Venezuela Scores Victory as US Fails to Secure Votes for OAS Suspension

Venezuela remains in the organization until they leave on their own next year.

TeleSur
6 June 2018

The Venezuelan government celebrated the U.S. defeat at the voting session trying to expel the Bolivarian country from the Organization of American States (OAS) during the 48th General Assembly, falling five votes short from the 24 needed to suspend a country from the body.

"A NEW DEFEAT for the @VP Mike Pence and imperialism!! They have not and won't be able to defeat the people of BOLIVAR!! #VictoryofVENEZUELA," tweeted the Venezuelan Vice President Tareck el Aissami.

The Communication Minister Jorge Rodriguez also celebrated Venezuela's victory on Twitter. "Victory for Venezuela: they've been two years with the same 19 votes. Pence can't violate the American dignity not even with all pressures," said Rodriguez.

On her part, the President of the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) Delcy Rodriguez also tweeted: "Bolivar's sword devastated the imperial circus against Venezuela!"

"The U.S. government unleashed all kind of shameful pressures and threats to keep on attacking the Venezuelan people! Latin American and Caribbean honor imposes itself against the neo-liberal lackeyism! Long live the Great Fatherland!," Rodriguez tweeted.

The General Assembly of the OAS approved a resolution Tuesday the paves the way to suspend Venezuelan from the organism and doesn't acknowledge the legitimacy of the May 20 elections, in which incumbent President Nicolas Maduro was reelected.

But while the body had approved a motion to include the suspension of Venezuela in its agenda, the resolution still needed approval from the foreign ministers of at least 24 of the 35 member States.

The resolution was proposed by the U.S. and backed by the 14 countries that make up the so-called Lima Group: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Saint Lucia.

The Dominican Republic, Bahamas, Jamaica and Barbados also voted in favor of the resolution.

The 11 countries that abstained were Surinam, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Uruguay, Antigua and Barbuda, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Haiti and Nicaragua. Meanwhile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines voted against.

Senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International Donatella Rovera is calling on the coalition forces to launch an investigation into the bombing campaign that left Raqqa devastated.

"When so many civilians are killed in attack after attack, something is clearly wrong, and to make this tragedy worse, so many months later the incidents have not been investigated," she said. "The victims deserve justice.

"The coalition's claims that its precision air campaign allowed it to bomb IS out of Raqqa while causing very few civilian casualties do not stand up to scrutiny. On the ground in Raqqa, we witnessed a level of destruction comparable to anything we've seen in decades of covering the impact of wars," she continued.

"IS's brutal four-year rule in Raqqa was rife with war crimes. But the violations of IS, including the use of civilians as human shields, do not relieve the coalition of their obligations to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians.

"What levelled the city and killed and injured so many civilians was the US-led coalition's repeated use of explosive weapons in populated areas where they knew civilians were trapped. Even precision weapons are only as precise as their choice of targets."

Rovera added that the level of devastation and destruction in Raqqa is worse than anything they have seen in decades, quoting a senior US military officer as saying that "more artillery shells were launched into Raqqa than anywhere since the end of the Vietnam war."

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