The Venezuelan minister for foreign affairs, Yván Gil, expresed his opinion that the United Nations (UN) is being held hostage by bureaucrats “who have turned human rights into a business, a weapon of political blackmail at the service of dark interests.”This Monday, February 24, from Geneva (Switzerland), during his speech at the High Level Segment of the 58th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, the top Venezuelan diplomat explained that a clear example of this distortion of functions has been the attacks on Venezuela, since the nation has been “victim of this perverse machinery, which fabricates reports with falsified data, promotes narratives designed by intelligence agencies, and gives legitimacy to destabilization operations.”Foreign Minister Gil stated that all these operations have been “financed with public funds from governments that claim to be defenders of democracy but which have fueled scams by Venezuelan fascist groups who, from abroad, have lived off the plundering of assets and the business of lying.”Gil accused the administration of former US President Joe Biden of promoting a structure of economic and financial aggression and noted that this structure received support from the European Union (EU).“From here we ask: Where are the billions of dollars stolen by their supposed allies in Venezuela?” Said FM Gil. “Who is responsible for the blatant plundering of CITGO? How many of those USAID funds have ended up in the private accounts of corrupt politicians, while here we are accused with fabricated reports?”How the Human Rights Industry Manufactures Consent for ‘Regime Change’The foreign minister stated his opinion that the UN “has become a market where human rights are auctioned off to the highest bidder” instead of being a space for justice and peace. FM Gil questioned how “from this Council, disinformation campaigns are being mounted against Venezuela, and there is absolute silence in the face of the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza… It is the height of hypocrisy.” In addition, he criticized the institutionalized corruption in the UN, such as the financing of “ghost projects with the sole purpose of attacking sovereign governments,” referring to USAID.Finally, he said that “the invalid Fact-Finding Commission is a simple mechanism to obtain money from USAID and other agencies, funds that end up filling the accounts of the same political operators who present themselves here as ‘defenders of human rights.’” (RedRadioVE)Translation: Orinoco TribuneOT/JRE/SL