Milwaukee, WI – More than 20 people filled a room at the Urban Ecology Center in the Silver City neighborhood on April 29 to hear a report from Freedom Road Socialist Organization member Omar Flores on his recent trip to Venezuela. Flores was one part of a FRSO delegation that was invited to participate in a special conference that coincided with the tenth anniversary of the death of Comandante Hugo Chavez, the former Venezuelan president and one of the primary figures behind the ongoing Bolivarian Revolution.

Flores spoke broadly about his time in Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela. The differences between day to day life in Venezuela versus what his experiences have been living in Milwaukee are what stood out to him the most through his trip.

“I think something that was really substantial was getting to meet people from the FMLN, people that were held as political prisoners, people from radical organizations that have been painted as enemies by the United States, is that U.S. imperialism is what brought us all together in that space,” said Flores. “Imperialism is so wide-reaching, but getting to see it in a very tangible way, getting to meet people who’d be directly impacted by it, was impactful.”

“The first thing we saw when we arrived in the country was a person sitting behind a desk, and they’re wearing military garb, and we saw that they had a bunch of insignia that were in support of socialism and communism,” Flores continued. “We can be in that role, for those of us in Freedom Road, this is the future that we’re fighting for, for people that look like us, people we can identify with, being the ones that are running the show.”

“Walking through the city as an American was actually kind of unsettling. We saw thousands of murals that were in support of socialism, in support of communism, and [in support of] internationalism in general. What I didn’t see so much of was advertisements, just empowering revolutionary art,” Flores said. “We walked up to buildings to check them out and there were always people standing outside them telling us to come in. We were confused by this. We don’t have to pay for this, like, you’re not gonna yell at us for trespassing or tell us we can’t use the bathroom or any of that other weird stuff that we get in America? These beautiful places are all just public spaces and anybody can have access to them and they’re not really discriminatory about who could come in or out. That was something really notable, that everything seems to be a public space.”

More than the culture shock, Flores talked about the ways in which the Bolivarian Revolution has transformed society at all levels for people, whether it’s the community, the military, or the government itself.

“When the conference began, we got to hear a handful of speakers, and they were some of the most impactful. One of them, a woman – I can’t remember her name – told this story about how she lived in the slums and still does. The story here in the U.S. is, like, ‘Oh, I lived in the bad neighborhood, or the ghetto, and then I made it out,’ but in Venezuela it’s very different,” Flores said. “For them, it’s more like ‘Well, I lived in the slums and then I made the slums better with my community because we were given that opportunity by the government.’ This was a common story that we heard from a lot of the government officials because they’re all basically recruited from the barrios that they’re from.”

Flores went on: “Another speaker was dressed in military attire and kinda looked like what you might expect a right-winger to look like here in the U.S. so I was kinda unsettled. But then I heard him talk and what he was saying was that the military isn’t like in the U.S. They’re not a rich people’s army, they’re never gonna fight for the corporations; they’re working people in military clothing, and they’ll always operate with that in mind.”

“Delcy Rodriguez, the vice president of Venezuela, spoke about the need for something called a pluripolar world. What that means is we don’t just need different poles in the world challenging U.S. hegemony, but we need socialist poles, progressive poles, to move the world along,” Flores continued. “She said that while multipolarity is a good thing, we also need to be fighting for socialism. Multipolarity alone is not gonna take down imperialism, only socialism can. Hearing the vice president of a country saying that was really exceptional.”

Later in his presentation, Flores highlighted how many buildings that had previously belonged to the rich, like big high rises and corporate banking offices, had been appropriated and repurposed for the people for things like housing and the like.

Another focus of the trip and Flores's report was the case of imprisoned Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab. Saab was kidnapped during a diplomatic trip to Iran when his team stopped for fuel in Cabo Verde nearly three years ago. He has been languishing illegally in federal custody in Miami ever since. Saab is being denied critical medical attention. A court hearing in Miami earlier this year denied him his freedom on the grounds that the U.S. government doesn't recognize him as a diplomat because they don't recognize the Venezuelan government that issued him his credentials in the first place, a bogus argument that they're using to cover for the violation of established international law.

After the question-and-answer section, emcee Alan Chavoya promoted the ongoing spring fundraising campaign launched by FRSO several weeks before. Between all of the attendees, the FRSO Wisconsin managed to raise $800.

The evening ended with a special message from Chavoya, which was first delivered in English and then once more in Spanish:

“We’re gathered here today on April 29, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with members of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and others who are interested in expressing anti-imperialist solidarity with the people and government of Venezuela, led by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. Specifically, we are demanding that President Joe Biden end the unjust sanctions against Venezuela. We’re also demanding an end to the unlawful detention of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab. And we demand all of this now! Free Alex Saab!”

#MilwaukeeWI #Venezuela #BolivarianRepublicOfVenezuela #Americas

Caracas, Venezuela – It has now been more than 1000 days since Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab was first kidnapped by the U.S. government on the island of Cabo Verde, off the west coast of Africa. Since then, he’s been subjected to physical, psychological and chemical torture and moved to a federal detention center in Miami, Florida.

Two members of Minnesota's Anti-War Committee met with Saab’s wife, Camilla Fabri Saab, on Tuesday, March 7, alongside a delegation from the Alliance for Global Justice and progressive lawyers with the Free Alex Saab Movement. Camilla, Fabri Saab, mother to their two young daughters, provided updates on his case, emphasizing that his health has taken a severe turn for the worse.

Saab is missing several teeth due to beatings and has been denied access to all medical treatment beyond aspirin. Camilla’s account of the weaponization of psychiatric treatment in the Miami Detention Center was particularly shocking. First U.S. officials tortured Saab, then they diagnosed him with PTSD resulting from the torture that they themselves inflicted. Using that diagnosis as a pretext, Saab was forced to take pills which made him feel exhausted, dizzy and nauseous to such a degree that he was sometimes unable to even speak on the phone. Prison staff refused to tell him what was in these pills, and it was only after Alex Saab's lawyers intervened that this chemical torture ended.

Saab is a diabetic cancer survivor, making the Miami FDC’s decision to deny him medical attention especially cruel and life-threatening. Four weeks ago, he began to vomit blood. Despite this, he is still being denied the right to see a doctor. Saab’s rapidly deteriorating health means that the urgency of his fight for freedom intensifies day by day.

Everything indicates that this medical mistreatment is intentional U.S. policy, an extension of efforts to immiserate the Venezuelan people as a whole. The dark irony of Saab being deprived of healthcare is that he is being targeted for his efforts to bring exactly that – healthcare – to the people of Venezuela. Under a U.S.-led blockade that prevented Venezuela from importing basic goods like food, medicine, fuel and agricultural supplies, many Venezuelans suffered tremendously. Saab traveled the world as a diplomat for the Venezuelan government in order to secure the basic, critical supplies needed to save Venezuelans from starvation and death by preventable illnesses.

Camilla also provided the Anti-War Committee with an internal U.S. government email from Elliot Abrams, a neoconservative and former U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela. She described this email as a “smoking gun.” District Judge Robert Scola’s ruling against Alex Saab in December of last year relied on the assertion that he is not a diplomat and thus doesn’t have any diplomatic immunity. In the email Camilla presented, however, Abrams admits that Saab was in possession of a diplomatic passport and suggests that the U.S. will have to find a way to discredit the passport, such as claiming that it is a fake, in order to successfully prosecute him. The case against Alex Saab has been clearly politically motivated and illegal from the beginning, but this new evidence is concrete proof.

Since the visit, Camilla and the Free Alex Saab Movement have continued the fight, holding the U.S. government squarely responsible for Saab’s life. Their current demands are:

For the International Committee of the Red Cross to send a representative to the Miami Detention Center; for the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights to denounce Saab’s imprisonment as an illegal detention and a violation of human rights; for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to denounce the illegal detention of a diplomat by the U.S. as a violation of international law; and, immediate freedom for Alex Saab.

Activists in the U.S. know we cannot rely on the legal system to do its job and free Alex Saab. The U.S. government willingly violated international law. It will take a concerted, popular struggle for Saab to see his family again. The Free Alex Saab Movement is calling for activists to take to the streets for a National Week of Action from May 1-7 to build the movement and show U.S. leaders that we will not stand by while Saab, and Venezuelan people as a whole, are criminally attacked.

Free Alex Saab!

#CaracasVenezuela #Caracas #Venezuela #AlexSaab #BolivarianRepublicOfVenezuela #Americas

Caracas, Venezuela – On March 4 a member of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee visited the Feria Conuquera Agroecológico (Agroecological Small Farmer's Market) in Caracas’ Caobos Park and interviewed activist and biologist Giselle Perdomo. Perdomo, who organizes the farmer’s market, detailed how U.S. sanctions have impacted both the struggle for food sovereignty and her own family.

The market is run by Chavistas but is not itself a government program. It works to bring farmers from in and around Caracas to sell in the city. Under the weight of U.S. sanctions, food is very difficult to import into the country, but in the last couple of years the country has seen vast improvements in food sovereignty: Venezuela now produces 94% of its own food after importing 80% for the last 100 years. The farmer’s market is a small part of that effort.

Perdomo’s group also defends Venezuela’s revolutionary 2015 Seed Law that outlawed the use of transgenic or GMO seeds. Without the laws, Venezuelan farmers would be pressured to adopt seeds supplied by transnational GMO corporations in order to sell their crops on the international market. Under that system farmers must buy specially designed seeds, fertilizer and herbicide from the agricultural monopolies year after year, becoming fully dependent. Although the law was passed after his death, Hugo Chávez led the fight against transgenic foods. In one instance he ended a soybean contract with GMO giant Monsanto in 2005, advocating that the land be used instead for indigenous crops and calling transgenics a threat to the nation’s food sovereignty.

Promoting indigenous foods remains key today, although there are hurdles in getting the people to accept them over the international market foods they are accustomed to. Perdomo explained, “So, for example, I plant something that's called purple yam. And even Venezuelans don't know what it is, right? So I offer it here in the market, and many people just ask, you know, what's that? Because it looks like the color of beets. So people just look at it, it's weird. And they go on. So we need to try and change people's attitudes towards things that are local.” To this end the fair bakes the yams into bread to get people used to the taste and works on educating about local foods, how to make organic pesticides, and farming techniques.

Perdomo lost her six-year-old son in part because of the horrors of a medical system under attack by the U.S. Many doctors fled the country, live-saving medicines and equipment were impossible to import, and at times the electricity was spotty in hospitals. “My son, he had difficulties with his muscles. They were all very hard, so he couldn't breathe very well. He couldn't cough. So if he got a cold that was a life threatening thing for him. And taking him to a public hospital was just heartbreaking, because you saw kids queuing up to breathe, to get to the one piece of equipment that’s working. You know, the lighting sometimes didn't work. And then it was just chaos. It was chaos. You should be able to, you know, have a hospital that doesn't give you nightmares.”

It’s different now. Medicines like those that Perdomo’s son needed are more easily available, but it’s cold comfort to her and others who have lost loved ones to the U.S.’s cruel unilateral coercive measures.

The Caobos Park is full of farmers with stands selling fresh produce – plantains, vegetables, honey and much more. One man sells homemade rice wine, and a woman makes infused tea bags. Next to the market a government health program has tents set up to fight obesity. They give people free check-ups and vaccinations, and there is a dance party, soccer and games to promote wellness. Thanks to their enormous strength of will and a people-oriented government, Venezuelans have been able to claw back a sense of normalcy, but still suffer under the economic pressure. Organizations like the Anti-War Committee still call for an end to the U.S. sanctions regime.

But the very nature of the U.S. hybrid war campaign makes it harder to organize around than a traditional invasion. Nevertheless, Perdomo says the anti-imperialist movement must persist: “It has impacts on human health, just like wars with bombs do. And it has impacts on emotional health, just like wars with bombs do. The most insidious thing is that people don't consider it to be war. Therefore there's not a whole lot of newspapers talking about the war on Venezuela because if there aren't explosions, then there isn’t outrage. And there should be outrage because we are suffering, we have suffered. But the flip side of that is we have made resistance a lifestyle and we have made happiness in the face of struggle a lifestyle.”

#CaracasVenezuela #Caracas #Venezuela