Posted on Monday, 5 January
In the early hours of Saturday 3rd January, the US attacked Venezuela, bombing military targets including Fuerte Tiuna and La Carlota, as well as electricity towers, cutting power off in numerous centres, including parts of the country's capital, Caracas.
In an operation reminiscent of Panama in 1989, US forces succeeded in kidnapping Venezuela's head of state, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife - setting in motion plans for ‘regime change’ and the installation of a puppet government.
Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez enjoyed mass popular support in Venezuela from his first election in 1998 to his death in 2013. Chávez redirected a portion of the profits flowing from the country’s massive oil wealth - which had long been siphoned-off by US and other multinational corporations with the (well rewarded) complicity of the country’s elite - towards improving the lives of the working class and the poor. For this, he was loathed by right-wing capitalists and their political servants everywhere.
At the height of the Chávez-led ‘Bolivarian revolution’ from 2003-2011 Venezuela saw a 30 percent decline in poverty and a 71 percent decline in extreme poverty, as well as a steep drop in inequality.
Under Maduro, however, Venezuela has suffered a deep economic crisis (crippling economic sanctions imposed by Washington were a major factor), and extreme poverty has returned to stalk the country. Maduro - in a desperate effort to stay in power despite rising discontent - pivoted to serving elite interests (both within Venezuela and among international capitalists), imposed increasingly authoritarian rule, and implemented a crackdown on working-class organisation and dissent.
None of this, however, is justification for the act of imperialist banditry carried out on 3rd January. As socialist author and anthropologist Jason Hickel put it in a post on X, “the US *does not care* about the people of Venezuela. It is not about ‘narcotrafficking’, or ‘democracy’, or whatever propaganda they have going. It is *explicitly* about US control over oil, capital accumulation, and geopolitical power.”
The future of Venezuela should be in the hands of Venezuelans themselves, rather than imperial puppet-masters like Trump and Marco Rubio, or those within the Venezuelan regime that may choose to put themselves at their service.
The peoples of Latin America are no strangers to the struggle for the right to control their own destinies. The region has long been a major playground for the US and other imperialist powers. In the past century US governments have intervened militarily countless times to secure client states. As in the past, we can expect the peoples of the continent to resist!
The Socialist Party:
Condemns Trump's imperialist aggression against Venezuela, and its blatant attempt to bring the Venezuelan oil industry under the control of US companies.
Rejects US and all foreign interference in the internal political affairs of Venezuela.
Demands the immediate withdrawal of all US naval, air and special forces from the region, and stands with the people of Venezuela, Colombia and Cuba, all under threat of intervention by Trump's government.
Demands that the Australian government condemn the US aggression, cancel the AUKUS deal, and reaffirm its support for the sovereignty of nations.
Supports working-class and poor Venezuelans in their ongoing struggle to wrest control of their country’s future out of the hands of the imperialists and elites both in Venezuela itself and abroad.
US forces out of the region!
Let the people of Venezuela decide!