MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Boric insists human rights are to be defended against anyone violating them

Boric described Maduro's government in Venezuela as a dictatorship trying to steal the elections

Chilean President Gabriel Boric Font said Tuesday during his participation at the United Nations General Assembly that leftwing countries needed to have a single stance on human rights violations, regardless of whether they were committed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Venezuelan ruler Nicolás Maduro. He also criticized countries with “double standards” on the issue.

Regarding the situation in the Middle East, Boric refused “to choose between Hamas terrorism and the massacre and genocidal behavior of Netanyahu's Israel; we do not have to choose between barbarities” because ”human rights must always and everywhere be respected.“

“Why is it that today the progressive sectors are also questioned by the same citizens? There is something very important that we establish together,” Boric stressed. “The progressive forces are weakened when, in the face of certain conflicts, they adopt hesitant positions or positions based on interests, or the defense of misunderstood friendships, or political colors, instead of principles,” he added. “In the face of conflicts that tear the world apart,” progressive countries must have “a single joint position,” he went on.

Boric underlined that human rights violations “cannot be judged according to the dictator of the day who violates them or the president who violates them,“ be it ”Netanyahu in Israel or Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela (...) [Daniel] Ortega in Nicaragua or [Vladimir] Putin in Russia,” he further argued. “To vindicate the strength of the left we have to be able to defend principles and, in that, I believe that sometimes we fail because we do not have the same yardstick to judge.”

The Chilean leader also mentioned that security should not be an exclusive matter to be handled by rightwing parties. In addition, “Why is it that today in our different countries the ultra-right is claiming national identities? We are also proud of our identities and we defend the essence,” he noted.

Regarding migration, Boric admitted that rightwing forces responded ”with xenophobia“ but reckoned that his country was in no position to keep welcoming foreigners, particularly after the arrival of millions of Venezuelans fleeing Maduro's “dictatorship that falsifies elections.” However, he urged the United States to lift the economic blockade on Caracas, which “hit the Venezuelan people more than its rulers.” These measures ”only cause more poverty in the peoples and not in the dictators,” he argued.