UN General Assembly
2021

There is a fierce campaign against our right to purchase what our country needs and against our right to sell what our country produces, in particular vast oil and mining resources, on Venezuelan territory, which we have exploited for decades. Financial accounts are being investigated; gold from the legal international reserves of the Central Bank of Venezuela in London has been seized and frozen, and billions of dollars in bank accounts in the United States, Europe and beyond have been confiscated and frozen. Venezuelan oil and mining companies are banned from trading their products and opening bank accounts across the world for the purposes of making purchases, collecting payments and conducting business transactions freely, as stipulated under international law. It is cruel and is, in essence, criminal and systematic financial, monetary, commercial, economic and energy persecution. Venezuela therefore raises its voice in condemnation of such persecution before the peoples of the world.