Fight Back News Service is circulating the following call from the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

Over the past two weeks as Minneapolis and the rest of country have erupted in outrage over the murder of George Floyd by law enforcement—a spark which has ignited the collective experience of police terror across America going back as far as the institution of police has existed here—we have seen law enforcement double down on their crimes. As authorities dragged their feet to charge the four officers responsible for killing George Floyd, demonstrations have been met with such in discriminant violence, repressive curfews, and military force to suppress this popular movement for change. These violent attempts to crush the protests have exposed the intentions of the state and the police towards progressive change and those united in fighting for it, but they have failed to kill this movement.

It is out of this uprising that the National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression calls upon all its members, comrades, friends and allies to join a national day of action this Saturday, June 13ᵗʰ to call for direct democratic community control of the police, to continue the call for freedom for those caged in detention centers, jails, and prisons while the pandemic continues to spread, and finally to continue the call for justice for George Floyd and all other victims of police crimes from brutalization, illegal searches, torture, forced confessions, and murder.

Community Control of the Police means more than attaching some new name on the same ineffective review boards filled with law enforcement officers and their sympathizers; it means direct, democratic control of police departments, policies, budgets, and officers with full subpoena power through a civilian council elected by the people of the community served by the police. If these democratic demands are not accepted, then who are the police meant to serve? The cities of America have two choices, give people control over the institutions supposedly meant to serve them, or expose themselves for only being concerned with public relations and maintaining their own control.

#USA #PoliceBrutality #CPAC #NAARPR #GeorgeFloyd #DayOfAction #CommunityControlOfThePolice

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