ELYN declares: Hands off Venezuela!
STATEMENT BY THE EUROPEAN LEFT YOUTH NETWORK (ELYN)
After thirty-five years, the US bombed a Latin American country, Venezuela. After months of threats and imperialist interference, including the blockade of airspace, the intensification of the economic blockade, the naval encirclement and the seizure of oil tankers, the awarding of the Nobel Prize to foreign intervention supporter María Corina Machado as a form of political pressure, and the unfounded accusations of links to drug trafficking according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the US, on the night of the 3rd of January, militarily attacked and invaded the Bolivarian Republic, kidnapping its constitutional President Nicolás Maduro and the “first fighter”, Cilia Flores.
An act of imperial aggression based on the Monroe Doctrine and against the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people, the International Law and the UN Charter with the sole objective of seizing the world’s largest oil reserves and overthrowing a revolutionary government and its influence at the regional and global levels.
Through these criminal attacks, resulting in about 80 deaths and among them 32 soldiers from Cuba, the US issues a warning to others as an exemplary punishment for sovereign projects in a region of peace such as Latin America and the Caribbean as a means of imposing by force economic and political dominance over their peoples.
The European Left Youth Network strongly condemn this aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its sovereign people, and we express our solidarity and full support for the people of Venezuela, who continue to resist despite blockades, threats, and economic and cognitive warfare.
We firmly oppose the stance of European governments and the European Union, which have failed to condemn these attacks, reflecting their weakness and the Union’s subservience to Trump’s United States. We urge them to condemn this vicious aggression and to ask for the immediate release of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores. We reject any kind of imperialist interference by the US in Venezuela, being the Venezuelan people and their government the only ones deciding its future. Also, we demand that those responsible answer for their actions and that measures be taken against those who violate international law.
This is no time for equidistance when a sovereign people and its government is under attack and international law is openly violated with total impunity. The international order can’t change following Trump’s morality. We call on young people and organisations to still take part in and support all the demonstrations of protest and solidarity being organized across the continent, to continue speaking out about Venezuela and the impunity with which the United States imposes its imperialist, colonial and neo-fascist interests, and to pressure our governments and parliaments to demand respect for international law and the immediate release of Venezuela’s legitimate president.
This is not only about Venezuela, it is about what world we stand for. This is an aggression against the global working class since it only caters to the desires of US’ decadent capital, dragging us into a more unstable, unsafe and unequal world for our class. We have already witnessed what has happened in Palestine and the use of economic interests as the pretext to justify a genocide.
Venezuela and its people, especially its youth, are not alone. We stand with Venezuela, peace, solidarity, and the sovereignty of the peoples. We stand with international solidarity.
Hands off Venezuela!