No to U.S-Led Intervention: A Community Forum
Wednesday February 20, 2019 | 6:30 – 8:30 pm
An Emergency Community Forum: Join us for a public forum with representatives from the Caribbean, African and Latin American community organizations, discussing the deeply inconsistent, hypocritical and dangerous ways the Canadian government has historically approached matters of humanitarian intervention – and why this matters today when it comes to Venezuela.
Wednesday February 20, 2019 | 6:30 – 8:30 pm
OISE, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ont. M5S 1V6
RM 3310
*** Public event open to all – please share widely ***
Speakers confirmed (bios to follow)
Cristiol Lopez – Venezuelan lawyer and public sector worker
Runako Gregg – Caribbean Solidarity Network
Cikiah Thomas – Global Afrikan Congress
The important examples of Haiti in 2004 and Libya in 2011 reveal the dangers associated with calls for humanitarian intervention. In the case of Haiti, the Canadian government played a central role in helping to manufacture a political crisis in Haiti so that it could work with the United States and France to remove the democratically elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide. Aristide’s removal was followed by a 13 year occupation by the United Nations, characterized by political repression, a cholera epidemic, the extrajudicial killings of thousands of pro-democracy activists, the foreign looting of earthquake reconstruction funds – all of which sparked a hemispheric Haitian refugee crisis.
In the case of Libya, Canada responded to calls by opposition groups within the country to remove Muammar Gadaffi from power by force, leading NATOs bombing campaign that ushered in years of civil war and the emergence of slavery. Such actions revealed that human rights, security and democracy were not the real motivations for intervention, as Canada cut and run. In both cases, the Caribbean Community and African Union were dismissed, and both countries are struggling to emerge from the political, human and economic disasters that came from “humanitarian intervention”.
Today the same scenario is being played out in Venezuela. The US has imposed crushing economic and financial sanctions which are affecting ordinary Venezuelans. The sanctions have contributed to hyper-inflation while impeding the governments ability to buy food and medicine. As a solution to the economic crisis the US and Canada under the banner of the Lima Group have sought to politicize humanitarian aid as a possible tool for intervention.
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Sponsoring groups:
Global Afrikan Congress
Group for Research & Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA)
Common Frontiers
Caribbean Solidarity Network
Students Against Israeli Apartheid
Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network – LACSN
Hugo Chavez Front
Justice 4 Migrant Workers
Jamhoor
Venezuela Solidarity Committee
