US hands off Venezuela!

Working people across the United States need to stand with our brothers and sisters in Venezuela, speaking out against Washington’s pressures, threats and provocations. The propertied rulers of the world’s preeminent imperialist power see the deep economic crisis battering workers and farmers of Venezuela as an opportunity to bring down the government of Nicolás Maduro and install a regime that will be more subservient to the interests of the capitalist masters.

The toilers of Venezuela haven’t forgotten how in 2002 Washington backed the attempted coup against the government of President Hugo Chávez, which was thwarted by working people who took to the streets. Nor the U.S. government’s support for the failed bosses’ “strike” that followed, an attempt to overturn the government and strangle workers’ struggles by crippling production. Nor how, in a display of cynical arrogance, President Barack Obama has twice signed a “national emergency” executive order declaring the Venezuelan government “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

The Chávez government, and that of Maduro since, have sought to manage the capitalist market, to use oil profits to fund social programs. They have collaborated with the revolutionary government of Cuba and taken initiatives throughout the Americas that encroached on Washington’s imperialist prerogatives. This is what’s earned them the undying hatred of the U.S. and Venezuelan capitalist rulers.

The target of Washington, and of the pro-imperialist parties seeking to recall Maduro, is the workers and farmers of Venezuela. They rightly fear working people as the force that is capable of ending their class rule, as the toilers in Cuba did in 1959.

The revolutionary government and working class of Cuba are setting an example of proletarian internationalism, making clear they will stand firm at the side of working people in Venezuela. “Cubans will never forget the support we received from the Venezuelan people when we were confronting great difficulties,” Raúl Castro told Cuba’s National Assembly July 8.

Now is the time to organize meetings and solidarity actions to demand: End all U.S. sanctions against Venezuela! Repeal the “national emergency” executive order and all other meddling in Venezuela’s internal affairs! U.S. hands off!

Related articles:
Washington pressures Venezuela as crisis deepens

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