Venezuela defends that it will leave the ICC because of its “inaction” in the face of the “genocide” of the Palestinians

MADRID, December 10 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The President of the Venezuelan Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, defended the country’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC), through a bill that will be submitted for final approval this Thursday, denouncing its “inaction” in the face of the “genocide” of the Palestinians and in the face of attacks by the United States in Caribbean waters which have already killed more than 80 people.

“If we stay there (at the ICC), we will re-victimize ourselves,” he declared during the parliamentary debate on the “Law for the Defense of Palestine and Humanity” which will remove this Latin American country from the Rome Statute.

The President of the National Assembly (AN) justified this decision by the Court’s “vassalism, hypocrisy and inaction” in the face of the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, where it has killed nearly 72,000 people in just over two years.

“It is an insult for the Venezuelan people to belong to this international organization because of their inaction. What has he done? It is a slap in the face to our libertarian condition, that we continue to suppose that these can be our judges. It is an insult, I feel insulted if we remain in this blessed Rome Statute,” he said, according to a statement published on the Parliament’s website.

In addition, Rodríguez stressed that the ICC has “said absolutely nothing about the extrajudicial executions in the Caribbean Sea by North American imperialism”, since last September the US military began bombing ships in these waters and in those of the Pacific, alluding to an alleged operation against drug trafficking in which 87 people have already been murdered.

In this sense, he denounced the failure to speak out on the impact of Washington’s sanctions and the economic blockade against Venezuela which, as he assured based on a 2017 study, led to the death of 40,000 citizens.

Thus, he criticized the fact that, after the Venezuelan Parliament asked the TPI to open a file on the “devastating” effects of these measures, “what was their response? They swallowed their tongues again.”