What is the main ob­jec­tive of the Rio Treaty? In a nut­shell, the Rio Treaty is a mu­tu­al de­fence pact where­by in the event that a mem­ber state is at­tacked, mil­i­tar­i­ly, by a coun­try that is not a mem­ber of the Rio Treaty, the oth­er mem­bers of the Rio Treaty will come to the de­fence, mil­i­tar­i­ly, of that mem­ber.

In this re­gard, it has not been es­tab­lished that Venezuela has at­tacked—or threat­ened to at­tack—a mem­ber state of the Rio Treaty. That notwith­stand­ing, 16 of 18 ac­tive mem­bers states of the Rio Treaty took the de­ci­sion to im­pose a penal­ty on Venezuela ie uni­lat­er­al US or­ches­trat­ed sanc­tions, not in­ter­na­tion­al sanc­tions (ie Unit­ed Na­tions sanc­tions) as is the case with Iran.

The de­ci­sion of the USA, and its 15 lack­eys, is anal­o­gous to the penal­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment be­ing im­posed on an in­di­vid­ual with­out first es­tab­lish­ing that the in­di­vid­ual com­mit­ted mur­der (ie no ev­i­dence is pre­sent­ed to the court to sup­port a charge of mur­der).

Ac­cord­ing­ly, any such de­ci­sion is null and void, and of no ef­fect since it is not in keep­ing with the main ob­jec­tives of the Rio Treaty.

More­over, it is a vi­o­la­tion of the UN Char­ter, laws, prin­ci­ples, prac­tices, etc (ie in­ter­na­tion­al law).

To the ex­tent that there are pro­vi­sions in the Rio Treaty that con­flict with the UN Char­ter, laws, prin­ci­ples, prac­tices, etc, un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law such pro­vi­sions are null and void and, of no ef­fect, il­le­gal, and are not en­force­able. The UN Char­ter trumps (for­give the pun) the Rio Treaty. Sim­i­lar­ly, any de­ci­sion tak­en un­der the Rio Treaty that is in con­flict with the UN Char­ter, laws, prin­ci­ples, prac­tices, etc, is null and void, of no ef­fect, and il­le­gal.

It is pel­lu­cid that the USA was in­tent on us­ing the de­ci­sion to im­pose uni­lat­er­al, il­le­gal US sanc­tions, and oth­er sub­se­quent com­ple­men­tary de­ci­sions, ref­er­enced by our For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter in the Sen­ate on May 26, to pro­vide a shield/shel­ter for an in­va­sion of Venezuela, if it so de­sired, at an ap­pro­pri­ate time, and/or to com­mit oth­er ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties (in­clud­ing covert ac­tion) and/or to fur­ther stran­gu­late the Venezue­lan econ­o­my, that it hopes will lead to the down­fall of the Maduro regime.

In fact, con­trary to the UN po­si­tion, the USA and its 15 lack­eys do not recog­nise Nicholas Maduro as the Pres­i­dent of Venezuela. The pup­pet Pres­i­dent of the US, Juan Gui­do, and his rep­re­sen­ta­tives are seat­ed, il­le­gal­ly ac­cord­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al law (the UN) on the var­i­ous coun­cils of the OAS and the Rio Treaty, cour­tesy of res­o­lu­tions passed by the US and its lack­eys at the OAS and the Rio Treaty.

If there is/was an in­va­sion of Venezuela based on such an im­prop­er/il­le­gal de­ci­sion, all par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries could be ac­cused of be­ing com­plic­it in an un­pro­voked act of ag­gres­sion or what tan­ta­mounts to a war crime.

Hav­ing re­gard to the above, I am al­so of the con­sid­ered view that T&T must with­draw from the Rio Treaty as those 16 mem­ber states have lost their way.

Re­spect­ful­ly, the ques­tion is not whether the ac­tions of T&T are con­sis­tent with the Rio Treaty, but whether the ac­tions of the USA and its 15 lack­eys are con­sis­tent with the Rio Treaty—they clear­ly are not. There­fore, T&T can­not be bound by such an out­ra­geous/il­le­gal de­ci­sion of the USA, and its 15 lack­eys. Ob­vi­ous­ly, there was no breach by T&T of the Rio Treaty.

The USA has demon­strat­ed that it has no re­spect for the UN and it Char­ter as it is flout­ing the laws, prin­ci­ples, prac­tices, etc, of the UN (in­ter­na­tion­al law) with im­puni­ty, with re­spect to the Venezue­lan sit­u­a­tion, via the il­le­gal im­po­si­tion of US sanc­tions (not in­ter­na­tion­al sanc­tions) on Venezuela.

It is bla­tant bul­ly­ing by the USA. In this re­gard, it is note­wor­thy that the record of the USA in Latin Amer­i­ca in the last cen­tu­ry is very un­flat­ter­ing to say the least.

We in Cari­com and the wider Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty must have some de­cen­cy, self-worth, dig­ni­ty and self re­spect. If we do not re­spect our­selves then how do we ex­pect oth­ers to re­spect us.

What are we teach­ing our chil­dren? We are bet­ter than that.

Just like a gang leader, the USA has set up a (world) Gov­ern­ment par­al­lel to the UN. That says a lot about the USA, and more about the 15 coun­tries that sup­port­ed the USA in the Venezue­lan mat­ter.

Even if we stand alone among mem­ber states of the Rio Treaty, we are do­ing what is right, con­sis­tent with the pro­vi­sions of the Rio Treaty. We are a sov­er­eign coun­try, and that must count for some­thing. In any event, there are 193 mem­ber states of the UN. At best, 60 mem­ber states have reg­is­tered their sup­port for the po­si­tion of the USA on Venezuela. I guess the USA and its col­lab­o­ra­tors, both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, con­sid­er those oth­er 133 coun­tries to be “s***hole” coun­tries as some­one once de­scribed some small­er.

The lo­cal news me­dia need to con­tact the le­gal af­fairs de­part­ment of the UN to get its views on this mat­ter.

Si­lence is not an op­tion.

Louis Win­ston Williams

St Au­gus­tine