LETTER

Trudeau and the “Lima Group” 

According to NPR, the Lima Group was set up in August 2017 specifically to work with the Venezuelan opposition. It consists of 12 countries, all of them in the Western hemisphere and predominantly governed by parties of the right. That any self-appointed outside body should have a say in a given country’s affairs is bad enough; but this ad hoc junta’s credentials for pronouncing on democracy in Venezuela are pitiful. In the short time since it was founded, two of its member states have been governed by unelected presidents (Brazil and Peru); one of them has a president who was re-elected by a rigged vote in 2017 (Honduras); one is under UN investigation for corruption (Guatemala); one has been investigated by the DEA for laundering drug money (Paraguay); and there’s no forgetting Colombia, where paramilitary groups routinely murder trade unionists and where, according to 2018’s figures from the UNHCR, there are nearly eight million internally displaced people. To its credit, Mexico, though among the founders of the Lima Group under President Peña Nieto, has distanced itself since López Obrador came to power.

In its founding statement, the Lima Group declared its full support for Venezuela’s National Assembly. On 4 January this year, it upped the ante, stating that if Maduro assumed office for a second term the following week it would consider him a usurper – using the same terminology as the Venezuelan opposition. 

Trudeau has lined Canada up with, basically, the thugs of the Western hemisphere, and for what?  To demonstrate subserviance to Trump’s America?  To aid US oil companies to gain control of Venezuela’s huge oil deposits?  

Are we Canadians proud to be standing with right-wing thugs and with Trump? Is this our tradition, or a new Trudeau Doctrine? 

Andy Black

Aylmer