 As we're waiting, if you all who are joining would like to chime in and the chat, let us know where you're joining in from that would be great, just so we can kind of get an understanding of where everyone is and and how large our network is. Oh, we're getting messages saying the chat is disabled actually. I don't know how to do that. Allison, I'm making you go. Sounds good. Thank you. I think only the host can change the chat. Oh, maybe it's going to work. Okay, there you are. Everyone should be able to chat freely. Welcome again. Okay, we will go ahead and get started this evening. I want to, first of all, welcome everyone to today's webinar. Venezuela US attacks, media distortions and global solidarity, which is also the launching webinar of the Venezuela solidarity network, a new network of folks uniting from the US and Canada to take a stand against US and Canada attacks on Venezuela and joining from here in Vancouver, British Columbia, which is the unceded territories of the Scottish slaila tooth and Musqueam nations. And as Marlon mentioned earlier, I encourage folks to also post in the chat where they're joining us from here today. My name is Allison Baudine. I am the coordinator of the fire this time movement for social justice Venezuela solidarity campaign, and also author of the book revolution and counter revolution in Venezuela from battle of ideas press. My co MC this evening is Marlon Nunez, who is a first generation Venezuelan American with deep family roots in both the USA and Venezuela, who works on local political campaigns and is active in the Denver metro area of Colorado. And we'll get in later to more about the Venezuela solidarity network and tonight's webinar, but I want to first pass the mic on to Marlon to make some remarks. Welcome Marlon. Thanks so much Allison. Can everyone hear me all right. Yes. Yes. All right. Great. Definitely want to check that out. Good evening to everyone joining this evening. I wanted to take a few moments to stress why Venezuelan solidarity is so important. There is so much going on in the world right now. But this evening we're focusing on Venezuela, because you know I've been visiting Venezuela all my life in order to see family. It's not only this past August that I had the honor and privilege of participating in the first Kevin Zeese Brigade to feature the important work of the Venezuelan communes that I'm sure we'll hear more about building a better tomorrow. I traveled there with other solidarity activists, many of whom helped to put this evening's launch event together and build the Venezuela solidarity network. In Venezuela this past August, we met with government officials, and we're conveyed the official perspective on national struggles under the current sanctions regime. We toured social program interventions, such as the barrio dentro urban health clinics. And most importantly, we visited and volunteered with both urban and rural communes in and around paracas, as well as in the more eastern states of sucre and on swatigi. There we were shown powerful expressions of self government that featured creative ways of producing new food sources, such as raising tilapia and an abandoned swimming pool. We also saw how communities collect trash and separate out plastics in order to melt them down and form molds to build or even fix furniture. Like me, I'm sure you've seen fancy videos like that on YouTube of companies doing that over in Europe, for example, but the point is that the Venezuelan people can do it too, and they are doing it. The communities doing it for shared prosperity, not companies for profit. And throughout our entire experience in Venezuela. The guiding question that we had to challenge ourselves to think about was how much further my all of these projects go, would the country not be under a maximum pressure campaign by the USA and allies. That is why solidarity is so much so important. It rejects imposing one size fits all economics, and instead enables a people to access all the resources they need to reach their full potential themselves. So I'm so glad to welcome everybody here so that we can learn more about the sanctions regime and how we can circumvent that so that people can achieve their full potentials. Thank you Marlin. Yeah, so Marlin like many others that are probably on this call has had the opportunity to visit Venezuela to directly observe the people of Venezuela's resistance, their defense of their sovereignty their self determination and independence. And also to come back and get involved, which is the most important part of the work we do to assume the responsibility that we have is people living in the United States and Canada to fight against cruel, illegal unjust criminal US, Canada, and other Western sanctions on Venezuela, but especially those from the United States and Canada. We have a really excellent panel today that's going to talk about some of the most pressing issues of the day, which is another reason why the Venezuela Solidarity Network is coming at this time. It is actually 25 years ago December 6 1998 that the elections were held in Venezuela. That's commandante Hugo Chavez one. This could be seen as one of many important points in the development of the Bolivarian Revolutionary process in Venezuela, and also seen as the one of the important points in US attacks on Venezuela and targeting of for so called regime change operations. Now, we won't go over all of Venezuela's history but today we are facing a situation in Venezuela where the country is still under US blockade and sanctions though there's been some temporary temporary sanctions relief, but is also purely in the targets of the US and Canada still under all sorts of other attempts at intervention and the internal affairs of the people of Venezuela. So coming from the US and Canada, we wanted to form the Venezuela Solidarity Network to strengthen and broaden our work for Venezuela. And I will just briefly read before we begin our webinar, the basis of unity and later encourage everyone on the webinar to join the Venezuela Solidarity Network and find out more. By using a Venezuela Solidarity group of North American activists in opposition to the attacks by the US and Canada, the approaching 2024 presidential election in Venezuela will likely precipitate ever greater regime efforts by the imperialists accompanied by an intensified propaganda campaign. At the same time, the approaching 2024 US election will likely consume considerable energy among the progressive leaning public and some left activists who may be less inclined to criticize the current country in the US executive. Our intention is to build a solidarity group focused on Venezuela, similar to existing groups addressing Cuba and Nicaragua. We will focus on responding to the imperialist threat and avoid engaging in the internal politics of Venezuela. We will start with a core group of activists and then branch out as we are doing today, incorporating more and incorporating more individuals, activities and campaigns as our organizational capacity develops. This group intends to serve as a catalyst for solidarity work around Venezuela and to be a place to exchange ideas and launch projects and campaigns. Our focus will be to lift the deadly US sanctions and fight against all forms of imperialist attacks against Venezuela, including supporting the free ALEKSOP campaign. ALEKSOP is a Venezuelan diplomat held in US jail. Our meetings will regularly take time to report on and discuss the current situation in Venezuela. So that is our basis of unity and introduction to who the Venezuela solidarity network is and the reason why this work is so urgent and necessary at this time. Again, thank you all for joining us tonight. Without further ado, I will start introducing our panel. I wanted to say that we will have three speakers tonight. We have Leonardo Flores, Maria Páez Victor and Joe Emersberger to introduce some important discussion topics on Venezuela and share some important analysis. And then we'll have time for question and answer. Leonardo Flores is going to start. He is an analyst on US-Venezuela relations. Leonardo was born in Venezuela and maintains close ties to social movements that has transformed the country over the past 20 years. Leonardo, the floor is yours. Thank you, Allison. Thank you, Marlon, for hosting this really important launch of the Venezuelan solidarity network. And I want to start off by mentioning that we chose today, December 6th, because it's the 25th anniversary of Chávez's first election. So it's an important day to remember because really that's what set off this period of incredible transformation that unfortunately because of sanctions because of US-Hybrid War because of attempts to overthrow the government has seen, you know, some substantial setbacks in the past, roughly 10 years or so, but still the Venezuelan people are enduring and attempting to thrive in these adverse conditions. And as Allison mentioned, you know, we see the Venezuelan solidarity network as a way of coordinating the efforts of organizations and people who work on Venezuela. And there's lots of us who do this, both in the United States and Canada. So today I thought I would give a few updates on some of the current events and then lay out what I see are some of the priorities for Venezuelan solidarity work over the next year. And I first wanted to talk about the Barbados Agreement. This was a deal that was signed by the Venezuelan government in opposition on October 16th and it included a roadmap for electoral conditions and an agreement to defend vital Venezuelan interests, including CITCO and the Saquibo region, which is something that somebody is going to speak about later. And in exchange, the US temporarily suspended sanctions related to oil, gas, gold, and Venezuela's central bank. And additionally, the US and Venezuela came to an agreement that would allow the US to decourt Venezuelan nationals back to Venezuela. But if you're reading the media in the days right before this right before and after this deal was signed, you would see quote after quote from spokespeople from the White House and from other from the State Department, insisting that the deal was going to include a lifting of the disqualifications for the 2024 presidential elections, including for Maria Corriera Machado who has basically been anointed by the US as the Venezuelan opposition leader, which much to the chagrin of other opposition leaders in Venezuela who might actually have more support than her that likely do. So, but what's actually clear is that there was no such provision in the deal. Right. The deal actually was very clear that it was going to, they were going to allow the political participation of individuals and parties but strictly in compliance with the Venezuelan constitution and law, and it's by law, it's not some sort of win on the part of the Maduro government that some of these people are disqualified from running. The US began to speak about a November 30 deadline for a process for lifting the disqualifications or the sanctions we reimposed what they're calling a snapback of sanctions. November 30 came and then it was announced that there was another agreement reached in Barbados to allow disqualified candidates to appeal directly to the Venezuelan Supreme Court. And this was seen as basically as the way for the US to get Machado back on the ballot. But again, the way this didn't the November 30th agreement was written. It suggested that she remained ineligible and I think my he's going to talk a little bit about that so I'll leave that for her to discuss. But in terms of you know what act what this means for activists in North America. I really think we need to keep pushing for the lifting of sanctions for them to become permanent, because really what we saw from this agreement on the US side was that the general licenses were issued for six months and these are licenses that basically allow business in the sectors that I mentioned. But because they are temporary they're going to have a very limited economic impact, you know companies are either not going to want to invest as sanctions can be snapped back, or they're going to press for better terms from the government because they're taking a risk because of sanctions might be snapped back. Furthermore, I think there's a lot of a certain concern that if my little wins the elections, which at this point is a good bet, it's, you know, we're still a long way away but who knows. We're concerned that the US is automatically going to reimpose the sanctions and my book that really just amounts to electoral interference and it wouldn't be the first time we've seen that right. I also went through something very similar in the 90s where basically told me that I want people that if they vote Sunday small out we're going to lift the sanctions, and I think that's going to be the similar sort of message that the Biden administration is going to push in advance of the 2024 elections in Venezuela. So why did the Barbados deal happen now. I think from the Venezuelan side, the agreement is basically almost identical to one offered in 2018 that the Trump administration ended up sabotaging at the last minute. And the agreement is also nearly identical to something that was signed in 2021 in August 2021 by smaller opposition parties in advance of the regional elections held that year. So one of the more traditional opposition parties signed this year the bigger ones the so called G4. Well, basically because their crew attempts have been completely defeated. Right the Juan Guaidó era is totally over the sanctions while they're still in place and they're still harming Venezuela, you know, Venezuela actually already hit rock bottom and the economy has been growing slowly but it has been growing and that's a sign of worry for the people who impose the sanctions because they thought they were really going to destroy it. Then as well the economy to such a point that the people would have no option but to rise up and overthrow their government and clearly that didn't happen so their strategy failed, and they were forced to go back to the negotiating table. And from the US perspective, I think you know the easy answer is oil prices, right so oil prices and access to oil or that's persistent concern for the United States. So the White House may be expected that you know the oil markets would be settled a bit in advance of you know the US election and Biden's own election campaign, if you had shown some sort of progress with Venezuela relating to sanctions. But I think an actual bigger factor is migration. Right, because lately and when I say lately in the past two, two and a half years, there's been a lot of pressure on Biden over over the border by Republicans and we've seen really awful stunts by Republican busing or flying Venezuelan migrants to other states, often without their knowledge and sometimes in the middle of winter. I think someone basically compared it to human trafficking and I think there are, you know, a serious accusation can be made of human trafficking in some of these cases where migrants were just put on buses to go north to everywhere from DC to New York to New Hampshire to Martha's Vineyard, and they had no idea what was going on. And on the other side of the equation, you had a letter sent by members of Congress mostly if not all I think might have been Democrats in May of this year, drawing a connection between sanctions and migration. So Biden was feeling the pressure from kind of both sides but from within his party and from the Republicans. On top of that there was a delegation by members of Congressional Progressive Caucus the various South American countries. This happened in August of this year, and where they really heard directly from, especially in Brazil and in Colombia about the correlation between sanctions and migration. They came back and they went on this kind of, you know, the Sunday talk shows talking about that and pushing that issue. And that's one of the reasons that Biden was so kind of eager to make this deal with Venezuela. And we see kind of we saw results immediately. And here are some numbers that after the sanctions deal right there was a nearly 50% drop in Venezuelan migrants in late October compared to late September apprehended Venezuelan migrants apprehended at the border after this Barbados deal. So immediately, would you have this deal and it leads to a 50% drop in Venezuelan migration US media attributed it to Biden being able, it being able to resume deportations that somehow Venezuelans were afraid of being decorted. I don't know if that's really the only explanation but it's also worth noting that this deportation business came about because as a result of the Barbados agreement, because that was a deal that the Venezuelans had to agree to because as well to allow the US to And then, you know, since this Barbados agreement there's been this kind of another factor besides the disqualifications that the US keeps harping on, and that has been that fact that they're insisting that Venezuela release prisoners, including detain US citizens. Well, in fact, Venezuela release five prisoners as a result of the Barbados deal. And, but the fact that when all those were actually from Venezuela, the fact that no US citizens were released has led to a lot of criticism of the Biden administration, but the US is kind of playing hardball you have Francisco The top US diplomat on Venezuelan affairs, he admitted that there had been discussions of a swap for Alex Saab who Allison mentioned for American citizens that talks about these, this potential swap were held on the sidelines of the negotiations for But he called this a distraction, which is kind of madness that that they're pushing for this release of prisoners, but the one prisoner that Venezuela wants is now is somehow distraction. And just the other day, one of the detain US citizens released an audio recording saying there was a deal on the table for 20 Venezuelans and 13 Americans in a prisoner swap. So on the Venezuelan side they're offering over 30 people to swap on the US side they're refusing to include Alex Saab. So when we were talking about the priorities for Venezuela that solidarity in the upcoming year I think this is really one of them right this push for Alex Saab, because on top of this there's already been a resolution introduced in Congress around one of the detain US citizens, there's 56 cosponsors in their cosponsors in the house, and six in the Senate around even have not this releasing him. So the we're going to in response I think we're one of the things we're going to do in the upcoming year is hold an advocacy day on Capitol Hill to draw attention to the case of Alex Saab and to connect Alex Saab to these US citizens detained in Venezuela. Other priorities of course the 2024 elections Joe's going to speak about that so I'm not going to talk about that. But the frozen funds in October 2022 the government is willing government opposition reached a different deal on an unfreezing $3.2 billion in funds to be administered by the UN and spent on health education on the electric grid. Now one cent has been released yet even though this happened well over a year ago, and all signs point to the Biden administration dragging speed, despite having given positive indications about the deal. And a few other priorities I think really we really need to start focusing on the Venezuelan diaspora, getting them involved in anti sanctions work and brainstorming ways of attracting Venezuelan migrants who might not necessarily be chavista but they might be anti sanctions. And one of those ways is to start pushing for consular services. You know, the UN in the US Venezuelan migrants are over there over a million of us now, and we have no consular representation that makes it incredibly difficult to get routine paperwork done, and people actually have to travel to Mexico or Canada to just get passports. And of course, another issue that we should press for is to allow US airlines to fly back to Venezuela, because while they're allowed to engage in flights for deportations, they're not allowed to do commercial flights and that really puts a big financial burden on Venezuelans who want to go back to visit their countries that they now have to pay basically extra to travel to third countries. But of course the focus really should be on saying no to snapping back to sanctions and pushing for permanent anti sanctions and I'm going to wrap it up there. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much, Leonardo. It's been so great to organize you organize with you these past number of years, even in DC. I want to introduce our next champion Maria by his Victor. Maria is one of the founders of the Luis Riel Bolivarian Circle founded in 2003 in Toronto, Canada. She's a sociologist born in Venezuela, with graduate degrees from Venezuela, but also the United Kingdom and Canada. She is additionally the producer of the only radio program in Canada exclusively on Venezuela, Venezuela Viva. So welcome Maria the floor is yours. Thank you very much. I want to thank the organizers Allison, you're not the Marlon Joe. Your solidarity means so much. So thank you very much for the group and for this webinar. I'm most honored to have been asked to be here. So, I've been asked to talk about the eskimo. Well what's at stake here is not just a territorial dispute between two nations. And while these disputes over land are rarely simple affairs anywhere in the world. As a keyboard dispute is characterized by a third factor, the actions of one of the wealthiest, most powerful, most irresponsible oil corporations in the world, ExxonMobil is not so much two nations pitted against each other, but the sovereignty of the nation state pitted against a giant multinational corporation, its democracy versus plutocracy, the common good versus a stratospheric private profit. It is sovereignty against colonialism. Let's look at the border. There are three significant facts about the border dispute over the Guajana eskimo and I'd like to share this screen with you. This one right. Yeah. Oh dear. There, can you see that. That looks great. Good. So, the three significant facts about the border dispute are this. That the river eskimo, which is right here has always been the eastern border of Venezuela since it was first mapped by the Spanish. All ancient maps attest to this. The border dispute has been going on for more than a century and a half. Here you see a map of 1810 that no Venezuelan government has denied or relinquished or seated its claim over this territory. So this is not an issue of the Maduro or the Chavez government, but of the Venezuelan state itself, not any specific administration. It's a map of national territory. It's boundaries, identity and sovereignty that this here you see the parts that also include the, the, the seas that the British Empire sought to acquire the disputed land with stealth with false cartography and lawfare through a tribunal rigged by a powerful British once then a smaller, very poor and vulnerable country, Venezuela. Now let's look at the Paris tribunal of 1899. British explorers entered and claimed land to the east of the river is a key well that eventually became British Guiana. A deliberate misinformation campaign that involved the bogus cartography of one are Schomburg. Britain took over Venezuelan lands to the west of the river. And in 1899, taking advantage that an impoverished Venezuela was in the middle of a civil war, and arbitral tribunal was concocted in Paris was three judges, one from Britain, one from the USA, and one from Imperial Russia, that is three judges, and there was no representation from Venezuela at all. None. The USA, alleging its own Monroe doctrine took it upon itself to say that they represented Venezuela. Instead of defending the country against European colonization, as the Monroe doctrine was supposed to do, the USA took the side of the European colonizer, the British Empire, and decided against Venezuela, giving the Esaquibo land to British Guiana. Even mainstream press, at that time, mocked this decision as a powerful country, Britain, stealing from a much poorer and weaker nation, Venezuela. Here you see one of the cartoons in the mainstream press, you see the imperial lion of Britain with its claws on Venezuela. Here you see Britain stealing all the deeds of Venezuela running, and you see in the back there, Venezuelan mission, and down at the bottoms has peace and plenty. And here you see the two empires, Uncle Sam and Britain toasting, because that they had won and taken all this land from Venezuela. Can I stop this? Okay, I'll stop. So, enter the 1966 Geneva Accord, all through these years subsequent Venezuelan governments, all all governments, Leonie, Betancourt, Medina, all of these governments protested and resisted this decision as unfair. In 1966, when the UN Geneva Accord was agreed upon, it categorically declared that the 1899 Paris Tribunal decision was no and void because of the outright injustice of having no Venezuelan input. By this accord of 1966, both parties, now Gujana, which was no longer British Gujana, but Gujana, and Venezuela agreed to settle amicably the conflicts regarding the Ezequivo. So the Geneva Accord was being fully respected by both nations until 2014, when the ExxonMobil was allowed by Gujana without asking Venezuela to do explorations and it discovered oil on the Ezequivo coast on the disputed sea area. It's estimated that to be about 10 billion oil barrels. This oil company has a history of cheating Venezuela. For years, it hid the oil reserves along the Orinoco River, telling the government that that was useless, carbon tar, you know, the previous government signed contracts with oil companies and they paid Venezuela 1% in royalties, paid no taxes and extracted oil at the cost of $5, but the Venezuelans had to buy it back. So they sold it back to Venezuela for $20 and $25. And it was passed by President Chavez in 2007. All that changed. And the state oil company Pedevesa now had to have the greater portion of shares to any private public concession. Other companies agreed to have this mixed private public arrangement with Pedevesa, Chevron, Texaco, Total, British Petroleum, but ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips refused. These displayed an enmity against Venezuela. ExxonMobil then sued Venezuela when it naturalized three of their concessions and the company demanded before the World Bank Tribunal that Venezuela pay them $20 billion in compensation. But Venezuela appealed to the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes and its sentence in favor of Venezuela and reduced the amount it was to pay the oil company to only $1.4 billion. This incensed, absolutely incensed the president of ExxonMobil, who was none other than Rex Tillerson, who later went to be US President Trump's Secretary of State, which explains much of the increased aggression of the Trump government against Venezuela. All the ongoing, immeasurable negotiations that have been going on between Venezuela and Gujana ended as the wealth of ExxonMobil obtained the upper hand of the government of Gujana. About 26 million has been handed to Gujana in exchange for refusing to negotiate further with Venezuela denouncing the Geneva Accord of 1966 and demanding that the decision of the 1899 Paris Tribunal be enforced through what? Through yet another biased team of judges at the International Court of Justice. That actually has no jurisdiction except its own self enlarged mandate. This is the monster that has bought Gujana and that is attacking the sovereignty of Venezuela. ExxonMobil has bought the compliance of Gujana and is venting all its spite against Venezuela to the point that it's threatening Venezuela with the US Southern Command, whose fleet of warships are off the coast of Issaquil. The president of Gujana was indiscreet enough to openly threaten Venezuela with the American, with the American fleet, and which did not go down well with Biden, but he is building a military base for the Southern Command on the disputed land. Now, take a look at Gujana. Gujana has the lowest human development index in South America with an extreme poverty of 35% of its population, and more than half of its population lives abroad and is the more educated half. And this poor country is going to receive only 25% of ExxonMobil's profits. It's indigenous people in the Issaquil have been sadly neglected. And most of them consider themselves Venezuelan or at least of dual nationality. And it's a far cry from the rights and the services that the Venezuelan indigenous people enjoy. So, ironically, Venezuela has spread the malicious lie that Venezuela wants to invade the Issaquil, making Gujana out to be some sort of victim of Venezuela. When it's Gujana that has carried out several war exercises with the Southern Command, with Venezuela as its target, and has openly threatened the country with the US fleet. Now, there's nothing that the US would welcome more than a cause real or not to invade Venezuela and get his hands on its riches. It can no longer count on the stooge right wing governments in Colombia or Brazil. So now it's manipulating Gujana to be its surrogate war monger. Now enter the referendum. Now, in according to the Constitution of Venezuela, as a participatory socialist democracy, President Maduro decided to consult his people on the Issaquibo issue with a referendum. Immediately ExxonMobil and Gujana went to the International Court of Justice that has no jurisdiction in the matter to ask it to do something impossible to stop Venezuela from carrying out a referendum on its own people. ExxonMobil, of course, paying the tab of $18 million for Gujana's legal fees to that court. Venezuela's Constitution emphatically declares that the nation's sovereignty resides in the people, and that the Republic is democratic and participatory. And therefore, that referenda are indicated as one of the ways in which the people can exercise their sovereignty, and that matters of special national transcendence can be submitted to a consultative referendum. These are articles 1070 and 71 of the Constitution. The referendum was carried out on December 3. A few days ago asking Venezuela, Venezuelans, if they reject the 1899 Tribunal arbitration, they, if they agree that the 1966 Geneva Court is the only binding mechanism to resolve disputes. They reject the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, and if they agree with establishing a new Venezuelan state called Guayana Issaquiva in the disputed land, granting Venezuelan citizenship to its inhabitants and implementing accelerated social programs. Guayana lost this candidate because the ICJ ruled that Venezuela has every right to call a referendum for its own people. It just shows how threatened ExxonMobil and Guayana were with this display of democratic power. It also lost because the Venezuelan population that cast more than 10 million votes voted overwhelmingly, yes, to all five questions. This is a remarkable display of national unity that brought together for the first time in 25 years, government opposition, private sector, unions, educators, artists, students, it seemed a tsunami of yes votes. And instead of threatening any border war, all Venezuelan spokespersons and leaders have said that the dispute should be resolved in an amicable manner following the precepts of the 1966 Geneva Accord. Venezuela understands that a border war would be an excuse for US invasion. So what is at stake? Democracy versus a corporation, common good versus unfettered private greed, sovereignty versus judicial colonization. This is not merely a territorial dispute between two countries, but more than that, what is at stake is the validity of international law, the integrity of the UN Geneva Accord of 1966, and the honesty of an international court of justice. In the end, it is the struggle between democracy and international law against the rapacious greed of a powerful oil corporation in the service of the Empire of the United States. However, Venezuela has previous experience in defeating an empire. I want to put up here in this, if you can see, what ExxonMobil has done, and also I have here some data on Gujana, some data about Venezuela. I just want to underline the fact that the only time Venezuelan troops have left the country was to liberate Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru from the Spanish Empire. And in the three minutes that I have left, I want to talk about the Machado woman. As to Maria Corina Machado, she will have a place in history, along with Juan Guaidó, keeping company with the infamous Malinche, who betrayed harassed people by siding with Cortez and all the traders in between. Unlike Guaidó, who was practically unknown, Machado is a well-known political gadfly. For years, she has spouted her alliance with Washington to the point that she has publicly supported US sanctions. She's asked for more sanctions and, astonishingly, publicly asked for the USA to invade her own country. She is in the political arena due to the millions that the Northern superpower has given her. You can see videos where she's supporting Venezuela's claim to the Ezequivo. Then she abruptly changed sides, rejecting the referendum and supporting Gujana. This happened because I admire that unfortunate puppet with a disordered mind that runs the OAS, threatened Machado with denying his support in finance unless she rejected the referendum and sided with Gujana. So the Machado did what her owners bid her. She is relegated to the dregs of Venezuelan history because never has Venezuela ever shown such an overwhelming vote for an issue as this referendum backing Venezuela's defense of its boundary, and she opposed it. And it was not 10 million Chavistas who voted, because the Chavista forces have never reached 10 million. It truly was a display of national unity. It's quite significant that the other opposition parties have been virulent in criticizing her. Now the funny thing is that Machado threatened the government, saying that if they did not reinstate her and others who are barred by law from running again because of their misdeeds by November 30, that the USA would reinstate the sanctions that have been suspended. The gigs would fly if the US would value Machado before their oil deals, which is all about these sanctions that were lifted. Machado, by the way, has been disenfranchised, cannot vote again, because first of all she took it upon herself being a member of Venezuelan National Assembly to go and join the Parliament of Panama because she wanted to go to a meeting representing Panama so she could speak badly of Venezuela. Then, on top of that, she has refused to give accountability to the government of where her money is coming from. Machado is finished politically and should go and join her political twin Guaido in Miami. If Biden is putting his money on her, he is sadly mistaken. She is nowhere in Venezuela. She's one of the most despised people along with Guaido. So thank you, I'm sorry, I took a few minutes more. No worries at all, Maria. Thank you for sharing with us some important information that definitely has not made it through US and Canada major media, especially about Ezequiel. And important also to know more about what the landscape is looking like for the upcoming presidential election and the lies that the US government and their allies are telling about Venezuela's democratic process. So really appreciate that information and continues to fuel our solidarity work. Everything that you do and write and your radio show and all of that is very important. I wanted to also just take a moment to say some folks are already posting in the Q&A, which is excellent. If people could put their questions in the Q&A, we will have time to box that's in the middle of your screen. And if the panelists want to take a look there and start thinking about responses that works too. But we will go ahead and have our final panelist who has the job of, many jobs of bringing some more new information, but also wrapping up the panel, which is always difficult. So I want to invite Joe Emma Sperger, who is a Uniform Union member with Ecuadorian roots, who is co-author of Extraordinary Threat, the US Empire, the media and 20 years of coup attempts in Venezuela, which came out in 2021, I believe on monthly review press, among other works that Joe does. That is the most recent book. So, Joe, the floor is yours. Welcome. Hi, everybody. Thanks to everyone for making this event happen. So I'll get right into it. As we get closer to Venezuela's presidential election in 2024, we should anticipate the western media deploying the same general tactics they use to disparage Maduro's electoral victory in 2018. Now, I'm not predicting Maduro's going to win again. I hope he does. But if he does win, especially we can anticipate the same general propaganda tactics will be used with some variations for the change situation that exists in Venezuela and around the world since 2018. Western media constantly imposes a false history on us. So a key part of fighting back is making sure we're clear on the facts, on historical facts that they bury and lie about. But it also should involve rejecting the imperial assumptions that are sold to everyone as part of the western media's false history. So one key assumption that I'll make right off the bat is that US back subversives like Machado must have total impunity. The western media not only insists that the US accomplices be at a jail like Guaido would never went to jail after declaring after Trump appointed a president, but no matter how openly they've collaborated with a foreign power to do tremendous harm to Venezuela, they must have full political rights. I mean, the very first article of Venezuela's constitution asserts its independence and its right to defend itself against foreign threats. But to Western media that part of West Venezuela's constitution can be completely disregarded. I mean, does anyone think that Venezuela has the right to destroy the US economy as part of a strategy to put the politicians it prefers into power in Washington, and in this really wildly hypothetical scenario that any US politician who helps Venezuela do that should get away with it. I mean, it sounds absolutely nuts. But that's the kind of assumption that's woven into the Western media's coverage that US backs a version must come with total impunity. And that kind of assumption is reinforced by by some so called dissent that some that we sometimes see in Western media, generally coming from politicians labeled progressive who may criticize US sanctions on Venezuela but not to reject the most toxic imperial assumptions. Now I'm going to speak in general terms about what the media did in 2018. If people want detailed examples taken from the media, please check out the book that Allison already mentioned that I wrote with Justin Padour. Since at least 2002, the Western media has been trying to help the US overthrow the Chavista movement that Maduro has led since the death of Hugo Chavez in 2013. I mean, since we mentioned Machado just throw in the Machado signed the infamous Carmota decree of 2002 that that very briefly imposed the US support dictatorship in Venezuela. In 2019, when US President Donald Trump declared Juan Guaido to be Venezuela's interim president, the entire Western establishment which includes a great many people who claim they hate Trump still went along with him on that. And again, the key, the key lie that they were all united and repeating was that Maduro's 2018 election when was fraudulent. Now for years after the election outlets like Reuters and the New York Times they would just state without without citing any evidence whatsoever that the election was widely seen as fraudulent. And we were all supposed to accept that based on the presumed credibility of the same Western establishment that is presently supporting an obvious genocide at Gaza. Now for a short time in 2019, Bernie Sanders timidly resisted the lie that the 2018 election was was fraudulent, but he ultimately caved completely to the Western establishment's line that the Maduro that Maduro was a dictator, and Sanders even at one point called in 2019 called Maduro a quote vicious tyrant. So today I can't help mentioning that Sanders has exposed himself is so vicious that he can't even support a ceasefire in Gaza. And that said, well, while the media ultimately took to declaring Maduro's 2018 election victory fraudulent without without citing evidence or arguments anything that wasn't always the case. I mean in the months leaving leading up to the election and shortly afterwards there were some general justifications that came out of their coverage. One was that there was no credible challenger against Maduro. So the Western media at that time played up the disqualifications of Enrique Capriles and Leopoldo Lopez as candidates. Now these two politicians were involved in multiple US backed coup attempts going back to 2002. But again to Western media, no consequences are supposed to be imposed on people who go along with US backed coup attempts not even the loss of political rights. But there's another big problem with the argument that is that Henry Falcón was a credible challenger to Maduro, according to data analysis. Now if you go through Lexis nexus you'll find that data analysis is an anti chavista poster who was by far the most cited in Western media for several years. So they were the go to poster for the Western media and this this poster claimed that Falcón was in fact a credible challenger to Maduro that he could have beaten Maduro in 2018. Falcón was in fact threatened with US sanctions for running in the election, and he was aggressively attacked by other opposition parties for running. He was called a false opponent or a studio of basically a puppet of Maduro's. Now the Western media could have attacked that analysis and said they don't believe they're polling, but how do you do that given how frequently you've claimed to believe them, and that you also believe they're pulling numbers for Maduro. So the approach the media took instead was to evade those contradictions was basically that pretending that Falcón's candidates he didn't exist. And also, and thereby ignoring all the access that Falcón was given to the given to the state and private media to attack to attack Maduro during the campaign. So after the election, when Maduro won, nobody tried to claim that Falcón had really won. I mean, Falcón received roughly 2 million votes while 6 million went to Maduro. Falcón and his campaign were just written out of the story. I mean, Falcón was written out the way like a minor fictional fictional character is sometimes taken out of a TV show. The writers just continue as if the character had never been in the story at all. So that's basically what the Western media did with Falcón. Another justification that came out of the media's coverage at the time was basically to imply that the economic situation was so catastrophic that Maduro just couldn't. It was just not credible to believe that he had any significant support or enough to win an election. And in fact, in the 2015 legislative elections, the economy did cause Chavismo to lose their first major defeat at the national level since Hugo Chávez's first election. And even in 2013, when Maduro was first elected, he barely defeated Henrique Capriles and the economic problems that were beginning to emerge were part of the problem there. So I mean, there were other factors, but the economy was part of the problem that led Capriles to do fairly well in 2013. So by 2018, the Venezuelan economy was in vastly worse shape. So how could Maduro have any support left, never mind enough to win? So that's kind of the general argument that came out of a lot of Western media coverage at that time. But what that analysis ignored is what the National Assembly did after it was taken over by the opposition. I mean, they went out of their way to make Venezuela's economic problems worse. Two opposition politicians who led the National Assembly, Julio Borges and Henry Ramos, they both openly boasted about their efforts to scare foreigners away from doing business in Venezuela. And then in 2017, Trump dramatically escalated US sanctions and even began to make military threats against Venezuela. So the Western media simply ignored how all of that would not only increase the number of people who voted for Maduro, but also intensified the support among his base, among his hardcore supporters. Now, another huge thing the media ignored was the governor's elections of 2017, which took place only like seven months before the Maduro's election. And again, that analysis predicted that the opposition would sweep those elections and the exact opposite happened. And not only that, but a turnout at 61% was not even particularly low. That would be a high turnout for US presidential election. And Maduro's allies nationwide received 6 million votes, which lined up with what Maduro would receive months later when he won the presidency. In fact, Francisco Rodriguez, who was a Maduro opponent who was a key advisor to Henry Falcón, he conceded in his analysis of the governor's elections that there's no fraud that could possibly explain the results. He ultimately simply concluded that the opposition's support for Trump's aggression and for the economic sanctions just gave a huge boost to Maduro and allowed him to triumph and to Maduro's allies in the governor's election. So, and also when you look at the 6 million votes that Maduro received, roughly corresponds to about 30% of the electorate and a Pew research poll that came out shortly after the election in 2018 also showed that according to that, this is a very Western establishment pollster. I mean, you would never expect them to be pro-Chivista. They said that Maduro's support was about 33% of the electorate, that the 33% of Venezuelans trust the national government to do what is right for Venezuela. So there was no excuse really at all for the Western media to keep repeating this line incessantly for years that the 2018 election was rigged and fraudulent. And it's just incredible to reflect on that now when you think of all the devastation that they inflicted on Venezuela based on that claim and they'll do it again in 2024. There's no reason to think that they're not going to be and so it's very important that we push back on every argument on every bogus assumption that they make. It's also worth noting that in the United States, Canada and UK, especially the kind of voting systems they have also allow like generally most very typically the winning candidate or party receives like 30% of the electorate. Their votes just like Maduro did in 2018. And sometimes less than that. For example, in 2012, Barack Obama received only 28% of the electorate and in 2016, Trump received the votes of 26% of the electorate and didn't even win the popular vote. So there was actually no basis at all to ever consider that Maduro's electoral win in 2018 was illegitimate, but they'll recycle the same kind of lies and absurd assumptions to impugn any victory if Maduro wins in 2024. So I'll just leave it there and just stress that Western propaganda doesn't rely on facts or logic. It just relies on repetition and intimidation. And it's up to us to push back against all of it to not concede anything that we have no business conceding. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Leonardo. Thank you, Maria. Thank you, Joe. We learned so much about different aspects of what's going on to Venezuela. And our agency in fixing that and enabling the country to have sovereignty and do what it needs to do. I did want to just remind folks it has been posted in the chat, but we do have a forum to join the Venezuela Solidarity Network. We're so excited about the geographic expanse of our network and we want to celebrate that, but we'd also love to grow it. So please join the Venezuela Solidarity Network. I'm going to go ahead and post the forum. It has been posted. So thank you. Another aspect that I personally really identify with given my heritage of being a first generation Venezuelan American is the commune movement. We unfortunately didn't hear so much about that this evening because that's a very internal affair on how Venezuela is reorganizing its economy. But there are still ways outside that we can help that project. And so I do want to go ahead and post a fundraiser for the communes and the Communard movement, which is helping to nationally organize all of the different communes in the country. And so this forum is a good way to learn about the communes and the Communard Union. And if you are able, especially given the holidays to reach into your pocketbook and send some resources their way so we can circumvent the sanctions. We have really great activists working behind the scenes to reallocate resources and help them out. So please check out that link at GiveButter.com that I posted. But for now we'd like to go ahead and segue into the question and answer session. We see that we have some questions posted in the Q&A box. If you posted a question in the chat, unfortunately it may have been lost. So please go ahead and find that and post it in the Q&A so we can be sure to incorporate that. But for now I would love if Allison could go ahead and pick our first question and have the panelists respond so we can dive even deeper to the comments that our champions explained. Awesome, thank you Marlon. Yes, so there are some also new folks that have joined. So I'll say tonight we've covered a range of topics important to building solidarity with Venezuela's right to independent sovereignty and self determination from the Esaquibo to the upcoming presidential election in Venezuela to lies told about Venezuela's democratic system to the impact of sanctions and blockade on Venezuela. And we welcome all questions to do with that. If you've missed the first part of the presentation, we will put out a video recording soon, but also welcome any questions in the Q&A chat. And thank you all for joining. I wanted to start with a question that I think is fitting for the formation of the Venezuela Solidarity Network and our work to broaden and deepen Venezuela Solidarity. I'm wondering if panelists might comment on how we can work to bring people into the Venezuela Solidarity movement that have been not, you know, have been critical as the question says of Maduro. They claim that they are against Western imperialism or intervention in Venezuela, but that they don't support the current government, and where they would were, you know, supporters of Chavez in the past so there's some folks like that in our circles and how would you respond to someone and encourage them to get involved in solidarity at this time. And who wants to start out. Well, I'll take that one. You know, I think, I'm not going to speak about the actual individuals that were mentioned in this question because, because I think it's better to talk about more in general because there are folks that we all know that we're very kind of fond of Chavez and then have been soured on Maduro. And I think part of it really is, there has been such a media blitz against Maduro over the past 10 years. Let me just give you a bit like something personal so I started working at the Venezuelan embassy in Washington DC in 2008 as a media analyst. And really that just opened my eyes because it was every day, the attacks on Chavez, despite the fact that Chavez was widely respected and very popular internationally. Even when Chavez passes away and Maduro won the election, you know, I, being someone who considered himself media savvy at that point I was just shocked at how much the attacks against Maduro intensified. And if you have people that are talking to you about how awful Maduro is, really I think the important thing is to really almost change the conversation because this isn't about Maduro. This is about the fact that the United States has been waging hybrid war in Venezuela for the past 10 years, has been waging economic war on Venezuela, has imposed sanctions that have killed at least 100,000 people that have driven millions of people around the country. And if you have folks that are focused on Maduro, we'll tell them, you know, it's not Maduro that you need to support it's the Venezuelan people and right now the biggest threat to the Venezuelan people, the biggest violation of human rights against the Venezuelan people is coming from the United States and from the United States allies, and it's coming in the form of sanctions and attempted coups and subterfuge and, you know, all the things that we've been talking about for for not just this panel but in many panels prior. So, for those folks that, you know, are don't like Maduro, how long to forget about tell them to really worry about the Venezuelan people, and that the only way to help the Venezuelan people is to ensure that the United States stops interfering in this. Anyone else like to comment. Yeah, I would tell those people that I do like Maduro, and I would just push back on this I know where Leo's coming from and that that could be a good straight very I mean with some people maybe that's the best approach, but I think it's important to push back on assumptions. Let me just point out that our responsibility in a kind of to kind of quote Leo says is that our responsibilities to hold our own our own governments accountable. So if our governments are hurting people, then, regardless, I mean, we should be outraged that for instance, Biden stole half of Afghanistan's bank of central bank reserves. I don't know if anybody on the left who supports the Taliban or thinks they're good, but we should be outraged by that so because it's about us holding our own governments accountable that's that's the, that's what we should focus on. I agree with both of you, Leonardo, you're quite right and so is, so is Joe. I don't have much patience with people who say to me, no me gusta a Maduro I don't like Maduro because it's irrelevant whether you like him or not. What is important is what is important for Venezuela. And that is, I think what Leonardo is saying, and that's what we must push back on as Joe was saying. We have to think we have to make these people understand that Maduro has faced what Chavez never had to face. Maduro has had a way larger burden than than what Chavez did, although, you know, there was a coup against Chavez too, but there have been so many coups against Maduro. And Chavez was was governing when we had a lot of money. And Maduro has to face something that no other president in Venezuela in history had to face. And I always defend Maduro because of that. And when people say, I don't like him I will say, you know, tough luck, your likes or dislikes is is unimportant to me, because what is more important is what is the best for Venezuela, and who has kept this fish, this this ship afloat. And I will say his excellent team. One of the things I value most about Maduro is that he has brought in really wonderful people around him, and he is generous with them generous in in in allowing them to act and in recognizing what what they do. So yes, I defend Maduro. And I try to defend him when people say that they don't like him said tell me why. And then I go from there. But the most important thing, what's important for Venezuela. That's incredible. Everybody. Yeah, I, no matter which way you want to come at this. We're on the right side of history and that we're doing good work. Our next question is regarding the eskimo territorial dispute. Please everyone share in but of course we'd love to start hearing from Maria. The first question is regarding the international court of justice if we can expand about their role, why they do or do not have jurisdiction. In addition to their recent ruling that Venezuela has the right to conduct a referendum on the eskimo hasn't made any other rulings about the border dispute. And then a second aspect of that from another attendee is something that I just, I need someone to explain this to me when I was reading about way on us accusations of Venezuela intervening and invading even apparently it goes beyond this. An attendee asks, can any of the panelists, perhaps, Dr by his Victor, respond to the allegations that Venezuela wants to take over a rubah and the Dutch untilies, I, the, the attendee has have relatives from a rubah who claim this. And is this just Dutch and larger Western corporate or state media lies or what is this referring to. You really made me laugh with that last one that's a, that's a really wonderful one. Oh yes it's going to take over right now we're going to take over all the Caribbean. No, Venezuela in fact has good relationships with with the Dutch, the Dutch islands, and I have to tell you those Dutch islands depend so much on Venezuela, because their, their agriculture is is nil practically all they are is like gigantic casinos with the, with the tourists and they need a lot of stuff from Venezuela so, in fact, when, when they're right now, all their planes are arriving to Venezuela and they were more happy I think than Venezuela for that. So no, the first thing I want to say is, there are no plans whatsoever in Venezuela by anybody to take over the, the, the Netherlands islands in the category that was really quite funny. But about the international. You know, you know these international courts, they pick these judges, they say okay, we're going to pick these just went with this there, and then we're going to make a decision. They are. How can I say arbitrary most of the time, and 90% of the decisions of these international courts that come up are always against the little country. Okay, so they, there is a vicious thing underlying these international courts I don't have all my data here right now. But that this is what has happened. So why is it. Are we against this. First of all, there are 193 countries in the world that do not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. I wonder why maybe they, they've looked at the statistics to 192, including by the way the United States. When, when this court told the United States that they have to give reparations to Nicaragua, because of the horror of the contrast, you know, and filed against the United States guess what the United States stuff with, which is not going to listen to them and they didn't listen to them as we don't recognize you. So now all of a sudden Venezuela has to listen to this. Guess what the last judge that they put in there. The last judge that put in there was a supporter of one while. That's how they choose and pick these judges. Then the second idea is the second reason is a substantial one. And that is, according to their own. Let's say mandate both countries who bring a demand have to come to that court and agree. A country can't, by themselves, go up to this court. So Gujana and Venezuela both have to agree to that jurisdiction for them to make a decision. What happened here, Gujana went by itself. So when Nancy Rodriguez went before that court, it went to defend itself against what Gujana was saying. And the first words out of her mouth was, my presence here does not mean that Venezuela accepts your jurisdiction because we don't. So, um, that is one of the reasons why the International Court of Justice. Venezuela doesn't want it, because there's already a mechanism in 1966 the UN Geneva Accord agreed that that they had been fraud in 1889. And that from now on, it was Venezuela and Gujana together using the what's called the good offices of the UN where they choose someone who would help them negotiate. They would agree amicably whatever dispute and that was working until they discovered oil by ExxonMobil. So, um, Venezuela says that the only mechanism that we're going to have is that one. Just yesterday, the president of Gujana had the temerity to say, Oh, we want Cuba to come and mediate between Venezuela and Gujana and you know what Venezuela said. Well, no, we won't have it, because we don't need anyone to mediate, not even, not even our great friend of Cuba, because the only mechanism that is that is legal and judicial is the Geneva Accord. So, no, we won't have these handpicked judges that always usually vile against the little guys. Okay, would anyone else like to echo those comments or add something that may have been missed. If not, we will move on to the next question. Just briefly because Maria really was excellent on that on the whole as a keyboard issue. I don't know if Maria mentioned it but actually today there were direct talks between Venezuelans foreign minister and Guyanas foreign minister. And it's the first time in years that they've talked. And that's basically direct result of the referendum. Excellent. That's what Venezuela has wanted. You and me sit down here and we'll fix it. We don't need anybody in the middle. Thank you. Yes, good point. So, we do have another question topic we briefly talked about today, which is also part of the Venezuela solidarity networks work and that is regarding Alex sob, Venezuelan diplomat held in US jail. So, the question is asking how are things developing for winning the release of Alex sob. And so just an update would be great about his case. And I was wondering if Leonardo could start us off with this one. Sure. So, last I heard the case is still ongoing. It's still just facing a lots of delays I think one of the things that the United States is really trying to do is force this case, no extended as long as it can, because it really wants to try to break Alex sob and to harm as well as ability to overcome the sanctions. But one of the positive developments is that there's been increasing pressure in the United States from families of US citizens detained in Venezuela and a few weeks ago, the State Department identified three US citizens as being quote unquote wrongfully detained according to them. And we're talking about men from California, Texas and Florida. And yet, the Biden administration, despite the Barbados dialogue, did nothing to secure their release when they could have been easily swapped for Alex sob. And so I think one of the things that we're going to do going forward as I mentioned in my talk is try to really link the cases of these quote unquote wrongfully detained people to Alex sob, so in order to really highlight what's been happening to Alex sob in Congress and Capitol Hill, because I can guarantee you, I would be shocked if any member of Congress knew Alex was. And so that's one of the things we're going to be pushing on. Great. Thank you. Yeah, and his trial Alex sob trial has been pushed all the way to June 2024. So the US government keeps moving the trial is a further form of punishment and torture against Alex sob, who just in case anyone on here is arrested in Cape Verde held on house arrest and then kidnapped and put in jail in the US under allegations of money laundering, but in reality it is allegations against Alex sob for his work to circumvent US sanctions against Alex sob. And so we do have one more question tonight and that has to do with kind of how we can approach this claim by some folks who will say that sanctions and blockade by the US Canada the European Union on how can they have such a big impact. It's, you know, can't Venezuela just trade with other countries easily, and isn't Venezuela already trading with China, Russia, etc. So I'm just wondering some of the thoughts from panelists about how you respond to that question about how, you know, how is it that sanctions can be as reported and responsible for 40,000 deaths between 2017 and 2018. Isn't it just a matter of Venezuela being able to trade with other countries. Joe, do you want to start us off? Yeah, great. I just want to mention one basic thing that Andressa Rose pointed this out he's he's the he was a presidential candidate for Ecuador in 2021 and the vice presidential candidate in 20, just happened this 22, 23, 23 sorry. And, you know, for two countries in Latin America to trade with each other. Just, you know, Argentina wants to trade with Brazil or something. The money has to transit through US banks, because the US financial system is so dominant still that even routine trade between two countries has nothing to do with the United States ends up giving the United States an excuse to claim jurisdiction to investigate money laundering or alleged corruption. The US financial system is still extremely powerful. I heard stat that something like 60% of the central bank reserves globally go transit through the US are held in US financial system. So they have this tremendous leverage that they I mean they emerged from the World War two was the by far though, but arguably the most powerful country to ever exist. So they just have this tremendous power that even though it's in decline it's still it's still a tremendous it has this capacity to inflict so much damage on countries all over the world. So that's that's that's the root of it and it takes a long time for for a lot of reasons for independent mechanisms to to emerge that will bypass that. And it requires boldness on the part of governments that even when the progressive leaning hasn't always been there. So that that would be my take on that. Maria you're on mute. I have I have an anecdote to tell you why actually it's not 40,000 is 100,000 Venezuelans that have died. I had a dear dear first cousin. She was older than me. I loved her very dearly, and she died of cancer, because they could not get the medicines that she needed for and she wasn't a poor person. If it was there to be bought she would have bought it, but there was no way that this medicine could come to Venezuela, not through a doctors not through the public hospital that she was in or even a private one. So a lot of those deaths have to do with not being able to buy medicines because you know, with medicines. They are patent, you know, there's a people own it or companies own it. It isn't as if Venezuela could say okay, we're going to open a little lab and we're going to make the latest medicine for let's say bone cancer or whatever, you know, this is beyond that capacity. So, the fact that Venezuela could not buy, not only patent medicines but also many of the things that hospitals needed ordinary sort of elements that the hospital needed is because they couldn't buy it anywhere not even the government could buy it. And this was people who had need of insulin, one of the great things that Russia did was bring in great planes full of the medicine of insulin that so many people wanted people who had so many chronic diseases that needed constant medicine. They were not available. And let me tell you, during a pandemic, Canada and the United States blocked Pfizer and Moderna from selling the vaccine to Venezuela. And this this is unconscionable to me, I will never, I will never remember that. Fortunately, fortunately, Russia, China, and Cuba were there to bring medicines to Venezuela but I don't think Venezuela will ever remember that during a pandemic. We were not allowed to have to have these vaccines. So these people who have died are because of the lack of medicines and other things that the doctors needed, apart from the food but the food was very good because of what Marlon was talking about the communes, the communes fed Venezuela. And one of the things I think we as Venezuelans must be very proud of was the fact that Venezuela has managed to feed its people. Yeah, I would just add that you know Venezuela, especially over the past 25 years since the Bolivarian Revolution began has spent roughly 80% of its budget on social investment. And because of the sanctions then as well as income, it's income predominantly from oil fell 99%. So if you have 80% of your budget, going to social investment including health a big chunk, and suddenly that budget falls by 99%. It's going to cause haddock throughout every social safety net you can think of. And that's directly going to cause not just debts but migration. So when they talk to you about, well, why are all these Venezuelans leaving, it's not because of economic mismanagement it's because of sanctions destroying the social safety net, because the sanctions destroying the health sector, and that's why people are dying and leaving. And then on the other point of the question of, well, why can't just been a sort of trade with China and Russia if that's what I understood correctly from the question. You know, Joe was talking about it. And I think another element is that for years, the only way to transfer money between banks was through this system called Swift. And this system, an inter banking system and that's been controlled by the United States and it's in dollars, and then as well I was blocked from carrying out transactions through Swift for many years. And it's only in the last couple of years that we're seeing alternatives arise predominantly through Russia and China and bricks. And actually Venezuela signed this huge deal cooperation agreement with China last September 31 bilateral agreements and they're going to see investment in several cities, and throughout several sectors and I think that's going to have a big impact on the economy in the medium and long term and that is also another factor in why the United States suddenly agreed to this Barbados agreement because they see that the sanctions are slowly being overcome, because the world is changing, because bricks, particularly China is having more power, more and more influence and if they continually try to push Venezuela to engage in regime change in Venezuela what's going to happen and what has been happening is that Venezuela is going to have to find other partners and it has, as we've been mentioned Russia and China among others. But the another issue with the sanctions as well, which I forgot to mention is that there's this thing called secondary sanctions. So some companies that do business in Venezuela that are not from the United States can face fines or sanctions themselves for doing business with Venezuela and we saw this happening with Russian businesses in particular. That's a big deal because every business also has to do business with the United States not every but most right. So if you're blocked out of the US market, because you're doing this business with Venezuela, the easiest thing to do is to just not do business with Venezuela. But that's called secondary sanction right and what actually we saw an airline on totally blanking on that I think was go by airlines that paid a big fine, a few years ago because as I mentioned before, commercial airlines are not allowed to fly to the United States. But what Copa was doing was what was saying well, we'll stop by in Panama first and then you can go directly to Venezuela and we'll just sell you the same ticket to make it easier for people going to Venezuela to not have to like say take out their luggage at the airport and then recheck in which is kind of a nightmare if you've ever tried to do that. And the US didn't like that and they slept a big fine on Copa airlines. And so, you know, they're talking about sanctions it's not just like, oh they signed some document saying you can't trade anymore in this sector. They actively pursue people and corporations that try to engage with business in Venezuela. It's not just some passive thing it's very active and very targeted. And, you know, that's something that we've got to continually raise awareness about. Thank you so much everybody we have exhausted our questions. Of course we could go on and on but we're going to stop it there. I've loved spending the evening with you all we do have a little bit left. We want to have some closing remarks from our panelists. We're going to cap those at three minutes each so we'll be watching time and direct messaging you just just to make sure that we all can can get a good night's rest this evening. I would like to play with the order a little bit just to make sure that everyone is able to be prioritized in an equitable manner. So I'd like to start off with Joe, and then put Leonardo in the middle and then finish off with Maria if that's all right with everybody. So we'd love to hear some closing remarks and specifically I'd like to I'd like you to include why it is so important to build solidarity within the with the Venezuela Solidarity Network as the avenue for that. So Joe, please. Okay, well, we're we're living, you know, we're all of us are living in the belly of the beast as they as they say we're we're closest to where decisions are made that do tremendous harm to Venezuelans to people all over the world. So it's, you know, we can have we can have a positive impact. We can we can have, you know, different ideas about how to go about it but we have to work together and reach as many people as we can I'm a strong believer that we have to find a way to build political parties or media that are independent. And so that we're not just basically begging the Western media to do better I mean we were analyzing them we're seeing what they're what they're saying that's wrong that's dishonest and so forth but we're we're trying to build something independent that that that people can find it and so the only way to do that is to it takes time but to build it through networking and finding like-minded people and spreading the word as long as we're able to do that and to do it as much as we can. So that's that's that's really about all I can say at this point. Yeah, I mean I think one of the things that we have right now is that there is already a lot of solidarity work going on throughout Canada in the United States with Venezuela. And it has been for many years, but we haven't really had a hub where we can all talk about what we're doing where we can all coordinate our actions. And that's one of the kind of reasons I think to have a strong Venezuelan solidarity network is to keep each other informed so that we can all be on the same page, in terms of doing actions together and not have it be kind of an ad hoc thing like, oh, I'm going to text Allison to see what fire this time is up to regarding Alex Saab to see if we can do something together. No, it's, you know, let's all talk together all at the same time and strategize together and come, you know, to agreements on what we can do. And the other point I want to make is that we're trying to make this kind of a broad tent, right. I mean I think we happen to be, I don't want to speak for anyone else but I'm Chavista. You know, I'm a Venezuelan revolutionary, but I don't think this is a space that isn't, you know, it's going to require anyone to be a revolutionary in any way. I think we have a lot of room for folks who want to engage in solidarity from other kind of political perspectives, when we have goals in common and we're seeing more and more that sanctions and particularly this concept of collective punishment against the conflict, which has been an ongoing theme throughout this two months of war on Palestine. We're seeing that come into the consciousness more and more and that's been in tying that concept until what's been going on against Venezuela against school against the Syria Afghanistan against any of the dozens I forgot how many countries are sanctions now but but it's over 50 I believe. And so we have a lot of groups doing all this great work but this is a way to bring them all together. And I'm really happy that we're launching this and I know, you know, I think we have we're going to have a lot of room to grow. And I'm excited to see what what this is what we're going to be able to do in the future as part of the Venezuelan solidarity network. So, should I speak now. Yes, no worries. Thank you. I'm very hopeful for this group. I think that we need, as Leonardo says to come together to be able to exchange our ideas with each other. Because solidarity is something that the world needs so much today we live in these northern countries, where they're, you don't generally see too much of the solidarity that you wish to see. We must make it when I go to Venezuela, even the Venezuela with sanctions even with the Venezuela where things are not there I always come back so filled with optimism, because Venezuela has faced quite a monster, and yet has prevailed. I would have thought that Venezuela would not have sort of succumbed to all the attacks that it has had. It's because they had solidarity, because they came together and because they face this enemy holding hands. And I think that we who live up here as Joe says in the belly of the beast, also have to hold hands and look for the ways and we can reduce fear, and we can reduce hatred, and we can go forward with optimism towards towards a better future, because the future is all of us you if one country is suffering and so will we all it's like John Don said, we know for whom the bells tall, it tolls for us. So I want to thank you all so much for your solidarity for Venezuela. And of course we should be solidarity to all the suffering people in the world, but thank you so much for organizing this. Excellent. Thank you again to Maria pious Victor Joe Emersberger, Leonardo Flores, Marlon Nunez my co host. We just have a few announcements that close us off tonight and I will say this recording, as I said will become available I encourage people to share it. There's important information, and also where we just ended and with the beautiful words of Maria call the action. Now is the time to get involved. I want to announce that the next monthly picket action for free Alex sob US Canada hands off Venezuela is on Tuesday December 19 at 4pm Vancouver Pacific time and 7pm Eastern Toronto time. You can find us online at tiny URL.com slash hands off VZ LA I'll put the link in the chat. And that is organized by the Venezuelan Peace Committee in Winnipeg and fire this time movement for social justice Venezuela solidarity campaign, as well as just piece advocates. And, and these actions have been going on monthly this is the 34th monthly picket action and I many people on this call and on the panel and joined them to speak and really appreciate all of that. Leonardo has also put in the chat code pink campaign to free to unfreeze yeah there we get the $3.2 billion in frozen Venice Wayland funds to be administered by the UN for humanitarian purposes. And that is there is a petition and to join that campaign and the link is in the chat and encourage folks to join that. And then also just to say that we need to join. We need all of you to join the Venezuela solidarity network and not just people listening now, but encourage you to copy this link will start sharing it around we're ready to invite more people into join us and hopefully broaden and deepen our united work across the US and Canada. And so there is a form to join. And we will be having our next meeting on December 11 at 4pm Pacific time, 7pm Eastern time so you'll see that announcement as well. Thank you very much. Appreciate everyone's time and energy and thoughts tonight all your questions. And again to the panelists and my co host, Marlon, thank you from myself from and Marlon floors yours. I just wanted to like one last minute plug to learn more about the communes and support their work. I posted the link to the fundraiser once more in the chat but other than that, I would like to wish everyone a Buenas noches. So it's pretty late for some of you so thanks so much for being flexible with all the different time zones I'm in mountain time. And we'll see you next time. Thank you guys.