By Sergio Alejandro Gómez on March 30, 2017
Certain politicians strolling through the U.S. Capitol in Washington – the first bricks of which were laid at the time of the Haitian Revolution – still believe that Latin America and the Caribbean is the backyard that the United States must “put in order” from time to time.
One such advocate of this obsolete U.S. ideology today is Marco Rubio, a legislator with Latin American roots, whose Cuban parents migrated to the United States in 1956 – when Fidel was still organizing the Revolution in Mexico – although he has insisted on embellishing his biography, assuring that his family “fled Communism.”
Devoted to demolishing by any means the bridges that have been built between Washington and Havana over the last few years, it is no coincidence that Venezuela is another obsession of this Senator from the state of Florida.
Holding an influential position in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, it is commonplace to hear him defaming the Bolivarian nation, or proposing sanctions against the democratically elected government of the country.
Rubio finds the time to “worry” about Caracas, despite the urgent discussions pending in Congress, where possible irregularities in the presidential elections of last year are being investigated, and a consensus has not yet been reached on pressing issues such as healthcare reforms or taxes.
The unconstitutional actions of Donald Trump’s new administration, which violate the rights of migrants, and the request for multi-million funds to construct a wall on the border with Mexico, are also pending matters on the Congressional agenda.
Nonetheless, the Senator made room in his schedule to blackmail several Latin American countries, with the objective of forcing them to join the attacks against Venezuela in the Organization of American States (OAS).
Rubio directly threatened the governments of the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Haiti, and in an interview with El Nuevo Herald, stating that the vote of these countries at the meeting of the OAS Permanent Council on Venezuela, held on March 28, could have repercussions on the economic assistance provided them by the United States.
“We have a very difficult situation in Washington, where massive cuts in foreign aid are under consideration, and it will be very difficult for us to justify assistance to those countries if they, at the end of the day, are countries that do not cooperate in the defense of democracy in the region,” Rubio stated.
“This is not a threat, but it is the reality,” Rubio added. It is striking that just a year ago Rubio was touring the United States pleading for the support of the same Latinos currently under attack, in his attempt to become the Republican candidate for the White House, a contest he lost to Trump.
Despite the condemnation and legitimate objections of several countries in the region regarding the legality of an OAS session devoted to “analyzing the current situation in Venezuela,” the meeting finally took place. But it marked a failure for Washington’s objectives, as the invoking of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, with the aim of expelling Venezuela from the Organization, was not approved, nor were any reports or plans for interventionist action against the nation.
According to press agencies reporting on the OAS session from Washington, none of the countries threatened by the Senator featured among those which supported the innocuous final statement of the meeting, which merely states that the issue will continue to be analyzed.
“We will soon find out whether that organization (OAS) is even worth continuing to exist if it cannot pronounce itself collectively (against Venezuela),” Rubio had previously stated, in a tone that did nothing to hide the vision that Washington has always had of its “Ministry of Colonies.”
Today’s Latin America, which has its own integration mechanisms, and the countries south of the Rio Grande which have long decided not to be blackmailed with imperialist handouts, have answered Rubio’s question: the OAS is useless. Time to eliminate it!
http://en.granma.cu/mundo/2017-03-30/marco-rubio-attempts-to-bribe-countries-to-attack-venezuela
Source: Granma