The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela strongly rejects the aggression made by the Vice President of the United States of America, issued during his remarks at the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States. In recent years the OAS has definitively reaffirmed its original condition as a colonialist organism, at the service of Washington’s ambitions for the domination of our region.

The attack from Mike Pence seeks to disrupt the peace of the Venezuelan people by repeating the nefarious practice of U.S. interventions that have caused so much damage in Latin America and the Caribbean. The administration of Donald Trump does not admit the existence of sovereign people and countries that are unwilling to give in to the imperialist and supremacist pretensions of the U.S. regime.

By attempting to issue orders to the member states of the OAS to join the campaign of aggression against Venezuela, the U.S. warmongering spokesmen flagrantly violates international law within a multilateral organization that should be respected.

This arrogant behavior of the United States only reaffirms Venezuela’s decision to renounce its membership in the OAS, an institution that, far from promoting diplomacy and cooperation among the countries of the region, has been an instrument of aggression that revives the colonialism that our liberators defeated more than two hundred years ago.

Mr. Pence, in his supremacist cynicism, seeks to cover up the damages that his government has caused in Venezuelan society through unilateral coercive measures, with a false humanitarian concern whose objective is to distort the will of the people in order to take over the riches and natural resources of our country.

On May 20, presidential elections will take place in Venezuela and the People will defend their right to decide the direction of our country with votes and without interventions of any kind. The whole world will witness a new popular expression, which will reaffirm the democratic character of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. No empire could ever stop the will of the Venezuelans, who are worthy heirs of the Liberator Simón Bolívar in his ongoing effort to build nations and free, sovereign, independent and deeply anti-imperialist societies.

Caracas, May 8, 2018.