As the socialist rulers of Venezuela continue their brutal crackdown on the increasingly outraged and economically destitute population, United Nations member governments — including a majority of the European Union — overwhelmingly selected Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro’s regime to join other unsavory regimes and dictatorships on the UN Security Council. Also appointed to sit on the powerful 15-member council, which purports to have the authority to deploy UN “peace” troops around the world to enforce its decrees, was the longtime Marxist-Leninist regime ruling Angola.
Critics expressed outrage at the developments, with one UN watchdog and human-rights group saying that putting Venezuela’s government on the global body was tantamount to installing a pyromaniac as fire chief. Ironically, the UN is currently demanding that Caracas release opposition leader Leopoldo López and some 70 other political prisoners. “The prolonged and arbitrary detention of political opponents and protesters in Venezuela is causing more and more international concern,” said UN “High Commissioner for Human Rights” Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein this week. Rather than releasing its captives, however, Caracas was celebrating its appointment to the UN Security Council.
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Indeed, Maduro and his regime were hardly alone in applauding the news as a great success — Marxists and tyrants of various varieties from around the world celebrated Caracas’ newfound legitimacy. The Castro-backed communist terrorist group-turned government of El Salvador, for example — a regime currently being showered with U.S. taxpayer funds by the Obama administration and with “petrodollars” from Venezuela’s Maduro — said the vote showed approval by the “international community” of Caracas’ machinations in building a “multi-polar” world order. “We are delighted by the immense support received by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” the FMLN Political Commission said.
Maduro himself, speaking via government-run propaganda organs, said the UN vote represented “global ratification” of his regime’s ongoing “socialist revolution” in Venezuela — a revolution that has witnessed brutal political repression, widespread expropriation of private property, arbitrary arrests of opposition figures and judges, a shutting down of free speech and freedom of the press, shortages of basic goods, and the rapid implosion of the oil-rich nation’s once prosperous economy. “The voice of Venezuela has been recognized, despite the pressures, the persecution, and the blackmail,” the strongman declared, adding that “181 countries [governments] said to Venezuela, ‘here we are, we support you’.”
Maduro, who succeeded the late socialist autocrat of Venezuela Hugo Chávez and has continued the Castro-backed revolution he began, noted that the “Bolivarian” regime’s seat on the Security Council would be used to “seek great changes in favor of humanity.” The regime’s Foreign Ministry dedicated what it called the “triumph” at the UN to “Commander Chávez,” whose infamous name has now replaced God in government-backed prayers recited publicly by regime functionaries. In life, Chávez was perhaps most notorious for his vicious persecution of political opponents, destroying the Venezuelan economy, arresting judges, shutting down the media, and exploiting the nation’s oil wealth to spread revolution and terror across Latin America. In death, he has become an idol to his socialism-worshipping goons and co-conspirators.
Opponents of putting the Castro-backed Socialist regime in Caracas on the Security Council lambasted the decision and the votes of more than a dozen European governments that supported it. “It’s an outrage that at least 16 of 28 EU states today empowered and legitimized a repressive government that openly sides with the murderous Syrian regime,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of Geneva-based UN Watch, a human rights group that recently brought victims of the Maduro regime’s human rights abuses to testify at the world body. “Electing Venezuela to the UN Security Council is like making a pyromaniac into the fire chief.”
Under the UN Charter, Neuer continued, candidates for the 10 non-permanent seats on the Security Council must be those that have contributed to “international peace and security.” The Venezuelan regime, however, is notorious for doing the opposite, he said. Among other examples, the UN Watch chief cited the Maduro regime’s abuse of its position on the UN “Human Rights Council” to protect mass-murderers and serial human rights abusers from condemnation.
“Caracas violates its Security Council obligations on terrorism by providing passports to Hezbollah and supporting the narco-terrorist group FARC,” Neuer added, referring to the well-connected Marxist terrorist group in Colombia infamous for its brutality in the decades-old bid to overthrow the elected government and replace it with a Soviet-style dictatorship. “That’s why Venezuela’s former ambassador to the UN Security Council, Diego Arria, strongly opposed the Maduro regime’s candidacy.” Putting Maduro’s regime on the Security Council “will cause more innocent victims to die,” Neuer concluded.
Another dubious government that was overwhelmingly approved for a seat on the UN’s highest decision-making apparatus is that of Angolan “President” José Eduardo dos Santos. Using blatant election fraud and massacres of anti-communist opposition forces to stay in power, Santos has held the “presidency” of Angola since 1979 as chief of the Marxist-Leninist “People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola,” a former Soviet-backed Marxist terror group-turned ruling regime and member of Socialist International. Santos and his comrades are widely viewed as among the most corrupt and despotic rulers on a continent largely dominated by criminal regimes.
The rulers of Angola and Venezuela now join a number of other unsavory autocrats on the UN Security Council, including the veto-wielding Kremlin and its close ally, the brutal communist dictatorship ruling over mainland China. Other new non-permanent members selected last week to sit on the council are the governments of Malaysia, New Zealand, and Spain. The Islamist government of Turkey was also a contender but lost out to Spanish authorities, who are currently struggling to contain exploding secession movements demanding full independence from the bankrupt central government.
Also on the UN decision-making body is the military strongman of Chad, Muslim General Idriss Déby, who seized power almost 25 years ago in a coup backed by late Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi. The Socialist Party-controlled government of Chile, led by a radical who defected to the brutal communist regime ruling East Germany amid the Cold War, also sits on the council. So do the government of Nigeria and the Jordanian monarchy. The Islamic dictatorship ruling Saudi Arabia was selected last year but withdrew before taking its seat.
In a press release announcing the new members, the UN boasted of how purportedly powerful its controversial Security Council is — even having the supposed authority to deploy UN “peace” troops to ruthessly enforce its oftentimes tyrannical decisions. “Under the [UN] Charter, all UN Member States are obligated to comply with Council decisions,” it claimed. “In some cases, the Security Council can resort to imposing sanctions or even authorize the use of force to maintain or restore international peace and security.” The meaning of those intentionally vague terms, of course, is decided by the collection of governments and regimes on the security council.
In other words, UN member states — including most EU members, whose security is largely financed by U.S. taxpayers via NATO and other schemes — selected the Marxist regimes ruling Venezuela, Angola, and others to help make far-reaching decisions that the UN claims the Unites States is “obligated” to “comply” with. Aside from revealing a great deal about the world’s national governments and the nature of the UN, critics said the decision illustrates the urgency of getting the U.S. government to withdraw from and defund the global body.
“Under the UN Charter, the Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security,” the UN press release about the decision continued. “The Security Council takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression.” In addition to making purportedly “binding” decisions for humanity and even sending military forces around the globe to enforce its wishes, the UN Security Council also plays a role in choosing the outfit’s Secretary General and in electing “judges” to the UN’s kangaroo “International Court of Justice.”
That means the Castro-backed pariah regime in Caracas, which in recent years forcibly disarmed law-abiding citizens with support from the UN as it was ruthlessly cracking down on all opposition, will have influence over the imposition of sanctions, the “mandating” of cease-fires during wars, and even the deployment of scandal-plagued UN “peacekeeping” troops to interfere in global affairs and prop up unsavory regimes. Maduro’s crumbling autocracy will also be able to bring up issues for discussion at the UN body, in addition to the purported legitimacy its appointment to the council bestows.
Of course, considering the UN’s history and track record, it is hardly surprising that brutal regimes would be appointed to the Security Council. In fact, putting Islamist autocracies that oppress women on UN “women’s rights” bodies and installing mass-murdering dictators on the UN “human rights council” have become the norm. The UN is not ridiculed as the “dictators’ club” for nothing. Now, as The New American reported this month, those same member regimes are loudly demanding an end to the U.S. government’s ability to veto UN actions, which increasingly take aim at the United States and its system of government.
Rather than continue funding the UN and providing it with legitimacy by remaining a member, the U.S. government should withdraw from the would-be planetary government as quickly as possible. Legislation already introduced in Congress would do precisely that. Now it is up to the American people to demand that their representatives support the U.S. Constitution, national sovereignty, and common sense by getting the United States out of the UN once and for all.
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is currently based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at [email protected].
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