[News] Guaido Accused of Blocking Vaccines as Venezuela Sends Covid-19 Aid to Brazil

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15097 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15097>


  Guaido Accused of Blocking Vaccines as Venezuela Sends Covid-19 Aid to
  Brazil

By Paul Dobson - January 18, 2021
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mérida, January 18, 2021 (venezuelanalysis.com 
<http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/>) – Venezuela’s self-declared “Interim 
President” Juan Guaido has allegedly refused to use funds under his 
control to purchase additional Covid-19 vaccines for the country.

According todocuments 
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-venezuela-politics/venezuela-says-guaido-nixed-deal-to-buy-coronavirus-vaccines-opposition-denies-idUSKBN29J2AL> 
seen by Reuters,Guaido’s <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14244> team 
turned down overtures from the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) to free up 
US $120 million worth of frozen assets in the UK. The BCV reportedly 
proposed bypassing the US blockade and purchasing UK-produced vaccines 
through theGavi financing program <https://www.gavi.org/>, which looks 
to boost poorer countries’ vaccination programmes via the World Health 
Organization’s (WHO) COVAX system.

“The impact of the pandemic in Venezuela has worsened, and President 
[Nicolas] Maduro’s government has been unable to effect payment to Gavi 
to secure access to Covid-19 vaccines by any other means,” a statement 
from BCV lawyers Zaiwalla & Co. reads.

In response, Guaido’s legal counsel Arnold & Porter allegedly responded 
that “our clients cannot consent” to the proposal. Guaido’s team has 
since claimed that the response is a fake.

London and Washington continue to recognise Guaido as Venezuela’s 
legitimate leader, despite the opposition man beingshunned 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15089> by the European Union last 
week and his position as National Assembly president expiring.

The UK and US have frozen <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14850> a 
range of Venezuela’s foreign-based assets, includingUS-based oil 
subsidiary CITGO <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14880> andUS $1.8 
billion of gold <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15014> stored in the 
Bank of England, with some of them having been transferred 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14853> to Guaido’s “administration.”

Caracas’ efforts to use the UK-based gold for a UN-mediated purchase of 
healthcare equipment were similarly derailed 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14929> last July, with Guaido 
contesting the BCV’s control of the reserves. The US-backed opposition 
sectors were revealed <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14853>to be 
using funds under their control to pay loyalists up to US $5000 a month, 
while Guaido himself is currently facing a series ofembezzlement 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14545> and corruption charges.

The seizure of Venezuelan assets has come alongside an escalation of US 
sanctions against the Caribbean country which alsoprohibit 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14615> firms from trading with 
Caracas or processing payment for goods or services. Equally, the policy 
opens the way forsecondary sanctions 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14791> against any non-US firm or 
government dealing with Venezuela. The sanctions have been widely 
condemned <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14823>by the international 
community anddescribed <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14446> as 
“collective punishment” by the Center for Economic and Policy Research 
(CEPR).

As a result, Caracas has been increasingly forced to turn to 
international intermediaries, including the WHO, the Pan-American Health 
Organization and the United Nations or allied countries, to oversee 
payment or swap deals to acquire goods including vaccines.

To date, Venezuela hasonly managed 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15086> to purchase Russia’s Sputnik V 
vaccine, which was formally authorised for use last Wednesday and is 
expected to be rolled out before April. The Caribbean country identified 
497 morecases and five deaths on Sunday, bringing the total to 119,803 
cases and 1,105 deaths.


    International solidarity against the pandemic

Despite a recent increase in coronavirus cases, Venezuela continues to 
suffer far less than its neighbours, many of whom are beginning to apply 
a range of vaccines.

During a high-level delegation to Cuba over the weekend, Vice President 
Delcy Rodriguez reiteratedcalls 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15080> for the Bolivarian Alliance 
for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) to create a vaccine bank for the 
benefit of member countries. While in Havana, she also announced that a 
bi-national observatory is to be formed to evaluate and counter the 
impact of Washington’s “illicit and illegal” unilateral coercive 
measures against both nations.

Likewise, a National Scientific Centre forOzone-therapy 
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3312702/> was inaugurated 
in northern Caracas on Sunday, which Maduro described as a “pioneering 
project for Latin America.” The centre will reportedly look to “develop 
the application of ozone-therapy as a complementary medical treatment 
for different pathologies, with special emphasis on Covid-19.”

Venezuela also took action to assist in an escalating Covid-19 emergency 
in the Brazilian city of Manaus over the weekend under the banner of 
“Latin American solidarity before anything else!”

The isolated city in the bordering Amazonas State, which has difficult 
communications with the rest of Brazil but houses 2 million people, has 
been overrun by Covid-19 in recent days, with Reutersreporting 
<https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN29L0KD> that its healthcare 
system is “at breaking point” and that mass graves are being dug. AFP 
hasquoted 
<https://www.eluniversal.com/politica/88541/venezuela-ofrece-oxigeno-para-atender-contingencia-sanitaria-de-covid19-en-brasil> 
on-the-ground scientists as saying that “oxygen tanks have run out and 
some hospital units have become a type of suffocation chamber.”

In response, 107 Venezuelan and Brazilian doctors from Caracas’Salvador 
Allende Latin American Medical School 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/video/6703> (ELAM) were dispatched south 
of the border on Saturday to assist, in coordination with regional 
Brazilian authorities.

Alongside the so-called Simon Bolivar Medical Brigade, Venezuela also 
sent 136,000 litres of oxygen -- equivalent to 14,000 individual tanks – 
as part of the humanitarian land convoy. The convoy, which will travel 
1500 kilometres from Venezuela’s Puerto Ordaz to Manaus, is expected to 
arrive on Monday night or Tuesday morning.

Maduro explained that his government “has extended its solidarity to the 
people of Amazonas because they are our brother people. The Brazilian 
people should know that we are willing to help Brazil as much as we 
can.” Brazil’s far right President Jair Bolsonaro fails to recognise 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15002> Maduro as Venezuela’s head of 
state and has broken off diplomatic relations between the two countries.

-- 
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