The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, better known by its acronym "ALBA," strongly condemned the current violence in Syria on Sunday. But the ALBA group wasn't condemning the slaughter of civilians by the Assad dictatorship, but violence that it said was being committed by "irregular groups supported by foreign powers."

The ALBA group, which consists of Latin America's far-left led countries Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua and a handful of Caribbean countries dependent on Venezuelan oil, made the pronouncement at its eleventh summit held in Caracas, Venezuela.

The statement said, "the member countries of ALBA condemn the violence armed rebel groups supported by foreign powers have unleashed against the Syrian people," and also expressed the desire for a "return to calm" and "an atmosphere of peace."

The ALBA alliance made the accusation that unnamed Western countries were conducting "a systematic policy of interference and destabilization" against Syria, and also offered full support for Syria's dictator Bashar al Assad. Assad's reforms, argues the statement, "seek a political solution to the current crisis," although, the ALBA countries claim, infiltrators from outside the country want to impose a change of government by force.

The claim is ironic, as Venezuela and Cuba, the leaders of ALBA, are both notorious for interfering in other countries to try to force changes in their governments. Cuba, for its part, even sent infiltrators into Venezuela as far back as 1966, entering the country at the coast of Machurucuto.

Venezuela, under the increasingly autocratic regime of left-wing leader Hugo Chavez, has spent at least $33 billion dollars to influence elections in foreign countries, according to testimony given in 2008 to the Western Hemisphere Affairs Subcommittee of House Committee on Foreign relations.

Despite that fact, Hugo Chavez made the claim that ALBA will always be in favor of "self-determination, sovereignty and the promotion of peace," according to reports from state-controlled news sources in Venezuela.

Since the uprising in Syria began in 2011, the Assad regime has killed over 3500 civilians, according to Human Rights Watch, and underground video secretly recorded and smuggled out of the country lately has confirmed that Assad's troops have been firing indiscriminately into crowds of unarmed civilians.

The ALBA countries have also supported other despots during the Arab Spring, including terrorist funder Muammar Qaddafi, before he was killed by Libyan freedom fighters.

Source: AmericasForum.com