Carrying out this kind of work is one of the most effective ways to oppose the efforts by Washington to overthrow the Venezuelan government. It is also an integral part of defending the Cuban Revolution.

U.S. imperialism is stepping up its offensive against the people of Cuba and their socialist revolution, as the latest statements by Roger Noriega and Colin Powell show. These moves build on the decades-long hostility and punitive measures by the U.S. rulers against Cuba. Washington’s aggression began in 1959, after the Cuban people threw off the shackles of the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship and opened the road to the socialist revolution in the Americas.

At the same time, the imperialists in the United States, the European Union, and elsewhere are preparing to intervene anywhere in the Americas—beginning in Venezuela—where working people resist attempts by the local propertied classes and their imperialist masters abroad to turn back the clock.

What’s the crime that workers and peasants in Venezuela have committed in the eyes of the wealthy? They have fiercely resisted, and twice defeated, attempts by Washington and its backers among local capitalists and landlords to overthrow the bourgeois nationalist government of Hugo Chávez, which was elected with massive support of working people. The toilers in Venezuela have used increasing political space since Chávez’s election, and have taken advantage of measures the government has passed that, if implemented, would strengthen their ability to fight for land, jobs, housing, and other social gains. Through these struggles millions of working people have become more self-confident and developed higher expectations. The road these workers and other exploited producers are following can more and more clearly point to the historic line of march of the working class: carrying out a popular revolution, conquering political power, overthrowing capitalism, and joining the worldwide fight for socialism—in other words, the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The U.S. government refuses to accept normal ties between Venezuela and Cuba, because the Cuban people have already traveled down this road. Thousands of Cuban internationalists—doctors offering free and quality medical care, literacy instructors aiding Venezuelan youth to eliminate illiteracy in their country, and others—are helping working people in Venezuela to begin taking their destiny into their own hands by making a difference in their daily lives through their own actions. This is at the heart of the smears by Washington that Cuba and Venezuela are “destabilizing” the continent by aiding anti-government groups throughout Latin America.

The source of instability on the continent, however, is capitalism and the imperialist system of domination. Washington has miserably failed in its promise that bourgeois democracy and “free trade” would bring prosperity and stability to the majority in Latin America and the Caribbean. The collapse of the Mexican peso in the mid-1990s, the economic freefall in Argentina two years ago, and the growing impoverishment of millions from Patagonia to the Rio Bravo are only a few examples of the nightmare the profit system offers to all those who work for a living. That is what’s behind the recent rebellion in Bolivia and the nationalist reactions by the governments of Brazil and Argentina to new steps by Uncle Sam that attack their sovereignty.

This recent, stepped-up U.S. offensive against Venezuela is of a different scope and character than the pressures Washington has so far brought to bear against the Chávez government. The preparations for expanded intervention against the South American nation, combined with the aggression against Cuba, will be more and more couched as part of Washington’s “global war on terrorism.” That’s the meaning of the insinuations by Gen. Richard Myers, the head of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, of involvement in drug and weapons trafficking by unnamed governments in Latin America and charges that Caracas is aiding guerrilla groups in Colombia.

At the center of this U.S.-led strategic offensive is the transformation of the U.S. military and its repositioning around the world. An equally essential part of this new imperialist strategy—the foremost advocate of which has become the U.S. Department of Defense—is the attempt to impose, by whatever means, what the superwealthy U.S. rulers describe as democracy.

As U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice outlined, Washington will use the degree of adherence by the Venezuelan government to the demand by the pro-imperialist opposition for a recall referendum as its main club against the Chávez regime in the coming months. The imperialist rulers will seek to use illusions in bourgeois democracy to try to win support for their efforts to oust the Venezuelan government.

Support to the struggle by working people in Venezuela to resist any U.S.-backed attempts to topple the Chávez government, and opposition to Washington’s latest offensive against Cuba, must be unconditional. Building the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students set for Venezuela in August 2005 will be an important contribution toward accomplishing this goal.
 
 
Related article:
U.S. steps up offensive against Cuba, Venezuela
Charges ‘destabilization’ to prepare expanded intervention
World youth festival to be held in Venezuela  
 
 
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