3 Counter Summits Called on Public to Stand Against Biden Administration’s ‘Failed’ Summit of the Americas

As the International #FreeAlexSaab Solidarity Committee reported June 6, a delegation is in Cabo Verde to meet Venezuelan envoy Alex Saab, who is imprisoned on U.S. orders. They aim to document the conditions of his confinement and demand his release.

Heading the humanitarian delegation is Cape Verdean religious leader Bishop Felipe Teixeira, Cape Verdean politician Pericles Tavares, and human rights activists Sara Flounders of International Action Center and Roger Harris of Task Force on the Americas.



In their first full day in Cabo Verde on June 4, the emergency human-rights delegation met with Saab’s lawyer and the Venezuelan ambassador, tried to meet with the local police commander, and saw first hand the prison-house where Saab is jailed. Heavily armed guards prevented a visit.

The solidarity committee is circulating a petition demanding Saab’s release and it is providing updates on Twitter.

 

Video of yesterday’s attempt to visit Alex Saab. Intimidating police presence. #FreeAlexSaabDelegation #FreeAlexSaab @FreedomAlexSaab @iacenter @TaskAmericas @RojoCamacaro @ecowas_cedeao @ghananews @CaboVerdeNews @All4GlobalJust @ninopagliccia @OrinocoTribune pic.twitter.com/bmXcm611GC

— FreedomForAlexSaab (@FreedomAlexSaab) June 6, 2021

Below is an edited version of Roger Harris’ May 26 article, which appeared in venezuelanalysis.com, after first being published in Dissident Voice.

The case of Alex Saab raises dangerous precedents in terms of extraterritorial judicial abuse, violation of diplomatic status and even the use of torture to extract false confessions. This is according to Montréal-based international human-rights lawyer John Philpot. He spoke on May 19 at a webinar sponsored by the Alliance for Global Justice and other groups about this example of the long reach of the U.S. empire enforcing its deadly sanctions on some one-third of humanity.

 

United States Sanctions Venezuela for Being Sovereign

Activist Stansfield Smith of Chicago ALBA Solidarity commented that the Saab case is part of a larger U.S. effort to use “lawfare” to impose its illegal sanctions, which the United Nations condemns as “unilateral coercive measures.” The United States employs sanctions to discipline countries that attempt to develop independently of U.S. domination.

The United States is able to extend its imperial reach through its domination of the international financial system, which is U.S. dollar-denominated and mediated through the monetary exchange known as SWIFT. By controlling the international financial system, Smith explained, Washington can demand banks in foreign countries accept U.S. restrictions or face sanctions themselves.

Venezuela’s resistance to U.S. interference, starting with Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution two decades ago, has been punished by the United States with mounting sanctions so extreme that they now amount to an asphyxiating blockade, causing severe shortages of food and medicine. Activist William Camacaro of the Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle attested to the impact on the people of Venezuela. This U.S. effort to achieve regime change is, in effect, collective punishment to coerce the Venezuelans to reject their elected government.

Even a report from the U.S. government readily admits “sanctions, particularly on the state oil company in 2019, likely contributed to the steeper decline of the Venezuelan economy.” This crippling blow to its oil industry has impacted Venezuela’s capability to generate electricity, conduct agriculture, and generate income from oil sales to fund social programs and import vital necessities, all of which have negatively impacted the lives of ordinary Venezuelans.

Once a leading oil exporter, Venezuela’s ability to import equipment components for its oil refineries and light oil to mix with its heavy crude has been cut off by the United States, devastating its productive capacity. The United States has even blocked international oil-for-food swaps by Venezuela.

 

United States Targets Mission to Import Fuel and Food

Alex Saab, Venezuelan special envoy and ambassador to the African Union, was on a mission flying from Caracas to Iran to procure food and gasoline for the Venezuelan CLAP food assistance program. Saab was detained on a refueling stop in the African nation of Cabo Verde and has been held in custody since June 12, 2020.

Saab’s “crime,” according to the U.S. government, which ordered the imprisonment, was money laundering. That is, Washington considers Saab’s international trade circumventing deadly U.S. sanctions to be money laundering.

After a 2-year investigation into Saab’s transactions with Swiss banks, the Swiss government concluded on March 25 no money laundering was involved. The real reason Saab is being persecuted is because he is serving his country’s interest rather than that of the United States. Saab was born in Colombia, but now holds Venezuelan citizenship.

The U.S. mandate for the arrest and extradition of Saab would be like Saudi Arabia demanding the arrest and extradition of a British citizen visiting Italy for wearing short-shorts. In essence, the United States does not have legal jurisdiction over a Venezuelan in Cabo Verde on his way to Iran.

The legal fig leaf for what amounts to a kidnapping was an INTERPOL “red notice,” which was not issued until a day after Saab’s arrest and was subsequently dropped. Saab has specified, “they tortured me and pressured me to sign voluntary extradition declarations and bear false witness against my government.”

 

Saab’s Distinguished African Defense Team

Saab’s attorney in Cabo Verde, Geraldo da Cruz Almeida, explained to the webinar the absurdity of the politically motivated legal case against his client. Saab has violated neither Cabo Verdean nor Venezuelan law. Moreover, Saab’s diplomatic status should have given him immunity from arrest.

The United States does not recognize Saab’s diplomatic status. But then again, U.S. President Joe Biden maintains the fiction that the self-appointed and Trump-anointed Juan Guaidó is president of Venezuela.

Femi Falana, former president of the West African Bar Association, spoke to the webinar from Nigeria. Attorney Falana represented Saab before the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court. On March 15, the court ordered Saab’s release and cancellation of the extradition.

Under U.S. pressure, Cabo Verde continues to hold Saab. Attorney Falana has called on Biden to respect the rule of law and human rights in Africa. Activist Sara Flounders of the International Action Center pointed out 15 of the 39 countries under illegal U.S. sanctions are African.

Ranking 175^th and 185^th among the countries of the world in terms of geographic area and economic size, respectively, the Republic of Cabo Verde is vulnerable to U.S. strong-arm tactics. It is resource-poor and depends on tourism and remittances from abroad. Shortly after Saab’s arrest, the United States gifted $1.5 million to private-sector entities in Cabo Verde on top of some $284 million total in U.S. aid over the last 20 years.

The U.S. State Department describes Cabo Verde as “an important partner” where the “current administration has prioritized relations with the United States and Europe.” The U.S. Bureau for International Narcotics Law Enforcement funds and supports activities in Cabo Verde, while the Boston Police Department works with Cabo Verde police.

Cabo Verde, it should be noted, is important in the history of African liberation. Marxist Amílcar Cabral led the liberation movement of Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde Islands and was assassinated in 1973, only months before declaring its independence from Portugal.

 

Setting a Precedent

Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese national doing business in Canada, is under arrest for “bank fraud” and is fighting extradition to the United States. North Korean Mun Chol Myong has already been extradited to the United States from Malaysia on similar charges to those used against Saab, for doing business according to international law rather than abiding by illegal U.S. measures.

In short, Saab’s is not an isolated case of U.S. misconduct around enforcing its illegal sanctions, but an emerging pattern.

That the United States can engineer the arrest of a diplomat—who has immunity per international law even in a time of war—is a dangerous precedent. That the arrest was extraterritorial is worse. This harkens back to the flagrantly illegal and inhumane U.S. practice of extraordinary rendition, which was used to populate the Guantánamo torture chambers.

The award-winning movie The Mauritanian is about the true story of crusading lawyer Nancy Hollander, who successfully freed a tortured innocent man from the made-in-the-USA hell of Guantánamo. The Hollander character, played in the movie by Jodie Foster, says: “I am not just defending him, I am defending the rule of law.”

The real-life Nancy Hollander attended the webinar. A lawyer’s delegation to Cabo Verde in solidarity with Saab is being planned and a petition campaign on his behalf is underway. These efforts recognize that the defense of Alex Saab is a defense of the rule of international law against illegal U.S. sanctions.

Cuba, like every other country on the planet, is struggling with the impact of COVID-19. This small island of 11 million people has created five vaccine candidates and sent its medical workers through the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade to heal people around the world. Meanwhile, the United States hardens a cruel and illegal blockade of the island, a medieval siege that has been in place for six decades. In April 2020, seven United Nations special rapporteurs wrote an open letter to the United States government about the blockade. “In the pandemic emergency,” they wrote, “the lack of will of the U.S. government to suspend sanctions may lead to a higher risk of such suffering in Cuba and other countries targeted by its sanctions.” The special rapporteurs noted the “risks to the right to life, health and other critical rights of the most vulnerable sections of the Cuban population.”

On July 12, 2021, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel told a press conference that Cuba is facing serious shortages of food and medicine. “What is the origin of all these issues?” he asked. The answer, he said, “is the blockade.” If the U.S.-imposed blockade ended, many of the great challenges facing Cuba would lift. Of course, there are other challenges, such as the collapse of the crucial tourism sector due to the pandemic. Both problems—the pandemic and the blockade—have increased the challenges for the Cuban people. The pandemic is a problem that people all over the world now face; the U.S.-imposed blockade is a problem unique to Cuba (as well as about 30 other countries struck by unilateral U.S. sanctions).

Origin of the Protests

On July 11, people in several parts of Cuba—such as San Antonio de los Baños—took to the streets to protest the social crisis. Frustration about the lack of goods in shops and an uptick in COVID-19 infections seemed to motivate the protests. President Díaz-Canel said of the people that most of them are “dissatisfied,” but that their dissatisfaction is fueled by “confusion, misunderstandings, lack of information and the desire to express a particular situation.”

On the morning of July 12, U.S. President Joe Biden hastily put out a statement that reeked of hypocrisy. “We stand with the Cuban people,” Biden said, “and their clarion call for freedom.” If the U.S. government actually cared about the Cuban people, then the Biden administration would at the very least withdraw the 243 unilateral coercive measures implemented by the presidency of Donald Trump before he left office in January 2021; Biden—contrary to his own campaign promises—has not started the process to reverse Trump’s designation of Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” On March 9, 2021, Biden’s spokesperson Jen Psaki said, “A Cuba policy shift is not currently among President Biden’s top priorities.” Rather, the Trump “maximum pressure” policy intended to overthrow the Cuban government remains intact.

The United States has a six-decade history of trying to overthrow the Cuban government, including using assassinations and invasions as policy. In recent years, the U.S. government has increased its financial support of people inside Cuba and in the Cuban émigré community in Miami, Florida; some of this money comes directly from the National Endowment for Democracy and from USAID. Their mandate is to accelerate any dissatisfaction inside Cuba into a political challenge to the Cuban Revolution.

On June 23, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said that the Trump “measures remain very much in place.” They shape the “conduct of the current U.S. administration precisely during the months in which Cuba has experienced the highest infection rates, the highest death toll and a higher economic cost associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.”

 

Costs of the Pandemic

On July 12, Alejandro Gil Fernández, Cuba’s minister of economy and planning, told the press about the expenses of the pandemic. In 2020, he said, the government spent $102 million on reagents, medical equipment, protective equipment and other material; in the first half of 2021, the government spent $82 million on these kinds of materials. This is money that Cuba did not anticipate spending—money that it does not have as a consequence of the collapsed tourism sector.

“We have not spared resources to face COVID-19,” Fernández said. Those with COVID-19 are put in hospitals, where their treatment costs the country $180 per day; if the patient needs intensive care, the cost per day is $550. “No one is charged a penny for their treatment,” Fernández reported.

The socialist government in Cuba shoulders the responsibility of medical care and of social insurance. Despite the severe challenges to the economy, the government guarantees salaries, purchases medicines and distributes food as well as electricity and piped water. That is the reason why the government added $2.4 billion to its already considerable debt overhang. In June, Cuba’s Deputy Prime Minister Ricardo Cabrisas Ruíz met with French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire to discuss the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. France, which manages Cuba’s debt to the public creditors in the Paris Club, led the effort to ameliorate the debt servicing demands on Havana.

Costs of the Blockade

On June 23, 184 countries in the UN General Assembly voted to end the U.S.-imposed blockade on Cuba. During the discussion over the vote, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Rodríguez reported that between April 2019 and December 2020, the government lost $9.1 billion due to the blockade ($436 million per month). “At current prices,” he said, “the accumulated damages in six decades amount to over $147.8 billion, and against the price of gold, it amounts to over $1.3 trillion.”

If the blockade were to be lifted, Cuba would be able to fix its great financial challenges and use the resources to pivot away from its reliance upon tourism. “We stand with the Cuban people,” says Biden; in Havana, the phrase is heard differently, since it sounds like Biden is saying, “We stand on the Cuban people.”

Cuba’s Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said that those who took to the streets on July 11 “called for foreign intervention and said that the [Cuban] Revolution was falling. They will never enjoy that hope,” he said. In response to those anti-government protests, the streets of Cuba filled with tens of thousands of people who carried Cuban flags and the flags of the Cuban Revolution’s 26th of July Movement. Cruz said, “The people responded and defended the revolution.”

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Manolo De Los Santos is a researcher and a political activist. For 10 years, he worked in the organization of solidarity and education programs to challenge the United States’ regime of illegal sanctions and blockades. Based out of Cuba for many years, Manolo has worked toward building international networks of people’s movements and organizations. In 2018, he became the founding director of the People’s Forum in New York City, a movement incubator for working-class communities to build unity across historic lines of division at home and abroad. He also collaborates as a researcher with Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and is a Globetrotter/Peoples Dispatch fellow.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.

Clara Ines Yalanda, 36, is a Misak Indigenous woman and a single mother. While she was still a girl, she migrated from an Indigenous reservation to Popayan, the capital of the Cauca region in southern Colombia. With few options available, Yalanda and her family settled in an informal neighborhood.

Twenty years later, Yalanda has been unable to break the cycle of poverty associated with informal neighborhoods. A housing deficit and migration to cities has led rural migrants like Yalanda to construct homes within cities using low-quality materials. These type of homes—which make up 65 percent of housing in Colombian cities—lack basic services, such as a connection to water or a sewage system, and they are constructed outside the bounds of local laws.

Yalanda’s house puts her family’s health and safety at risk because it is near a stream and a sewer drainage system. Currently, only one of Yalanda’s five children lives with her because of her strained finances as well as the poor state of the house.

Early this year, Yalanda’s home and five others’ flooded, with the water having risen more than 1 meter (3.28 feet) high. That forced her to temporarily abandon her home, losing her possessions in the process. Yalanda said the municipality has warned several times that her house is in a risk area—but she added it has not offered a solution.

“They have told me I have to leave,” Yalanda said. “But where can I go? I do not have anywhere else.”

Sunday’s second-round presidential election in Colombia could transform the lives of informal settlement residents like Yalanda. Former-militant-turned-politician Gustavo Petro and millionaire businessman Rodolfo Hernández approach the country’s urban housing crisis and environmental policy in different ways. Meanwhile, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently reported governments must create housing programs that protect the most vulnerable from increasingly volatile weather events global climate change appears to be causing.

Landslides, Fires and Floods Intensify

Precarious conditions like Yalanda’s are not unusual. In Colombia, 65 percent of urban areas are informal, and 20 percent of the population lives in high-risk zones. This increases the exposure of residents to the impacts of climate change, as rainfall and wildfires intensify.

“Informal settlements have been a condition of urban development in Colombia for the last 50 years,” explained Gustavo Carrion, a consultant and on risk management, climate change and territorial planning. “Families migrate to the cities and settle in the most vulnerable areas and [are] the most exposed to landslides, fires and floods.”

According to Colombia’s National Risk Management Unit, La Niña—a weather phenomenon that causes higher-than-normal rainfall—affected between March and June 33,000 families, killed 78 people, injured 91 and caused eight people to remain missing. Although this phenomenon is not a direct consequence of climate change, scientists have warned that La Niña events are intensifying and becoming more frequent due to greenhouse gas emissions.

The Triple Cycle of Vulnerability

Most of the inhabitants of informal neighborhoods had migrated from rural areas that were hit by the decades-long armed conflict and poverty. Much of the conflict revolves around the production and flow of illicit drugs.

Yet, not only are the new homes of rural migrants informal, the way they make their living can be, too.

“I have worked my whole life selling vegetables and depend entirely on this,” Yalanda told Toward Freedom. “I do not have another source of income. The little I earn is for food and some necessities for the children. It is hard.”

Due to these conditions, residents of informal neighborhoods are caught in a triple cycle of vulnerability: First, they lack access to goods and services; second, they suffer material losses during climate-change disasters; and third, they are stigmatized by society and institutions, preventing adequate assistance.

According to Yalanda, the National Risk Management Unit offered a cooking pot and a torch, but denied further support due to their informal condition. A member of the unit reportedly suggested she should go back to her birthplace. Toward Freedom received no response after requesting an interview with the unit.

The IPCC has established “occupants of informal settlements are particularly exposed to climate events, given low-quality housing, limited capacity to adapt, and limited or no risk-reducing infrastructure.”

Early this year, a UN-convened working group of scientists presented the most recent IPCC report. At both the global and regional levels, it is the most comprehensive investigation of how climate change impacts ecosystems, biodiversity and human communities.

The report says “humanitarian responses and local emergency management are vital for disaster risk reduction, yet are compromised in urban contexts, where it is difficult to confirm property ownership.”

‘We Do Not Want Anything for Free’

Rene Delgado, president of the Local Community Action Council, explained residents of El Dorado—where Yalanda lives—have met with government officials many times since they settled in the area more than 20 years ago. A reallocation area was designated, but residents have been unable to participate because of the high loan-interest rates.

“We do not want anything for free,” Delgado said. “The only thing we are asking for is a payment option according to our economic capacities.”

The Cartagena-based Center for Regional Economics found around 70 percent of Colombian households that apply for low-income housing are headed by informal workers. The insecurity associated with this kind of work makes it difficult to apply for a bank loan, necessary for obtaining low-income housing.

“Colombian housing policy focuses on subsidizing loans that drown people financially,” Carrion explained. “Often low-income housing projects do not benefit the most vulnerable families. Instead, it results in a profitable business for a small sector that also participates in policymaking.”

Presidential Candidates on Housing

Previous local mandates set out by each presidential candidate provide a glimpse into what each may offer if elected president.

Petro, the left-wing Pacto Histórico coalition candidate, was mayor of Bogotá between 2012 and 2015. During his term in office, he oversaw the creation of more than 19,000 houses for victims of armed violence and residents of high-risk zones as part of a national housing program known as Vivienda de Interes Prioritario (VIP). Although Petro did not achieve his goal of 70,000 houses, VIPs in Bogota grew by 26 percent. Meanwhile, they shrunk by 27 percent nationwide.

Petro also has highlighted the importance of cities’ adaptability to climate change. Some of his proposals include restoring ecosystems and hydrological systems, reverting to deforestation based on communitarian and public governance of commonly used resources, as well as guaranteeing access to drinking water. The final policy was implemented in Bogotá during his term as mayor.

Hernández—also known as “the engineer”—is running on the League of Anti-Corruption Governors ticket. He became a millionaire by building low-income housing projects in the 1990s. But, by 2019, Hernández failed to deliver on constructing 20,000 low-income houses in Bucaramanga, a promise he made while running in 2015 for mayor of the city. Plus, Hernández’s construction company was involved in a scandal in 2001 for delivering poorly built homes that endangered lives. The company was later liquidated, but it did not compensate the affected residents.

Hernandez provides brief information on his website regarding how he would address climate change. During a presidential election debate on the environment, he expressed he lacks knowledge on the matter. Hernández also has suggested combining the Ministry of Environment with the Ministry of Culture. That has led some to speculate that, if Hernández is elected, the environment would be a minimal concern for his government.

“We are talking about the vulnerability of ecosystems and people,” Carrion said. “For that reason, housing policy has to be articulated environmentally and socially, while also taking into account poverty exacerbated by the pandemic.”