Venezuela Sues The United Kingdom Over Frozen Gold

Above photo: February 2020 protest in the United Kingdom. From The New Line.

In January 2019, the Bank of England froze over $1.2 billion worth of Venezuela’s gold, refusing to release it to the democratically elected government and contributing to the deadly economic crisis caused by the Trump administration’s ongoing regime change efforts. Now Venezuela is suing the Bank of England and the trial is happening this week!

The Venezuelan government isn’t even asking that the money be returned to them. Instead, they want the funds transferred to the United Nations Development Program so that this UN agency can buy food and medicine on behalf of the country to help it weather the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tell the Bank of England to release the funds regardless of what the court decides; the lives of Venezuelans depend on it!

The Trump administration has been working since 2017 to get other countries to join its cruel sanctions. The United Kingdom was one of the first countries to heed the call, disregarding the unconscionable cost to human life and Venezuela’s economy. Ordinary people shouldn’t have to suffer because the Bank of England decided to play politics instead of acting like a bank should.

The Bank of England claims to be independent, but thanks to former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s new book, we’ve just learned that the decision to freeze Venezuela’s gold was entirely political! In 2019, then UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he was “delighted to cooperate” with the Trump administration’s regime change scheme. He had the Bank of England freeze the gold as a means of destroying the Venezuela economy.

Click here to tell the Bank of England that Venezuela needs its gold to fight COVID-19 and feed the Venezuelan people!

We’ve been asking the UK to return Venezuela’s gold since September, but now is a good time to renew the call given the ongoing trial. We’ve teamed up with Francisco Dominguez, a peace activist with the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign in the UK who will present the petition to the Bank of England once coronavirus restrictions are lifted. The sanctions against the Venezuelan people are brutal – an estimated 100,000 people have died due to them since 2017. Releasing Venezuela’s gold will go a long way towards ensuring that the country’s coronavirus pandemic is kept under control.