While Norway seeks a Peaceful Outcome in Venezuela, Canada Plots Regime Change
Photo Credit: (CBC News / Google Images)
Written by: Daniel Xie
On July 25 2020 the Orinoco Tribune reported that Norway, a new member of the UN Security Council, sent a delegation to Venezuela in order to assess the socioeconomic health of the country. Norwegian diplomat Dag Halvor confirmed the news Norwegian diploma through his Twitter account.
Five days later, the Norwegian delegation met with Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, who expressed hope that perhaps the meeting signified resumed talks with the opposition, and that a peaceful solution to the political crisis currently plaguing Venezuela may yet be found.
The US-backed right-wing opposition, however, has rebuffed the possibility of a peaceful settlement with a statement that they will not negotiate until there is a guarantee of “free elections”, or rather a means to for them to climb into power and impose a neoliberal agenda.
Norway has sought a diplomatic solution to the Venezulean crisis since September 2019. Norwegian diplomats spearheaded talks between the Venezuelan government and the neoliberal opposition as a means to resolve the political crisis in Venezuela. These talks mostly took place in Barbados, after opposition leader Juan Guaido led a failed military uprising in April against Maduro, who is accused of human rights violations and has overseen an economic collapse that prompted millions of Venezuelans to flee.
These talks failed in August when Maduro walked away from the negotiating table to protest President Trump’s tightening of sanctions on Venezuela. The neoliberal opposition also walked out of the talks because the sanctions did not conform to their view of events.
Despite these setbacks, Norway has yet to give up hope for diplomacy. Dag Nylander, head of international peace and reconciliation efforts at Norway’s Foreign Ministry, expressed in September 2019 that Norway will continue to mediate negotiations once both parties find it prudent to do so.
Norway has continued to push for a diplomatic solution to the Venezuela crisis against all odds rather than back a coup by neoliberal opposition forces. When the country’s behaviour is framed in the context of securing a seat at the UN Security Council instead of Canada sends an important message: Canada deserved to lose.
Despite presenting itself as a defender of global peace and willing to work with other nations, Canada under Trudeau has embraced foreign policy that seeks to advance neoliberal hegemony at the expense of other nations, particularly the nations that are oppressed by imperialism.
A History of Injustice
Even though Canada presents itself as committed to peace and demilitarization, it worked with the US to carry out regime change in Venezuela. Canada, through now Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, is a key founder of the Lima Group, which constitutes a group of countries plotting together to overthrow president Maduro.
The Lima Group includes far-right regimes responsible for massive human rights violations such as the coup regime in Bolivia, the fascist Bolsonaro government in Brazil and the Honduran dictatorship. Canada’s then-foreign minister (and now deputy prime minister) Chrystia Freeland negotiated the country’s support of the Lima Group, and aligned Canada’s foreign policy to an “America first” position; essentially marching in lockstep with American foreign policy and imperialism.
Canada is also a member of the Organization of American States, which, despite its stated goals of preserving peace in the Western Hemisphere, is nothing more than a means for the US to exert its foreign policy on governments not compliant to American interests, such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia’s overthrown government under indigenous president Evo Morales.
The Canadian government condemned the results of the Bolivian 2019 elections and supported an OAS electoral audit mission to Bolivia, and when the coup succeeded, Canada gave it’s support to the neoliberal regime of Jeanine Añez. In fact, the regime is counting on Canadian and OAS support for their efforts to prevent a MAS victory in the next election, which they already delayed using the Coronavirus as a pretext.
Canada’s support for right-wing Latin American authoritarians doesn’t stop there. When Bolsonaro won the Brazilian elections in 2018, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation heralded the triumph of fascism in Brazil as an opportunity for economic growth for Canadian businesses. The Canadian government doubled down on free trade agreements with Bolsonaro in 2019 even as he escalated the deforestation of the Amazon. Canada also supported a repressive regime in Haiti despite also using the pretense of supporting “democracy and human rights” in Venezuela. Canadian support for authoritarianism in Haiti isn’t a recent thing, either.
Canada played a role in working with the US and France to instigate the 2004 Haitian coup that overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide by strangling development assistance to weaken the country’s economy and Aristide’s popular support, then sending a joint task force to help the pro-coup forces.
Following the establishment of a regime in Haiti compliant to American interests, Canada helped in creating a neoliberal economic program that threw the nation into even worse poverty. In addition, they have financed police facilities and deployed the RCMP to train Haitian police in the art of police brutality and cracking down on dissent. Training provided by Canada played a role in suppressing protests in Haiti such as the uprising on June 29, 2020.
In 2011, Canada helped facilitate the rise of the right-wing president Michel Martelly in office by spending money to suppress left-leaning candidates and ban Fanni Lavalas, Aristide’s party, from participating in the the elections.
Canada’s support of imperialist foreign policy isn’t just limited to Latin America. Even as Canada supports calls for a global ceasefire their actions paint a different picture, with the Liberal party opting to both continue their arms trade with the reactionary Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as lift existing suspensions of arms exports to Saudi Arabia even as it continues its murderous war in Yemen and political repression domestically.
At the same time that Canada is continuing its aid to Saudi Arabia, it also maintains its continued partnership with Apartheid Israel even as Israel uses the Coronavirus outbreak as a pretext to accelerate the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and deprive aid to Palestinians suffering from the Coronavirus.
Trudeau had previously equated support for BDS with anti-semitism, while Canada had previously in addition voted against various measures in the UN supporting Palestinian sovereignty, while allowing their police forces to be trained by Israeli police officers; thereby escalating police brutality in Canada. In addition, Trudeau has yet to end Canada’s free trade agreement with Israel.
We can see Canadian foreign policy as a tool for advancing imperialism not just in the Global South, but in Europe as well. Despite presenting itself as a beacon of tolerance in a world dominated by far-right populism, Canada hides its own sympathies for the far-right. Canada has been a haven for Ukrainian ultranationalists ever since the end of the Second World War. These Nazi collaborators spread a whitewashed and idealized version of their fascist beliefs, downplaying the anti-semitism of their leaders and justifying their actions as necessary measures to fight communism.
Efforts were also made to paint communism as the greater evil in comparison to fascism through disputed data and sources like the Black Book of Communism. Ultranationalists also built memorials that glorify the far-right or propagate far-right narratives about communism such as the Memorial to the Victims of Communism. As a result of the ultranationalists’ influence, memorials to Nazi collaborators were built in Canada and attempts to deface them have been labeled a hate crime.
The ultra-nationalists contributed to the growth of a far-right sentiment within Canadian foreign policy with regards to the political situation in Ukraine. Chrystia Freeland’s career is clear proof. Freeland’s father was associated with Ukrainian Nazi collaborators and she herself has been connected to Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) and the League of Ukrainian Canadians (LUC), both of which glorify Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. Freeland has pushed for support of the far-right Right Sector, which supports a militia of the same name in Ukraine.
The Ugly Truth
Norway’s diplomatic and conciliatory efforts in Venezuela, in contrast to Canada’s efforts to support regime change operations initiated in the US, demonstrates that Canada deserved to lose at the UN security council. From maintaining ties with apartheid Israel, to supporting coups in Venezuela and Bolivia, to supporting Ukrainian ultra-nationalists in Eastern Europe, Canada’s foreign policy has been one of maintaining oppression and imperialism for most of the world.
It is a foreign policy that does not seem to be changing anytime soon given the support Canadian politicians such as Chrystia Freeland have for imperialism. This does not mean that Norway’s own foreign policy does not have flaws, or that they are not also complicit in furthering imperialism. But it is clear that they were a better choice than Canada for a seat on the Security Council because of how our foreign policy has perpetuated so much global injustice.
Had Canada gotten onto the Security Council instead of Norway we would not have seen even an attempt at a semblance of diplomacy in Venezuela. Canada would instead be using its seat on the Security Council to defend countries guilty of horrific human rights violations such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, even as internal pressure mounts within the country to oppose them. We would be backing far-right forces in Eastern Europe and defending the efforts of the US to undermine socialist Latin American governments opposed to their geopolitical hegemony in the region.
In response to the injustice we’ve perpetuated, Canadians must oppose our current foreign policy that has ultimately alienated us from the international community, and pave the way for a new policy that is genuinely anti-imperialist and peace-oriented.
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