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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Lawfare as an Imperialist Weapon: The Case of the Venezuelan Plane</h1>
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<img src="https://orinocotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG-20220816-WA0015.jpg" alt="Venezuelan EMTRASUR Boeing 747, the cargo plane seized in Argentina under US pressure. File photo." style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="218">
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<font size="1">Venezuelan EMTRASUR Boeing 747, the
cargo plane seized in Argentina under US pressure. File photo</font>.
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<p>By Atilio Borón – Aug 16, 2022</p>
<p>The subject relayed in the title is becoming more and more
complicated. The Argentine “justice” system, through the actions of the
federal judge of Lomas de Zamora, Federico Villena, and Federal Attorney
Cecilia Incardona, is determined to retain the EMTRASUR plane and its
crew in Argentina even at the price of violating the fundamentals of law
(such as the presumption of innocence) to comply with the seizure order
issued by US authorities. In this situation, the Argentine government
can do very little now—I insist on now. If it had acted more quickly, as
soon as the plane arrived in this country, perhaps this infamous
operation could not have been staged. But it did not act, either because
it did not know, did not want to, or could not. However, beyond that,
no one can overlook the fact that this maneuver will go down as one more
episode in the US blockade of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and
of the harassment that Washington and Tel Aviv have exerted for decades
against the Islamic Republic of Iran.</p>
<p>This offensive has the enthusiastic support of powerful regional
allies eager to demonstrate their absolute loyalty to the decrees of the
empire and impatient to liquidate the <em>Frente de Todos</em>
government [of Argentina] as soon as possible, or at least prevent it
from being a competitive option in the presidential elections of next
year. Standing out in this swarm are the chaotic forces of the political
right, the media scoundrels, the judiciary and, of course, the
so-called civil society groups and organizations that maintain solid
ties with various agencies and NGOs in the United States. This unstable
conglomerate is unified in the common vocation to turn Argentina into a
US colony.</p>
<p>Furthermore, there is every reason to conjecture that this
machination around the Venezuelan plane may also be, at least in part, a
retaliation for President Alberto Fernández’s speech at the Summit of
the Americas in Los Angeles when, speaking as pro tempore president of
the CELAC, he told Joe Biden what no Latin American leader ever told a
US president in his own home. Washington will not forgive him for that,
and will do everything possible so that his government is defeated in
the next election. The incident we are discussing is part of that
strategy.</p>
<p>It is not a minor fact that the initial actors in this mess were
officials of low administrative rank: (a) a telephone call from who
knows who from Paraguay warning about alleged irregularities in the
registration of the plane and the background of the Iranian crew; (b)
some officials of modest rank in Ezeiza—civilians as well as police
officers—who suspiciously exceeded their duties and raised all sorts of
obstacles to prevent the refueling and return of the plane; and (c)
lastly and most significant, the Montevideo airport authorities that
prevented the plane—already in full flight to that city—from refueling
at the Carrasco airport, putting the safety of the aircraft and its crew
at risk.</p>
<p>The subsequent appearance on the scene of the Lomas de Zamora
court—with Judge Villena and Attorney Incardona at the head—turned what
was cheap, ill-intentioned gossip and lacking in legal substance into a
monstrous violation of all national and international laws, which
reflects very bady on our country and especially on the national
government. There was no arrest or seizure warrant for the EMTRASUR
plane or any of the crew members. The aircraft was “clean” and was not
“wanted” by any international commercial air travel control agency. It
had been owned by Air France before being legally sold to an Iranian
company that resold it to the Venezuelan company Conviasa, and it was
transporting supplies for a car factory based in Argentina. Despite
this, it was detained, and days later, in an act of unforgivable
submission to US mandates, the FBI was allowed to inspect the plane, a
task that had already been carried out repeatedly by Argentine
authorities without yielding any suspicious results. At the same time,
the judge ordered that the passports of the crew members be withheld so
that they could not leave the country.</p>
<p>This outrageous event has been going on for more than two months and
is a serious violation of the principle of the presumption of innocence
since there is no duly proven accusation of any crime against any of the
crew members. Finally, the coup de grâce arrived: the United States now
argues that the sale of the Boeing 747 that the Iranian company Mahan
Air did to the Venezuelan government was not duly registered with the US
authorities, for which it asks Argentina to proceed to seize the
airplane. The empire acts with its usual arrogance and intends to impose
the extraterritoriality of its laws and regulations. It is actually a
pretext to apply its policy of submission, devoid of any legitimacy. If
the Argentine “justice” system (yes, in quotation marks) allows such an
abuse to take place, it would deal a blow—if not deadly, at least very
serious—to our democratic system, since it would no longer make sense to
waste time and money of the state in electing deputies and senators to
promulgate our laws, since it would be sufficient to apply those enacted
by the US Congress or the administrative resolutions of the White
House. Why vote, then, if laws are made “over there” and applied here?
And it is not just that. By complying with the US demand, our country
and its government would become accomplices in another robbery of
Venezuelan assets. There is a history of this: Washington seized the
huge CITGO company created by the PDVSA (three refineries and 5,000
service stations in the United States); its British servant did the same
with the gold deposited in the Bank of England (31 tons!), and now it
is trying to repeat its looting by appropriating the EMTRASUR plane.
Summary: The empire loots and steals, that is in its DNA, and nothing
and no one will be able to change it.</p>
<p>All this mess leaves the Argentine government, which holds the pro
tempore presidency of the CELAC, and its head, Alberto Fernández, in a
very bad light, who repeatedly condemned the blockades and also invited,
within the institutional framework of CELAC, a meeting of heads of the
Americas, including Biden, in Buenos Aires towards the end of the year.
If, due to the scandalous behavior of its judiciary, Argentina submits
to the orders of a US court, President Fernández’s credibility would be
undermined, since he would in fact validate a practice that he denounced
at the Summit of the Americas, making him appear as an essential
participant in a robbery of the only international means of transport
available to a country that has been very generous with Argentina. The
president will pay the consequences despite the fact that the prevailing
“judicial dictatorship” in our country makes it impossible for him to
reverse the shameful conduct of the judge and the attorney involved in
the case.</p>
<p>There is more serious component of this unfortunate situation: the
International Diabetes Federation reported in 2018 that there are
130,000 patients with type 1 diabetes in Venezuela, which makes them
insulin-dependent. This was even communicated to the OAS Secretary
General Luis Almagro, who did not take any action or issue any kind of
communication in this regard. The EMTRASUR plane had, among several
other missions, to carry and bring different types of supplies necessary
for a cruelly blockaded country like Venezuela, including insulin
(which is not produced in that country), various medications for cancer
patients, spare parts for oil industry and many other goods. In
addition, it was fulfilling valuable humanitarian tasks, such as the aid
it provided after the devastating tropical storm that hit Suriname a
few months ago. This being the case, the Argentine government only has
one option left, because even when the judicial process concludes by
dismissing all the false accusations against the aircraft and its crew,
the procedural process will take a long time. The only concrete
alternative to repair, at least in part, the damage that is being done
to Venezuela is for the Argentine government to temporarily loan a cargo
plane—from our armed forces or from any agency of the state—so that it
can be used by the Bolivarian government while the trial continues. In
this way, it will be possible to guarantee the Venezuelans access to
essential goods, like insulin and cancer medications, required to save
the lives of the people suffering from diabetes and various types of
cancer. A loan that will end only after the Venezuelan plane of the
EMTRASUR company is returned to its legitimate owners. If the
Argentinian government, and perhaps the president himself, does not do
so, they could even be accused in international courts of not having
done what was necessary to prevent the death of many patients who could
not receive the drugs that would have saved their lives because the
plane that transported those medicines was immobilized in this country.
It would be a limited usufruct until the judicial issue is resolved in
accordance with Argentine legislation.</p>
<p><a href="https://orinocotribune.com/argentine-judge-orders-the-theft-of-venezuelas-emtrasur-plane-at-us-request/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED CONTENT: Argentine Judge Orders The Theft of Venezuela’s EMTRASUR Plane at US Request</a></p>
<p>In our opinion, it is the only alternative left to us. It is obvious
that the right wing and the agents of imperialism will viciously
criticize the government if it makes that decision. But, the question
is, will it be anything more than what they criticize daily with their
fake news, media deployments, post-truths and all kinds of political
operations? On the other hand, there will be many more people in this
country who would see such a gesture as an appropriate reaffirmation of
national sovereignty—people who do not want to adopt as their own the
laws of the United States; as a noble act of humanitarian aid and
solidarity and, finally, in coherence with the proclaimed rejection of
the blockade policies.</p>
<p>Argentina does not have to interfere—or be forced to interfere—in
matters that are not our concern; in this case the conflict of the
United States and Israel with Iran, as a result of which this
diplomatic, political and commercial war has moved to our country, just
as the conflict between the US/NATO and Russia unfolds on European
territory.</p>
<p>Washington has always been very adept at making sure that its fights
and clashes take place far from home, not producing a mess “at home” but
as far away as possible, earlier in Ukraine, now in Argentina. We need
to learn this lesson. And along with the loan of the Argentine plane, it
would be strictly fair for the judge to order the immediate release of
the crew for lack of merit [of the terrorism charges against them]. They
must be released immediately because they have not been proven to have
committed any crime. Another legal monstrosity of the Argentine
“justice” system, which needs more than ever to be subjected to a
profound reform that definitively purges it of so many crooks who nest
in its courts and so many practices at odds with the rule of law.</p>
<p>(<a href="https://atilioboron.com.ar/el-lawfare-como-arma-imperial-el-caso-del-avion-venezolano/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">atilioboron.com.ar</a>)</p>
<p>Translation: Orinoco Tribune</p><div id="gmail-mab-2076935183">
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<span>
Atilio Boron </span>
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<p>Atilio A. Boron is a Harvard Graduate professor of political theory
at the University of Buenos Aires and was executive secretary of the
Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO). He has published
widely in several languages a variety of books and articles on political
theory and philosophy, social theory, and comparative studies on the
capitalist development in the periphery. He is an international analyst,
writer and journalist and profoundly Latinoamerican.</p>
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