They affirmed that these aggressive actions, combined with military exercises just a few kilometers from Venezuela involving the Marine Corps, “represent a severe and provocative escalation in the already alarming buildup and hostile maneuvers of US military power in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
The Group of Friends denounced that the combination of a massive military deployment, explicit threats, and the fabrication of legal pretexts through lies and disinformation “creates an environment of coercion and intimidation” and constitutes a clear violation of the UN Charter as well as a “blatant threat to regional and international peace and security.”
The member states of the bloc condemned in the strongest terms the threats from the highest levels of the US government against Venezuela, including those from its President, who authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to formally carry out lethal operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
They also observed with grave concern the recent revelation of a classified memorandum from the US Department of Justice dated November 14, which seeks to create a legal pretext to perpetrate a military aggression against the Bolivarian Republic, falsely framing fentanyl as a “potential chemical weapons threat.”
The Group of Friends considered this action a “cynical manipulation” to justify the unilateral use of force and “a stark and dangerous echo of fabricated narratives” previously used to justify past wars of aggression, such as the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
“The attempt to impose on Venezuela a narrative of a chemical weapons threat, for which there is no evidence whatsoever, constitutes a deliberate fabrication of a conflict and a clear sign of hostile intent,” it denounced.
It also reiterated its unwavering solidarity with the Venezuelan people and government, and reaffirmed the inalienable right to “freely determine their own political, economic, and social system, free from external interference, subversion, coercion, or threat of military aggression.”
The statement urgently called on the United States government to immediately cease its threats of use of force and hostile actions, including the ongoing air attacks against small fishing vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific, which have resulted “in the extrajudicial execution of more than 76 civilians.”
It also demanded the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. military assets from the region and publicly reaffirm “its commitment to the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations,” including the sovereign equality of states and non-intervention in their internal affairs.
