On
May 29, the OAS panel of “independent experts” convened in
Washington to build the case for toppling the Bolivarian government
and prosecuting Maduro at the International Criminal Court.
by
Elliott Gabriel
Part
4 - The OAS panel: a mouthpiece of imperialism
Cotler
is far from alone among the morally dubious figures arrogating moral
authority to themselves; OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro has also
praised the Israelis, favorably comparing the scandal-ridden
Netanyahu government to that of Maduro, despite the latter head of
state not having launched aggressive wars on his own population or
neighboring states.
In the
meantime, Almagro has been relatively silent in respect to the
Western Hemisphere’s most pressing human-rights crises — such as
the Mexican government’s crackdowns on social movements resisting
neoliberal structural reforms, assassinations of social movement
leaders and paramilitary attacks on rural and Indigenous communities
throughout Latin America, and the parliamentary coup against
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
The OAS
panel on crimes against humanity in Venezuela is overseen by
Argentine lawyer Luis Moreno Ocampo, another friend of the Israelis.
The former International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has advised
the Israelis on how to evade criminal charges for their perpetual
expansion of illegal settlements — maintaining that the
settler-colonial state could wage a successful defense by
manipulating international perceptions through legal arguments
justifying the displacement of Palestinians and expropriation of
their land, “once [legal permission is] ratified by the
[Israeli] top court,” which Ocampo called “highly
respected internationally.”
Ocampo
hasn’t met a regime-change operation he hasn’t liked: while
heading the ICC prosecutor’s office, he has called for warrants to
arrest Sudanese President Omar Bashir, late Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi and his officials, and Syria’s president. His seeming
obsession with toppling leaders in the postcolonial world led Gambia
Information Minister Sheriff Bojang to note in October 2016 that the
ICC is, “in fact, an International Caucasian Court for the
persecution and humiliation of people of color.”
As one
can clearly see, the figures comprising the OAS panel are hardly
“independent” and instead represent the White House and
right-wing Latin America’s agenda to wage a violent coup against
what remains of Venezuelan democracy.
Rather
than serving the cause of humanitarianism and human rights, Cotler
and his accomplices are selling their legal “expertise” to the
cause of creating further suffering for the Venezuelan people through
a stepped-up sanctions blockade – the preliminary step toward
overthrowing the Bolivarian Republic and reducing a proudly
independent nation to a state of neocolonial bondage.
***
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