Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UNSC Briefing on Venezuela
The Security Council convened today upon the request of Venezuela—a sovereign state that for several months has been subjected to unprecedented pressure and the threat of military invasion. With each passing day, the situation is becoming more acute. A large-scale US military activity is taking place just a few kilometers from this country’s coast, directly threatening regional and international peace and security.
It is likely that today our American colleagues will dispute this fact and say they are not threatening anyone, but are rather combating drug trafficking—at least, this is the version being actively promoted by Washington. Therefore, I suggest that we consider and assess the facts at our disposal and form our own unbiased opinion about the gravity of this situation.
Since this past August, the US has begun to concentrate large military forces in the Southern Caribbean. It transferred three destroyers with anti-submarine patrol aircraft, warships, and a nuclear submarine to the coast of Venezuela. The total number of the military contingent exceeds 4,000 people.
How should we characterize this military buildup? A preparation for an invasion, or merely a regular redeployment and military exercise? One could believe the latter, were it not that we are speaking of an independent state whose regime change US representatives have repeatedly and openly declared a policy goal. Therefore, Venezuela has every reason to believe that its northern neighbor is ready to move from threats to action with its naval fleet.
Now, on the presence or absence of a drug threat. The American propaganda is asking us to believe in the mythical “Cartel of the Suns” (Cartel de los Soles), which, allegedly, transports tons of cocaine from Venezuela to the United States, and whose head is none other than the President of the Bolivarian Republic that the US does not like. He, so the story goes, is connected with drug cartels and armed groups around the world and is poisoning the lives of millions of American citizens with drugs. It is a fitting plot for a Hollywood blockbuster in which the Americans would once again save the world. However, these assertions are not underpinned by facts.
Suffice it to mention that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) does not classify Venezuela as a drug trafficking hub, because 87% of cocaine enters the United States through the Pacific Ocean, which Venezuela does not even have access to. The White House might say they disagree with these UN estimates. Fine, then let’s take the relevant report by the US State Department from this March. In this report, the very same "Cartel of the Suns"—the one the entire US Southern Command has allegedly been mobilized to combat—is not mentioned at all. Are we really to believe that the US State Department learned of such a threat to national security only in the last couple of months? That is hard to believe. It is far more likely that, at that point, American propagandists had simply not yet invented this threat.
Nevertheless, to confirm its determination, Washington recently sank four small vessels in demonstrative fashion and stated it allegedly had irrefutable evidence that they belonged to drug cartels. At the same time, the international community has no opportunity to verify these claims, because the suspects were neither detained nor charged, and the cargo they were allegedly carrying, according to the Americans, was destroyed. In other words, some vessels with people on them were simply fired upon in the open sea without trial or investigation, according to the cowboy principle of “shooting first,” and now we are being offered to retroactively believe that there were criminals on board.
Russia strongly condemns the strikes on civilian vessels as a flagrant violation of international law and human rights. Such actions only fall in line with the notorious theory of American exceptionalism, according to which the US can do whatever it wants, and other countries can only do what the US allows. This logic, which underlies the concept of a “rules-based world order,” arbitrarily formulated by the United States and its allies, is something that we strongly reject. We call on all sensible members of the international community to do the same.
In this context, we are deeply alarmed by increasingly precise and absolutely unfounded hints from Washington about the alleged connection between the gangs operating in Haiti and the supposed cartels in Venezuela. We see this as an attempt to “feel out the ground” in order to eventually bring their actions under the umbrella of the UN Security Council Resolution 2793, which provides for combating banditry—a resolution the US recently pushed through this Council, and on which a number of members, including Russia, abstained. We want to warn right away: the US will not get anywhere in trying to do so. Any expectation of securing international legal legitimacy for the lawlessness being perpetrated by Washington—even a contrived one—would be entirely misplaced.
Colleagues, let’s make no mistake. Today, we are dealing with a brazen campaign of political, military, and psychological pressure on the government of an independent state with the sole purpose of changing a regime objectionable to the United States. This is being done in accordance with the traditional toolkit of color revolutions and hybrid wars, from which millions of people around the world have already suffered. At the same time, the White House, by consistently raising tensions and artificially whipping up confrontation, is deliberately closing the window of opportunity for negotiations and ignoring the appeals of the Venezuelan leader to jointly combat drug trafficking. There is only one step from such actions to direct armed aggression.
Washington must immediately stop the escalation under trumped-up pretexts and not make the irreparable mistake of taking military action against Venezuela. This would be fraught with a sharp, uncontrolled degradation of the situation, leading to serious regional destabilization and undermining the foundations of peaceful existence in Latin America, including the 2014 CELAC common vision of the region as a Zone of Peace. Instead of adhering to the principles of international law, sovereign equality of states and respect for their sovereignty, Washington, in this case, would confirm that it approaches the region exclusively as its “backyard” in the spirit of the notorious Monroe Doctrine, which has been repeatedly rejected by Latin Americans.
We express our full support and solidarity with the people and government of Venezuela and continue our close interaction and coordination of further steps with Caracas to prevent interference in the internal affairs of that country. Venezuela, like other regional powers under constant pressure from their northern neighbor, has every right to determine its own political and socioeconomic course. We expect that the states of the Latin American region, regardless of the level and quality of their bilateral relations with Venezuela, will at this difficult moment show solidarity and unity in defending their identity and political independence. We also call on all colleagues in the Security Council, and in general all common-sense and responsible members of the international community, to demonstrate their support for international law and the UN Charter and to send a firm and unambiguous signal to Washington.
Thank you.
