{"id":177162,"date":"2021-01-18T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T12:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=177162"},"modified":"2021-01-14T09:56:39","modified_gmt":"2021-01-14T09:56:39","slug":"how-a-lawbreaking-international-coalition-failed-to-overthrow-venezuelas-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/01\/how-a-lawbreaking-international-coalition-failed-to-overthrow-venezuelas-government\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Lawbreaking International Coalition Failed to Overthrow Venezuela\u2019s Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

12 Jan 2021 – <\/em>On January 5, 2021, the newly elected National Assembly took its seats in Venezuela\u2019s capital. That day the Lima Group released a statement<\/a> most of its members signed saying that they did not recognize the legality of the assembly. They called upon countries around the world to \u201cdisregard\u201d the assembly and to recognize instead the leadership of a former member of the assembly, Juan Guaid\u00f3. The Lima Group felt that it was appropriate for its signatories to call for a \u201ctransition process\u201d inside Venezuela; in other words, the Lima Group affirmed its mission, which is to overthrow the government of Venezuela\u2019s President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and the Bolivarian Revolution.<\/p>\n

What Is the Lima Group?<\/strong><\/p>\n

On August 8, 2017, 12 countries in the Americas came together in Lima, Peru, to create this group. Led by Canada, these countries had right-wing governments with a close relationship with the United States of America (from Brazil to Colombia, from Honduras to Paraguay). This group was formed<\/a> to \u201ccontribute to the restoration of democracy\u201d in Venezuela, which meant\u2014in fact\u2014to contribute to the overthrow of the elected government of Venezuela.<\/p>\n

The founding declaration made two related points. First, that Venezuela was in the midst of a \u201ccritical situation,\u201d which included the \u201cbreakdown of the democratic order in Venezuela.\u201d Second, that the remedy for this \u201cbreakdown\u201d is the \u201crestoration of democracy,\u201d to be conducted by a \u201cpeaceful and negotiated\u201d process.<\/p>\n

The problem faced by the Venezuelan people in 2017 was not a deficit of democracy\u2014in fact, the country has had 26 elections since Hugo Ch\u00e1vez came into office in 1999\u2014but the suffocating U.S. illegal sanctions regime against Venezuela. Sanctions are only part of the range of U.S.-imposed hybrid war techniques, which include sabotage and armed insurrection. The Lima Group says that it rejects violence and any option that \u201cinvolves the use of force.\u201d Since 2017 there have been many conventional attempts to overthrow the government in Venezuela, and in none of these instances has the Lima Group made a statement against the use of force.<\/p>\n

The Lima Group represents a key tool in the hybrid war arsenal: diplomatic war. In the years before 2017, the United States did not have a sufficient majority in the Organization of American States (OAS) to use that body to isolate Venezuela; therefore, the U.S. worked with its oligarchic allies in the Americas to form a fake regional bloc with Latin American countries alongside Canada. The United States has hovered at the Lima Group meetings, setting the agenda and driving the policy.<\/p>\n

Is the Lima Group Legal?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each of the members of the Lima Group is a member of the United Nations (UN), which means that they have to abide by the UN Charter of 1945. That charter says<\/a> that \u201cregional arrangements\u201d are perfectly legal and that such arrangements could assist in the \u201cmaintenance of international peace and security\u201d (UN Charter, Chapter VIII, Article 52, Paragraph 1). If the Lima Group was set up to further the goals of the UN Charter, there would be no illegality.<\/p>\n

Where the Lima Group strays into illegality is when it decides collectively to enforce decisions upon Venezuela, which is a member state of the UN. The UN Charter says explicitly that no \u201cenforcement action\u201d is permitted by a regional arrangement \u201cwithout the authorization of the Security Council.\u201d The UN Security Council can use these regional bodies to take \u201cenforcement action under its authority\u201d; to do so, however, would require a UN Security Council resolution (UN Charter, Chapter VIII, Article 53, Paragraph 1). There is no UN Security Council resolution that provides the Lima Group with the authority to pressure Venezuela\u2019s government to resign and agree to a transfer of power.<\/p>\n

If there is no UN Security Council resolution, then it is illegal for a \u201cregional arrangement\u201d of UN member states to attempt to take \u201cenforcement action\u201d\u2014including regime change\u2014against another member state of the UN. The Lima Group\u2019s declarations and statements do not cite any UN Security Council justification for its actions. Since there is no such UN Security Council resolution, based on the specific language in the UN Charter, the Lima Group\u2019s existence is in violation of the UN Charter.<\/p>\n

Non-Interference<\/strong><\/p>\n

The members of the Lima Group are also members of the UN and the Organization of American States, formed in 1948 as a \u201cregional arrangement.\u201d Both the UN and the OAS charters explicitly oppose interference in the domestic matters of another UN and OAS member state.<\/p>\n

The UN Charter says<\/a> that it does not authorize its members to \u201cintervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.\u201d The only exception to this is if there is a UN Security Council resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which allows such intervention. If there is no such resolution, then the UN member states are obliged to respect the \u201cdomestic jurisdiction\u201d of other members. This is the concept of non-interference, violated by the Lima Group in each of its meetings.<\/p>\n

The OAS Charter<\/a> twice takes a position against interference and intervention. First, in the opening sections of the Charter, member states pledge to follow the \u201cprinciple of non-intervention\u201d (OAS Charter, Chapter I, Article 2, Section b). Second, later in the charter there is a long explanation of non-intervention, which extends beyond military attacks to include a range of interventions:<\/p>\n

\u201cNo State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. The foregoing principle prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic, and cultural elements.\u201d (OAS Charter, Chapter IV, Article 19)<\/p>\n

Both the UN Charter and the OAS Charter are clear that any conspiracy to overthrow another member of the UN and the OAS is illegal. There is no other way to understand the actions of the Lima Group than that its members are in breach of its obligations to these two foundational charters.<\/p>\n

Ottawa or Bogot\u00e1 Group?<\/strong><\/p>\n

By the start of this year, the original 12 countries in the Lima Group were joined by five others to make 17. However, for the statement<\/a> against Venezuela on January 5, there were only 13 signatories (including two non-member countries). Key Lima Group member countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, and Mexico had not signed this statement. Part of the reason is that most of these countries are now governed by left-wing governments who do not believe in the regime change policy against Venezuela. They understand the Lima Group for what it is, namely a conspiracy against the UN Charter.<\/p>\n

Since 2017, Peru has lurched through one political crisis after another from corruption cases implicating politicians and overthrowing governments; massive protests, including recently over an agrarian law, have gripped<\/a> the country in its own democratic convulsions. Peru\u2019s presidents, often charged with corruption, came in and out of office in quick succession, and yet\u2014in a very forced and insincere way\u2014they called for democratic processes in Venezuela; Pablo Pedro Kuczynski\u2014charged with corruption\u2014was out of office seven months after the Lima Group was created, while his successor Mart\u00edn Vizcarra was impeached for \u201cpermanent moral incapacity.\u201d Manuel Arturo Merino who came next lasted for five days before handing over the reins to Francisco Sagasti. Sagasti, whose hold on the presidency is fragile, took time out of the crisis in Peru to attack<\/a> Venezuela in late December 2020; nonetheless, Peru seems to be losing its appetite for this operation against Venezuela.<\/p>\n

More fundamentally committed to regime change in Venezuela are Canada and Colombia, which is why the Lima Group could be more accurately known as the Ottawa Group or the Bogot\u00e1 Group. Whatever the group is called, there is no doubt that it is\u2014based on the UN and OAS Charters\u2014an illegal conspiracy against Venezuela. The sooner the group is disbanded, the better. Venezuela, with a new National Assembly, is exercising its political sovereignty against the hybrid war attempt to destabilize the country.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is the chief editor of <\/em>LeftWord Books<\/a><\/em> and the director of <\/em>Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research<\/a><\/em>. He is a senior non-resident fellow at <\/em>Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies<\/a><\/em>, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including <\/em>The Darker Nations<\/a> and <\/em>The Poorer Nations<\/a>. His latest book is <\/em>Washington Bullets<\/a>, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.<\/em><\/p>\n

Carlos Ron is Venezuela\u2019s vice minister of foreign affairs for North America and president of the Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar Institute for Peace and Solidarity Among Peoples.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was produced by <\/em>Globetrotter<\/a><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

12 Jan 2021 – Last 15 Jan the newly elected National Assembly took its seats in Venezuela. That day the Lima Group released a statement saying they did not recognize it and called upon countries to \u201cdisregard\u201d it and recognize a former member, Juan Guaid\u00f3. The Group called for a \u201ctransition process\u201d in Venezuela; in other words, the overthrow of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and the Bolivarian Revolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":148203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[867,1473,547,120,393,276,267,1764,1050,378,541,559,234,109,287,1190,923,1961,249,70,557,126,172],"class_list":["post-177162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","tag-anglo-america","tag-blockade","tag-brazil","tag-conflict","tag-coup","tag-democracy","tag-geopolitics","tag-guaido","tag-imperialism","tag-journalism","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-maduro","tag-media","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-regime-change","tag-sanctions","tag-silvercorp-mercenaries","tag-trump","tag-usa","tag-venezuela","tag-violence","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}