The Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and Solidarity among the Peoples (ISB) and the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research held on Monday a “Conversation with Noam Chomsky: Perils and Possibilities of Our Time,” a virtual event where the US intellectual discussed multilateralism and the COVID19 pandemic, among other issues of international geopolitics, from the historical perspective of the US imperial domination policy.
The event was hosted by Carlos Ron, president of the ISB, and Vijay Prashad, director of the Tricontinental Institute, featuring Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza as special guest.
In his statement, Chomsky affirmed that as for the US foreign policy, nothing has changed during the administration of Joe Biden, who “has simply picked up Trump’s policies,” being Iran the most striking example. “He [Biden] initiated, as in Venezuela and Cuba, very harsh sanctions to try to torture the population,” said Chomsky.
“He [Biden] initiated, as in Venezuela and Cuba, very harsh sanctions to try to torture the population,” said Chomsky.
Besides Iran and Cuba, the US intellectual also focused on US “hideous history of violence and oppression” against Haiti, and the US genocide that spread to Central America and that led to the current refugee crisis.
“We should recognize that there is no country in the world that has anything like the capacity of the United States to inflict brutal harm and violence everywhere in the world. Nobody else can impose sanctions. When the US imposes sanctions, they are third-party sanctions. Everyone has to live up to them, no matter how much they hate them. So, in the case of Iran, the entire European Union and the United Nations Security Council opposes the sanctions, but they have to abide by them,” he stated.
Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, Chomsky condemned that the Western countries “are monopolizing the vaccine for themselves. The most so-called humane among them are among the worst. Canada has in storage probably more vaccines that it can use than anyone else.”
Chomsky deplored that some countries are blocking efforts for a vaccine accessible to the people of the world because hegemonic systems defend the profits of drug companies.
Remembering Commander Hugo Chávez once recommended Chomsky’s book “Hegemony or Survival” at the United Nations, Foreign Minister Arreaza based his statement on this very same book to explain that imperialism should not be mistaken with a nation-state or the institutions of a government.
“Imperialism is a sort of corporate gears for profit and exploitation to dominate the world in the economic, political, military spheres. Those who make decisions in imperialism are not necessarily sitting in the White House,” explained Arreaza.
Foreign Minister Arreaza said that Venezuela has suffered over the last six years an “aggression unheard of” in its history despite different UN authorities have demanded the lifting of unilateral coercive measures.
“It hurts to see that in order to get supplies to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, we have to make moves and maneuvers which make things more expensive, sacrificing the purchase of other medicines and food,” explained the chief of the Venezuelan diplomacy.