On Monday 5 August, US president Donald Trump signed an executive order placing an embargo on the government of Venezuela, in effect placing a blockade on the whole of the country. After the failed attempted coup of Juan Guaidó earlier this year, which was backed by the US, Venezuela now joins the likes of Cuba, Iran, north Korea, and Syria as a recipient of the most extreme and damaging economic warfare.

Despite the abject failure of the coup, thanks to the steadfast determination of the Venezuelan people and their military to resist US imperialism, the US regime is still desperate to find some alleviation from the global crisis of capitalism, whether by economic or military methods.

Although temporarily set back by the disruptive nature of the Trump administration, US imperialists have nevertheless ploughed on with their machinations across the globe, provoking Iran in the strait of Hormuz, supporting the beginnings of a colour revolution in Hong Kong, scrapping the intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty, and, of course, the ongoing assault on Venezuela.

Speaking at a ‘Venezuela summit’ composed of US allies and stooges and held in Lima, Peru, US national security advisor John Bolton, one of the key war hawks of the Trump administration, also took the opportunity to threaten Russia and China, telling them that supporting Venezuela “could affect repayment of their debt after Maduro falls”.

Unable to learn a lesson from its bloody nose in Syria, where US-backed terrorists have been largely defeated by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies (including Russia and Iran), the US is continuing to support the farcical claim that Juan Guaidó is the president of Venezuela – the flimsiest of pretexts under which to turn the economic screws and threaten military action.

Even the United Nations human rights office, which is no friend of Venezuela, has released a statement expressing deep concern that the US’s latest sanctions could exacerbate the crisis Venezuela is already experiencing as a result of existing sanctions and sabotage, leading to life-threatening shortages of food and medicine.

The US is determined to make Venezuelans suffer. Their crime? Using their natural resources to better the lives of their people, building homes and schools, redistributing land, expanding healthcare, reducing extreme poverty, ensuring jobs are available, and reducing dependency on imports for food and other necessities.

Venezuela is a clear example of the threat posed to the ruling class by simply trying to provide for the workers rather than for the ultra-wealthy.

It is the billionaires, who have companies spanning the globe, who sail on multimillion-pound yachts to their multimillion-pound houses on multimillion-pound private islands, and who demand that the Venezuelan working class (and the American, and the British, and workers all over the world) live in poverty and squalor – and, if needs be, are shot and bombed to remind them of their place in the world.

The global economic crisis, however, draws these billionaires into more and more precarious positions. Needing to constantly increase their profits to remain on top, they rampage across the world: looting, extorting, polluting, and killing. However, they now find resistance to their global hegemony not seen since the destruction of the Soviet Union, and are as such are seriously flirting with war against China and Russia.

Venezuela will not be an easy stepping stone on the path to WW3 though. Her people are loyal, armed, organised, and educated through years of struggle, and she is supported by many nations, large and small, across the world.

We, the undersigned, call upon all progressive people and organisations to stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan people and their government, led by President Maduro and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), against imperialist aggression, and to demand an end to the embargo and the sanctions.

Venezuela’s defeat will be our defeat; Venezuela’s victory will be our victory. Venceremos!

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We invite organisations and individuals who support a free and independent Venezuela to sign this statement of solidarity by emailing info@cpgb-ml.org.

Signed

* Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)

* Indian Workers Association (GB)

* Red Youth

* Stalin Society

* Ethera Api UK – Hendry G Wickramaratne (secretary)

* JVP (People’s Liberation Front of Sri Lanka) Committee in the UK – Darshana Hettiarachchi (organiser)

* African Lives Matter

IN A PERSONAL CAPACITY

* Angelo Aidan, Jerusalem