Tucson, AZ – On Wednesday November 17, former union bus driver and current president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, spoke to over 500 international solidarity activists from over 70 countries.

“Venezuela has been giving an intense battle against the aggression, siege, and lies from U.S. imperialism and its direct allies from the right on this continent and around the world,” Maduro stated. Maduro also lambasted the “cowardly left, the new indirect allies of U.S. imperialism who hide behind their masks of progressivism threaten our noble peoples who have been fighting.” Adding to the many achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution, Maduro said, “In Venezuela, we have advanced a real democracy that is direct and communal, with millions of men and women participating in the Communal Councils that every day is carrying out decisions and actions of the government and local self-government.”

The session concluded with Adán Chávez, Vice President of International Affairs for the United Venezuelan Socialist Party (PSUV). Chávez, the brother of deceased revolutionary President Hugo Chávez, expressed his appreciation and gratitude for the hundreds of international electoral observers in the country for the upcoming November 21 elections.

Venezuela has had an astounding 29 elections in the past 21 years, thanks in large part to the National Electoral Council, which Adán Chávez accounted for as one of the major achievements of the new constitution. These elections are expecting more than 20 million voters to participate in the vote to pick 335 mayors, 23 governors and more. He asked the electoral observers and solidarity activists to help Venezuela by transmitting the truth to the world in order to as a “counter-offensive to the media who has been sowing lies.” To rousing cheers and revolutionary salutes, Chávez said the Bolivarian Revolution “continues on the road to peace and our Bolivarian socialism.”

#TucsonAZ #Venezuela #Americas #PeoplesStruggles #NicolásMaduro #UnitedSocialistPartyPSUV

Fight Back! is circulating the following statement by Nicolas Maduro Moros, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) stands in solidarity with the people of Venezuela and their leadership against U.S. military threats and economic blockade. The FRSO is preparing to participate in the Global Platform of Workers Against Imperialism this October 28, 29 and 30. To the Peoples of the World

Brothers and Sisters:

I greet you affectionately on the occasion of informing you about the recent actions undertaken by Venezuela to confront and overcome the illegal blockade that the government of the United States of America has been imposing against my country since almost twenty years ago, with special radicalism during the last five years, causing serious effects on the normal performance of the Venezuelan economy, with subsequent impact on the population's well-being.

In this regard, I want to inform you about the approval of a very important legislation that has been named ‘Anti-Blockade Law for National Development and the Guarantee of the Rights of the Venezuelan People': which is focused on defending the patrimony sovereignty and dignity of our Homeland as well as our people's right to peace, development and well-being.

It is a necessary legal response from the Venezuelan State, in perfect harmony with International Law, that will allow for the creation of mechanisms to improve the nation's income and generate rational and adequate incentives, under flexible controls, to stimulate internal economic activity and carry out productive alliances, through foreign investment, that favor national development.

At the same time, in the political area, I am honored to reiterate that in face of the external aggression that the Unilateral Coercive Measures posed by the United States against Venezuela, our banner is and will continue to be, strengthening and deepening our democracy.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, preparations for our legislative elections on December 6, continue with firm pace, where the population will massively concur to fulfill the constitutional mandate of electing a new national parliament.

In this election, whose conditions were agreed to with broad sectors of the democratic opposition of my country, over 90% of the organizations registered before the National Electoral Council will participate, for a total of 107 political parties -98 of them in opposition­ and over 14,000 candidates who will compete to obtain one of the 277 parliamentary seats.

The result of this electoral race will undoubtedly grant more strength to our nation and to our people, who have resisted foreign aggression with dignity and firmness and despite all, maintains its spirit of love and solidarity.

Comrades, having updated you on these two elements of the real situation in Venezuela, allow me to share with you some information of interest, to broaden the range of your knowledge on the general context that explains the current reality of my country.

Since 2014, the United States has approved a law and 7 decrees or executive orders, as well as 300 administrative measures, which together make up a sophisticated policy of multiform aggression against Venezuela.

In five years, the blockade succeeded in cutting off financing to Venezuela, preventing it from accessing the required currency to acquire food, medicine, spare parts, and essential raw materials for economic activity. During that period, Venezuela experienced the sharpest fall in its external income in all of its history, close to 99%.

The United States has decreed a ban on the commercialization of Venezuelan hydrocarbons, its main export product and source of fiscal income. In this context, since the beginning of the new coronavirus pandemic, on different opportunities the United States has publicly boasted having assaulted ships bringing Venezuela the required products to produce gasoline and supply the internal fuel market, aggravating even more the economic situation.

Invoking this illegal regulation, the United States has confiscated money and assets from POVSA, the Venezuelan State oil company, including several refineries on U.S. soil, whose worth exceeds 40 billion dollars.

These legal instruments are the arm that applies a cruel blockade against the Venezuelan people, which Alfred de Zayas, an independent United Nations expert on Human Rights, describes unequivocally as “crimes against humanity.”

In this regard, in an investigation from the Center for Economic and Policy Research of the United States on the blockade on Venezuela, the American economist Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to the United Nations Organization on the Sustainable Development Goals, determined that the blockade against Venezuela is responsible for at least 40,000 deaths in my country, for which the sanctions must be considered as a “collective punishment of the Venezuelan people.”

In a surprising official statement on January 2018, the U.S. State Department admitted its illegal intentions:

“The pressure campaign against Venezuela is working. The financial sanctions that we have imposed have forced the Government to begin to default, both in its sovereign debt as well as that of PDVSA, its oil company. And what we are seeing (...) is a total economic collapse in Venezuela. Therefore, our policy works, our strategy works and we will maintain it.”

This is a confession of an international crime, an act of economic savagery, a crime against humanity, with the only purpose of hurting my country and the people of Venezuela.

The illegal application of Unilateral Coercive Measures, called with the euphemism of “sanctions”, is a policy repeatedly rejected by the United Nations General Assembly, contrary to International Law and a violation of the United Nations Charter.

For all the above mentioned, last February 13, Venezuela went to the International Criminal Court to denounce those who, from the United States, have committed these atrocious crimes against humanity. I am confident that sooner than later, international justice will look upon Venezuela with objectivity and will see the great damage that the United States has produced on a pacific, loving and hard-working people.

I want to express my gratitude for the consideration that you have had in reviewing the content of this letter, which I hope has been useful in order to keep you correctly informed on the real situation of Venezuela, and at the same time I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your permanent solidarity towards Venezuela. Together we shall overcome!

Sincerely,

Nicolas Maduro Moros President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

#Venezuela #PeoplesStruggles #NicolásMaduro #Americas

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the International League of Peoples’ Struggle – US chapter.

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle – US chapter (ILPS US) expresses our deep and genuine solidarity with the people of Venezuela and their government under duly-elected President Nicolas Maduro. We absolutely reject the war mongering of the Donald Trump administration, including the fabricated charges of drug trafficking against President Maduro, the deployment of the U.S. Navy to Venezuela under the flimsy guise of fighting drug trafficking, and the continuing economic sanctions in an attempt to destroy the Venezuelan economy and destabilize the government.

To blindly follow Trump’s statements without question is an outright denial of facts and history. One only has to look at Trump’s own personal history of blatant lies (most recently with his handling of the entire COVID 19 pandemic) to uncover his tactics of creating his own truth for the sake of consolidating more power for his family and crony dynasty. It is the same type of lies the US has used in its long history of military intervention and imperialist violation of the sovereignty of other nations — deposing democratically elected leaders across Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Europe.

We recognize Maduro and the Venezuelan people’s desires for fraternal relationships, cooperation, exchange and respect as true signs of international solidarity. We applaud Venezuela’s response to the COVID 19 pandemic which supports workers and their families by guaranteeing workers’ wages and banning lay-offs.

The ILPS US CC commits ourselves to exposing and opposing imperialism, its neoliberal policies and its neo-fascist leaders, and we demand the US government focus instead on providing for the dire needs of the vast majority of the working class families and impoverished people within the US. We call for the lifting of US sanctions against Venezuela along with those against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, China, Iran, Cuba, Palestine and elsewhere, which only serve to strangle and deprive the people of much needed medical supplies and other basic necessities for their survival. The world is in crisis, which needs international solidarity and a concerted effort to not only fight COVID 19 but also to bring an end to the deeper pandemic of imperialism and build towards the genuine solution to the crisis—a socialist future!

#UnitedStates #AntiwarMovement #OppressedNationalities #Venezuela #US #Americas #Healthcare #PeoplesStruggles #ChicanoLatino #InternationalLeagueOfPeoplesStruggle #Socialism #NicolásMaduro #DonaldTrump

Lucha y Resiste está promoviendo una declaración del Presidente de Venezuela Nicolás Maduro al pueblo de los Estados Unidos. El administracion del Trump esta subiendo el nivel de atentados a derrotar el Presidente Maduro y La Revolucion Bolivariana por poniendo cargas de narco-terrorismo al Maduro y otros en el gobierno. El administración del Trump también publicó un plan a alterar el gobierno Venezolano para permitir la oposición de los elites que toman más poder. Eso es a preparar un otro atentado del golpe del estado por los EEUU en apoyo de los no elegidos bobolongos. La semana pasada el Presidente Trump ordenó un grave augmentacion de los barcos de la Armada patrullando en el área del Caribe cera a Venezuela como una provocación. Al Pueblo de los Estados Unidos de América:

Desde hace semanas, el mundo está paralizado, intentando controlar una pandemia que sin duda es el desafío más grande que hemos enfrentado juntos como sociedad y comunidad internacional. Al igual que para el pueblo de Estados Unidos, confrontarla es nuestra prioridad.

Afortunadamente, en Venezuela hemos contado con algunas ventajas. Tomamos medidas muy tempranas de aislamiento y el despistaje ampliado, apoyándonos en nuestro sistema público y gratuito de salud, que cuenta con médicos de familia alrededor de todo el país. Contamos también con la invalorable organización comunitaria para ayudar a elevar la conciencia social y brindar apoyo a los más vulnerables. Igualmente, la solidaridad de Cuba, China, Rusia y el apoyo de la Organización Mundial de la Salud, nos ha permitido obtener insumos médicos necesarios, a pesar de las sanciones ilegales de Donald Trump.

Al expresarles mi solidaridad ante este importante desafío histórico y nuestra consternación y dolor por las consecuencias de la pandemia en EEUU, me veo obligado a también alertarles que, mientras el mundo se enfoca en atender la emergencia del COVID-19, el gobierno de Trump, instrumentalizando una vez más las instituciones para alcanzar sus objetivos electorales y basándose en infamias bajo pretexto de la lucha contra las drogas, ha ordenado el despliegue militar más grande de Estados Unidos hacia nuestra región en 30 años, con el fin de amenazar a Venezuela y de llevar a nuestra región a un conflicto bélico costoso, sangriento y de duración indefinida.

Como antecedente a esta maniobra falaz, el pasado 26 de marzo, William Barr, un Fiscal General de cuestionable independencia (quien recomendó la invasión de 1989 a Panamá contra Noriega y ayudó a encubrir las irregularidades del escándalo Irán-Contra), presentó, sin mostrar prueba alguna, acusaciones de narcotráfico hacia los Estados Unidos contra mí y contra altos funcionarios del Estado venezolano, a pesar de que la información del propio Departamento de Defensa demuestra que Venezuela no es un país de tránsito primario de drogas hacia los Estados Unidos, como sí lo son países aliados de Washington como Colombia u Honduras.

Es claro, que la administración Trump construye una cortina de humo para ocultar el improvisado y errático manejo de la pandemia en Estados Unidos. Desde un principio Donald Trump le restó importancia y la negó, tal como ha hecho con el cambio climático. Hoy la crisis se agrava simplemente porque, pese a contar con recursos, no está dispuesto a transformar el sistema de salud en uno que priorice el cuidado pleno de la población y no el lucro de ganancias de la medicina privada, las compañías de seguros y las farmacéuticas.

Nosotros en Venezuela no queremos un conflicto armado en nuestra región. Queremos relaciones fraternales, de cooperación, de intercambio y de respeto.

No podemos aceptar amenazas bélicas, ni bloqueos, ni tampoco la intención de instalar un tutelaje internacional que viola nuestra soberanía y desconoce los avances del último año en el diálogo político sincero entre el gobierno y gran parte de la oposición venezolana, que desea soluciones políticas, y no guerras por petróleo.

Por todo lo anterior, hago un llamado al pueblo de los Estados Unidos para que ponga freno a esta locura, para que responsabilice a sus gobernantes y los obligue a enfocar su atención y sus recursos en la atención urgente de la pandemia. Pido, junto al cese de las amenazas militares, el fin de las sanciones ilegales y el bloqueo que restringe el acceso a insumos humanitarios, tan necesarios hoy en el país. Les pido, con el corazón en la mano, que no permitan que su país se vea arrastrado, una vez más, a otro conflicto interminable, otro Vietnam u otro Irak, pero esta vez más cerca de casa.

No somos tan diferentes, como nos quieren hacer creer con infamias. Somos pueblos buscando una sociedad más justa, libre y compasiva. No dejemos que los intereses particulares de minorías cegadas por ambición nos separen. Nosotros, como dijo una vez nuestro líder Hugo Chávez, compartimos el mismo sueño. El sueño de Martin Luther King es también el sueño de Venezuela y de su gobierno revolucionario. Los invito a luchar juntos por hacer realidad ese sueño.

No a la guerra de Estados Unidos contra Venezuela No más sanciones criminales Queremos Paz

#Venezuela #Socialism #PeoplesStruggles #PSUV #USA #NicolásMaduro #Trump #Americas

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to the people of the US. The Trump administration is escalating attempts to bring down President Maduro and the Bolivarian Revolution, making bogus charges against Maduro and other officials. The Trump administration also published a plan that would radically alter the Venezuelan government's branches of power. This is to prepare for yet another coup attempt by the U.S. in support of unelected scoundrels. This past week President Trump ordered a serious increase of US Naval ships patrolling Caribbean waters near Venezuela as a provocation.

Caracas, April 3, 2020

To the People of the United States of America:

For weeks now, the world stands still, trying to control a pandemic that, without any doubt, is the greatest challenge we have faced together as a society and as an international community. Our priority is confronting it, as is the priority of the people of the United States.

Fortunately, in Venezuela, we have been able to count on some advantages. We took very early measures of social distancing and amplified testing, relying on our free and public healthcare system that counts doctors throughout the country with what we call family. We also rely on the invaluable community-based organizations to help raise social awareness and support the most vulnerable sectors. The solidarity of Cuba, China, and Russia, and the support of the World Health Organization has likewise allowed us to obtain necessary medical supplies despite Donald Trump's illegal sanctions.

In expressing my solidarity to you in this important historic challenge, as well as our consternation and grief for the consequences of the pandemic in the U.S., I also have the obligation to make you aware that as the world focuses on dealing with the COVID-19 emergency, the Trump Administration, once again instrumentalizing institutions in order to fulfill electoral objectives, and based on infamies under the pretext of the War on Drugs, has ordered the largest U.S. military deployment in our region in the last 30 years, with the purpose of threatening Venezuela and bringing to our region a costly, bloody, military conflict of indefinite duration.

In the runup to this fallacious maneuver, last March 26, William Barr, an Attorney General of questionable independence (who recommended the 1989 invasion of Panama against Noriega and helped cover up the irregularities of the Iran-Contra scandal) filed, without showing any evidence whatsoever, accusations of drug trafficking towards the United States against myself and against senior Venezuelan State officials, even though data from the Department of Defense itself show that, unlike Colombia and Honduras, two of Washington's allied countries, Venezuela is not a primary transit country towards the United States.

It is clear that the Trump Administration is creating a smokescreen to cloud the improvised and erratic handling of the pandemic in the United States. The most optimistic forecast shows that close to 240,000 souls will be lost in the United States. From the beginning, Donald Trump downplayed and even denied it, the same way he has done with climate change. Today, the crisis in the United States aggravates simply because, despite having the resources, he is not willing to transform the healthcare system to prioritize full care for the population instead of profit-based private medicine, insurance companies and pharmaceutical industry.

Wein Venezuela do not want an armed conflict in our region. We want brotherly relations of cooperation, exchange and respect.

We canot accept war threats, nor blockades, nor can we accept the intention of installing an international tutelage that violates our sovereignty and disavows the progress made in the last year in the sincere political dialogue between the government and a large part of the Venezuelan opposition that wants political solutions and not oil wars.

Based on the foregoing, I call upon the people of the United States to stop this madness, to hold your officials accountable and to force them to focus their attention and their resources on urgently addressing the pandemic. I also ask, together with the end to military threats, the end to the illegal sanctions and blockade that restrict the access of humanitarian goods that are so necessary for the country today. I wholeheartedly ask you not to allow your country to be dragged once again into another unending conflict, another Viet Nam, another Iraq, but this time, closer to home.

The peoples of the United States and Venezuela are not as different as their lies intend us to believe. We are peoples seeking a more just, free, and compassionate society. Let us not let the particular interests of minorities blinded by ambition set us apart. We, as our leader Hugo Chavez once said, share the same dream. The dream of Martin Luther King is also the dream of Venezuela and its revolutionary government. I invite you to struggle together in order to make that dream come true.

No to a United States war against Venezuela.

No more criminal sanctions.

We want peace.

#Caracas #Venezuela #Socialism #PeoplesStruggles #PSUV #USA #NicolásMaduro #Trump #Americas

Minneapolis, MN – Over 40 people gathered March 1 to hear Brad Sigal and Sarah Martin talk about their experience at the third World Anti-Imperialist Congress in Venezuela. This Congress was attended by over 1500 delegates from 73 countries in January, included a delegation from Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). The delegates were able to bring their organizational and individual experience to Caracas to work with each other on resisting imperialism.

Since Nicolás Maduro was elected president, the U.S. has ratcheted up sanctions, currency manipulation, and backed coup attempts to destabilize Venezuela. The Bolivarian Revolution stands strong against all attempts by the U.S. to stand in the way of progress towards a more just and equitable society.

Maduro, a former union bus driver, shared that the Washington Post recently asked him what the key was to surviving the Juan Guaidó coup attempt. He responded: “Don’t ask me, ask the people who went in the streets to defend their revolution.”

One of the most devastating weapons of U.S. imperialism are the sanctions levied against the Venezuelan people. A study of sanctions by the Sanctions Kill campaign found that it has led to the deaths of over 40,000 Venezuelans by restricting food, medicine and medicinal equipment. On top of this, the sanctions create day-to-day inconveniences when parts are not available to repair infrastructure.

Venezuelans had three asks for those in the United States: organize people against U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, organize against sanctions, and convince the U.S. government to let Venezuela be.

Sarah Martin addressed the group saying, “We live in the belly of the beast, it is our responsibility to understand and take action.” Sigal and Martin called to build support for the revolutionary socialist movement in Venezuela, President Maduro, and the socialist movement in the United States.

#MinneapolisMN #Venezuela #PeoplesStruggles #frso #NicolásMaduro #Americas

Caracas, Venezuela – On the final day of the World Anti Imperialist Congress, January 24, Venezuelan President Nicólas Maduro spoke to the hundreds of international delegates from over fifty countries. A delegation from Freedom Road Socialist Organization is participating in the Congress.

With a Syrian professor and member of Ba’ath Party at his side, Maduro began with a story of a visit he had alongside Hugo Chavez to Syria when thousands of Syrians surrounded his vehicle in Damascus and lifted the car in celebration of a brave anti-imperialist leader. Maduro followed this with a declaration of solidarity to the Syrians for surviving an imperialist intervention.

After a brief comment on the vicious brutality of the capitalist system, Maduro stated: “It is here that we are the vanguard of a model of socialism, of anti-imperialism that will transform the world for humanity.” He followed with a quote in reference to the decline of U.S. Imperialism: “Mao Zedong called US Imperialism a paper tiger.” And that “we will build the new world that is coming.”

Mentioning the recent massive demonstration of millions of Iraqis in the streets of Baghdad, Maduro shamed the human rights organizations of the world for not caring about the lives of Iraqis for the last seventeen years of US Imperialist murder, terrorism and bombings. “All of my support to Iraq, all of our