Solidarity for Venezuela and Struggles at Home

[polly7]

By Preeti Kaur
Source: teleSUR English
June 10, 2015

President Hugo Chavez’s voice calling for a free and integrated Latin America reverberated loudly through the halls of the National Union of Teachers London premises on Thursday June 4, 2015. Channeling Chavez, Marti, Bolivar and Sandino, Guisell Morales-Echaverry, the first resident Nicaraguan ambassador to the UK since 1998, echoed demands for one voice against poverty. She called for continued resolve to walk down the avenues of new realities and new ways, first opened by Chavez, towards freedom and fraternity, equally.

The event celebrated ten years of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign’s work diligently defending Venezuela’s sovereignty and independence, to support the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their own future free from external intervention. Medea Benjamin, founder of the human rights group Global Exchange & the women-led peace group CODEPINK, and journalist Seumas Milne, expressed incredulity at President Obama’s March 2015 executive order declaring Venezuela a threat to the U.S.’s national security. Indeed, the mirror opposite is true. The U.S. has supported destabilizing efforts in Venezuela for nearly fifteen years.

Who is the U.S. to question Venezuela’s human rights record?, asked Benjamin and the Argentinean ambassador to the UK, Alicia Castro. The U.S., a country which promoted UN sanctions in Iraq which led to the deaths of half a million children, a country which later occupied Iraq – illegally and hungry for oil – which separately led to the deaths of an additional one million Iraqis.

The proponents of neo-liberal ideology, from the Telegraph to the Cato Institute, have been insistent on labeling Venezuela’s economy a “basket case” in recent months. No doubt, there are problems in Venezuela; U.S. imposed sanctions, reductions in oil prices, and a belligerent anti-democratic opposition have imposed social and economic strife. Yet, the Venezuelan government remains committed to reducing poverty, initiating further social housing developments, and hastening access to medical services, all while promoting human-centered regional integration and international solidarity, avoiding the stupidity of economic austerity and cuts to social spending.

Venezuela fiercely fought against the expansion of NAFTA type free-trade agreements in the region. Instead, promoting visions of regional integration based on solidarity, where doctors and teachers are provided in exchange for oil, and where Latin American countries seek to support themselves and each other in the quest for a good life for the peoples of their countries. This principle has been extended to countries in need, including Ebola hit regions, Haiti, and Palestine.

Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/solidarity-for-venezuela-and-struggles-at-home/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Good article. It's great knowing Medea is out there pushing for support and progress

for the ones who've been exploited, betrayed by their traitorous leaders of the past.

It's time for justice, and one way or another, it's going to have to happen, no matter how hard the monsters fight to drag the governments back into the past. They are going to lose it all, in the end.