{"id":121550,"date":"2021-12-26T17:02:38","date_gmt":"2021-12-27T00:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=121550"},"modified":"2021-12-26T17:05:14","modified_gmt":"2021-12-27T00:05:14","slug":"your-1-7-billion-of-gold-is-now-ours-uk-tells-starving-venezuelans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/12\/26\/your-1-7-billion-of-gold-is-now-ours-uk-tells-starving-venezuelans\/","title":{"rendered":"Your $1.7 billion of gold is now ours, UK tells starving Venezuelans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eva Bartlett Courtesy RT<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

In its prolonged freezing of Venezuelan assets, the UK continues to withhold 31 tons of its gold stored at the Bank of England, with a new Supreme Court ruling supporting the seizure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Your<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 REUTERS \/ Tamara Abdul Hadi<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5\/ Ultimately the UK Supreme Court has legitimised a modern expression of piracy using 19th century legal doctrines. Any foreign state which cuts off diplomatic relations with the UK would now be wise to also withdraw its foreign reserves.\u2014 John McEvoy (@jmcevoy_2) December 20, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The recent decision, CNN reported<\/a>, ruled that recognition of heads of state and government was solely the responsibility of the British government, which had recognized [opposition leader Juan] Guaid\u00f3 as Venezuela\u2019s Constitutional interim President.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like most duplicitous corporate media, CNN pushed the narrative that Nicolas Maduro isn\u2019t actually Venezuela\u2019s elected president (he claimed\u201d<\/em> the widely disputed\u201d<\/em> election). But, as I wrote<\/a> in March, he is president, and Venezuela\u2019s election process has been recognized as transparent and effective, with former US President Jimmy Carter in 2012<\/em> calling it<\/em><\/a> \u2018the best in the world.\u2019<\/em> On the other hand, the Venezuelan opposition, as well as Western nations, have<\/em> interfered with<\/em><\/a> and attempted to sabotage elections.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case, the UK court, drawing on<\/a> the \u2018one voice principle\u2019, decided that because UK leaders like Boris Johnson regard the unbeloved<\/a> Guaid\u00f3 as \u2018interim president\u2019, he therefore, inexplicably, is \u2013 in spite of most of the world not recognizing him as such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Venezuela\u2019s <\/em>31 tons of gold<\/em><\/a> deposited at the Bank of England,\u201d<\/em> remains captive<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, script-reading legacy media are echoing one another in claiming that Venezuela has no right to its own gold, disingenuously promoting the false premise that Guaid\u00f3 is Venezuela\u2019s president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BBC ran with<\/a>: \u2018UK Supreme Court denies Maduro claim to Venezuelan gold\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortune Times<\/a> gushed: \u2018UK Supreme Court thwarts Maduro\u2019s bid to control $1.9bn Venezuela gold.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How very benevolent<\/em> of the UK courts to thwart the dastardly<\/em> elected president of a nation whose population it is allied with the US in relentlessly punishing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As any good stooge of imperialism does, Guaid\u00f3 \u2013 the Western puppet previously-unknown to the world, and largely unknown within Venezuela before his self-appointment as \u2018president\u2019 \u2013 pops up when needed, aka when the US and allies want to hurt the Venezuelan people even further. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4\/ In his effort to asset strip Venezuela, Guaid\u00f3 has drawn on millions of dollars originally seized from the Central Bank of Venezuela in the US.He is effectively using looted money to loot more money.https:\/\/t.co\/zvlaZTmc16<\/a>\u2014 John McEvoy (@jmcevoy_2) December 20, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In a March 2021 article<\/a>, I opined, You would have to have been offline or in a coma for the past couple of years to not be aware of some key facts about \u2018interim president\u2019 Guaid\u00f3. Venezuelans didn\u2019t vote for Guaid\u00f3 to be president, he<\/em> hasn\u2019t even<\/em><\/a> stood for president. Venezuelans voted for Maduro. Guaid\u00f3 named himself \u2018interim president\u2019, to the support of only roughly 50 countries \u2013 leaving a glaring nearly 150 countries not recognizing this Western-groomed stooge as Venezuela\u2019s leader.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to the UK\u2019s re-recognition of this man as the president of Venezuela, as I noted, even the EU dropped<\/a> its recognition of Guaid\u00f3 as interim president. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On-the-ground support for the non-president?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, I spent several weeks in Caracas, refuting<\/a> Western pundits\u2019 and media claims that there was chaos following a series of power outages. During that time, I observed protests in support of the government, and sought out the supposedly-massive protests in support of Guaid\u00f3 (spoiler, I couldn\u2019t find them, in spite of scouring the city on a motorcycle taxi).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one particularly massive pro-government protest, Venezuelans spoke of<\/a> media lies about their country and also how they wanted the Western puppet\u201d<\/em> Guaid\u00f3 to be arrested. Read more The socialist leader America loves to hate wins again. What now?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They make it up, it\u2019s all lies, all lies. The only president we recognize is Nicolas Maduro. And we want this man, Juan Guaid\u00f3, to be arrested immediately.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an encounter another day, a woman unleashed<\/a>, We didn\u2019t vote for you, Guaid\u00f3. We\u2019re not a North American colony. We\u2019re not Colombia. Respect Venezuela. The US wants to steal our resources. Trump, stop f**king us over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up in the hills of Petare<\/a>, riding on a friend\u2019s motorcycle, wherever we went, we met people who spat on Guaid\u00f3 and on the West\u2019s lies about Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This latest UK court ruling to continue denying Venezuela its gold \u2013 and deny the nation a means of providing relief to its uber-sanctioned population, which struggles to get enough food<\/a> to eat because of it \u2013 is not surprising, giving the West\u2019s history of attempting to overthrow Venezuela\u2019s leaders and destabilize the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It needs to be underscored that the same politicians, pundits and media which promote Guaid\u00f3 as a Venezuelan leader, much less president, and whitewash the UK\u2019s theft of Venezuela\u2019s gold, systematically downplay the deadly sanctions against<\/a> its people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nEva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years). Follow her on Twitter @EvaKBartlett<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eva Bartlett Courtesy RT In its prolonged freezing of Venezuelan assets, the UK continues to withhold 31 tons of its gold stored at the Bank of England, with a new Supreme Court ruling supporting the seizure. \u00a9 REUTERS \/ Tamara Abdul Hadi 5\/ Ultimately the UK Supreme Court has legitimised a modern expression of piracy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}