The President of the United States of America has decided to extend for another year the validity of the arbitrary and aggressive Executive Order 13692 signed on March 8, 2015, which declared a “national emergency” based on the assumption that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
The pretext put forward for this decision is that “The situation in Venezuela described in Executive Order 13692 has not improved,” and the well-known allegations about alleged human rights violations, persecution and arbitrary arrests of political opponents, restrictions on the freedom of the press, among others, attributed to the Venezuelan government are reiterated.
This new, unjustified sanction against a peaceful and solidary sister nation of Our America, ignores the indignation and condemnation that the issuing of this unheard of order provoked at the 7th Summit of the Americas in Panama. This demonstrates that the intervention in the internal affairs of the Venezuelan people has not changed, and that the aim of overthrowing the Bolivarian Revolution remains in full force.
The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba demands the revocation of Executive Order 13692, and resolutely and loyally reiterates its unconditional support, and that of our people, to the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the legitimate government of President Nicolás Maduro and the civic-military union of the Bolivarian people, who struggle to keep the peace, maintain constitutional order and the conquests of the Revolution, against the destabilizing attempts of the internal opposition, encouraged by the results of the legislative elections which belie the false arguments used to extend the executive order.
We call on the governments and peoples of our region to demand that the principles of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, signed by the heads of state and government at the Second CELAC Summit held in Havana in January 2014, are respected.
Havana, March 4, 2016
