The Communist Party USA views with consternation President Obama’s statement wherein he called the situation in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela an “extraordinary threat to US interests and foreign policy” meriting sanctions against individual members of the Venezuelan government.

The president’s statement came after the recent arrest in Venezuela of a small number of far right-wing politicians and activists who have been accused of various crimes including fomenting violent riots and plotting a coup d’etat against the legally elected government of President Nicolas Maduro. Our government, as well as the corporate controlled press and media, have belittled the claims about a coup plot. However, people in Latin America are very much aware of a history in which the United States has actively helped to foment such violent coups, as in Honduras in 2009, in Haiti in 2004, in Venezuela itself in 2002, and on many other occasions. So Venezuela’s fears are by no means unrealistic.

It is not proper for the United States to take action (in the form of sanctions) against the officials of a sovereign, independent state as a way of punishing them for carrying out their legally mandated duties.

Since the election of the late Hugo Chavez as president of Venezuela in 1998, that country, a major source of oil for the United States, has greatly improved the lives of the majority of the Venezuelan people, as well as developing cooperative relationships beneficial to many poor countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and beyond. This is seen as a threat to the interests of voracious U.S. and multinational corporations, and therefore a geopolitical threat. That is the only “threat” Venezuela represents; it has never threatened the people of the United States.

Currently Venezuela is undergoing economic difficulties. Possibly, the United States government hopes that this situation can be used to destabilize Venezuela, with a goal of regime change.
This is bad in and of itself, but the administration should understand, also, that by this kind of action it is wiping out in a stroke all the international goodwill that the recent opening to Cuba has created.

The Communist Party USA deplores the attack on Venezuela and rejects the idea that Venezuela represents a threat to the legitimate interests of the people of the United States. We deplore the imposition of sanctions on Venezuela, and demand that they be lifted. We salute the governments of Latin American and other nations who have already denounced this escalation of U.S. intervention in a sovereign, independent state.

The Communist Party USA asks our members and friends in organized labor, in the peace movement and in all movements for social justice to strongly protest our government’s escalation of the tensions with Venezuela, by writing letters, sending e-mails and faxes, making telephone calls and visits to our congressional representatives, to the State Department and White House, and to press and media nationwide.

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