This article was translated by Yoan Karell Acosta González

What has to be done to put an end to the violent escalation in Venezuela? Obviously, the empire has a script, as Chávez warned in the lecture he gave on December 10, 2007 in the Cultural Center for Cooperation in Buenos Aires. A script that has been put into practice in other countries since long ago: the most notorious case that somehow set the parameters of this induced fascist process was Allende´s Chile. After this pioneering criminal experience the script has been improved with numerous attempts perpetrated in other countries as well as with attempts of theoretical systematization, the most important of which by Eugene Sharp and his team at the Albert Einstein Institute, a spurious name for an institution devoted to designing new strategies for “regime change”, resorting to supposed “non-violent” ways to overthrow governments unwilling to submit to Washington´s command. The cases of Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and now Venezuela didactically illustrate what the expression “non-violent” actually means for the empire´s strategists.

It is evident that the international system is undergoing a turmoil global geopolitical transition phase. Over a decade or so new political and economic power hubs emerged while the global US power has weakened. Undoubtedly, it is still the strongest military power on the planet, but that is not enough to win wars, which has been clearly proven by the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Its allies are more hesitant and uncertain, its servants are less obedient and its adversaries and rivals are more powerful and influential. Washington is losing ground in the Middle East: its attempt to attack Syria failed, its attempts to blackmail Iran turned out to be an innocuous bluster and its historical allies in the region, that is, the reactionary Gulf theocracies are threatened by the Jihadists´ advance, while Israel deploys, concerning some topics, its own game that paradoxically turns Washington into its reluctant subordinate. In Central Asia the anti-US feeling reaches an unprecedented peak, and in the Far East the growing predominance of China appears to be irresistible and destined to move the tectonic plates of the international system.

It is in this scenario of imperial decline in which the violent seditious offensive against Venezuela has to be understood. Venezuela has the world´s biggest oil reserves; that is why it is a huge magnet for a country that built up a lifestyle and achieved its global supremacy on the basis of an irresponsible waste of this resource. In the 1970´s, after the US defeat in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), a counteroffensive was unleashed leading to the emergence of military dictatorships in the majority of the Latin American and Caribbean countries. Similarly, today´s US global weakening is pushing it to find shelter in its “backyard”, as John Kerry said not long ago during his visit to OAS; or in its “strategic rearguard”, as Fidel and Che defined it. And for that purpose, undesirable political regimes and governments have to be swept away.

Hence the enormous difficulty to put an end to the fascists’ attack in Venezuela, despite the continuous calls for peace by President Nicolás Maduro, grossly ignored by the opposition. Venezuela is the beachhead of a strategy aimed at thoroughly destabilizing the Latin American democracies. Applied to Chávez’s land first, this strategy will be tried then in Ecuador and Bolivia, and, finally, in Argentina, Brasil, and Uruguay. The result that is being sought by means of this operation is to bring back the existing scenario in Latin American and the Caribbean prior to the Cuban Revolution and impose all over the region neocolonial “friendly governments”, submissive to Washington´s economic and geopolitical interests. This is precisely what turns the ongoing battle in Venezuela into an equivalent of Stalingrad during the Second World War: a decisive battle that cannot be lost, because the “domino effect” of a defeat would be appalling for the emancipation struggles of our peoples, and the empire is fully aware of it. But stopping the violence escalation that is bringing pain and death to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela today requires the following:

a) first of all, constant international and domestic pressure, in the United States, so that the White House would stop encouraging, organizing, and financing the Venezuelan right wing, which is involved in an irreversible fascist process. For that purpose, Barack Obama must recognize the legitimate victory of Nicolás Maduro in the elections on April 14, 2013, corroborated by the overwhelming victory of chavismo in the municipal elections on December 8, 2013. Washington´s obstinacy has been a clear signal for the rioters that their crimes are unconditionally approved by the empire. Without this support by the US government, the offensive would be defeated within days. Obama should be denounced to The International Court of Justice as the main promoter of the acts of violence that have brought about so much death in Venezuela.

b) second, to enforce the law rigorously on the rioters and demonstrators that are resorting to all unimaginable forms of violence. Or else, a fascist metastasis will occur, gradually encompassing –as it appears to be happening these days– more groups of the opposition attracted to the strategy of overthrowing the government by means of violence. This may happen for two reasons: first, they expect to carry out the violent actions with impunity, considering the harassed Bolivarian government has been excessively tolerant with the rioters (we are talking about people that destroy both public and private property, lay out guayas (barbed wire) to cut the throat of motorcycle riders; people that attack with Molotov bombs, etcetera); the second reason is the “successful example” of Ukraine, where a neo-Nazi gang took advantage of a protest that was peaceful at first, then they took over the government by perpetrating all kinds of outrageous actions and crimes. Afterwards, they were recognized immediately by the White House and its cronies from the European Union. Leniency in dealing with the rioters will trigger the demoralization of the chavista movement, the breakup of its organizational structures, and a very negative change in the correlation of forces against the revolution and in favor of the counterrevolution, because that is precisely what they mean in Washington when they speak in terms “regime change”. Right now, benevolence in dealing with those that, by means of blood and fire, aim to erase the Bolivarian Revolution from the face of the Earth will definitely lead to the self-destruction of the process. First, the ongoing counterrevolution has to be crushed; then, an analysis could be done on who deserves to be treated with kindness and magnanimity by the revolution whose power will then be consolidated.

c) third, stimulate and improve the organization of the masses and their mobilization mechanisms. The right wing will try to combine its violent and overthrowing actions with its “peaceful” control over the streets with guarimbas (violent actions), demonstrations and all kinds of street protests. The chavista movement must regain control of the streets and make it clear that it is predominant on the ground, no matter the agreements that can be reached at the negotiating table. Because without the support of “the street” and the organized people, such high-ranking agreements would not be efficient at all. Besides, work has to be done to make the chavista grassroots and the people in general aware that what is at stake is the future of the Bolivarian Revolution and the historical achievements of fifteen years, and that the effective defense of the Revolution inexorably requires the immediate deepening of socialism and the immediate fulfillment of the instructions given by Commander Hugo Chávez Frías about the “Golpe de Timón” (“The Wheel Turn”), on the occasion of the meeting of the Council of Ministers on October 20, 2012. Any government emerging as a result of that imperial counteroffensive will proceed as the government of Pedro Carmona Estanga did on April 11, 2002, when his first decree abrogated with a single blow the 1999 Constitution, as well as all the rights set in it; he also dissolved all the State powers, declared the existing judicial frame illegal, removed all the authorities that had resulted from the popular vote at the national, state, and municipal levels, and put an end to the cooperation agreement with Cuba.

d) last, it is necessary to put all the effort into efficiently fighting a battle in the crucial field of the media, which, according to the Pentagon, is the main field where a war is waged between the revolution and the counterrevolution, and where the progressive and left-wing governments from the region have shown dangerous weaknesses against enemies that, for a long time, have deployed a domination and manipulation media strategy with deep repercussions on the social imagination. Lies systematically uttered end up being perceived as incontestable truths, hence the need for responding in an appropriate manner by creatively using not only all the traditional media (the press, the radio, television) but also the great opportunities given by the social networks.