NATO’s Transition Council in Libya a “Pantomime” says Venezuela’s Chavez

Mérida, August 2nd 2011 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Yesterday President Hugo Chavez said that his government “rejects the national transition council installed in Libya, approved of by [some] European countries and by other governments, because it violates the basics of international law.”

“We categorically reject this pantomime of a transition council and the hypocritical show by these European and other countries that have recognised a group of terrorists, who recognize them in the form of a transition council and give them legitimacy by doing so,” Chavez said.

The transition council represents a “very dangerous situation…and they can do this tomorrow…to any one of us. That is, if they [NATO] here [in Venezuela] recognise a transition council in Plaza Altamira [an opposition and wealthy person hotspot], that can’t be tolerated, so we reject the measure categorically, with all our revolutionary might,” he said.

He explained that the Venezuelan government wouldn’t recognise any transition council or other government of this nature, “because we’re a government that respects international law and the legitimacy recognised by nations and governments independent of their origin.”

“Long live Gaddafi who will overcome, we’re with you and with all of Libya,” Chavez concluded.

Venezuela’s foreign minister, Nicolas Maduro, met with a representative of the Muammar Gaddafi government yesterday, Abdul Hafid Al Zleitni, who handed over a letter sent by Gaddafi to Chavez.

According to a statement later released by the foreign ministry, Maduro and Al Zleitni “analysed the scenarios set out by the illegal war of aggression that NATO is waging against the Libyan people.”

Maduro told Al Zleitni that Venezuela gives its “unconditional support to the legitimate cause of the Libyan people and their leader, Muammar Al Gaddafi, the only legally constituted authority and recognised by the international community.”

Chavez read the letter from Gaddafi on national television. It stated that the “Libyan people and I, personally, pray for your health and we ask god for your quick recovery in order to continue the march of the destiny of the Venezuelan people and the formation of the Union of States of Latin America and the Caribbean, following in the footsteps of the paradigmatic [liberation leader] Simon Bolivar”.

Gaddafi described his perception of the situation in Libya and the intentions of NATO, including “sabotaging the construction of a south-south space that brings together Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia”.

Specifically, he cited the intention to “impede the celebration of the III Summit of the States of South America and Africa in Tripoli [capital of Libya]”.

“I value highly your positions of support to the Libyan people, as well as the support expressed by leaders and revolutionaries of Latin America and the Caribbean, and we hope to count on this support continuing, as it has strengthened us,” the letter continued.

Gaddafi also mentioned the transitional council and his concern for Libya’s sovereignty, and expressed his “hope” that he could count on Chavez’s “opposition to such behaviour which constitutes a dangerous precedent in international relations”.

First Libya, Now Syria

Also yesterday, Maduro, commented on the situation in north Africa and the Middle East, arguing that, “They are applying a similar model of harassment and aggression in Syria to that imposed by the Western powers in Libya”, referring to the events leading up to the NATO attacks on Libya.

Maduro argued that “aggressor countries” in Syria were fomenting destabilisation there by “financing and arming paramilitary groups in order to try to make attempts by [Syrian] President Bashar Al Assad of a great dialogue among the whole nation fail”.

Maduro lamented the victims that have resulted from what he described as “confrontations between the police and illegally armed groups” in Syria.

Finally, he reminded people that the Venezuelan government was among the first to “warn about the plans of the Western powers to divide and intervene in Libya in order to appropriate its abundant natural resources and petroleum…and that’s the same scheme they are trying to apply in Syria”.