“No US military deployment in the Caribbean!” and “US Hands Off Venezuela and Latin America!” were the main demands of a snap action, called by Latin American solidarity activists, at Sydney Town Hall Square, on September 20.
They expressed support for sovereignty for the Venezuelan and Latin American peoples. They also called on federal Labor to publicly oppose the United States’ military threats towards Venezuela.
The Donald Trump administration is provoking and threatening Venezuela. US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the reward for the “capture” of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had been raised from US$25 million to US$50 million.
US warships in the Caribbean Sea have sunk a small boat, which, the Trump administration claimed, without evidence, was carrying drugs from Venezuela to the US. Eleven people were killed. US soldiers also forcibly boarded another Venezuelan vessel and destroyed a speed boat, killing three more people.
Coral Wynter, a long-term activist in solidarity with Latin America and a member of Socialist Alliance (SA), told the protest the Trump administration was creating a “catastrophic situation”.
“There have been 13 US-backed attempts to destabilise and overthrow the governments of Venezuela since former president Huge Chávez was first elected in 1998 … There are also US threats against Brazil for convicting far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro of an attempted coup, against Panama, against Mexico, against Colombia, against Nicaragua and, longest of all, against revolutionary Cuba.”
Wynter said Trump mainly wants “to cause instability and panic [in Venezuela] and to generate internal political tension”. However, she said, the Venezuelan people “have shown strength and determination and we should do everything we can to act in solidarity with Venezuela and Latin America more generally”.
For more than two decades, the US has been trying to overthrow the Chávez-led government and, after his death in 2013, the Nicolas Maduro government. Successive US governments have supported attempted coups and tried to prevent Venezuela from deciding its trade partners.
Protesters fear the US’s latest moves may be preparation for further aggression. The US has warned of action against other Latin American countries if they cross the Trump administration, such as supporting the conviction of Bolsonaro, for an attempted coup in Brazil.
Victor Hugo Munoz, from Guatemala Human Rights Committee, spoke, as did Rosendo Geary, a Colombian Australian, and Juan Carlos Borda from the Association for Human Rights in Bolivia.
Paula Sanchez, Chilean Australian activist and SA member, said: “Dictatorships have been imposed by the US on our countries for many years. Enough is enough! US, leave us alone! US hands off Latin America!”
Federico Fuentes, another long-term Latin American solidarity activist and SA member, read statements from the Communist Party of Venezuela (CPV), Autonomous and Independent Workers’ Committee (CAIT), Comunes (Commons) and the US-based Mexico Solidarity Project.
The CPV said the incursion of US troops and warships into the Caribbean, under the false pretext of combating drug trafficking, “is an operation of intimidation and military pressure that threatens the sovereignty of our peoples”.
“US imperialism seeks to guarantee the privileges of its oil monopolies and pressure Nicolás Maduro’s government to continue granting concessions, such as those already given to Chevron.”
It welcomed the “concrete example of internationalism” and said, “in the face of the threat of foreign military occupation, we reiterate that the PCV will adopt the necessary organisational forms for the defence of the Venezuelan homeland and people”.
CAIT, a political organisation of union and political activists from diverse backgrounds, said it “highly values” the solidarity being shown in Australia.
“As indignation grows among the world’s peoples against the barbarity of war — and, in its most extreme form, the genocide that the State of Israel is perpetrating in Palestine with the more or less direct connivance of all governments — the event you have organised helps strengthen the global people’s resistance against this offensive. It also acts as an incentive to wage the necessary battles together against war and imperialism.”
The Comunes said “the US government claims its attacks are part of the fight against narco-terrorism, but it is clear that this is an interventionist action”. It said the attacks constitute a “brazen threat to the national sovereignty of any country in the region and a flagrant violation of human rights”.
“We strongly condemn this deployment and call for mobilising the anti-imperialist spirit that had characterised the continent’s democratic and progressive forces.” It also called on the Maduro government to “foster national unity to confront imperialism”.
The Mexico Project expressed its solidarity with the people of Venezuela, saying the “murder of Venezuelans aboard so-called ‘drug boats’ continues the 1823 Monroe Doctrine which asserts US domination over Latin America. As a cornerstone of US foreign policy, this doctrine has been used to justify military political and economic interventions in Latin America since 1904.”
