Venezuela Rejects Interventionist Comments by Pompeo in Brazil

The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela issued a statement Wednesday rejecting the interventionist nature of the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Latin America tour that he began in Brazil this week. 

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Pompeo traveled to Brazil for far-right Jair Bolsonaro’s inauguration as the President. He discussed Venezuela with Bolsonaro and Ernesto Araujo, the foreign minister of Brazil's new right-wing government Wednesday.

"We have an opportunity to work alongside each other against authoritarian regimes," Pompeo said of the United States and Brazil.

Venezuela said in the statement that Pompeo “has come to Latin America to issue direct orders to governments subordinated to Washington, with the aim of escalating their aggression against the People of Venezuela in its obsessive purpose of seeking a change of regime by force.”

“The Bolivarian government denounces once again before the world the shameless and repeated interference by the Trump Administration in the internal affairs of Venezuela,” the statement continued, adding, “accompanied by blackmail and pressure to countries of the region, in open violation of the most elementary principles of International Law.”

“Given the repeated and desperate imperialist interventionist actions against the Venezuelan people, the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela reminds the ruling supremacist elite in the United States that Venezuela is irrevocably free and independent,” said the statement.

It demanded respect for Venezuela’s sovereignty and the end to the inhumane blockade imposed by the Western hegemony which was deemed a crime against humanity by Alfred de Zayas, an independent expert of the Council of Human Rights of the United Nations.