The U.N. General Assembly voted in favor of referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity and to impose targeted sanctions on the Asian country. The vote was 111-19, with 55 abstentions.
Guess which was one of the nineteen countries supporting Pyongyang? The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. (Bolivia, Cuba and Ecuador voted “no” as well. El Salvador and Nicaragua abstained. The rest of Latin America voted Yes).
The government has supported North Korea before, notoriously in the U.N. Human Rights Council, but this is definitely a new low. The story is not over yet: the final call to send North Korea to the ICC is up to the U.N. Security Council, where Venezuela was recently elected. Right on time for the upcoming opening of North Korea’s embassy in Caracas.
If there was any doubt as to what to expect from Venezuela during its two-year tenure at the UNSC, look no further than the vote above. Venezuela has, once again, sided with Russia and China, joining Zimbabwe, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, and Myanmar, among others, to defend the most brutal dictatorship on the planet.
Venezuela could have voted no – after all, the outcome was all but certain – but instead made it a point of siding with the pariahs even in the face of certain defeat at the UN. The message to the Russians and the Chinese is crystal clear: I’m all yours, baby. I’m all yours.
Caracas Chronicles 
North Korea may be a major human rights violater, but this human rights diplomacy is pretty hypocritical. I haven’t heard anybody advocating Benyamin Netanyahu be referred to the ICC for his war crimes against Gazan children. And we all know GWB would spend the rest of his life comfortably in his Texas ranch, while Iraq is still burning, courtesy of Operation Shock and Awe (any luck finding them WMDs yet?)
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That very statement is a self demostrating example of the serious deficiencies to enforce human rights on a global scale. I advocate for the Israeli government to answer for its most questionable actions against Palestine, but the trend within the UN Human Rights Council of focusing, disproportionally, solely on Israel is perhaps its biggest burden to maintain any semblance of legitimacy. Israel currently holds more condemnations from the UNHRC than the rest of the World combined; and for a long standing issue that, statistically speaking, pales in comparison with other high profile cases of human rights abuse (Sudan, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Congo, etc.). The political dimension of the Arab-Israeli questions is so much greater than its humanitarian one, it’s the perfect scapegoat for regimes even worse than Israel’s to cover their backs and act with an almost gleeful sense of impunity.
If the international Community really wishes for human rights violations to be accounted for, it must actively push to condemn the most glaring examples, not just the ones that are pollitically. convenient to the Third World (mayority of votes on UNGA and UNHRC). Just because some controversial cases (like GWB’s disastrous incursion into Iraq) are currently politically deadlocked, doesn’t mean that the rest should go unnacounted for. Its like giving up on prosecuting corrupt and criminally oppresive GN officers because you can’t get Diosdado first (under the assumption of our battered justice system getting its act together post-chavismo)
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To compare Israel’s actions in Gaza to what North Korea is doing is like comparing a headache to liver cancer.
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Chavistas are known for their prowess at calling terminal cancer “just a knee injury”
The comandante estiró la pata on a knee problem.
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A self-inflicted headache… Israel would not do anything in Gaza if Gazans (that is, Hamas goons and some free-lance jihadis) stopped trying to kill Israelis.
I wonder if Javier is even aware of the thousands of explosive rockets fired from Gaza into Israel before Israel responded in self-defense. Or of the extensive system of tunnels constructed by Hamas for infiltration into Israel? (At great expense, when “needy” Palestinians are among the biggest recipients of humanitarian relief.) Or that 160 child laborers died in the construction of these tunnels?
(Sorry to thread jack, but how would you feel if in a discussion of UKIP’s alliance with the Swedish Democrats in the Euro Parliament, someone wrote “The SDs are scum, but they aren’t murdering government supporters in the streets like the Venezuelan fascists”?)
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Javier, your comment is sickening and help us understand how Venezuela has reached rock bottom like that. If you can relativize what’s been going on in North Korea by comparing said country to democracies like Israel and the US, then I suggest you to move your expat ass to North Korea asap.
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Yeah, the IsIs are using them as well as the Syrian regime. Some many tons are sitting sill in airy Iraqi bunkers to violative to safely use or move
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Bueh… el que anda con malandros… termina asaltando camioneticas tambien!
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It would have been pretty funny if the DPRK had admitted it is evil and voted to apply further sanctions on itself… “yeah, we suck, we know, sorry …”
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How do Chavistas defend this kind of disgusting nonsense? North Korea is as purely evil as they come.
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To vote against sanctioning North Korea for human rights abuses is to declare that no state behaviour, anywhere in the world, and however egregious, deserves punishment.
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Unless the state in question is the Untied States :)
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Despots of a feather oppress together.
No surprise on what Venezuela will do when the matter reaches the UNSC, but at the very least we can be sure that at the end, DPRK won’t get referred to the ICC because of Russia and/or China’s veto. VE is the only non-perm member that voted no, although Angola and Malaysia abstained.
Given that the majority of LATAM voted yes in this resolution, and that they allowed Venezuela to take the UNSC spot with no competition, it just makes you wonder if our sister countries actively try to be cynical.
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China is the second economic power on earth and look at the two bit group of malandro regimes that form its core base of international supporters. That to me is stunning.
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Boy, do we join ranks with the wrong people.
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Another one for the list of really embarrasing faux passes on behalf of the malandro court that ungovern us. A vote the color of the blood of the north korean victims by none other than M GabyChavez, let it be noted for the future, and one can only hope that divine justice will make the pendulum law swing to come back to bite you in the —– “Gaby” 👹
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Rest assured that history will not forgive those buffoons.
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Don’t hold your breath waiting for justice….
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lavici,
Excellent point and a great sound bite for the press.
Gabriel Chavez, the ultra-wealthy partying golden girl chosen because of her dead father, votes to deny the enslaved population of a vicious dictator their opportunity in court.
Totally sick.
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So this is just a “faux pas”? No this is just one more exhibit in the long process of Venezuela becoming a pariah state. “Dime con Quien andas, y te diré quien eres…”
Our country will never go back to what it was before- I mean it seemed like Switzerland when comparing it to the shithole we have today. It seems Venezuela will forever now be just one more of the many basket cases and criminal states that make up the majority go the UN – If we ever were part of the liberal democratic block.
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Kind of interesting to see Argentina and Brazil voting in favor. Argentina always appears to be on the same ideological page as Vzla. Maybe just when they have suitcases full of money headed their way.
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Suitcases of dollars not bolivars are hard to find these days.
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Suitcases of guns… nanny guns
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