Two competing marches took over the streets of Caracas on February 2 — in support and against elected President Nicolas Maduro. The foreign media focused on the opposition march exclusive, despite accounts that the pro-government march was clearly larger.
Below is a statement signed by about two dozen social movements, denounced the US-backed coup against the Maduro government. It has been translated by Translated by Pedro Alvarez.
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Various movements and communities marched together on February 2 as part of a huge red tide [in Caracas], which as President Nicolás Maduro said, has been made invisible during the past 20 years. We believe that such invisibility comes from further back in history, from colonial times; that’s why today we marched against the coup attempt being led by the US government to say:
1. The people of [former president Hugo] Chávez and [independence fighter Simón] Bolívar, of Ezequiel Zamora [who lead the federalist in the Federal War] and [Indigenous warrior] Ana Soto, are marching to defend its historical project, which was interrupted 500 years ago with the first imperial invasion. Today we once again take up that communal society as our goal, the one that in these years we have chosen as the program for our country, the one of our socialism, centred in popular power.
2. Nicolás Maduro Moros is our president, and our will must be respected. We are people of peace, but make no mistake: we are determined to be free and will fight like Guaicaipuro, like Apacuana, like José Leonardo, and like Juana la Avanzadora [who led the struggle against Spanish invasion]. We will fight like we did in 2002 [when an attempted military coup was defeated by a peoples’ uprising]. We will fight on any field, because no one will take our sovereignty away.
3. We say to the US government and to all of its lackeys that our destiny will not to be decided abroad. There will be no surrender, no resignation, no negotiation; in Venezuela it’s not the Yankees who decide, but the people. Here we have a constitution, and everything must occur within its framework, nothing outside it. Sovereignty resides in the people and today we wield it in full.
4. We march against the Yankee empire and all enemies of the people; against the bourgeoisie and against corruption. We march with all our struggles, against the civilization of capital that the West imposed on us, one that is patriarchal, racist, predatory of nature, and deeply colonial.
5. Today we call on our friends, for the unity of the communes, of those who fight enslavement, the urban people, the peasants, the afro-descendant people, the struggling youth, struggling women, the workers, adults and seniors, popular militias, committees and technical boards, communal councils and communities. These people united will never be defeated.
Chávez lives, the struggle continues! Go to hell you Yankee pieces of shit!
Neither bourgeoisie nor bureaucracy, all power to the people!
Initial signatories: Plataforma Chavismo Bravío; Movimiento de Pobladoras y Pobladores; Fuerza Patriótica Alexis Vive; Movimiento Otro Beta; Plataforma de Lucha Campesina / Marcha Campesina Admirable; FALDAS-R; Red de colectivos Araña Feminista; Colectivo la Otra Escuela; Plataforma Socialista Golpe de Timón; Movimiento 27 de Octubre; Campamento de Pioneros; Movimiento de Ocupantes de Edificios Organizados de Venezuela; Movimiento de Inquilinos e Inquilinas; Comités de Tierra Urbana; Trabajadoras Residenciales Unidas por Venezuela; Movimiento Puente Sur; Frente Bicentenario de Mujeres 200; Mujeres por la Vida; Jóvenes del Barrio “Antonio Cermeño”; Consejo Socialista de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores; REDSSA; ORA en el Tachira; Frente Revolucionario de Liberación Nacional; Colectivo “Guillermo Ribas” del Movimiento; Afrodescendiente; Tatuy TV Comunitaria; ALBA Movimientos capítulo Venezuela;