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The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 30 August 14, 2017
(front page)
Protest US attacks on Venezuelan sovereignty!
BY SETH GALINSKY
Demanding Washington keep its hands off Venezuela, Cuba’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs July 31 said, “Only Venezuelans can decide how to
resolve their problems and chart their future.”
Against strong objection by Washington and the Venezuelan opposition,
the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro conducted a vote
July 30 to elect a Constituent Assembly. Washington responded by
imposing sanctions on Maduro — freezing assets, if any, he may have in
the U.S. Washington had sanctioned 13 other officials in the run-up to
the vote.
“Yesterday’s illegitimate elections confirm that Maduro is a dictator
who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people,” claimed Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin at a White House press briefing. The
governments of Canada, Britain, Spain, the European Union, Brazil,
Mexico and Argentina joined the U.S. in telling the people of Venezuela
what they should do.
The pro-imperialist opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable in Venezuela
boycotted the election, saying that rewriting the constitution is aimed
at nullifying the legislature where the opposition won a majority in
2015. Since April the Roundtable has stepped up violent demonstrations
and has openly called on the armed forces to stage a coup.
The Roundtable has tried to take advantage of the deep capitalist
economic and social crisis in Venezuela to win support for ousting the
government. Inflation is running at more than 700 percent a year and
there are long lines to attempt to buy scarce basic necessities at
government-set prices. Basic life-saving medicines are increasingly hard
to find. And violent crimes are common.
In the weeks leading up to the vote, the Roundtable organized two
nationwide strikes to back their call for a boycott. While in
middle-class neighborhoods the strikes had success, opposition
supporters admitted they didn’t get much traction in working-class areas.
Despite widespread discontent over the economic crisis and the
government’s inability to deal with it, working people don’t trust the
opposition. They have not forgotten the participation by many of the
Roundtable leaders in the 2002 coup that overthrew Hugo Chávez before it
was pushed back by a massive outpouring of workers. Maduro became
president after Chávez’s death in 2013.
Maduro announced at midnight July 30 that over 8 million people voted
for candidates to the 545-member Constituent Assembly. But the head of
the company hired to manufacture and oversee the voting system, said
Aug. 2 that the government’s figures were at least 1 million too high.
The assembly is expected to meet within a few days.
Absent from Maduro’s speech was any mention of the serious challenges
facing working people in the face of the deepening capitalist economic
crisis — the drop in the price of oil that is the main source of income
for the country, the thousands of peasants without land, how to overcome
the shortages of medicine.
What Maduro, like Chávez before him, called the Bolivarian Revolution or
21st Century Socialism, was a conscious decision to reject the road of
the Cuban Revolution. Instead of organizing workers and farmers to take
control of factories, farms and the government, Chávez and Maduro tried
to use the state to administer the capitalist economy, using oil profits
to fund social programs and subsidize basic necessities. This has come
apart under the impact of the deepening worldwide capitalist crisis and
growing corruption.
Maduro’s effort to displace the opposition-dominated National Assembly
with the newly elected Constituent Assembly, coupled with opposition
threats of continuing violent protests, have the potential to escalate
polarization and conflict that could open the door to a bloodbath.
The Roundtable says it will keep up its protests. Brushing off any idea
of negotiations and dialogue, opposition leader Freddy Guevara said Aug.
2, “Now is a time for action not words.” At least 10 people were killed
during violent clashes during the vote.
Maduro said that part of the Constituent Assembly’s moves to sideline
the National Assembly will be to remove parliamentary immunity from
opposition legislators. Less then two days later Leopoldo López and
Antonio Ledezma, two prominent opposition leaders were sent back to prison.
Maduro also said the new body would investigate Luisa Ortega, the
Chávez-appointed attorney general who opposed the election and other
recent steps Maduro has taken.
So far Washington has been reluctant to use what they call the “nuclear
option” of sanctions on oil trade with Venezuela. Venezuela sells
750,000 barrels a day to the U.S. and sanctions would hit both working
people in Venezuela and the pocketbook of U.S. capitalists.
Washington wants to see the replacement of the Maduro government, but
fears a total collapse of all government institutions and oil production.
Oil workers in several regions of Venezuela demonstrated against the
sanctions Aug. 2. “We are here to show our rejection of U.S.
intervention,” one demonstrator said on television.
Related articles:
End US economic war against people of Cuba
SWP: Emulate example of the Cuban Revolution!
Celebrations in Cuba, U.S. mark Cuban Revolution
Sign up for ‘In Footsteps of Che’ brigade to Cuba!
Sao Paulo Forum discusses struggle against imperialism
Youth organize to build Oct. World Festival in Russia
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