US President Donald Trump told the media on August 10 that he would not “rule out “military options” for dealing with Venezuela. His comments were followed by the imposition of economic sanctions against Venezuela on August 25.
Labeling Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as a "dictator", the White House said in a statement that the new sanctions seek to block "a critical source of funding" for the Venezuelan government, which is having to deal with a deep economic crisis.
There has been a lot of media focus on Venezuela’s recently inaugurated National Constituent Assembly (ANC). However, little attention has been paid to the response it has generated among grassroots organisations or the variety of proposals being discussed in communities in terms of potential constitutional changes.
More than 100 people attended public forums discussing the crisis in Venezuela and the need for solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution against the threat of violent right-wing opposition in Geelong and Melbourne on July 28 and 29.
The Melbourne meeting was initiated by Socialist Alliance and supported by the Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET) and the El Salvadoran leftist party, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front.
Stalin Perez Borges is an activist with LUCHAS (United League of Chavista Socialists) and a member of the Consultative Council of the Bolivarian Socialist Workers’ Central (CBST).
He spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Federico Fuentes about the July 30 elections for the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) and its subsequent inauguration, as well as the August 6 armed assault on a military base by right-wing opponents of Venezuela’s socialist government.
Opposition groups in Venezuela are currently engaged in a campaign to overthrow the democratically-elected government of President Nicolas Maduro.
Portrayed by the media as a peaceful, democratic movement, it is clear that what Venezuela is experiencing is a right-wing destabilisation campaign that not only seeks to remove Maduro but to roll back the important gains of the country’s Bolivarian Revolution.
The head of the campaign for Venezuela's National Constituent Assembly (ANC), Jorge Rodriguez, said on August 2 that the National Electoral Council (CNE) had been asked to complete the audit of the electoral process following the July 30 vote.
Rodriguez insisted that the only valid results of the ANC election are those provided by the CNE, which originally counted 8,089,320 votes.
Members states of the Organization of American States (OAS) have once again failed to reach consensus to “take action on Venezuela,” which Caracas regards as interference in its internal affairs.
At a July 26 meeting of the OAS Permanent Council in Washington, 13 countries read a declaration calling on the Venezuelan government to abandon the July 30 Constituent Assembly elections.
That was two fewer member states than supported a similar resolution at the OAS foreign ministers' meeting on June 19, and five short of the number needed to pass a resolution.
Images of the Bolivarian National Police firing tear gas at protestors in Venezuela cannot be provided to us in large enough quantities by the mainstream media.
Message of solidarity from branch secretary Paul McAleer on behalf of the Maritime Union of Australia Sydney Branch.
Venezuela is heading towards an increasingly dangerous situation, in which open civil war could become a real possibility.
Civil war becomes more likely as long as the media obscure who is responsible for the violence and the international left fails to show solidarity with Venezuela’s Bolivarian socialist movement.
The media likes to blame government repression for the recent deaths in Venezuela, but the actual figures tell a different story.
Worryingly, they reveal a right-wing terror campaign involving political assassinations and public lynchings of government supporters, providing a frightening insight into what the opposition would do in power.
1. Venezuela’s housing mission has built 1.5 million homes for Venezuelan families since 2011. By the end of this year, the government aims to have completed a further 540,000 new homes and repaired 550,000 existing homes under the Barrio Nuevo, Barrio Tricolor mission.
On July 30, 545 delegates will be elected by the Venezuelan people to a National Constituent Assembly (ANC) proposed by President Nicolas Maduro.
The ANC will discuss proposals to reform the constitution, though any official amendments will have to be put to a referendum.
A “Venezuela-Brazil Solidarity” meeting organised by the Latin America Solidarity Network (LASNET) was held on June 8 in Melbourne.
It brought together a wide array of activists, including members of the Socialist Alliance, Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN) and trade unionists.
Since April, the people of Venezuela have been under constant attack from violent protests orchestrated by the right-wing opposition to the government of President Nicolas Maduro.
Revolutionary activist and sociologist Reinaldo Iturriza has spent many years working with popular movements in Venezuela and writing on the rise of Chavismo as a political movement of the poor. He also served as Minister for the Communes and Social Movements, and then Minister for Culture in President Nicolas Maduro’s cabinet between 2013 and 2016.
Together with activists from a range of grassroots revolutionary organisations and social movements, he is standing as a candidate for the Popular Constituent Platform in the July 30 elections for a Constituent Assembly that will seek to find a political way out of the current turmoil gripping Venezuela through the drafting of a new constitution.
