Gail Alexan­der

Venezuela has ac­cused US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump of “war-mon­ger­ing” and seek­ing to ap­pro­pri­ate its oil and as­sets, and said its am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed Na­tions will de­nounce what it de­scribed as a “se­ri­ous vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law” against the coun­try.

Venezuela al­so made it clear that its peo­ple, mil­i­tary and po­lice will pro­tect their ter­ri­to­ry, wealth and free­dom.

The claims came in a com­mu­niqué is­sued last night, short­ly af­ter Trump sharply in­creased pres­sure on Venezuela, de­clar­ing its gov­ern­ment a “ter­ror­ist regime” and or­der­ing a “to­tal and com­plete block­ade” of all sanc­tioned oil tankers en­ter­ing or leav­ing the coun­try.

Trump said Venezuela is now com­plete­ly sur­round­ed by “the largest ar­ma­da ever as­sem­bled” in South Amer­i­ca’s his­to­ry and warned it would on­ly grow. He al­so called on Venezuela to re­turn to the Unit­ed States “all of the Oil, Land, and oth­er As­sets that they pre­vi­ous­ly stole from us.”

In its com­mu­niqué, Venezuela ac­cused Trump of vi­o­lat­ing in­ter­na­tion­al law, free trade and free­dom of nav­i­ga­tion, and of is­su­ing what it de­scribed as a reck­less and se­ri­ous threat against the coun­try.

Venezuela said: “On his so­cial me­dia he as­sumes that Venezuela’s oil, land and min­er­al wealth are his prop­er­ty. Con­se­quent­ly Venezuela must hand over all its wealth to him im­me­di­ate­ly. The Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States in­tends to im­pose, in an ab­solute­ly ir­ra­tional man­ner, a sup­posed naval mil­i­tary block­ade on Venezuela with the ob­jec­tive of steal­ing the wealth that be­longs to our home­land.”

It added: “Venezuela, in the full ex­er­cise of the in­ter­na­tion­al law that pro­tects us, our Con­sti­tu­tion and the laws of the Re­pub­lic, reaf­firms its sov­er­eign­ty over all its nat­ur­al re­sources as well as the right to free nav­i­ga­tion and free trade in the Caribbean Sea and the world’s oceans. Con­se­quent­ly, it will pro­ceed in strict ad­her­ence to the UN Char­ter to ful­ly ex­er­cise its free­dom, ju­ris­dic­tion and sov­er­eign­ty in the face of these war­mon­ger­ing threats.”

“Im­me­di­ate­ly our Am­bas­sador to the UN will pro­ceed to de­nounce the se­ri­ous vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law against Venezuela,” the com­mu­niqué said.

Venezuela called on Amer­i­cans and peo­ple around the world to re­ject “by all means this ex­trav­a­gant threat that once again re­veals Don­ald Trump’s true in­ten­tions to steal the rich­es of the coun­try that gave birth to the Unit­ed Lib­er­a­tion Army of South Amer­i­ca and that saw the birth of our Lib­er­a­tor, Simón Bolí­var.”

“The peo­ple of Venezuela, in per­fect pop­u­lar, mil­i­tary and po­lice uni­ty, will know how to de­fend their his­tor­i­cal rights and tri­umph on the path of peace,” the state­ment said.

Venezuela ac­cused Trump of “bran­dish­ing the in­ter­ven­tion­ist, colo­nial­ist ex­pres­sion ‘un­til all the oil, land and oth­er as­sets that were pre­vi­ous­ly stolen from us are re­turned to the Unit­ed States’.”

The com­mu­niqué added: “His true in­ten­tion, which has been de­nounced by Venezuela and by the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States in large demon­stra­tions, has al­ways been to ap­pro­pri­ate the coun­try’s oil, land and min­er­als through gi­gan­tic cam­paigns of lies and ma­nip­u­la­tion.”

“Venezuela will nev­er again be a colony of any em­pire or for­eign pow­er and will con­tin­ue, to­geth­er with its peo­ple, on the path of build­ing pros­per­i­ty and the un­re­strict­ed de­fence of our in­de­pen­dence and sov­er­eign­ty,” it said.

Re­peat­ing its po­si­tion, the com­mu­niqué added: “The Venezue­lan peo­ple, in per­fect pop­u­lar, mil­i­tary and po­lice uni­ty, will re­main stead­fast in the un­re­strict­ed pro­tec­tion of their ter­ri­to­ry, their wealth and their free­dom.”