By Giwa SHILE
Mr David Neives Velasquez Caraballor, Venezuela Ambassador to Nigeria, says the country remind opened to political dialogue in tackling its lingering protests.
TBI Africa said Caraballor, who made this known on Saturday in Abuja in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), criticised the political intervention of the U.S. in Venezuela.
He said that the call for dialogue, peace and respect for the sovereignty of the country, had become imperative to tackle its lingering protest, especially Caracas, Venezuela’s capital.
According to him, the interventionist action by the U.S. in Venezuela contravenes the sovereignty of the country as enshrined by law.
“We are opened to dialogue; we are opened to promoting the political solution to differences, but we do not accept any cohesion outside of our constitution or democracy.
“We do not accept the Feb 23 military intervention of the U.S. they talked about humanitarian aid, but any country that receives goods without control or supervision contradicts UN system.
“The quest now is between the Venezuelan revolution and democracy and the interest of the U.S. to have control over oil and our natural resources.
“This is difficult and hard to solve, we cannot buy food directly, and if you buy from a particular company, the money is not accepted by the bank.
“We cannot use the intermediate bank from U.S. some European countries, now we are working to create a new way with Asia, the Middle East and African countries to solve this problem.
“Internally, we are faced with different problems, not by individual countries but we are under economic attack, we are under military attack from the U.S.”
He decried the recognition of Mr Juan Guaido, the self-acclaimed Interim President of Venezuela, by the U.S. as a coup plot against the government and people of the country.
The ambassador said that the Venezuela system of government is not parliamentary rather it is presidential, adding that there was no need for the actions by the U.S. which could hinder its independent operations.
He noted that President Nicolas Maduro was legally voted into office by Venezuelans, saying the country had defined system of government with a parliament that had its function enshrined in the constitution.
He further explained that the parliament did not have rights to decide international relations, unless the president; the Supreme Court, army, and electoral institutions.
He said that although the U.S. had frozen Venezuela’s money in spite of its economic problems, it would not resort to humanitarian intervention or military actions against its citizens.
He explained that 25 elections had so far been conducted in the past 20 years due to unnecessary external political interferences.
He noted that Venezuela had 23 states and a capital and that 19 of them supported Maduro.
He commended the existing bilateral relations between Venezuela and other countries, particularly Nigeria, which he said was established on mutual grounds.
“We look forward to improving on our economic relationship with Nigeria with big capacity in mining sector, oil and minerals and we hope to invest in these areas,’’ Caraballor said. ——-NAN
