Statement on US Attack on Venezuela

Madison Area DSA unequivocally condemns the illegal and unprovoked bombing of Caracas and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

This is not an “intervention” against “narcoterrorism” or in favor of democracy, as the Trump Regime claims. It is a blatant act of war in pursuit of resource control and hemispheric dominance, and it sends a message to Latin American and other governments around the world: submit to American imperialism or you’ll be next.

This escalation, while shocking, represents the logical culmination of decades of economic, diplomatic, and covert war by the US against Venezuela, and a return to the norms that characterized the darkest era of US aggression in Latin America that occurred under the auspices of the Monroe Doctrine. It is the latest installment in the pattern of American imperialist violence and regime-change policy that has played out many times over in every corner of the world.

The actions of the United States, in every previous imperialist war and now in Venezuela, clearly violate: 

• The UN Charter and the fundamental principle of national sovereignty; 
• International law against war crimes; 
• The right of all peoples, including the Venezuelan people, to self-determination.

The liberal establishment has once again failed to fight back against the illegal and barbaric acts of the Trump Regime. Rather than recognize the fundamental injustice of imperialism and seek to dismantle it, prominent Democrats have focused on procedural gripes. Rather than condemn the attack, they complain that Trump failed to obtain Congressional approval. This ignores the blatant illegality of the bombing and kidnapping, and the inhumanity of America’s policy towards Venezuela in general. Their responses lay bare the inherent incapacity of neoliberal hegemony to oppose fascist tendency.

As Democratic Socialists, we recognize the true motives and intended effects of the Trump Regime’s escalation: 

• Seizure of Venezuela’s sovereign oil wealth and the transfer of that wealth from the Venezuelan people to private American companies; 
• Geopolitical control over the Western Hemisphere through the destruction of Venezuelan resistance to US hegemony and the further dissuading of any other Latin American government from insubordination to Washington and the interests of foreign capital; 
• The destruction of Bolivarian socialism and any other alternative to neoliberal capitalism.

We therefore demand, not simply a return to liberal norms, but rather: 

• An immediate end to all hostilities; 
• The return of President Maduro and First Lady Flores; 
• The lifting of all sanctions and other forms of economic warfare; 
• Reparations for lost Venezuelan life and property, both national and private;
• An end to the Monroe Doctrine and US interventions that violate other nations’ sovereignty; 
• Prosecution for war crimes of any US government personnel who planned or executed this illegal military action; 
• The immediate release and exoneration of any and all individuals detained and arrested on American soil for protesting the bombing and kidnapping, in violation of the First Amendment;
• Unconditional amnesty for all current and future Venezuelan immigrants and refugees in the United States in response to the United States’ violent treatment of their homeland.

To the working class of the United States, we say: This war is not in our name. It is waged by a capitalist oligarchy that exploits us and that, while bombing innocent civilians abroad, also bombs our communities with austerity, police violence, and neglect. The billions spent on this criminal adventure are stolen from our healthcare, our housing, our schools, and our climate future. The Venezuelan working class are our siblings and allies in the global class war, and we stand in solidarity with them and all victims of U.S. imperialist wars.