Venezuelan parliament rejects 'illegal' asset freeze

February 9, 2008
Issue 

The president of the Venezuela's National Assembly's Energy and Mines Committee, Angel Rodriguez, rejected the illegal judicial decision on behalf of British, US and Dutch courts, of freezing the Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) assets in their countries, as part of a lawsuit brought by the US Exxon Mobil, due to the nationalisation of the Orinoco Belt, which took place last May.

"This process has been part of the full oil sovereignty exercise on Venezuelan territory, so any argument or lawsuit is incumbent only in national courts. Thus, the National Assembly categorically rejects the oil transnational company intentions of having influence on the international arbitration, which is a colonialist practice established on the oil opening in the '90s and which is contrary to the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela."

Rodriguez pointed out that this judicial ruse intends to have influence on the allocation of oil reserve areas in Venezuela, because the Bolivarian government has established multipolar principles when finding hydrocarbon partners, varying the countries with which it associates and giving privilege to policies that promote Latin American and Caribbean unity.

"This has bothered the imperialist countries at North America and Europe, which were used to the subordinate practices of the Fourth Republic administrations, which gave to these nations the monopoly in the relations of national crude exploitation."

The lawmaker remarked on the complete independence of the Venezuelan state to allocate of future areas at the Orinoco Belt, the world's biggest liquid hydrocarbons reserve.

He pointed out that the courts that, infringing the more basic norms of civil coexistence, intend to apply colonialist practices from the 19th Century, coincidently belong to the judicial systems of countries that have supported the invasion, destabilisation and violation of human rights in Iraq, Afghanistan, Falkland Islands and several African countries, among others.

"The Venezuelan state's oil policies aim at collective well-being, so any intention of putting pressure on the Bolivarian government will not succeed. These practices are a result of the developed nations and their companies' desperation, due to the irrational use and subsequent depletion of their energetic resources."

Rodriguez highlighted that the developed countries have already accepted that they have consumed more than the half of conventional oil supplies across the planet, and that possibly the peak of oil supplies was reached in March 2005, so Venezuela reiterates its solidarity commitment to all the countries on Planet Earth that need the resource.

[Reprinted from Bolivarian News Agency, February 8.]

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