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Spotlight: Venezuela slams OAS executive as stooge of imperialism

Xinhua, June 2, 2016 Adjust font size:

The tensions between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Luis Almagro reached fever pitch on Wednesday as Maduro loyalists blasted the executive as a stooge of imperialism.

At a rally for members of allied progressive movements, Maduro said "we must organize marches in every community against interference and in defence of the country," referring to the threat by the head of the Washington-based organization to invoke the OAS' Inter-American Democratic Charter (IDC) against Venezuela.

On Tuesday, Almagro called for a meeting of the Permanent Council of the OAS to be held on June 10-20 to discuss a 132-page report received from the Venezuelan opposition on the situation in the country.

Almagro said OAS must examine whether "an unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime that seriously impairs the democratic order" had happened in Venezuela.

The meeting will discuss the possibility of activating the IDC for Venezuela, an instrument which has been activated only twice ever -- in 2002 for an attempted coup against former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and in 2009 for a coup in Honduras.

Should the OAS declare the IDC applies to Venezuela, it could take a series of actions to seek to restore democracy and the country's institutions. As a final recourse, it could suspend Venezuela's membership as it did in Honduras after a coup in 2009, with a two-thirds majority vote.

Maduro said that the country must take up a "permanent campaign" against the intention of the "U.S. empire" to interfere in the country. Calling upon young people to rise up, he said that they should take to social media to defend the Bolivarian revolution.

The official bloc in Venezuela's National Assembly (AN) also turned on the OAS on Wednesday, calling it "an instrument of imperialism."

Socialist legislators sought to alert the international community about "imperial attempts" to take over Venezuela's natural resources.

"This is a tactic by the U.S. government to disturb and derail dialogue initiatives proposed by President Nicolas Maduro," said the ruling Great Patriotic Pole coalition in a press release.

This condemnation was joined by Venezuela's ambassador to the UN Jorge Valero, who condemned Almagro for "fostering terrorism."

Speaking to the public on the Venezolana de Television station, Valero stated that he "accused the secretary-general of the OAS of being a promoter of terrorism, violence, anti-democracy and a coup."

Valero suggested that Almagro was trying to "legitimize" the President of the National Assembly Henry Ramos Allup from the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable. Endi