Portland, OR – On Saturday, January 3, hundreds of Portlanders mobilized into the streets after the United States’ attack on Venezuela the night before, launching airstrikes and abducting President Nicolás Maduro.

The protest on January 3 was called by Portland for Palestine (P4) and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), and supported by Portland Contra las Deportaciones (PDXCD). It began at 2:30 p.m. across the street from Pioneer Courthouse Square, in the heart of downtown. Around 150 people chanted “Hands off Venezuela now! Free Maduro, free him now!” and “Trump wants war, Trump wants oil! Hands off Venezuelan soil!”

Cole Dunahugh of P4P told the crowd, “This is a war for oil, but it is also a war to do regime change on one of the few anti-Zionist governments currently standing. Venezuela cut all ties with Israel in 2009, and continues to support the resistance in their shared fight against U.S. imperialism.” Dunahugh went on to say, “The United States may have Maduro, but they do not have the vice president, they do not have the defense minister, they do not have the interior minister, and they will not have Venezuela!”

“The Venezuelan government has been a target of the United States for decades,” explained Fern Long, an organizer with P4P, “These economic foreign policies of violence and terror, such as naval blockades, sanctions and no fly zones have now become more overt. Night operations and bombings in the capital of Caracas, striking not just military assets but targeting grave sites and residential zones, while the government that fails to represent us, the people of the United States, actively continues and escalates a war on multiple fronts providing nothing but death and despair for the people.”

Around 3:30 p.m., the protest at Pioneer Square had grown to over 200 people, and marched to meet another protest.

Like protests that happened all across the country on January 3, these were organized within hours of the airstrikes on Caracas, showing the heightened level of organization of recent years, as well as the overwhelming unpopularity of the Trump administration’s violation of Venezuelan sovereignty. The anti-war movement is in a period of rapid growth and will only continue to be so as the American empire continues to decline and lash out.

#PortlandOR #OR #AntiWarMovement #Venezuela #P4P #PDXCD #FRSO