Freezing of Venezuela’s assets by US amid economic crisis “an act of war”: Analyst

The freezing of Venezuela’s assets by the United States, at a time when the Latin American country is grappling with economic crisis, is tantamount to “an act of war”, a US-based lawyer and activist said.

In an interview with Press TV, Dan Kovalik, an American labor rights lawyer and peace activist, termed the freezing of assets by the US and its close ally UK “very disturbing”.

He said the US has “stolen” Citgo, the Venezuelan oil company with sixth-largest refinery network in the US, while the UK has frozen the Latin American country’s enormous gold reserves.

“What this is doing is killing,” Kovalik asserted. “I mean this is what it is doing. They take away a nation's reserves, financial and other reserves, their people cannot get their medicine. This is tantamount to an act of war. That is what it is.”

Pertinently, United States, which refused to recognize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's re-election in 2018, has frozen millions of dollars of Venezuelan money in US bank accounts, in what has been termed ‘economic terrorism’.

Earlier this week, Maduro slammed Washington’s plan to transfer $150 million of the country’s frozen funds from offshore accounts to the opposition led by Juan Guaido.

In a thumping speech broadcast live on national television on Sunday, Maduro lashed out at both the US government and the Venezuelan opposition.

“It has become a juicy business of a pile of gangster bandits,” he said. “They have left the field of politics to dedicate themselves to extortion and fraud.”

Kovalik said it would be good if the opposition in Venezuela, which has promised to divert some funds toward procuring Covid-19 vaccines, follows on its word.

“But again, why does the Venezuelan government and the Venezuelan people have to beg for their own money to get these vaccines, you know, it's really very cruel,” he noted.

Beside freezing assets and slapping illegal sanctions on countries that refuse to submit to its hegemonic policies, the US government has also been accused of refusing to share the surplus Covid-19 vaccines.

Kovalik, commenting on the unfolding healthcare crisis in faraway India with record number of daily cases and fatalities, said the help US is offering the South Asian country is “pretty small”.

“Essentially the US is setting up a huge gated community where it thinks it can vaccinate its own people and leave the rest of the world to its own devices,” he remarked. “That's what it apparently is doing.”

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