Foreign Digest: Venezuela, Ecuador, France, Syria, Russia and Turkey

Venezuela OAS expulsion

            Amidst ongoing demonstrations against the Socialist dictatorship, Venezuela is now withdrawing from the Organization of American States, which had criticized the Venezuelan regime for its bloody crackdown on dissent. 

Communist Cuba, an ally of Socialist Venezuela, is the only other state in the Americas that is not a member of the OAS.  The OAS should continue to encourage liberty in Cuba and Venezuela, as well as in member states Ecuador and Nicaragua.    

Ecuador’s authoritarianism

            Ecuador, which is led by an authoritarian leftist allied with Venezuela, is violating the freedom of the press through a new press law.  The Ecuadorian Government, which had abetted Venezuela’s aid for Marxist narco-terrorists in Colombia, also harbors an agent of the Russian Federation in its embassy in the United Kingdom.

French presidential elections

            The center-left candidate won more votes in the French presidential election earlier this week than three pro-Russian candidates, one of whom was far-left, one was conservative and the other a far-right nationalist.  The Russian Federation, which has interfered heavily in this election, has been particularly backing the nationalist candidate, who came in second. 

As neither candidate won a majority, there will be a runoff election.  The ruling socialist party candidate earned the fifth most votes, as neither major party will have a candidate representing it in the runoff for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic.  Because of the threat to liberty and global security of a victory by the anti-European, anti-NATO xenophobe, the losing conservative candidate and a former conservative president, Nicholas Sarkozy, are backing the center-left candidate. 

The leading candidate, a former cabinet minister, has been targeted by Russian state hackers, as well as by Russian propaganda, as the same phony social media accounts that have been supporting Donald Trump are now supporting—in French—the nationalist candidate.  Trump had made favorable comments on behalf of the Russian-backed xenophobe who denies French culpability on the Holocaust. 

Syria’s chemical weapons attack

            The French Republic concluded this week beyond a doubt that sarin gas was used in the attack on civilians last month and that Syria’s Baathist dictator, Bashar Assad, was responsible for the attack.  Sarin is a prohibited chemical weapon of mass destruction that the Syrian regime was required to give up in 2013 in its agreement brokered by its ally, the Russian Federation.  The chemical attack was launched from a base at which Russian military forces operate. 

The Syrian regime, which is a state sponsor of terrorism, and Russia often target innocent civilians.  The Syrian civil war has killed hundreds of thousands and created five million refugees, the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War.  Syria is also backed by terrorist-sponsor Iran and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist organization.

Russian anti-government protests

            There were more protests yesterday across the Russian Federation against the government’s tyranny and kleptocracy.

Turkish authoritarianism

            Turkey’s Islamist authoritarian government is continuing to expand its post-military coup crackdown to the point of establishing a totalitarian Islamic regime.  The Turkish dictator, known as “the Sultan,” is banning certain Internet information websites and television programs he deems “un-Turkish.” 

            Like Venezuela and Russia, Turkey’s tyrant was democratically elected and gradually became authoritarian by seizing more and more powers, through both legal and illegal means, while oppressing the press and the democratic opposition and violating the independence of the judiciary.