Venezuela

US President Donald Trump has just announced that he is considering the “military option” to remove President Nicolas Maduro from power. The threat of a possible military operation against Venezuela has been preceded by the adoption of unilateral economic sanctions. It would not seem likely that a direct military invasion will take place, even if the government is blackmailed to give more; but it is clear that there is an escalation. What Trump really wants to crush is the irreverence of the Bolivarian revolution.

The imperial president of the United States, Donald Trump issued a statement on 11/08/17 in which he threatened the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela with military intervention and promised to oust President Nicolás Maduro. This coarse and threatening statement has been rejected by all the countries of the world and most of their governments.

A group of individuals and organisation in June signed a first Joint Decelaration for the statement in Castilian to condemn imperialist and media aggression against Venezuela, to reject the coup policy from the rightwing in the MUD and affirm the election of a national constituent assembly was the best way to ensure the participation of the workers’ and popular movements in the crisis. This time they have come together to congratulate the Venezuelan people for their massive civic participation on Sunday 30 July. 5 August 2017

Boaventura de Souza Santos, the Portuguese academic and activist, was a leading figure in the anti-globalization movement in the early years of this century. He has been a strong, if critical, supporter of Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution. Earlier this year, he caused some controversy when he signed a declaration launched by a group of left intellectuals from Argentina, which was very critical of the Venezuelan government.

As Venezuelans go to the polls this Sunday, the country faces a choice between deepening revolution and an elite-enforced rollback.

As Nicolás Maduro’s increasingly antidemocratic government battles violent right-wing forces, ordinary Venezuelans are watching the gains of Chavismo slip away.

During the last two months, [1] Venezuela has been faced with a terrible wave of violence. It has already resulted in more than 60 deaths along with looted schools, burned public buildings, destroyed public transportation and emptied hospitals. The major media, however, simply engage in a running stream of gruesome denunciations of the government. They have installed the image of a dictator in conflict with the opposition democrats.

Venezuela is experiencing a major crisis. Every day, mobilizations, social discontent, hunger, repression, death and social decay haunt its streets. Nothing like the boom years of the Bolivarian phenomenon that opened the doors to political change and to important social measures in favour of the majorities. Today that same population experiences in its daily life the disaster provoked by the Maduro government and at the same time the attempts of the right opposition to seize political power.

We are faced with the need to find or quickly give birth to another event like April 13, 2002.
An important debate has opened up among the left, both within Venezuela and internationally, as a result of the recent turmoil in the country.
In an attempt to bring the views of grassroots Venezuelan militants to an English-speaking audience, Green Left Weekly’s Federico Fuentes interviewed Stalin Perez Borges.
A lifelong union and socialist activist, Perez Borges is today a member of the (…)

Over the last two months, Venezuela has faced a terrible wave of violence. Already there are more than 60 dead amidst looted schools, burned public buildings, destroyed public transport and evacuated hospitals. The mass media broadcast a chain of macabre reports of the government and have installed the image of a dictator in conflict with the opposition democrats.