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Written by: Daniel Xie

On August 20, the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute hosted a workshop on Canada’s role in plotting regime change in Venezuela. The event was originally supposed to be a debate between Venezuelan foreign minister Jorge Arreaza and various figures in the Canadian establishment but no such figures responded. Instead, Jorge Arreaza gave a speech and answered questions about the impact of Canada’s foreign policy towards Venezuela.

Bianca Mugyenyi hosted the workshop, and had also helped to host an earlier event presented by the CFPI discussing Canada’s role in the Bolivian coup and the fight in Bolivia to restore democracy. Co-sponsors for the workshop included Common Frontiers, Canadian Dimension, and the Canadian Latin America Alliance.

The workshop began with an introduction by Roger Waters, leader of the band Pink Floyd, who has opposed Canada’s UNSC bid in the past. Before introducing Arreaza, Waters declared solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en land defenders’ efforts to oppose the growth of the fossil fuel industry and defend indigenous land rights. Waters also expressed the hope that that the majority of Canadians hold the same sociopolitical views that Bianca does on Venezuela, and only our leadership seeks to maintain our ties to the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Lima Group.

Canada and the Foundation of the Lima Group: Imperialism with an Impartial Face

Arreaza stated during his speech that at one point, even after the start of the Bolivarian revolution under Hugo Chavez, Canada actually maintained cordial relations with Venezuela and Canadian businesses even invested in Venezuelan industry. At that time, he saw Canada as an intermediary they could work with diplomatically to reach out to the rest of the world.

All of that changed following the victory of Donald Trump and the ascent to power by Chrystia Freeland as Canada’s foreign minister. Freeland aligned Canada’s foreign policy to support US efforts to subvert socialist governments in Latin America, and to interfere in Veneuelan politics under the guise of human rights.

Arreaza noted Canada’s refusal to recognize the results of Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro’s call for an election of a democratic constituent assembly in 2017 as an early example of interference. Canada’s refusal echoed the refusal by the US to recognize the results of the election. This had been a year where elections for governors and municipalities saw huge victories by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its allies. Canada did not recognize the results for these elections either on the basis that they were supposedly fraudulent.

Canada then took a leading role in the formation of the Lima group at the behest of the US. Arreaza views the foundation of the Lima group as a means to provide legitimacy to American imperialism in Latin America. He stated that if the US had started something like the Lima Group it would have little legitimacy from day one. By having Canada set up the Lima Group, weaponized criticism of the Venezuelan government in service of American imperialism appears non-partisan.

The Lima Group proved to be a means for the US to destabilize and isolate Venezuela outside of the restrictions placed on it and its allies within the Organization of American states. In the OAS the US did not have enough votes to fully expel Venezuela from the OAS, but through the Lima Group, they had a coalition of willing parties aligned with American interests in Latin America like Canada and various far-right and neoliberal nations. Through the Lima Group, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo can pass orders to Canada, who will then pass orders regarding Venezuela to Peru, the de jure leader of the Lima Group.

Arreaza proposed that the ultimate goal of the Lima Group is to create the conditions to stage a military invasion of Venezuela. This invasion is to be prepared using a 1955 defence treaty to mount a joint Latin American invasion of Venezuela by painting it as an “external” threat to Latin America, using its socialist ideology as a pretext to paint it as a threat. Arreaza went on to say that if Canada and the Lima Group actually tries to instigate an invasion the Venezuelan people will fight them to the death. This invasion will be worse for the invading powers than the Vietnam War. He expressed hope that it would not come to this, and that a diplomatic solution can be found that will end hostilities against Venezuela’s government.

It should be noted that Arreaza is not the only one to have speculated that the US and its allies are planning an invasion of Venezuela using whatever trumped-up allegations they can muster. On August 19, 2020, Arnold August wrote about how Venezuelan Ambassador to the United Nations Samuel Moncada recently warned that Trump is seeking a war in Venezuela as part of an “October surprise” to facilitate his re-election. Said invasion will supposedly be carried out with the help of a “multinational stabilization” force, perhaps the Lima Group. August noted that Trudeau has been eerily quiet about the whole thing. Given Trudeau’s silence, combined with Arreaza’s observations on the ultimate goals of the Lima group, it is possible that Trudeau seeks to take part in this planned invasion, whether or not Canadians like it.

Canada and the Fizzled Coup

According to Arreaza, Canada followed the formation of the Lima Group by playing an instrumental role in whipping up international support for the US-backed opposition leader in Venezuela, Juan Guaido. When Guaido proclaimed himself interim president, various American political figures such as Mike Pence, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and Donald Trump all recognized him in a single day. Following US recognition, Canada recognized the interim president and tried to use their influence globally to create an image of international unity, in support of Guaido and bully Maduro into stepping down. Canadian ambassadors have lobbied extensively in the Caribbean to try to convince other countries to recognize Guaido. They have even gone as far as pushing Venezuelan ambassadors in Canada to work with a pro-Guaido ambassador tied to the Canadian-Venezuelan Engagement Foundation, an anti-PSUV NGO in Canada, rather than the Maduro government.

Arreaza described how the CVEF was notorious for getting money taken from expropriating Venezuelan assets in Canada that would have otherwise gone to Venezuelans abroad.

Arreaza also revealed that before Guaido’s attempted coup Canada played a role in trying to prevent Maduro from winning the 2018 Venezuelan elections when it forbade Venezuelans living in Canada from voting despite other countries making no such restrictions. . This interference, coupled with the US refusing to recognize the election, set the stage for Guaido’s attempted coup. To Arreaza, Canada’s hypocrisy was clear. It claims claims to support democracy even while it denies democratic rights to Venezuelans living in Canada just so the Canadian government can do their part to prevent a PSUV victory.

Arreaza said that Canadian hypocrisy goes farther by the country’s claims to support Venezuelan’s human rights while also supporting sanctions made specifically to cause “pain” for Venezuelans unless they turn against Maduro. The sanctions are, according to Arreaza, an effort to starve out the Venezulean people and freeze the assets of political officials. The sanctions go so far as to refuse Canadian visas to sports teams coming from Venezuela.

As a result of the sanctions placed on Venezuela by Canada and the US, Venezuela cannot trade with either of these countries. Nor can Venezuela export their oil to other countries or get other tools and drills from other countries in the Americas allied with Canada and the US regarding the political crisis in Venezuela. Even when the Coronavirus outbreak started the US and the OAS outright ignored calls by the UN to lift all sanctions so Venezuela could fight the Coronavirus outbreak and imposed more sanctions instead.

Arreaza read word-for-word from a document that discussed in detail the goal of the sanctions imposed on Venezuela: to target the most vulnerable elements of Venezuelan society and cause Venezuelans pain. The plan is for the pain to continue until Maduro surrenders to Guaido—a blatant violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Arreaza speculated that Canada’s motivation for siding with the US against Venezuela comes from a desire by oil and mining companies to seize the country’s various resources from the Venezuelan people.

Canada is a leader in the rampant imperialism against Venezuela:

Canada’s behaviour towards Venezuela is yet another indictment of the true character of our foreign policy that Trudeau and Freeland both seek to sweep under the rug. It seems, from the response that apologists of such policy have given to invitations to a debate, that the true character of Canada’s foreign policy is not something that should be exposed and subsequently scrutinized, but rather something to be hidden from the eyes of the public, lest that public turn against their government for perpetuating such injustices in Venezuela, Bolivia and the rest of the world.

Despite the non-attendance of apologists of the government position towards Venezuela, Arreaza’s presence at the event exposed the true face of Canada’s foreign policy in Latin American and towards Venezuela. From our galvanizing of the Lima Group as a “coalition of the willing” targeting the Bolivarian revolution to our complicity in enforcing sanctions on Venezuela even in the midst of a virus outbreak, Canada’s “America first” foreign policy under Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland has caused nothing but mounting misery for the Venezuelan people.

As stated by Arreza himself in this workshop, the Canadian government fears the demands of their own population even as they ignore all international pressure directed against their foreign policy.

It’s high time for Canadians to learn the true nature of our country, and demand that our government end all imperialist involvement in Venezuela and elsewhere.

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