The countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, and Saint Lucia, categorically condemn the theft and hijacking of a second ship carrying Venezuelan oil, perpetrated by military personnel of the Government of the United States of America, who, acting as privateers, have also illegitimately deprived its crew of their liberty. This serious act of piracy committed in international waters violates the letter and spirit of the Charter of the United Nations, the fundamental principles of international law, and the text of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation. It constitutes an unacceptable aggression against legitimate trade and the sovereignty of States.
ALBA denounces that this act reveals a deliberate intention to plunder the natural resources of a sovereign country and sets a very serious precedent for the region and for the international system as a whole. This is a supremacist strategy of neocolonial domination, aimed at imposing by force an anarchic order in which violence prevails, undermining international law and replacing norms with intimidation and dispossession.
The Bolivarian Alliance expresses its full and active solidarity with the people and government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, supports the exercise of all appropriate legal and diplomatic actions before the competent multilateral bodies, and demands the immediate cessation of these illegal practices, as well as the determination of responsibilities in accordance with international law.
ALBA warns that this reprehensible action is not only an attack on Venezuela, but also constitutes a direct aggression against all nations, violating international law and infringing on the principles that sustain peaceful coexistence among nations.
