Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has informed the UN that his country was still committed to the world body’s 2030 Agenda despite US aggressions.
“There will be no imperial aggression, blockade, sanction that will stop Venezuela’s path towards social justice, towards sustainable development, and towards the happiness of all,” Maduro said at a virtual meeting of the UN Sustainable Development Goals Moment (SDG Moment) on Friday.
The President denounced the US government for having “unsuccessfully tried to erode, through criminal, unilateral, coercive measures, our base of social security and to try to collapse the model of inclusion and justice that we have built”, reports Xinhua news agency
He explained that the governments formed after the country’s Bolivarian Revolution created a variety of social programs to improve the lives of Venezuelans, including Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAPs), which work to guarantee food security for more than 6 million families, and the Venezuela Housing Mission, which has built more than 3 million homes in recent years.
As to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, the President said that “thanks to the investments made in the last 20 years, we have managed to attend to 99 per cent of the infected population”.
Maduro also said that care for infected patients was free of charge.
The President’s remarks came two days after UN investigators on Wednesday said that the Venezuelan government has “committed egregious violations” amounting to crimes against humanity.
Cases of killings, torture, violence and disappearances were investigated in a fact-finding mission for the UN Human Rights Council.
The UN team said Maduro and other top officials were implicated.
The report will be presented to UN Human Rights Council member states next week, when Venezuela will have a chance to respond.
Caracas, IANS
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