Orinoco Tribune: Human Rights are Auctioned Off to Highest Bidder at UN – Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Yvan Gil at the United Nations Human Rights Council “The UN must decide what it wants to be: either a forum for justice or an instrument of power…We have come to tell things as they are, without euphemism. The world is going through a global credibility crisis, and the UN is no exception. The multilateral system is hijacked by bureaucrats who have turned human rights into a business, a weapon of political blackmail at the service of dark interests. Venezuela has been a victim of this perverse machinery, which fabricates reports with falsified data, promotes narratives designed by intelligence agencies and gives legitimacy to destabilization operations…How many USAID funds have ended up in the private accounts of corrupt individuals while this Council accuses us with fabricated reports? Venezuela has no doubt that the [Venezuela] Fact-Finding Mission is simply a mechanism to capture money from USAID and other agencies,” he said, referring to the commission of experts approved by the Human Rights Council in 2019 and renewed in 2024 for another two years. “While disinformation campaigns are being launched against Venezuela, there is absolute silence regarding the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, carried out with the complicity of the same actors who present themselves as moral judges here. It is the height of hypocrisy,” said Gil. “And it is not just silence, it is institutionalized corruption. USAID has financed phantom projects with the sole purpose of attacking sovereign governments. How much of these funds have been used under the protection of resolutions issued by this Council?”
TeleSur: Nicaragua Withdraws From UN Human Rights Council Due to its Constant Falsehoods Nicaragua announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council in rejection of falsehoods and slander against it. This decision came after Nicaragua reviewed the latest report from the Group of Human Rights Experts, which called for Nicaragua to be brought before the International Court of Justice for stripping 153 right-wing activists of their nationality and expelling them as stateless persons in September 2024. “We repudiate all insults, all offenses, all falsifications, all aggressions—everything that constitutes the colonialist policies guiding the actions of organizations that should serve the common good,” Murillo said. “The Human Rights Council violates its own regulations contained in the resolution adopted on March 15, 2006, which established the principles of objectivity, impartiality, and non-selectivity in the examination of human rights issues, as well as the obligation to eliminate double standards and politicization….this is further evidence of the double standards and politicization of each of these mechanisms, which routinely instrumentalize human rights as a pretext for interference in the internal affairs of States and for disrespecting national sovereignty.” Full Nicaragua statement to President of the UN Council for Human Rights.
Cuba Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodriguez speech at Human Rights Council We observe with concern how developed countries are experiencing a regression of decades in terms of fundamental rights, including women’s equality; sexual and reproductive rights; the rights of African-descendants, ethnic minorities and migrants. The western countries’ attempts to turn this Human Rights Council into a tribunal against countries that do not yield to their interests are unacceptable and jeopardize the credibility and existence of this body…Some reports have recently been disseminated in relation to the practice of the government of the United States to allocate funds, worth millions, from the federal budget to finance organizations, media and communication platforms using as a façade the protection of human rights and the promotion of democracy, when in fact they respond to the political interests pursued by that government. It is a serious issue, relevant to this Council and its mandate, since it shows the double standards and opportunism with which the human rights issue has been used to subvert sovereign governments.
Covert Action (John Perry): Is USAID a “Criminal Organization?”—In Nicaragua, the Evidence Suggests It Is President Trump closed down USAID after Elon Musk branded it “a criminal organization,” adding “it’s time for it to die.” Is there any truth to Musk’s allegation? Between 2014 and 2021, USAID spent $315,009,297 on projects, most of it spent trying to undermine Nicaragua’s government and gave lucrative contracts to U.S. consultancies and to some of Nicaragua’s richest families. Here is a detailed account of how much of it was spent.
Mision Verdad: Two decades of USAID in Venezuela: a review of a criminal agenda USAID, the amount reported for Venezuela in 2022 is $142.9 million. Its disbursements for “Democracy, Human Rights and Governance” are significantly more generous than in areas such as “Humanitarian Assistance” or “Health”, this agency being supposedly an institution that claims to be humanitarian. As the financial flow of the intervention agencies increases, so does the political conflict on the ground through an evident insurrectional cycle that has its peaks in 2014, 2017 and 2019, the year when Operation Guaidó begins. In 2020, contributions from various US federal agencies, but mainly from USAID, increased to $163.3 million. In 2021, to $197.6 million; and in 2022, to $209.4 million.” In 2024, USAID spent $211 million on Venezuela. The balance of USAID’s contribution to the attempts to politically undermine and overthrow the governments of Chávez and Maduro concludes in human, property and political damages of immeasurable magnitude. For the US government, foreign interference is not the central problem of USAID activities, but rather waste and corruption in agendas that no longer interest the current White House administration.
Venezuelanalysis: US Withdraws Chevron Oil Operating License, Venezuela Calls Move ‘Damaging and Inexplicable’ President Trump announced he will end the oil export licenses granted to Venezuela by Biden, reporting that these concessions, which benefited the oil company Chevron and the US oil market, will no longer be valid as of March 1. Its revocation before March 1st would establish a wind-down period that would conclude at the end of July. Trump criticized the Maduro government for not having accelerated the deportation of “violent criminals” that, according to him, Caracas supposedly sent to the US empire, and who should have been repatriated “at a rapid pace.” Chevron, the only major US oil company operating in Venezuela, in partnership with the publicly-owned Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), reached production close to 200,000 barrels per day.
TeleSur: 80,000 Cubans in Guantanamo March Against US Military Base Around 80,000 citizens denounced the U.S. aggressions caused by an economic, financial, and commercial blockade that has been in place since the 1960s. The protesters demanded that Washington return the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo Naval Base for the past 122 years. They also rejected President Trump’s proposal to turn that naval base into a detention center for migrants.
Peoples Dispatch: Destroying Cuba’s international medical missions: Marco Rubio’s new goal On February 25, Marco Rubio announced that he was stepping up his anti-communist offensive against the Cuban people by trying to discourage countries from hiring Cuban doctors. Several years ago, Rubio already introduced a “Bill to Combat the Trafficking of Cuban Doctors” claiming that the Cuban program is a disguised form of forced labor. Under the argument that Cuban doctors and other professionals are “exploited labor”, Rubio announced that anyone involved in exporting professional workers to other countries would suffer sanctions, such as visa restrictions and other measures. Rubio’s “move” aims to sanction diplomats, officials, and others involved, including their family members. This would apply to Cubans and non-Cubans. Cuba currently offers medical aid to almost 60 countries around the world and since the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, it has sent 600,000 professionals to more than 160 countries during its implementation. As of today, this is one of Cuba’s main sources of income (between 2011 and 2025 it is reported that revenue for this reason exceeded 11 billion dollars), so the decrease in income from professional services could mean a tremendous blow to Cuba.
Sputnik Globe: How the CIA Gave Birth to the Modern Drug Trade in the Americas The CIA, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of its activities knows that the agency has been more of an ally, rather than an enemy, to the drug pushers bringing violence and death to American communities. Two examples: the 1985 Iran-Contra scandal exposed the Reagan administration’s secret arms sales to Iran to fund rebels in Nicaragua, with the CIA implicated in Contra cocaine trafficking into the US; in 2017, Juan Pablo Escobar, son of the infamous founder of the Medellin Cartel, Pablo Escobar, confirmed that his dad “worked for the CIA,” and alleged that drugs were being trafficked, by Seal and others, directly to a US military base in Florida.
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Events
February 28- May 13: Sarah Woodward national speaking tour: Building Sustainable Communities, Insights from Nicaragua Sarah Junkin Woodard represents the Jubilee House Community, a nonprofit she helped form in 1979. She has worked the last 31 years in Nicaragua, with the Center for Development in Central America. The JHC-CDCA continues to respond to local needs, to help the poor accomplish what they see as their priorities, particularly in the areas of sustainable economic development, organic agriculture, health care, and education. Sarah’s tour will both update supporters on the JHC-CDCA’s work in Nicaragua and educate those in the global north on the amazing realities developing within Sandinista Nicaragua where both the social and political will are focused on helping the majority of the population, the poorest of the poor.
March 3: CEPR: Economic Sanctions: A Root Cause of Migration
March 8: NATO Not Wanted in Latin America
March 9: Webinar – Building People’s Power in Venezuela
March 10: Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition monthly zoom meeting, 2:30 PM ET. Email NicaraguaSolidarityCoalition@gmail.com in advance to request Zoom access.
March 15-16: New York City Cuba conference Includes a delegation from the Federation of Cuban Women and the National Union of Cuban Jurists.
April 13, 3 pm ET Nicaragua webinar with Sarah Woodard: Building Sustainable Communities: Insights from Nicaragua
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Delegations to Cuba, Nicaragua:
Cuba
April 17-May 3: Puerto Rico Brigada Juan Ruiz Rivera to Cuba
April 24- May 3+ LA Hands off Cuba Committee: Labor and Youth Delegation
April 26- May 3: The Nation: Havana and Trinidad
April 27-May 3/9: Building Relations with Cuban Labor May Day Delegation
April 27- May 10: Ernesto “Che” Guevara Volunteer Work Brigade
Different Brigades and Solidarity Trips to Cuba
Witness for Peace delegations to Cuba
Friendly Planet delegations to Cuba
Nicaragua
Casa Ben Linder Email casabenjaminlinder@gmail.com to apply:
May 2025: Co-ops and Communities: Cooperative Movement in Nicaragua
June 2025: Global Health: Family and Community Health in Nicaragua
July 2025: Solidarity in Action: Nicaragua’s Popular Revolution
November 2025: Salud & Solidaridad: Hands-On Healthcare in Nicaragua
Date TBD 2025: Co-ops and Communities: Cooperative Movement in Nicaragua
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This is also available at ChicagoALBASolidarity.org. If you have events to publicize, send them to venezuelaweekly@afgj.org or stansfieldsmith100@gmail.com.
Chicago ALBA Solidarity 