PRESS RELEASE

The Movement for a Socialist Alternative (MSA) unequivocally condemns the recent illegal and unprovoked military attack carried out by the United States against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, including the kidnapping, forcible removal, and detention of the sitting President of a sovereign nation, President Nicolás Maduro, and his wife by United States authorities, who are already on trial for false “narco-terrorism” charges in the US.

To merely pose this action as a grave violation of international law, national sovereignty, and the fundamental right of peoples to self-determination is to ignore dozens of examples that point to the fact that “democratic rights” are violated and outrightly dismissed when in conflict with the greed of imperialist powers to access and dispossess weaker states of their wealth and resources.

This brutal aggression must be urgently resisted by the international working-class movement, in Latin America, Asia, Africa, including within the United States. We must take to the streets to say clearly: Hands off Venezuela! End all imperialist pursuits! But these slogans on their own will not act on themselves; they will demand the working class provide the leadership on all fronts to make them into a livewire that births a worldwide anti-war campaign to force Trump and all other rival imperialists to beat a retreat.

The working masses cannot stand idly by, or be disillusioned and sow any illusion whatsoever in the Bourgeoisie’s international institutions or regimes, either in the advanced capitalist state in Europe, or even in other rival Imperial powers like China and Russia, who erroneously are perceived in most of the neocolonial Africa, Asia and Latin America as alternatives to US Imperialism. If anything, their not coming to the aid or providing intel info to the Maduro regime is a form of complicity, or is it at least a demonstration of US superiority over its rival with regards to the Military Industrial Complex. And Trump is all out to flaunt it and will do so again.

This attack represents a dangerous escalation of United States imperialist interventionism in Latin America and poses serious threats to global peace and security. And the working masses must turn to their own strength and organise.

Yes, for a worldwide anti-war campaign against the new rise of militarism, but it also directly poses the question of power in every country. This will demand that the working masses directly form an independent political platform on a working class political programme and manifesto of nationalising the wealth of society under the democratic control and management of the working people’s government.

An anti-War campaign that seeks to make an appeal to Trump or other imperialists war mingers is already half-defeated. Only the actions of the working masses in a direction of organising itself as a class for power and succeeding, build a democratic workers’ state and organs wherein power flows directly from the working masses, as opposed to maintaining the existing bourgeois state structure and institutions. This is the basis for the survival of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the defeat of 15 imperialist countries that invaded it from 1918, seeking to undo the revolution. This is an important lesson for working class activists worldwide in their quest for revolutionary change and transformation of society. The bourgeois state cannot be wielded and made to serve the interests of the working masses; it must first be weeded out, made to “wither away”, and be replaced with a workers’ state; “where everyone is a bureaucrat, there is no bureaucrat”.

The undemocratic, reckless, and authoritarian character of the Trump regime is exposed by his statement that the US will take control of Venezuela’s oil and that “between 30 and 50 MILLION barrels” will come to the US reveals the true intent of the attack on Venezuela’s sovereignty. Venezuela possesses the largest proven oil reserves in the world, estimated at 303 billion barrels. This is the basis of Trump’s attack on Venezuela.

It follows, therefore, that more attacks are imminent. Trump says the whole of the Western hemisphere is his. Indeed, Europe is not left out of this new craze for land and rare earth materials in this age, with a world economy defined by the digital and robotic preeminence, with Greenland already getting the green light that it is next in line to get the hit from Trump.

Available reports indicate that the midnight military operation resulted in the killing of at least 55 people, including 23 Venezuelans and 32 Cubans, with civilians also recorded among the dead. Several areas were destroyed, and public infrastructure was damaged during the attack. These killings and acts of destruction amount to war crimes. But Trump is already too Big to subject himself even to the bourgeois democratic organs in the US, nor can any so called international institution call him to order. Only the working masses can organise and pile the necessary pressure to either bring him under check or ultimately remove him from power.

We, in the Movement for a Socialist Alternative (MSA), state clearly and emphatically that the motives behind this attack are not hidden. They are consistent with the historical character of imperialism. The intentions of Trump’s ruthless regime are clear: to install a puppet government in Caracas that would return the world’s largest known oil reserves and other natural resources to the unfettered control of U.S. billionaires. Already Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s VP, has now been sworn in as acting President, with all the necessary military threat that the same measure will be extended to her, if she doesn’t play ball with the US and serve as a stooge for the execution of Trump’s agenda to take full control of Venezuela’s oil. “It is either do it on our behalf, or we take you out and do it anyway”

Trump is acting undeterred by international laws and norms to seize resources and counter the influence of rival imperialist powers, particularly China. Chinese capitalism is the primary target of this aggressive strategy. It will continue with this quest prompting new attacks and wars, even if a “Berlin conference” arrangement is arrived at by the major imperialists blocs for their different area of domination, war will still be launched on weak states to conquer them, as we have seen with Venezuela.

However, Latin America is no US private property. The Venezuelans have the right to control their own destinies. The banner of resistance to imperialism has moved millions throughout the continent’s revolutionary history and will once again rise, if not immediately, certainly later has the henchmen and women of profiteers and private capitalists scramble for the wealth and resources of Latin America, mass deprivation will become worse, hunger, land dispossession, mass unemployment will again bring the necessary consciousness to bear that will lead the working masses to take on imperialism and again seek to overthrow capitalism. This time, the key lessons from the Bolivarian revolution, the Chavista movement and the so-called 21st Century Socialism will have been learnt and understood.

Whatever resistance that is therefore not there today against Trump’s action inside of Venezuela is alone a matter of time. The cheap and divisive tactics aimed at polarising Venezuelans and misleading those who believe Trump should govern their country due to the dissatisfaction with their current leadership and his actions is aimed at turning things around in favour of the working masses will soon become clear is a mirage. Neither Trump nor any other capitalist power is interested in developing Venezuela; they are solely interested in its resources. Then and there, the power of the working masses will again come to the fore to seek to directly act against Imperialism and all other efforts internally against the interest of the Venezuelan working massses.

The MSA emphasises that the working class has no interest in imperialist wars. The United States working class gains nothing from this aggression. The Venezuelan working class pays the price in blood and hardship, while capitalists, arms dealers, and oil corporations reap the profits. Imperialist wars are fought for capital, not for the people.

We therefore demand an immediate end to all United States military actions against Venezuela and other nations marked by the Trump administration for possible invasion, as well as full respect for Venezuela’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The MSA calls on trade unions, socialists and left organisations, student movements, and progressive civil society groups in the US, Latin America, Asia, and Africa to rise in solidarity with the people of Venezuela and to resist this renewed wave of open imperialist aggression worldwide.

We affirm that defeating imperialism and securing genuine control over Venezuela’s future requires an independent working-class movement and the poor to fight for public, democratic ownership and control of natural resources and key industries, alongside the complete dismantling of capitalist structures.

The global working class must unite against imperialism in all its forms, whether led by the United States, China, or any other capitalist power.

Signed.

AJ. Dagga Tolar
General Secretary, MSA.