Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza asks: Which article of the Venezuela Constitution or which provision of the United Nations Charter provides the legal basis for the self-proclamation of an individual who wasn’t elected by anyone as president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela?

https://www.c-span.org/video/?457308-7/un-security-council-meeting-situation-venezuela
38:35

Venezuela Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza addressed the UN Security Council January 26, 2019.

U.S. Special Envoy to Venezuela Elliott Abrams, a prominent figure from Iran–Contra, responded. This was followed by responses by Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia and Venezuela Foreign Minister Arreaza.

Excerpt of Venezuela Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza’s remarks: 

 

“At last we have a chance to speak. We have a written text but before that, I wanted to share some thoughts with you. Indeed, we can even thank Mr. Mike Pompeo because in the face of failure at the OAS Organization of American States on the 24^th of January, they didn’t have enough weight to impose a resolution. Well, they convened a meeting of the Security Council. In fact, we, President Maduro thought of appealing to this body not only to debate not only the case of Venezuela but rather the blatant and gross intervention and mechanisms of interference by the United States in our country. And we want to say at this opportunity, In this case, the United States is not behind the coup d’etat. It is in advance, it’s in the vanguard of the coup d’etat. It is dictating the orders, not only to the Venezuelan opposition but also to the satellite governments in the region, and it seems in Europe and the other parts of the world.

As proof, we have tweets here from social media. We have appeals, calls to the security forces, to the Bolivarian National Army to take position against the legitimate authorities, against the constitutional government of President Maduro by Secretary of State Pompeo and by Vice President Pence. It was on the 22^nd where Vice President Pence basically in a tweet gave a green light for a coup d’etat in Venezuela. And as Under Secretary General said, {interpresident?] himself proclaimed. There was no ceremony. It was self-proclaimed, self-proclamation by a member of Parliament at a public rally, at a peaceful public rally, one of many that there’ve been over the past year.

So I ask you, if you look at the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, read Article 133 word for word, provision by provision, sentence by sentence. Where is the legality? This is internal to our Constitution.

But what if we look at international law, the (UN) Charter? Where is this based on? Or are we simply setting aside international relations based on international law, and replacing them with international relations based on force, and instrumentalizing international organizations to achieve your goals. If one of you can tell me which article (of the Venezuelan constitution) and which provision of the United Nations charter you can find the legal basis for the self-proclamation of an individual who wasn’t elected by anyone as president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, then we can open a discussion on the legal aspects, but I don’t think that will happen.

Also, we need to ask ourselves, Secretary Rex Tillerson before he was dismissed and then President Trump himself, himself, here in the General Assembly, members, in the day of the high level segment at the podium, at the sacred podium on multi-lateralism, not only announced sanctions which are coercive and unilateral measures which are not based on international law, but he actually, he had the nerve to announce a number of measures against Venezuela in flagrant violation of the United Nations charter – the sacred document of multilateralism. How is it possible that a president that threatened the use of military force – he wasn’t John Bolton who did it; it wasn’t Mike Pence; it wasn’t Marco Rubio – it was Donald Trump who threatened the use of military force directly against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela – how is it that he wasn’t even challenged or questioned by the entities of multilateralim? Instead, that you sit in the place of the accused — the republic of Venezuela — because its government has fully complied with its constitution and upheld and respected international law. How is that possible? I mean, we can speak for a long time.

5:37

1911 in Mexico, an invasion

1912, US Marines invade Nicaragua, my neighbor here, and they began an occupation that continued until almost 1933

1914 Mexico

1915 Haiti

1916 Dominican Republic

1918 Panama

1924 Honduras

1925 Panama

1926 Nicaragua

1927 Nicaragua

1930 Dominican Republic

1933 Nicaragua

1934 Nicaragua

1941 Panama

Then the School of the Americas

Then in Cuba, 1952

1954, overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala

Then in Nicaragua 1960

1960 authorization of efforts to overthrow Castro

then the Bay of Pigs in 1961

So we can go on with this

João Goulart in Brazil in 1964

1965 the President of the Security Council. How many died in the Dominican Republic as a result of an invasion endorsed by the United States to overthrow government that ideologically didn’t convene them, the government of Juan Bosch, the great Dominican?

The Monroe Doctrine – It should be the United States that is subject to a permanent analysis, examination due to its disregard for international laws, its constant invasions.

It’s behind overthrows including the overthrow of Salvator Allende in 1973, then Guatemala.

And even in 2002 in Venezuela, President George Bush authorized a coup d’etat. They denied it but they acknowledged the dictate. So 2002 is a direct precedent for what is happening. They were behind the coup d’etat. They weren’t as much in the vanguard, or in advance as this time, They recognized Carmona, the dictator, for 72 hours. Then there was an analysis brought by United States experts that demonstrated with unclassified documents that there was involvement of the United States.

In 2004 in Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide

In 2009, in Honduras. In the beginning, it wasn’t even suspected that the United States was behind it until Hillary Clinton in a book, her book announced that she gave the order to overthrow the president because she [wanted to call the people to a constituent assembly?].

Meanwhile, other presidents were elected in Central America without even being candidates. There were organizations like the Organization of American States that claimed there was fraud, but that is not recognized by the government of the United States…”