Venezuela

"Government figures show military equipment was approved for sale from UK-based companies to Venezuela’s armed forces as recently as September last year, despite the Foreign Office listing the country as “of concern” regarding human rights.

Overall, £2.5m of military goods have been sold to the country since 2008, including components for military radar, weapon sights and military aircraft engines. In the last year of figures, to March 2016, licences for goods worth more than £80,000 were approved, including equipment for crowd control to be used by law enforcement agencies.

The revelations will prompt questions about why the government continues to allow arms sales to countries the Foreign Office lists as having a poor human rights record, from Venezuela to Saudi Arabia."

We know if/when Corbyn gets power it certaintly will continue , he refused to condemn his friend Chavez

A country of concern regarding human rights? Surely not !

I do wish that Socialists wouldn't be so damn defensive about what is happening in Venezuela, you can't defend the indefensible.Corbyn is doing what he always does when uncomfortable with outcomes....quietly ignores it.

Chavez is dead, by the way.

uk.businessinsider.com/us-oil-sanctions-could-bankrupt-venezuela-2017-7

This is the indefensible.
Venezuela was the richest country in South America until oil prices plummeted.
Chavez used oil money to help the poor. 95% of Venezuelan exports were oil.

The US doesn't like socialist countries. It is now trying to bankrupt Venezuela by using oil sanctions.

Can anyone see a problem with the UK government allowing weapons to be sold to the Venezuelan government while at the same time the US sanctions its citizens from dealing with Venezuela?

I do wish that Tories wouldn't be so damned defensive about what trump is trying to do to Venezuela.
Where do you get your information from, roses?

Venezuela simplified.

uk.businessinsider.com/venezuela-was-latin-americas-richest-country-heres-how-it-fell-apart-2017-7

Jen, Corbyn condemned the selling of arms to Saudi Arabia, not a squeak about selling arms to Venezuela.

Rubbish, Annie, Corbyn condemns the selling of arms to any country, and you know it.

Nothing to say about the government granting companies the right to sell arms to Venezuelan government while at the same time condemning the Venezuelan government for using those arms, Annie?

That's hypocrisy.

Have the items we've sold them been used against their citizens? The links show we've sold
components for military radar, weapon sights and military aircraft engines.
I don't see how what we have sold them are being used to suppress the opposition. Or is the argument that we should not have a commercial relationship with Venezuela or they should not have any military of their own?

The argument is that we should not sell them any military equipment while they are using it on their own people.
Even May says that, but doesn't follow it through.

www.indy100.com/article/jeremy-corbyn-venezuela-condemn-theresa-may-arms-saudi-arabia-kevin-maguire-7882101

There's a map halfway down this link which shows all the countries that the government thinks have dubious human rights but still sells weapons to.
Colombia and Venezuela in South America.
In fact the worrying thing is that there are more countries on that map that they sell to rather than do not.

Jen, I have said so many times I am against arms sales , please do not accuse me of hypocricy in your poor defence of Corbyn, he deserves a degree in hypocricy

When all else fails - diversion

I didn't accuse you of hypocrisy, I accused May of it.

You know very well that Corbyn is against selling arms, and always has been, so why do you say he doesn't condemn the Venezuelan government?
You know all the anti arms trade groups he is a member of.
He hasn't stopped being against the arms trade and the use of arms just because he has become leader of the Labour party.

He didn't condemn the monry given to the IRA did he? Jen carry on defending him, I will continue continue to post mt opinions of him, he is a hypocrite

Why would Corbyn congratulate a government with a dubious human rights record?

Is May not a hypocrite, Annie?

Dubious human rights record?

www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/09/theresa-may-should-defend-not-denigrate-human-rights

Sorry, Jen, I was talking about Corbyn. Why would he congratulate them? I mean, it's OK to talk about him without framing his decisions in the context of someone else - he's his own person, right?

Is Corbyn a hypocrite Jen, this labour leader who stabbed grass roots members in the back, who supported the IRA, who is self declared friend of .hamas , who refused to take part in tv debates during the referendum campaign

When governments turn rogue ( as in Venezuela) it is quite ridiculous and offensive to find that some posters on here ( very few thankfully) try and defend them just because they call themselves a Socialist government, while murdering and arresting and beating their own people.

Heaven help us all if that is Corbyn's idea of socialism!!

Although, even if that is benign, that would probably be just a heartbeat away from McDonnell's form of socialism.

Hells bells Venezuela has been a mess for years both whilst Hugo Chavez was alive and now even more so since Nicolas Moduro took office.

What was perhaps not expected, even by the likes of Corbyn /McDonnell/Abbot is the lengths of violence Moduro has taken against his people . Mind you many others will be surprised by it to be honest.

There have been enough threads/posts that have spoken about Castro/Chavez/Maduro on GN I remember this one in June 2016.

www.gransnet.com/forums/news_and_politics/a1227066-Dreadful-situation-in-Venezuela
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This is from the Independent in 2013 !!

' Mr Maduro's stunningly close victory came after a campaign in which he promised to carry on Mr Chavez's self-proclaimed socialist revolution, while Mr Capriles declared that the Chavez regime put Venezuela on the road to ruin.'

Mr Capriles' main campaign weapon was to simply emphasise "the incompetence of the state" in handling the world's largest oil reserves.

Millions of Venezuelans were lifted out of poverty under Mr Chavez, but many also believe his government not only squandered, but plundered, much of the one trillion dollars in oil revenues during his tenure.

Venezuelans are afflicted by chronic power cuts, crumbling infrastructure, unfinished public works projects, double-digit inflation, food and medicine shortages and rampant crime - one of the world's highest murdere and kidnapping rates - that the opposition said worsened after Mr Chavez died on March 5.

That discontent was thick across the nation."

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hugo-chavezs-successor-nicolas-maduro-wins-venezuela-election-in-highly-contested-result-8572750.html
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It will always be the case some who have feted the likes of Castro/Chavez and Moduro, those who have praised them and their Socialist Governments will continue to do so. They will apportion blame for all the woes of Venezuela onto other individuals, nations and organizations but at the end of the day Moduro is the one to take the blame for HIS actions.