2006 and 2007, in Op-eds on Venezuela, I already had to reference Rwanda. That’s how late it is.

Sir, Luis Almagro writes, “As an international community, we have failed to live up to our responsibilities in Venezuela… We must address the corruption that is starving an entire country’s population, and provide humanitarian assistance to those who are desperately in need. We must act — it is already too late” “The world has a responsibility to protect the people of Venezuela”, September 28.

How can we Venezuelan’s not be extremely thankful for Luis Almagro’s support in the OAS? For a full decade, 2005-2015, we had to suffer Almagro’s predecessor José Miguel Insulza’s shameless silence on what was going on in Venezuela, even his support of its regimes and its buddies.

When Almagro now refers to former US president Bill Clinton once telling the people of Rwanda: “all over the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day after day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror”; I must point out that already 2006 and 2007 in two Op-Eds published in Venezuela’s leading newspaper, El Universal, before I was censored by the government friendly new owners’ of that paper, I had to refer to Rwanda. That’s how late this all is.

In 2009, in a similar Op-Ed, addressed to OAS and its Inter American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) I put forward the case that when gasoline, in a country with so many needs, was basically given away for free, an odious violation of economic human rights was being committed. 

In July 2015, I formally denounced that to IACHR, ending my accusation with: “Let me assure you right now, at this moment, the official price of a liter of milk is around 300 times higher than the price of a liter of gasoline ... and if that is not an economic crime against humanity, what is?”Sir, I am still waiting for a response.

@PerKurowski