ASSEMBLY OF CARIBBEAN PEOPLE DENOUNCES US EMBARGO AGAINST VENZUELA
The Assembly of Caribbean People is dismayed and outraged, but not surprised at the new economic embargo imposed by American President Donald Trump against the people of Venezuela. This move, signed on August 5th, 2019, freezes all Venezuelan government assets in the United States and barred transactions with its authorities. It is the Venezuelan people who own those assets. Who do these authorities represent if not the Venezuelan people? This is a move calculated to cause increasing harm to a nation that is already under siege.
The justifications for the American embargo read like the list of charges against Trump himself and the disasters he has created in his own country: silencing dissent, social control, illegal raids, extra-judicial killings, decreased hospital services and oppression of the poor and the political opposition. It is the vilest hypocrisy for the American government to interfere in another sovereign country on humanitarian grounds as they maintain concentration camps and are wracked by mass shootings and electoral interference.
As Caribbean People, we also oppose the United States’ pattern of interference in its neighbours affairs. Is it that Americas silence is only for those with the armies and weapons to defend themselves? American righteousness only moves against the small and weak like Grenada, Cuba and Haiti.
And the results are clear: Cuba is isolated but defiant, Haiti is subjected to continual inference and the people suffer under mismanagement, imposed governance and the abuses of occupation. It seems indeed that the cruelty is the point and Trump is demonstrating his power to harm and hurt our neighbours, people like us with similar histories and challenges, simply because he can.
The Assembly of Caribbean People is a conference that brings together Caribbean people across the lines that divide us language, social sector, gender, age, religion, ethnicity. Our aim is to strengthen integration and unity and to foster independence and self-determination in a divided world that don’t need islands no more. The 8th Assembly of Caribbean People runs from August 15-18, 2019. This year’s theme, Confronting the imperialist agenda, the resistance and unity of our peoples have been strengthened through the Assembly of Caribbean People is especially relevant and poignant at this time.
All members of the public are invited to join the Assembly’s conference and to make their voices heard. The threats that challenge us in Trinidad and Tobago also menace our neighbours.
Local Organising Committee
Assembly of Caribbean People