#HandsOffVenezuela
Meredith Aby-Keirstead, speaking for the Anti-War Committee, at the Speak Out for Venezuela on 1/26/2019
Trump’s calls for a stronger democracy in Venezuela is absurd. Venezuela holds regular elections and Nicolas Maduro was just re-elected and just started his new term of office. The US sponsored “opposition” regularly boycotts elections and instead calls for foreign backed coups. Guaido, who Trump just declared the president of Venezuela, 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. It’s important to understand that this is not a legitimate opposition movement. It doesn’t value the sovereignty of Venezuela and is asking for the US to put it into power. This isn’t a call for democracy – this is the Trump administration trying to install a puppet government!
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 explained that Guaido leads a rogue parallel legislature because they are too busy reading US State Dept press releases and pretending they are “objective”.
I had the pleasure of meeting with Venezuelan activists in 2008. They were excited about the socialist project Chavez was leading. Many of them had criticisms of Chavez – including that he hadn’t nationalized enough industries – but they were all supportive of the fact that the resources of Venezuela were being spent on housing and other needs for the poor – instead of making North Americans rich. Their biggest fear was that they wouldn’t get to finish their socialist project because the US would try to take over again.
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 again and insists that “all options are on the table”. Trump has indicated for a while that he wants to overthrow the Maduro government and even publicly met with coup plotters in 2017.
Another sign that Trump was going after Venezuela is that he listed it on the 2018 Muslim ban. We, the Anti-War Committee, have always articulated that the thread that connected the countries on Trump’s racist Muslim ban was that they were all in the crosshairs of US imperialism. Venezuela, like Iran and North Korea, was on the list because it dared to resist US economic and military efforts to take it over. Just like the other countries on the Muslim ban, if there is a US sponsored war there will be tens of thousands or more people displaced by war. And since he included Venezuela on the Muslim ban it would be difficult for refugees to flee the US created conflict by coming here. There has already been an increase in refugees from Venezuela to Colombia from US economic sanctions and the hoarding of the Venezuelan elite which have destabilized the entire economy. Trump has used sanctions – just like he and other US presidents have used sanctions in Iran – to pressure for a regime change by starving people. This coup declaration is just the next stage in the regime change plan.
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. Others are worried that this will be more of a covert conflict with the CIA and special forces helping the fake opposition on the ground. Either way Venezuela is a country rich in natural resources and has some of the largest reserves of oil in the world which Trump has in his sights.
Yesterday Trump announced that Abrams, a war criminal with blood on his hands, will be leading the US’ regime change strategy. The Independent reported, “For many Latin America watchers [Abrams] will be associated with his denial of a 1982 massacre at El Mozote in El Salvador of hundreds of civilians by the military. Mr Abrams told a Senate committee that the reports of hundreds of deaths at El Mozote ‘were not credible.’In 1993, after a UN truth commission which examined 22,000 atrocities that occurred during the twelve-year civil war in El Salvador, attributed 85 percent of the abuses to the Reagan-assisted right-wing military and its death-squad allies, Mr Abrams said: ‘The administration’s record on El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement.'” Abrams appointment is a sign that this is a very dangerous time for Venezuela and that our solidarity and activism is needed!
Thank you for coming out today. Please join with us in challenging our friends and neighbors who have been duped into believing this “democratization” propaganda and in challenging Congress so that more of the MN delegation will stand with Rep Omar against this recent example of US imperialism!
The people of Venezuela are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!