ILPS US Chapter Stands Firmly with Venezuela

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle - US chapter (ILPS US) expresses our deep and genuine solidarity with the people of Venezuela and their government under duly-elected President Nicolas Maduro. We absolutely reject the war mongering of the Donald Trump administration, including the fabricated charges of drug trafficking against President Maduro, the deployment of the U.S. Navy to Venezuela under the flimsy guise of fighting drug trafficking, and the continuing economic sanctions in an attempt to destroy the Venezuelan economy and destabilize the government.   To blindly follow Trump’s statements without question is an outright denial of facts and history. One only has to look at Trump’s own personal history of blatant lies (most recently with his handling of the entire COVID 19 pandemic) to uncover his tactics of  creating his own truth for the sake of consolidating more power for his family and crony dynasty. It is the same type of lies the US has used in its long history of military intervention and imperialist violation of the sovereignty of other nations -- deposing democratically elected leaders across Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Europe.We recognize Maduro and the Venezuelan people’s desires for fraternal relationships, cooperation, exchange and respect as true signs of international solidarity. We applaud Venezuela’s response to the COVID 19 pandemic which supports workers and their families by guaranteeing workers’ wages and banning lay-offs.The ILPS US commits ourselves to exposing and opposing imperialism, its neoliberal policies and its neo-fascist leaders, and we demand the US government focus instead on providing for the dire needs of the vast majority of the working class families and impoverished people within the US. We call for the lifting of US sanctions against Venezuela along with those against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, China, Iran, Cuba, Palestine and elsewhere, which only serve to strangle and deprive the people of much needed medical supplies and other basic necessities for their survival. The world is in crisis, which needs international solidarity and a concerted effort to not only fight COVID 19 but also to bring an end to the deeper pandemic of imperialism and build towards the genuine solution to the crisis--a socialist future!