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November 14, 2025


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‘Up to the U.S. to decide if it violated international law with
Caribbean boat strikes’
Says Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister
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In an extraordinarily honest statement of how Canada, and generally speaking countries in the U.S.-led Western Bloc, actually operate, Anita Arnand, Canada’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, said “I would say it is within the purview of U.S. authorities to make that determination” whether it is a violation of international law or not that the U.S. has murdered at least 80 people in 20 military strikes on small boats off the coast of Venezuela and Colombia.

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Further to this, though not addressed by reporters or Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, these murderous U.S. strikes are taking place in the context of a huge build-up of U.S. forces near and around Venezuela.

U.S. attacking and seeking regime change in Venezuela. Canada waiting in the wings, quietly supporting
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For what it is worth, international law does not say that each country decides themselves if they are violating the law. Quite obviously, this is not how law works anywhere, neither internationally, nationally, municipally or otherwise.

But this is, in fact, how the U.S. and countries of the U.S.-led Western Bloc (let us say Canada, Australia, England, France, Germany, Italy …) often operate with respect to international law.

If we, or a Western allie such as Israel, are challenged as to the legality of Israel’s Western-backed genocide in Palestine, the U.S.-led West and Israel continue to determine all by ourselves that it is not genocide, that it is a self-defense battle “against terrorists”. Thus, it is not genocide and the genocide continues.

However, if Russia, for example, invades a country, there is no question in our public statements that this is an obvious violation of international law.

In countless government statements and media reports in countries of the U.S.-led Western Bloc, one regularly learns of how Iran, Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, [enter name of most recent enemy ‘of the West’: ___), violate international law with impunity, all the time.

But not so, says Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, when the U.S. military, on orders from the Commander-In-Chief, slaughters 80+ unidentified people, in small boats, in “international waters” (for what it is worth), off the coast of Venezuela of Colombia … as the U.S. mobilizes tens of thousands of troops and a huge Naval fleet in the same region.

This is not a casual rant shared in anger and frustration. This very same Western hypocrisy and double standards characterize the contexts in which Rights Action has worked since the early 1990s.

The U.S. and Canadian-backed illegal military coup in Honduras in 2009 was, wait for it, not a coup. Rather, a corrupt President with ‘serious legal investigations pending against him’ “resigned”.

The next 13 years of U.S. and Canadian support for an open-for-global-business, military-backed, repressive, drug-trafficking regime was, again, not that at all. Rather, the U.S. and Canada maintained full diplomatic, economic and military relations with a “democratic allie”, while promoting the expansion of Canadian and U.S. business interests that “abide by the rule of law”.

A curious person might inquire as to the where-abouts today of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who for 13 years was a staunch “democratic allie” of successive Liberal and Conservative governments in Canada, Republican and Democratic governments in the U.S.

The situation in Guatemala is similar, and has gone on longer. The U.S.-orchestrated coup in 1954 was not an illegal military intervention. Rather, the U.S. was helping with the removal of an illegitimate “communist”-dominated government so as to help restore democracy.

The U.S. and Western-backed State repression and genocides of the 1970s and 1980s, killing some 300,000 mainly Indigenous people, disappearing 45,000 more, were not that at all. Rather, the U.S. and other Western countries (France, Germany, England, Israel) supported Guatemala’s defense of “democracy” against communist, leftist guerrilla fighters.

Following a meeting with Guatemalan genocidal general Efrain Rios Montt in 1982, President Ronald Reagan told reporters (December 4, 1982) that Ríos Montt "is totally dedicated to democracy in Guatemala" and was receiving a "bum rap" regarding human rights accusations.

Anyone who follows and supports Rights Action’s work will know that pretty much all the land, environmental, human rights and justice struggles we fund and support take place in the context of the devastating aftermaths of U.S. and Western-backed military interventions and then decades of support for military backed, exploitative, corrupt regimes.

This is where we are in Canada, the U.S. and in our global human and Nation State order.

Change media sources

Rights Action urges everyone to diversify their news sources, as a necessary antidote to the oftentimes harmful, misleading reporting coming from much of the government and corporate media in the U.S., E.U. and Canada. We recommend Democracy Now ([link removed]) , The Real News ([link removed]) , Al Jazeera News ([link removed]) (for coverage of Genocide in Palestine), The Gray Zone ([link removed]) , The Orinoco Tribune ([link removed]) , …

Follow work of other solidarity/NGO groups
* Honduras Now: www.hondurasnow.org
* Honduras Solidarity Network: www.hondurassolidarity.org
* Friendship Office of the Americas: www.friendshipamericas.org
* NISGUA (Network in Solidarity with People of Guatemala): www.nisgua.org
* GHRC (Guatemalan Human Rights Commission): www.ghrc-usa.org
* Breaking the Silence: www.breakingthesilenceblog.com
* PLATAFORMA CANADA-Guatemaltecos Exiliados por Terrorismo de Estado, [link removed], [link removed]
* CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with People of El Salvador): www.cispes.org
* CRISTOSAL [link removed]
* Share El Salvador: [link removed] ([link removed])
* CRISPAZ: [link removed]
* Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition: [link removed] ([link removed])
* Friends of Latin America: www.friendsoflatinamerica.org
* Friendship Office of the Americas: www.friendshipamericas.org
* Peace Brigades International-Canada: www.pbicanada.org
* Mining Watch Canada: www.miningwatch.ca
* Mining Injustice Solidarity Network: www.mininginjustice.org
* Mining Justice Alliance: www.miningjusticealliance.wordpress.com
* Canadian Foreign Policy Institute: www.foreignpolicy.ca
* Common Frontiers Canada: www.commonfrontiers.ca
* Alliance for Global Justice: www.afgj.org
* CODEPINK: www.codepink.org
* School of Americas Watch: www.soaw.org

Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)

To support land and environmental defenders, and human rights, justice and democracy defense struggles in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
* U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
* Canada: Box 82858, RPO Cabbagetown Toronto, ON, M5A 3Y2

Credit-Card Donations: [link removed]
Direct deposits, write to: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
Donations of securities, write to: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])

13 BRAVE GIANTS ([link removed])
How We Won the Landmark Hudbay Minerals Lawsuits in Canada and the Mynor Padilla Criminal Trial in Guatemala, and at What Cost! ([link removed])

TESTIMONIO Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala ([link removed])
Edited by Catherine Nolin & Grahame Russell (Between The Lines, 2021)

More info: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) , www.rightsaction.org
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