The president of the National Assembly (AN), Jorge Rodríguez, assured that despite the aggressions of the United States empire (USA), against Venezuela, they have not been able to defeat the united people, together with the national Government.
“We defeated them, I do not say this with false modesty, they could not defeat us and they will not be able to defeat us,” said Rodríguez during his speech at the Assembly of the People for the Sovereignty and Peace of Our America.
Likewise, he recalled that unilateral coercive measures have been imposed on Venezuela, which not only affected the supply of food and basic resources at the time, but also had a negative impact on health.
«How many lives have these sanctions cost? “How many boys and girls have delayed their operations?” asked the head of the Venezuelan Parliament and added that “Venezuela, with Chávez and Maduro, had a program called Simón Bolívar and it served to pay for expensive surgeries through Citgo.”
However, “when the US took over Citgo, instead of being used for treatment for children (…) it served for Guaidó’s Narnia Government to buy mansions.”
Likewise, he stated that despite all the imperial and far-right attacks, Venezuela has moved forward. “It is said to be easy, but it has not been easy at all.”
New imperial threat
Rodríguez highlighted that for four months Venezuela has been facing a new imperial threat, this time with US troops stationed in the Caribbean, under the excuse of fighting drug trafficking.
“In the event that aggression dares to enter the sacred territory of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (…) be absolutely certain that we must defend it with our lives, we will give our lives,” he emphasized.
Likewise, he highlighted that “President Maduro, even those who do not agree with the Revolution, are united,” in rejecting imperial interference and in defense of peace.
In that same order of ideas, the president of the AN maintained that the Government of Nicolás Maduro and the people are betting on peace, but “not just any peace, not the peace of the kneeling, not the peace of the submissive, we do not want that peace”, but, on the contrary, “the peace of the sovereign peoples.”
Likewise, he said that the current situation is “a war to devastate Venezuela, to destroy the national fabric, accompanied by its kneeling men and women, who fortunately are a tiny Venezuelan population, to steal the country’s wealth that belongs to the people of Venezuela… That is the objective, it is the Monroe Doctrine 2.0.”
Money from drug trafficking stays in the US
Regarding the US military deployment, under the banner of a supposed fight against drug trafficking, Rodríguez asked himself “where does that money go?”, and stated that it stays in US territory.
“From 2006 to 2016, the money from drug sales in the US reached 1.6 trillion dollars, that money went to the banks of the United States (…) that money is in tax havens, in Europe, in Panama,” he said.
Rodríguez recalled that the US deployed “20% of the most bloodthirsty Army fleet in the fight for drugs, but only 3%” of illicit substances pass through there.
“In a display of hypocrisy, they use useless excuses (…) in a supposed program in the fight against drugs (…) the problem of dependence on addictive substances is a medical problem, a health problem, it is a family problem that must be treated medically,” he explained.
Given this scenario, he wondered if “in these four months drug consumption has decreased in the United States,” while specifying that Americans currently consume opioids, such as fentanyl, and these were created by large pharmaceutical companies.
Rodríguez also questioned that the United States has killed dozens of people in bombings of boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Furthermore, he stressed that to date no evidence has been shown that its crew members were actually carrying drug shipments.
