00:00To continue talking more about what is happening right now in Venezuela, let's welcome international law expert Yvonne Tellez.
00:07Welcome, Yvonne, to another briefing of From the South.
00:11Luis Alberto, enchanted to be here.
00:14It's always our pleasure.
00:16So, Yvonne, today we're having this National Enlistment Day in Venezuela,
00:21something that was called by President Nicolás Maduro yesterday, Friday,
00:25to prove, to show the unity of the Venezuelan people in the defense of their homeland
00:30in the face of the aggressions that are taking place recently from the U.S. government.
00:35What can you tell us about the importance of a day like today?
00:40Well, of course, it is of due importance because Venezuelans under the beginning of a threat,
00:52of a use of force have all the legal and sovereign rights to prepare themselves in case of an attack.
01:04That's, of course, a scenario that we don't want to see, but under the current actions
01:13and the narrative that the U.S. is bringing to the tabloids and the media
01:20and the official responses and discourses that the U.S. has deployed,
01:26we can see the beginning of a threat of the use of force.
01:33Under these actions, Venezuela has all the sovereign and legal right to prepare itself.
01:42One of the narratives that have been imposed by Western hegemonic media mandated by the U.S. government
01:49is there are many narratives of misinformation of the Venezuelan reality,
01:54and one of them is an apparent lack of trust in the Venezuelan government
01:58that the people do not support the Venezuelan government.
02:01Yet we see images that we are seeing today in the different Bolivar squares and military headquarters
02:05where the enlistment is taking place.
02:08And lots of people going in from all ages to sign and to express that they are willing to fight
02:14in the defense of their homeland.
02:16Do you believe that if those narratives were true, if they truly did not support the government,
02:21could images like this happen?
02:24Definitely not. And I think we have to separate three issues that take account here in this situation.
02:35First of all, what happens within a sovereign country is a matter of that country.
02:44That means that the principle of non-interference has to come along and has to be a baseline for the actions.
02:54In this case, first of all, I'm answering your question.
02:58Yes, of course, I agree with you that under the support that we are seeing,
03:04that means that definitely the government holds civilian support.
03:13And if, even if, and I want to make this point clear under the international law perspective,
03:20even if the government didn't have that support,
03:25it doesn't mean that any foreign country or international organization could enter into the territory
03:35to make decisions about its political, economic, social, cultural system.
03:44That is, the independence and the sovereign independence of any state has to be respected.
03:52So, answering your question, yes, of course, there is an enormous support and that's evident.
03:58But, however, even if it didn't have, I mean, I'm talking about Venezuela itself and its government,
04:06even if it didn't have that support, that's an internal affair
04:11that doesn't have to be questioned or doesn't have to be or to fall into a foreign interference.
04:25You were saying no one has the right to interfere in the internal affairs of the country
04:29and this is enshrining the UN Charter and international law, as you were saying.
04:34Then, does these actions put more into question,
04:37because they are already being highly questioned by the Global South and many countries,
04:41the validity, the currency of the international institutions that are supposed to safeguard these rights,
04:48that we see a country, the U.S., openly, because it's not covered,
04:54openly saying that they're going to do something that is clearly illegal
04:57and yet we see no response coming from these international, traditional, in a way,
05:02international institutions that are supposed to condemn these actions.
05:05How can we analyze this in the face of other organizations that have come out and condemned it,
05:10like Al-Batisipi and many other countries that have condemned what the U.S. is right now doing
05:14in the Caribbean fighting Venezuela?
05:17Yes, and I think your question is of high importance,
05:23because there are two main things at stake here.
05:27One of those is the law of the sea, yes, and the other one is the use ad bellum,
05:38that means the use of force and the regulation of the use of force,
05:42that is public international law.
05:44So, in this case, what we're seeing, there's something that we have to take into account,
05:49and what has been condemned.
05:51On the first place, the U.S. naval presence of Venezuela, and I'm talking about
06:01of the territorial baseline of Venezuela, is not per se unlawful.
06:08And I'm talking about the 12 nautical miles.
06:13But, however, and this is what I want to highlight,
06:18what is not permitted under the law of sea, and under international law,
06:23is the fact that there's a narrative, I'm sorry, about an unlawful threat of use of force.
06:33Because even what can be done under what the U.S. is saying,
06:40is that in high seas, the U.S. can, yes, of course,
06:45take action against illegal vessels that are at high seas,
06:52but within the territory of a state, or even close to the borderline of the territory of a state,
07:01that calls for hostile actions, that has been said, that's under the United Nations Charter,
07:10that also has been said and stated by the International Court of Justice,
07:17with previous jurisprudence, regarding that the U.S., under this case, could not claim, for example, self-defense,
07:28or could not claim just the rhetoric of international security because it's threatening the territorial baseline
07:40and the territorial seas, I mean, the territory of the high seas of Venezuela.
07:50So that means that whatever the U.S. wants to do against probable terrorist organization has to be done in the high seas,
08:01because using, for example, unlabeling the actions against foreign terrorist organization does not by itself create an international law license to use force.
08:15So under this umbrella, or under this legal umbrella, what we expect, of course, is the international condemnation of these actions,
08:25because this is a possible international armed conflict that could take place between these two states.
08:37And, yes, we're seeing that the Global South is condemning because, of course, this has to do with this traditional political and economic blockade
08:50and condemnation that the U.S. has been leading for all these years that the regime has been before the Venezuelan government.
09:05But that is something completely different. That is a political division that has nothing to do with what international law says can be and can't be done.
09:19Thank you very much, Yvonne, for your input, hearing from the South, as always.
09:25Thank you. Thank you very much, Luis Alberto, for the invitation.
09:28It's a pleasure to have you. We're going to stay in touch for upcoming debates and to continue following up on everything that is happening.
09:36Thank you very much, everyone.
09:38Thank you very much.
09:39.
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