Call in Day: Solidarity with Venezuela – Friday, January 25, 2019

Call in Day:  Solidarity with Venezuela  – Friday, January 25, 2019

Senator Amy Klobuchar – 202-224-3244

Senator Tina Smith – 202- 224-5641

Representative Ilhan Omar  – 202-225-4755

On January 23rd President Trump recognized Juan Guaido, the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, as the Interim President of Venezuela. The US allies of Canada, Brazil and Colombia immediately also joined with Trump to say that they also recognize Guaido, instead of President Nicolas Maduro, as the interim president.  The US is organizing a coup against a democratically elected government and we are concerned that US intervention will escalate into a military intervention or a civil war. So far Trump’s actions have been seen as bipartisan with no significant Democratic opposition. We urge our supporters to call on Minnesota’s senators and newly elected Ilhan Omar in the House to voice resistance to the US efforts to orchestra a regime change in Venezuela.  

Key background:

Venezuela holds regular elections and Nicolas Maduro was just re-elected.  The US sponsored “opposition” regularly boycotts elections and instead calls for foreign backed coups.  Guaido didn’t even run in the recent presidential election. The US backed opposition speaks openly about coordinating with the US government – especially key Republicans like President Trump and Senator Marco Rubio. The “opposition” is calling for mass privatization and neoliberal capitalism.  

While the US and Canada are acting like there is an international consensus for an interim president, so far Mexico, China, Russia, Cuba, El Salvador, Bolivia and Turkey have all stood with President Maduro publicly and denounced this attempted coup.

The US mainstream media has been beating the drums for US intervention and promotes Juan Guaido as the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly without an explanation that the National Assembly is not what the Venezuelan constitution designates as their legislative branch.  The Constituent Assembly is the legislative branch and the Venezuelan Supreme Court has ruled that the National Assembly is unconstitutional. The mainstream media hasn’t been explaining that Guaido leads a rogue parallel legislature.

The US has a history of organizing coups in Latin America and supported a failed coup attempt in Venezuela against President Hugo Chavez in 2002.  Trump has hinted that there could be US sponsored violence in Venezuela and insists that “all options are on the table”. Trump has indicated for a while that he wants to overthrow the Maduro government.  He included Venezuela on the 2018 Muslim ban, has increased economic sanctions, and met with coup plotters in 2017.

Recently Colombia (a neighbor to Venezuela on the West) has been added to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO) even though it is nowhere near the North Atlantic.  Many are concerned that Trump might move the troops he is drawing down in Syria and Afghanistan and move them to Colombia to be used in a military intervention against Venezuela.

Venezuela is a country rich in natural resources and has some of the largest reserves of oil in the world.