Using the Covid crisis: British and US military massing off Venezuelan coast
Reckless and desperate attempts are being made by US imperialism to encircle and crush Venezuelan socialism.
On 15 April, a joint statement between the Venezuela’s trade unions, its National Front for the Liberation of the Working Class (FNLCT) and Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CUTV, the communist-aligned trade union movement) was published alerting the world to the fact that US and European Union forces are poised to attack the homeland of the Bolivarian revolution, Venezuela.
The statement called upon “the working class and the peoples of the world, international class-based trade unionism and all the revolutionary, anti-imperialist, popular, democratic and progressive forces of all countries” to oppose “the dangerous escalation of aggression that the US government is implementing against Venezuela and people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, this time with the certain threat of an imperialist military attack”. (Urgent – Solidarity with Venezuela: let’s stop the imperialist military assault!, Orinoco Tribune, 10 April 2020)
Alarmed by US military advances towards the land and coastal borders of Venezuela, the statement went on to highlight how the US is brazenly slandering the Bolivarian republic as a drug trafficker.
“For some days, the Pentagon has begun a strong deployment of military contingents approaching the coasts of Venezuela and, simultaneously, has been deploying US military personnel in Colombia, in areas near the border with our country, all disguised as anti-drug trafficking actions in the Caribbean, after the United States Department of Justice, through the prosecutor of that country, announced false charges of terrorism and drug trafficking against the president of the republic, Nicolás Maduro, and other leading figures in the Venezuelan state.
“The infamous accusation of ‘drug trafficker’ against the Venezuelan government falls under its own weight in the eyes of the world, because the main producers and marketers of narcotics on the continent are in Colombia and Mexico, while the main consumer is the United States of America. The political objectives of domination in the Caribbean and South America, pursued by US imperialism with the alleged fight against drug trafficking, show the mafia relationship between the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and the Colombian drug cartels.”
It is clear we are witnessing a new wave of imperialist offensive against the Venezuelan people and their popularly elected socialist government, led by Nicolás Maduro and the PSUV (Untied Socialist Party of Venezuela). It is imperative that progressive people in the imperialist countries publicise this escalation of US aggression and unite around anti-imperialist forces or campaign groups that are willing to provide international solidarity to the Venezuelans.
“Last week, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell issued a statement taking ‘positive note’ of the Trump administration’s ‘Democratic transition framework’, unveiled on 31 March.
“The plan demands the resignation of President Nicolás Maduro and his cabinet in favour of a caretaker administration headed by a five-person ‘council of state’ composed of opposition and ruling party loyalists …
“Borrell added that the US framework ‘goes in the EU line of proposing a peaceful way out of the crisis through a negotiated path to a democratic government, which is now more needed than ever’.”
These days, the interference in the affairs of others, destined to result in bloody slaughter and misery, is considered by European civilisation the ‘peaceful way out’!
“The latest EU move marks a change of tone on the part of the multinational bloc, which called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last month to grant emergency loans to Venezuela and Iran, criticising the crippling impact of US sanctions on both nations’ coronavirus response. The fund had previously rejected the appeal, citing a lack of ‘clarity on recognition’ of the Maduro government.
“While the EU has yet to impose economic sanctions on Venezuela, the body has sanctioned senior Caracas officials in addition to following Washington in recognising self-proclaimed ‘interim president’ Juan Guaidó in January 2019.” (European left slams EU support for Trump’s Venezuela ‘transition’ plan, Orinoco Tribune, 10 April 2020)
Regionalist organisations such as the EU and Nafta (North-Atlantic Free Trade Association) were established to strengthen the mobility of capital within the borders of Europe and North America – ie, to strengthen imperialism – and cannot be trusted to side with revolutionary governments, to defend people’s liberty or to protect their sovereign rights.
Such international associations of gangsters are in a position to pressure weaker client states into toeing the imperialist line in the sphere of foreign policy, and to ensure that those who seek a different kind of world, one free of capitalism, are isolated.
“Two of the major European allies, France and Great Britain, sent their warships to the Caribbean.
“The amphibious assault ship Dixmund sailed on 3 April from Toulon to French Guiana for what President Macron calls ‘an unprecedented military operation’ called ‘Resilience’, in the framework of the ‘war on coronavirus’.
“Dixmund can perform the secondary function of hospital ship, with 69 beds and seven for intensive care. The primary role of this large ship, 200m long and with a flight deck of 5000m2, is that of amphibious assault: approaching the enemy coast, it attacks with dozens of helicopters and landing crafts transporting troops and armoured vehicles.
“Similar characteristics, albeit on a smaller scale, has the British ship RFA Argus, which sailed on 2 April to British Guyana.
“The two European ships will take position in the same Caribbean waters near Venezuela, where the war fleet is arriving – with the most modern coastal combat ships (also built by Italian Leonardo company for US navy) and thousands of marines – sent by President Trump officially to stop drug trafficking.
“He accuses Venezuelan President Maduro of ‘taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis to increase the drug trafficking he finances his narco-state with’. The purpose of the operation, supported by Nato, is to strengthen the embargo, tightening to economically strangle Venezuela (a country with the largest oil reserves in the world), whose situation is aggravated by the coronavirus that has started to spread.
“The aim is to depose regularly elected President Maduro (on whose head the US has placed a $15m bounty) and to establish a government that will bring the country into the sphere of US domination. It cannot be excluded that an incident could be caused as a pretext for the invasion of Venezuela.” (Nato in arms to ‘fight coronavirus’ by Manilo Dinucci, Global Research, 9 April 2020)
The US will be bolstered by its European stooges so long as they can make European workers comply with their imperialist agenda; so long as they can manufacture such complicity through pro-war imperialist propaganda.
This is why our work to popularise the line of non-cooperation is essential. Without working-class cooperation, the imperialists cannot carry out their designs. The Workers Party of Britain, a broad organisation of progressive workers, is driving a small wedge into the social-democratic dam wall that has previously ensured that there is no meaningful opposition to imperialist war in Britain.
If a breach can be made, and significant sections of the working class freed from these chains, a real militant workers’ movement can begin to be built, a resurgent economic struggle against capitalism in Britain can emerge, a social and cultural reawakening of the British workers can begin, and the schemes of our ruling class for conquest and war can be frustrated, and eventually doomed.
A piece in the Orinoco Tribune recently discussed some of the wider geopolitical factors that led to this new wave of imperialist recklessness:
“The threat of war aggression against the Venezuelan nation, in the context of the deep world capitalist crisis accentuated and accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, expresses the exacerbation of intercapitalist and interimperialist contradictions, which put humanity at risk of greater conflicts and imperialists wars.
“Capitalism, in its imperialist phase, has been shown to be a threat to health, life and peace on the planet. Under such conditions, the need for a proletarian and popular offensive against the domination of capital in the world increases, to oppose to the inhuman agenda of capitalist profit the solidarity, libertarian and justice agenda of the peoples.”
Although many people use the term ‘Covid crisis’ to describe the current economic meltdown, the crisis in which we currently find ourselves has not been caused by coronavirus but is the inevitable result of the underlying systemic crisis of overproduction, as Proletarian, Lalkar and the Communists (CPGB-ML) have maintained for the past decade, ever since the 2008 financial crash from which no real recovery was ever made.
As Communist vice-chair Joti Brar pointed out in a recent episode of Crosstalk for RT, coronavirus was not the ultimate cause of the crash, but merely “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. (CrossTalk: Rethinking globalism, RT, 10 April 2020)
Just like the ‘dotcom bubble’ of 2000 and the ‘credit crunch’ of 2008, the ‘Covid crisis’ today is presented in such a way by bourgeois media and economists as to give the impression of a certain detachment from one another – that each was some kind of free-standing, isolated event.
In fact, however, the general crisis of overproduction, which has been developing in tone from minor to major for decades, is now reaching its cataclysmic crescendo.
Our ruling class wants us to think that we can avert crisis through a change in policy, through reform, but this will simply not do. We must recognise that the primary cause of the economic crisis is the system itself.
Capitalism is rigged toward overproduction and the only solution is a socialist revolution and the construction and administration of a centrally planned economy.
Not only can this guarantee an end to imperialist war; it will also allow us to build a sustainable future for our children.
Solidarity with Venezuela!
Victory to the Venezuelan president and people!
__________
In light of the events outlined above, the Communists have issued the following statement:
The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) condemns the actions of the British state, and the EU imperialist bloc, in joining in with the latest aggressive moves by US imperialism aimed at overthrowing the legitimate president and leadership of Venezuela – Comrade Nicolás Maduro, the PSUV, and the revolutionary Venezuelan people.
The CPGB-ML fully endorses the joint statement of 15 April between the Venezuelan trade unions, the National Front for the Liberation of the Working Class (FNLCT) and Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CUTV).
The statement calls upon “the working class and the peoples of the world, international class-based trade unionism and all the revolutionary, anti-imperialist, popular, democratic and progressive forces of all countries” to oppose “the dangerous escalation of aggression that the US government is implementing against Venezuela and people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, this time with the certain threat of an imperialist military attack”.
It is imperative that progressive people in the imperialist countries publicise this escalation of US aggression and unite around anti-imperialist forces or campaign groups that are willing to provide international solidarity to the Venezuelans.
Regionalist organisations such as the EU and Nafta were established to strengthen the mobility of capital within the borders of Europe and North America – ie, to strengthen imperialism. Such international associations of gangsters are in a position to pressure weaker client states to toe the imperialist line in the sphere of foreign policy, and to ensure that those who seek a different kind of world, one free of capitalism, are isolated.
This is why our work to popularise the line of non-cooperation is essential. Without working-class cooperation the imperialists cannot carry out their designs. The Workers Party of Britain, a broad organisation of progressive workers, is driving a small wedge into the social-democratic dam wall that has previously ensured that there is no meaningful opposition to imperialist was in Britain.
If a breach can be made, and significant sections of the working class freed from these chains, a real militant workers’ movement can begin to be built, a resurgent economic struggle against capitalism in Britain can emerge, a social and cultural reawakening of the British workers can begin, and the schemes of our ruling class for conquest and war can be frustrated, and eventually doomed.
Solidarity with Venezuela
Victory to the Venezuelan president and people!
