00:00Also, Venezuelans this Monday, July 28th, are celebrating the one-year anniversary of the victory of President Nicolas Maduro in last year's presidential elections and also of the Venezuelan people's victory over the far-right destabilization attempts that took place following the results of that presidential election last year.
00:18Let's now go with our guest to go deeper in what it means this first year of triumph against those destabilization attempts with Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Lawyer, Dan Kovalec. Welcome, Dan, to From the South.
00:32Thank you for having me.
00:34Oh, it's our pleasure, Dan. So as we were saying, it's been a year since that historic date, last year's July 28th. What is your analysis of what has happened during this past 12 months in regards to U.S. policies and the way action has been taken against Venezuela, taking into account all these far-right sectors, as has been denounced by Venezuelan government, the authorities?
00:55Yes, well, the sanctions by the United States continue, and Trump has made it clear that he wants to try to isolate Venezuela even more and to tighten sanctions against that country, which have already killed tens of thousands of people by starving Venezuela of medicines and food that people need.
01:22Though I think, though, I think, though, I think the government has done a good job to try to counter those sanctions and to find a way to get people's needs met.
01:32But still, it's a very difficult situation, but they've weathered it.
01:37And as you say, Nicolas Maduro was re-elected last year, and his party just won very big in the municipal election.
01:47So I think it's fair to say that they have weathered this attack by the United States so far.
01:55As you were saying, the work that has been done by the government authorities recently, the government reported 17 continuous trimesters of economic growth as they continue to implement this model, the 70s, and the promotion of the engines to promote the economy in the country.
02:13Something that, according to the electoral result, because we have seen other two elections following that presidential election, for the governors and the one yesterday for the municipals, of a warming increase of the support for the Biden government.
02:26What is your take, your opinion, on these strategies?
02:29Yeah, well, they seem to be working.
02:32Again, I think the municipal elections, the success that Maduro's party had in the election shows that people feel that their needs are being met, that the economy is improving.
02:43And that's, you know, something they should be applauded for, because at one point, I think in 2000, around 2017 or so, Trump's increased sanctions then brought Venezuela's revenue down to almost zero.
03:02And so they had to really rebuild, almost from scratch.
03:05And they've done that.
03:07And the fact that the people are still with the government shows they feel the government is fighting for them.
03:13Also, something that has been, especially since Donald Trump took office earlier this year, has been the situation with migration, with the large number of deportations.
03:26But not only this, but the treatment that migrants, and Venezuelan migrants in particular, have received, with over 250 of them being kidnapped to El Salvador to a high-security prison, which have now returned to their homeland.
03:38What has been the driving factor in those negotiations to bring those people back home?
03:43Well, I think that the Venezuelan government stands by these citizens and is fighting for them and wants them back in Venezuela.
04:00It's obviously an incredible human rights violation that these Venezuelans were sent to basically a concentration camp in El Salvador.
04:08And I think the message it's sending is that Venezuelans who think coming to the U.S. is somehow a step up from being in Venezuela, I think they're learning that isn't necessarily the case.
04:21That this country is not, certainly not at this moment, favorable to immigrants, and frankly, it's not even favorable to its own people.
04:33The infrastructure is falling apart.
04:35It's not an easy place to live in.
04:37And again, I think these deportations just underscore that.
04:40In terms of law, how can international institutions stay silent and turn to the plan when they see these gross violations of humanitarian laws, like in the case of the migrants, but also, for example, what is happening right now in Gaza?
04:55How can possibly someone try to defend this?
04:58Well, that's a very good question.
05:02I think these are things impossible to defend, particularly the genocide in Gaza.
05:09But what it shows is that the West, and many of us have said this for years, the West has double standards when it comes to human rights.
05:17It tends to exaggerate, if not fabricate, the human rights violations of its adversaries while ignoring or celebrating the human rights violations committed by themselves or their allies.
05:32And there's no better example than that, what we're seeing in Gaza, which is really an abominable act, probably the worst genocide we've seen since the Holocaust in World War II,
05:45which we have to remember was committed by the West then, by the Germans, right?
05:50And they're supporting the genocide now in Gaza.
05:54So the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.
05:59Taking into account what has happened, as you were saying, one of the worst genocides that we have seen in human history,
06:05there are many sectors, left-wing sectors, the Global South in general, that have been calling for a reform to the current global governance.
06:13How do you see this happening?
06:15Yes, that is true.
06:17I think the Hague Group that convened in Bogota, Colombia, is a good example of this effort.
06:24I don't know how it's going to play out.
06:26I think the only way to reform the human rights structure and the international law structure
06:32is to reform how the United Nations functions, either to get rid of the Security Council altogether and allow the General Assembly to make decisions on matters of war and peace,
06:44or to increase the number of permanent members on the Security Council to water down the veto power by increasing the number of vetoes necessary to successfully prevent a resolution from being passed.
07:02Right now, obviously, one country, which tends to be the United States, is able to do that.
07:08There's talk about increasing that number to at least two or more.
07:13But those discussions have been had for a long time, and really nothing's been done, so we'll see.
07:20It may be that a whole new structure has to be created outside the United Nations, which has existed since after World War II.
07:30Thank you very much, Dan Kovalix, for your time and your input here with us from the South.
