By Marea Socialista, translation by International Viewpoint



July 28, 2010 -- Following the provocations of the Colombian regime, which threatens an armed intervention on Venezuelan territory under the false pretext that the latter was sheltering FARC guerrilla bases, President Hugo Chavez has decided to suspend all diplomatic relations with Colombia. It is clear that once again the Colombian regime is acting as a perfect satellite of the United States which is moreover currently dramatically increasing militarist manoeuvres and tensions all around the globe. We publish below a statement by the Venezuelan revolutionary Marxist organisation Marea Socialista, with which the Fourth International has fraternal relations.

The provocation from Uribe and the drugs traffickers who dominate the Colombian regime stretches to a limit of extreme tension relations between Colombia and Bolivarian Venezuela. The right, the oligarchy and the Venezuelan pro-Yankees present the attitude of President Chavez as an electoral manoeuvre or a problem exploited by the government out of propaganda concerns and chauvinism.

However, it is a demonstrated fact that in recent months there have been a succession of US troop movements and Mossad and CIA special operations at the international level which cannot be interpreted as isolated events. There is the deployment of significant military forces in the Middle East to threaten Iran; the attack on the humanitarian flotilla for Gaza by Israeli forces and the desire to subject still further the Palestinian people. There is the situation in Afghanistan, the growing tension against North Korea.

It would be naive to believe that all these operations are not interlinked. It amounts to a global strategy, which is in key with the reactivation and manoeuvres of the US Fourth Fleet in the Caribbean, with the seven Colombian military bases which the US army can use when it needs to, with the authorisation granted to 46 warships and 13,000 marines to station themselves in Costa Rica; the reinforcement of the Aruba and Curaçao bases; the authorisation to reinstall themselves in Panama, the landing of troops in Haiti...

Uribe renders his final service to his imperialist masters

After having failed to get himself re-elected, Colombian president Uribe is rendering his final service to his Yankee masters. He is provoking a situation of tension and confrontation against the government of President Hugo Chavez which could end in a serious incident, capable of setting the whole region ablaze.

Whether Uribe’s muscular gesticulations represent gratuitous bravado or a real provocation, the task of the revolutionary people is to prepare for the worst of scenarios. We, “Marea Socialiste”, a current of activists in the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), think that it is impossible to maintain this precarious peace with proposals such as those formulated by the Brazilian president Lula.

“The government of Brazil will propose to the governments of Colombia and Venezuela that they collaborate in the surveillance of their common border so as to give a definitive solution to their conflicts”, said Marco Aurelio Garcia, the foreign affairs adviser to the Brazilian president, yesterday.

We reject categorically this position. One cannot allow the fascist military of the Uribe regime to control Venezuelan territory. That would be a clear violation of sovereignty and would amount to falling with tied feet into the trap set by imperialism and Uribe. It would moreover amount to accepting that his lie is true.

To defend the process: deepen the revolution

The secretary general of the OAS (Organization of American States), the pro-imperialist Insulza, has had the audacity to claim in public statements that our continent had not experienced war in the past 100 years, apart from minor confrontations such as those between Ecuador and Peru or between El Salvador and Honduras. However, he has cynically “forgotten” the Malvinas War which, beyond the Argentine dictatorship, was an attempt to do away with one the last colonial enclaves, more than 400 years old.

This war, launched by bloodthirsty and cowardly generals, teaches us precisely “in negative” what it is necessary to do so as not to lose a revolutionary process.

Measures to mobilise the whole revolutionary people to defend our process

At the military level

Mobilise, drive and accelerate the allocation of arms so as to accomplish the revolutionary order of arming the people. Equip all the combatant bodies (militias) in the workplaces, the countryside, the universities, the neighbourhoods. Beyond the acceleration of their training, fulfil the order from President Chavez given in May2009 which stipulates that arms be stored in the places of work, study and neighbourhoods so as to be immediately used if necessary. In all the combatant bodies the strictest military discipline should prevail coupled with the broadest liberty of discussion concerning the political measures necessary to take so as to defeat the Yankee-Colombian aggression if it happens.

At the economic level

We salute the proposal of President Chavez to no longer supply oil to the United States in case of aggression. However, we think that this measure is insufficient to confront the crisis-ridden but still very mighty power of the Yankees. We propose the following supplementary measures:

Immediate confiscation of all Yankee and Colombian capital goods and multinational enterprises present in Venezuela. In particular those linked to the latest contracts and mixed enterprise concessions granted in the Orinoco Belt. Place all these confiscated enterprises under the control of the workers (oil, industrial, financial or commercial).

Institute workers’ control in the oil and petrochemical industry once and for all to put an end to its bureaucratic management, in the image of what is done in the electrical and food industries and so on. This measure is fundamental so as to maintain functioning, increase production and foil the counter revolutionary nuclei and sabotage in these enterprises.

Install a state monopoly of foreign trade, for food, medicaments, and all that which is necessary so as to establish an industry truly autonomous of imperialism.

Cancel all public debts to the imperialist banks. .

In the media

Banning of all news coming from the imperialist media on the evolution of the aggression if it happens. Seizure of media not respecting this ban or favouring the imperialist aggressors by their reporting. Handing over of these media to revolutionary social organisations such as the National Union of Workers (UNT), trade unions, workers’ councils and so on.

At the international level

Demand the solidarity of all the peoples and governments of Latin America and the world so that they act against aggression. Call for an immediate international mobilisation from the beginning of the aggression.

Stalin Pérez, Gonzalo Gómez, Andrea Pacheco, Alexander Marín, Juan García, Zuleika Matamoros, Igor Alcalá, Gustavo Martínez, Luisana Melo, Lucero Benítez, Norman Bolcan, Ismael Hernández, Osman Cañizales, Christian Pereira, Jesús Vargas, Efrén Méndez, William Porras, Alí Verenzuela, Lilian Sanguino, Raúl Román, Vicente Osorio, Alexis Peña, Alexis Guerrero, Wilmer Aguilar, Roberto López, Rubén Linares, Vilma Vivas, Franklin Zambrano, Jesús Borges, Nieves Tamaroni, José Melendez, Elio Sayago, Daniel Rodríguez, José Tatá

[Marea Socialista is a grouping of revolutionary left militants within the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).]