hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle to trump administration's attempts to impose regime change on venezuela appear to be faltering the self-proclaimed interim president though how to gain much traction this may this may explain the administration's escalating rhetoric after all we are told the military option is still on the table.

cross talking venezuela i'm joined by my guest down to bar in new york he's an anti-war activists and host of a daily radio program in geneva we have desires he is a professor of law at geneva school of diplomacy and a former u.n. independent expert on the promotion of democratic and equitable international order and in ottawa we cross to isaac no one survived the he is a venezuelan canadian professor at the university of ottawa all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciated let me go to alfred first in geneva and congratulate him on his report that he presented to the united nations about it was very enlightening i wish more people would read it particularly in the media and maybe in the american political class why does the united states feel that it's incumbent upon itself to fix the problems of venezuela no one denies venezuela has a lot of problems but why should an outside power like the united states that has

a very checkered and i'm being very polite here checkered history and meddling in latin america so i mean why is the trump administration and of all people elliott abrams appointed to fix venezuela. well you know stephen cancer's book overthrow and william blow looms. killing hope it is an american tradition to tell latin america to apply what we call the monro doctrine and we have a long history of pig send the iran contra affair nicaragua panama grenada haiti etc we have been changing governments all the time participating in the coup against the so lie in on two or s. so this is nothing new i made the united states is

a hedge i'm on and does like to deal with latin america as college course venezuela is after all an incredibly rich country with the largest oil reserves with enormous gold reserves and by outside reserves and. coltan reserves so. it's a bonanza. and so now for it alfred so it's so it's just an asset play let me go to isaac here in ottawa i think it is. and it's very open unlike you know other of force regime change in the last two decades or so this administration is very open that it really wants to overthrow the government impose its own guy somebody that was of hardly known even within the country how do you think this forced imposed regime change is going because over the weekend it looked like it looked like a farce over the weekend go ahead and in ottawa where i beat your wife this is not

that you is trying to put some he's about that in a square on society saying enough is enough and now he said no i don't really know he said no. and no these are not what i grew up ration and now you say these are not for shortages and now he's and now you have a huge majority in this without saying that see we want change and we want change you want to go peacefully we want change in order to have a street election and we want change because these people these routine cannot last any more any longer than see and what is happening here is that you have actually a. true. reading this situation because what he saw happening here you are not only the us you have most of. you how can i

say we want change the only leverage what right does canada have to say about the fate of venezuela me or whatever i don't know what it is now we have to have demands ok john i mean let me let me hear what i want for equal time for everyone i told that before we started the recording here let's go to dan right now don. how is this a regime change playing out. because it seems to me because of the fiasco over the weekend on the bridge which was filmed by so many people and it was quite obvious who incited the violence there but then you have within the same news cycle the rhetoric is increased the you know they always say that you know all options are on the table here is this something that do you think should happen could happen and certainly it shouldn't and why should they listen to someone that is. under the constitution of venezuela is a nobody still ok you know it does trump want to risk his reelection fortunes

on and on another failed regime change expedition that we saw all through the middle east for the last two decades go ahead done. well i'll go into the details of this later but there are billions of assets of venezuela's that are in litigation in the us courts with a variety of multinational corporations attempting to seize them and having the us recognize someone under their control as president means that he can walk into the court basically and stipulate to whatever the other side wants and release those assets to these multinational corporations i'll get to that more well later i want to speak about though the rhetoric with chris we have marco rubio holding up a picture of a murdered gadhafi if you think about it libya play pretty much the same role that africa that venezuela has played in latin america for the last twenty years helping to organize it helping to fund its own independence and build you know beautiful

defense of their sovereignty standing up together etc and gadhafi that was his crime but what gaddafi did when he took off the power in sixty nine was said one of the poorest countries in the world and left it a middle class clown true where everyone there own their own homes people there were comfortable free education free health care etc those are not people that go out into the street and yet we see a picture of him held up by rubio as a threat to me now what rubio needs to know is that there are also people that are like him greedy little money grabbing people who go after other people's assets to steal them and there are photographs of their fate also the picture of mosul leni i think is something that someone needs to put in libya ok so ok and show him how he treats people yeah you know and i think marco rubio really embarrassed himself with that but that. comes because of hubris here let me go back to the geneva alfred

let's talk about the opposition here is it still is fractious is it was before because we haven't i think talk about elections well it seems that the opposition is. boycotting any kind of dialogue the government has asked for repeatedly. and met with silence here and in the last election they boycotted it so i mean what kind of democratic credentials does the opposition have if they don't want to engage in talks or even participate in an election go ahead in geneva are not very believable when i was in then as well in the lambert december two thousand and seventeen i spoke with members of the national assembly of the opposition all say they comment as the chamber of commerce etc some while feeling that they have their conception of what that is where love is supposed to be and socialism is simply not part of this and therefore they are not

interested in genuine dialogue as you know the former spanish. prime minister oh yes and we see you know that or conducted for two years or years yeah or negotiation face to face of the opposition together with the government when there were three or ambassador or supporting the opposition three ambassadors of latin american supporting the government in any event on the sixth of february two thousand aiding there was a reasonable compromise i published. our agreement in my report to the new when the human rights council and what happened is that the phone rang and the who knew about his get the order not the enemy so don't sign so he didn't say i know i have. the more it you know all mechanism proposed by mexico and europe way although it's

a lovely idea and i very much believe in mediation it takes two to tango or take and it can get i think igs exactly here let me let me i want to go i want to go back to isaac here because it's two against one and i want to be fair here i think as have been his way when yourself i mean would you like to see him in an american led military intervention into your country go ahead and are not what i. said we have a creamy not redeemed venezuela what you're describing as a source which will show this yes it's not the real thing what we have here is an article general trafficking we have people trafficking we call it the south atlantic where you talk about this whole. what's talking about all these assets and all these issues now then this will end kompany such as. in the way it's because china has decided to confiscate the these assets

that the troll in there should even i want when i say putting all. due respect this interim president he said he wants to compensated i mean is it a thief stealing from i mean that's the reality and it's a logic of this go ahead i say keep going keep going keep me here i mean a bankrupt they destroyed i mean shabby including rough irony to date he truly believes that that's why we went from treat on five mediocre virus be the fortune to a situation now that barely look at this early uses barely one point two. barrels a day that was a drop of oil prices well wasn't it anymore not royalty. we had a. big case of russia that's not the case of saudi arabia is still even in the

case of the u.s. i mean come on i know it's called the global price drought everybody with her pain if you will or her the most you know i would have i would argue ok gentlemen i'm going to we have to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on venezuela stay with r.t. . what do you do before you came here where did you work before you came here when as you live well death row in many u.s. states capital punishment is still practiced convicted prisoners can spend years waiting for execution but most of the time the victims' families they are very much in favor of the death but there are some people that because of what they do have given up the right to live among us some even proven innocent up to years on death

row and how many more exonerations is it going to take before we as a society. realize that this is not working and we actually do something about it. i've been saying the numbers mean something they've mattered the us has over one trillion dollars in debt more than ten white collar crime happens each day. eighty five percent of global wealth he longs to be ultra rich eight point six percent in the world market rose thirty percent some with four hundred to five hundred three per second per second and fifth when he rose to twenty thousand dollars. china's building two point one billion dollars ai industrial park but don't let the numbers over. the only number you need to remember one one business show you know board the one and only boom box.

welcome to max kaiser financial survival guide. putting flowers this is what happens to pensions in britain delegates i watched as a report. welcome back to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter about remind you we're discussing venezuela. ok let me go back to don in new york. dawn knows me very well and of course my viewers do and i'm a very conservative person and i'm not a very big friend of socialism as it has been practiced in the world everyone knows that having said that don and i'm not being an apologist chavez but i think it's pretty clear to say that a lot of people were in franchised in every single possible way in venezuela i mean

before chavez the literacy rate was low and now it's almost universal i am not praising chavez i'm praising those programs all right so it seems to me that there's millions and millions of in his wayland's that are invested in a future that was being built under a socialist government the socialist government has made some very big big mistakes and i always look at corruption ok however my point is here is that you have a population that is vested in a future for venezuela when they didn't have that opportunity before go ahead down . yeah beginning with living indoors since chavez there has been to want to have a million two and a half million apartments built for people who before had to live in our goals that's in a country of about twenty five million people that's a huge accomplishment under the conditions that we just heard described in terms of oil production which by the way certainly the u.s.

sanctions that have been imposed on venezuela have had an impact as well as the litigation trying to tie up the resources of venezuela in the u.s. courts like citgo have had an impact on venezuela's entire or oil industry but there are people who were materially invested because their lives are much better than they were before and they comprise a little better than half on on election day they comprise between forty and fifty five percent depending on the election over the last you know period since the one nine hundred ninety eight so you have people who have an opinion about this who feel very strongly i would just say also when you have aerial views of the competing rallies yeah go on in venezuela right now you have a good idea about that because you have a million people that show up from a doro and tens of thousands that show up for the opposition ok i say i should give i see i was i see what i was ignitions are on the ground to give the other prison

to give the other position i will introduce the question here isaac. reflect upon what you have heard and are you for i have you been a supporter of these sanctions against your country and do you support new sanctions because it doesn't seem i haven't finished my question it doesn't seem to have had much impact on the elites because well sanctions rarely do go ahead i think. first of all this time since i mean these are. actually outside assistance how to get a grip. and violent and by zero eight hours of human rights that's so. no they're for using. that if so why because you want these assets to be transferred to the least you can recall or zero one where you go in order to but i mean that's a different thing and talking about the sanctions if you want to talk about the sanctions and. you know i have my mom eighty seven years all leaving. she was in the hospital last week and she had to take. an antibiotic for an inspection and she

couldn't find it and she asked someone he said he and. i'm going to tell you in all that we have powers short to just eat at ag every day my sister lives in downtown can act has power shortages every day and these lack of mitigation and the well that but is that because of sanctions or is that because you're saying. you know i don't know all this is because we have a failed state we've ok i see her i see i see i see it after i see how i've given you more than i say being fair when i warned everyone before the recording please don't talk the talk over people you were given your time slot alfred you were you raised your hand like a good like a schoolboy wanting to inject something go ahead and you're a gentleman with the bow tie i can't resist go ahead alfred well peter when i went

through and as who had i thought like i say i thought now socialism as a failed model and it's all my girls fall now i spend an enormous times studying the think years studying for instance the book by pasqualino or now my own or we see only their medical study articles and i read in the morning the people on wednesday the articles by mark advised by. written a couple of very clever books on venezuela and i am persuaded today that obviously. in socialism there are too many idle logs and not enough technocrats and you knew the need technocrats but the real crisis is a direct result of the economic war and the economic war did not start yesterday the economic war started in one thousand nine hundred nine is been twenty years ago

anomic war there's been financial blockade and for instance when the government has tried to buy insulin you hunted transactions start by the banks because they will not transfer the seven and a half million dollars necessary to purchase insulin or to purchase antiretroviral drugs back in november says a dozen seventeen when i was there there was a malaria outbreak in the amazon region. murder wants to buy and in malaria medicine from colombia colombia as has low you have to go and buy it in india and roll it in so the question is here the horrors of the crime ok the cause of it ok how alfred alfred you know because of your good behavior isaac has raised his hand and he would like to jump in isaac would you like to respond to what alfred said going you're going to you're going to look like two people and sure the problem

here is that we have a real heat on a will to basic things to people and i want to talk about this caller just right whatever a book in this when i'm talking about my family. i'm not talking about us traction about the ada or statistics i'm talking about the real life of people when you have almost sure me going to swing screen that contrie you know that they want to be because they like to eat then this will be one to our all being higher choose you know going to go along we. know is because there are legal case situation but i know what i say but i think you know what there's one way to kind of result hang on down everyone's raising their hand that's great i just want to say something that isaac then i will go directly to dan here that's why we have elections ok and if the opposition doesn't want to participate in the elections then then really then you're saying that you give your you're giving way and you've

given way and that and that's what you get is a result here and since the opposition hardly can speak to itself before all this and now they won't speak to anyone for a negotiated end of this and this is what the government has been saying don you've been very patient i have to give fair time to everyone don go ahead. very quickly first that the beginning of this if socialism is such a failed experiment what is china. because they consider themselves still a socialist and a communist state with chinese characteristics. you know i have to say that it's important for people to keep in mind this thing that has to do with venezuela's assets being you know at the dock in the us courts and that the whoever ends up being the president recognized by the u.s. courts as president of venezuela will be free to dispose of these we're talking

about one point three billion dollars for christology international over a gold mine contracts for example you have done well i don't know if you go into dollars and it would fill up your training you bring up a very good point but what if it is why don't guy can't get back into venezuela is he just going to sit on all the wealth of venezuela in a plush palatial new york apartment is he going to run the country there i mean my goodness this is amazing alfred you wanted to know what he would be the i mean he wouldn't he would be a billionaire in exile maybe that's not a bad option for him alfred going you know i want to get i want to get everyone paratime alfred go ahead i think we all agree that we want. to help then as well in a. crisis how to do it i think through mediation i think the month that we deal mechanism it's a good idea i think until a new group that is his proposal to offer these united nations good offices is

good. settled back to live there our how you are good initiatives we have to calm down and we have to go back to the u.n. charter that prohibits the direct off and the use of force we have to go back to the oil yes charter i read you article nineteen of the oil is oh yes. daughter that's it no state or group of state has the right to him to remain directive or interethnic for any reason whatever in the internal affairs a state article or twenty knows they may use or encourage the use of corporate sent measures of an economic or political character in order to force the sun and will again others. i gotta jump in i want to make sure everyone gets one more word in before we end our isaac in ottawa go you are just really about the charter of the organization of american states that's what you are six sixty one because they interfere in the venezuelan affairs you know they fail by invading too much

although beach in this way and they say it when they get read a minister in a role with who got the greek elected president you know won't do what i am getting . that right like right wing i mean it's. ok let me tell you know a thing about thirty any day you know in fair elections mate to any eighteen and you have a fair elections when you band can be the stronger position to run when you have kindly they'd lie a little bolder locos in you know he's a when you are in to go back to run yeah you'll have it as i presume you have of why what i do i do get it wasn't elected to anything i think for clay what i'm selfish thing i'm doing a president or not so i was a stand in wrong all right you are easy he's a bit he's a representative who was elected even in to share election that we had because the

opposition fought for the truly extreme white goal was elected as a member of the next well an apartment and he was elected president of the prince went on but i mean and according to the and when i'm going to do when you're all right and you look at it more yet. i did and that is one incredibly patient and gentlemen we've run out of time i want to thank my guests in new york jim event and in ottawa and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t. see you next time and please remember. my son doing drugs my nephews was still in drugs my sister just with doing drugs it was like an epidemic of drug abuse america's public enemy number one in the united

states is drug abuse he started going after the users in the prison population who are we started treating sick people people who are addicted to these drugs like criminals while i was on the hill. then the war on drugs. there are countless numbers of people who are in prison for. sins for minor minor offenders in the drug trade it's a lot watching your children grow up and miss you in wave and say by day as you're walking out of a business it's just it doesn't get easier. as a financial survival does stacey let's learn a salad fill out let's say i'm the troika and here please grease the fight.

thank you for helping. on the story that's right if you looked at slavery. oh my dough for sixteen that month. you know. just far under our former isis fighters and boarding a philippine naval ship. but not for me ned now nineteen lives. just aren't abdulla still don't know what's waiting for them. or to. be near them

a lucky. break it out of. a man i'm not playing. with.

breaking news this hour pakistan say's it has shot into indian earth force jets over a disputed kashmir and capturing two pilots. also coming up on the program a highly anticipated second summit between donald trump a north korean leader kim jong il in this set to get under way in vietnam. amid rising tensions at the venice we are colombia border the crisis reaches the u.n. security council.