The News From the Venezuela Election? Victory for the People of Venezuela and Defeat for the U.S.

Black Alliance for Peace Statement on Venezuelan Elections

The news out of Venezuela related to the elections is that there is no news. All attempts to attack and delegitimize the process failed and the people of that beleaguered nation once again chose independence and dignity over surrendering to the imperialist gangsterism of the United States and their white supremacist, European colonial allies.

For the first time in four years elements of the political opposition participated in elections that saw nearly 70,000 candidates representing 37 national political parties and 43 regional organizations for 23 governors, 335 mayors, 253 lawmakers, and 2,471 councilors.

Demonstrating once again that it is committed to open, fair, and clean elections, the Consejo National Electoral (CNE), the governmental body responsible for organizing elections in the country, issued credentials to over 300 international observers from 55 countries and institutions such as the European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN), and the Carter Center.

The result?

The “Great Patriotic Pole” (GPP), a coalition of parties and social movements organized by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), won overwhelmingly including 20 out of 23 key governorships in the sub-national election.

According to BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka, “The support of the Venezuelan people for their process demonstrates once again, like what we just saw in the Nicaraguan elections and the failed revolt in Cuba on the 15th, that the white supremacists do not understand that when a people have tasted freedom, reconnected with their pre-colonial cultural traditions of knowledge production and independence, they become immune to the political, ideological and material attempts to drive them back into subordination.”

The elections in Venezuela and Nicaragua, the abandonment of reactionary forces in Cuba by the Cuban people, and the solidarity from progressive forces globally in support of the struggles for national liberation and self-determination in the Americas, represent the upsurge of popular opposition and the growing weakness and fragility of U.S. and European imperialism.

They all forcefully affirm that the colonial realities are being reversed. It is a victory for all oppressed, colonized, and working-class peoples when a people, working to build a new society for themselves freed from the dehumanizing effects of the colonial/capitalist system, are able to withstand the systematic assaults on their democratic process and national sovereignty. BAP stands firmly with all of these attempts and proudly salutes the people of Venezuela.

No compromise, no retreat! 

May 1: Making International Workers' Day a Day of Action Against Imperialism

May 1: Making International Workers’ Day a Day of Action Against Imperialism

End the War in Afghanistan, Shut Down AFRICOM, Resist the Militarized Occupation of Black and Brown Working-Class and Colonized Communities

War, repression, and imperialism characterize the objective plight of billions of humans still gripped by the vicious colonial-capitalist world system. May 1 is the day laboring classes claim for themselves as International Workers' Day to reaffirm the struggle against the dehumanization and degradation of the global capitalist order kept in place by state violence and war. May 1 also is the deadline the United States agreed to last year to pull out of Afghanistan to end the suffering of that nation of workers and peasants. It also is the day the workers and poor of Haiti have chosen to revolt against the puppet government imposed on them by the Biden-Harris administration, a duo that has proven in its first 100 days its commitment to Black life does not extend beyond domestic public-relations stunts.

Over a million Black working-class and poor people rot in the gulags of the United States as a surplus population, unneeded by capital except as an income generator for prison custodians and slave labor. And for the rest of the Black and Brown working class and poor, the domestic army referred to as the police are tasked with the responsibility to protect and serve the capitalist extraction of surplus value from labor through coercion and, when needed, terror.

This is the domestic expression of a global system that produces billions of people living in abject poverty in nations ruled by a contemptible neocolonial ruling class, usually supported by the United States or one of the other European colonial powers. These neocolonial puppets have no hesitation in using unimaginable violence to keep the people in line.

But the people are in resistance.

In Haiti, the people have fought for their collective dignity against a U.S. stooge for over a year. Having taken to the streets in the thousands, they have sustained the resistance to the point that the state has turned to increasingly desperate, escalating violence in its goal to contain the people.

In the United States, hundreds of wildcat strikes have occurred, demonstrating that even in the midst of a pandemic, the spirit of working-class resistance finds expression.

And in Venezuela, the Bolivarian process is still holding firm against all measures of U.S. provocations and cruel sanctions meant to punish the people, who refuse the indignity of surrender to Yankee imperialism.

The inability of capitalist states to protect the fundamental human rights of its citizens, revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in a new consciousness among workers and laboring classes globally. It now is clear the interests of the global capitalists are different from the interests of the rest of collective humanity. And because of that understanding, the warmongers are finding it a little more difficult to mobilize the public to protect imperialist interests.

On May 1, the Black Alliance for Peace stands in solidarity with the workers of the world and pledges our commitment to do our part to confront the capitalist dictatorship.

We say without hesitation or concern for retaliation on this International Workers' Day that we will intensify the opposition to imperialism. From the streets of Atlanta, Detroit and Baltimore, to Cuba, Haiti, Libya, and Venezuela, we will “turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism.”

Banner photo: A sea of Cubans march under the slogan, "Preserve and Perfect Socialism," in Havana on May 1, 2012, to mark Labor Day. (Adalberto Roque)

Black Alliance for Peace Says Struggle in Haiti and Venezuela Connected

FEBRUARY 18, 2019—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) remains in steadfast solidarity with the people of Haiti, whose revolutionary spirit in 1791 showed the world what is possible when Africans organize and struggle together to remove their shackles and dispose of their oppressors.

The recent revelation that Haitian President Jovenel Moïse embezzled nearly $4 billion Venezuela had loaned the island nation a decade ago caused the popular uprising taking place in the country. And this is where we see where U.S. interventions in Venezuela and Haiti connect.

Moïse is nothing more than a puppet controlled by the U.S. government to disallow Haitian self-determination.

The Haitian people are no strangers to the tentacles of U.S. interventionism, which has been in place since the 19-year occupation commenced by President Woodrow Wilson in 1915. The occupation included the seizure and relocation of Haiti’s financial reserves to the United States, as well as a re-write of the nation’s constitution, which allowed foreign entities to enjoy land-owning rights.

Over time, the actors associated with the U.S. stranglehold on Haiti and its right to self-determination may have changed—from Wilson, to Clinton, to Obama—but the strategy and modus operandi have remained consistent. The method involves financial manipulation, election rigging and racketeering. We are witnessing a parallel between 1929—when U.S. military forces suppressed a nationwide strike in Haiti and peaceful demonstrations by firing live ammunition on 1,500 people—and recently as Haitians have protested, demanding the ouster of U.S.-backed Moïse.

Moïse’s grip on power is being pried from his fingers as police officers continue to defy his orders, stand down and refuse to fire on protesters.

Continued U.S. oppression of Haiti was most recently demonstrated when U.S. sanctions against Venezuela made it impossible for Haiti to repay their loan as part of the PetroCaribe deal, thereby ending the arrangement in 2017. Moïse further demonstrated his loyalty to the United States when he directed his ministers to support a U.S.-engineered vote at the Organization of American States (OAS) that declared the illegitimacy of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

As internationalists who understand the interconnectedness of oppressed peoples’ struggles, BAP declares its solidarity with the people of Haiti in the struggle to end U.S. imperialism in Haiti, Venezuela and all republics of the Caribbean and Latin America. The people of Haiti are once again attempting to win back their nation. All who believe in principle of self-determination should stand with them.

Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Photo credit: Hector Retamal/AFP

Black Working Class Will Never Abandon Venezuela!

“The struggles of the Black working-class, united around a national program must have international solidarity and must be understood within the context of an anti-imperialist struggle against global capitalism and the US-led imperialist global economic, military and political infrastructure. For the Black working-class and the Black liberation movement not to struggle against capitalism, is not to be engaged in a struggle for Black liberation.” —Saladin Muhammad, Black Workers for Justice

We must remind our people that over 150 million Africans live throughout the so-called Americas. We especially must raise this reality at critical moments like this when the corporate media and establishment opinion is legitimizing U.S. gangsterism that could kill thousands of people in Venezuela.

Afro-Venezuelans contacted Black Alliance for Peace to ask us to remind our people in the United States that military forces will target Afro-Venezuelans if a military intervention occurs because they represent a core constituency of the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela.  

When a so-called opposition takes down the flag of its own country and raises the U.S. flag—after also displaying the Israeli flag on its podium during a demonstration—the true nature and interests of this element are exposed. This is an opposition that burnt Afro-Venezuelans alive because they assume all Black people support the government.

We know what will happen if a U.S.-led military intervention takes place. It will be a re-play of the 1989 invasion of Panama, where U.S forces turned the Black community of El Chorrillo into a “free fire zone,” resulting in the complete destruction of the community and the deaths of over 3,000 Panamanians.  

The U.S. state has demonstrated repeatedly that it has no regard for non-European life, from Iraq through Libya to Yemen and a dozen nations in between.

It is imperative we separate our folks from this naked imperialist move on Venezuela. It is important for African/Black people to be clear where we stand on these kinds of issues. The war and militarism being waged against us by the domestic military we call “the police”—along with the mass incarceration complex—is part of the global Pan-European Colonial/Capitalist White Supremacist patriarchy that is now conspiring against the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela. The European Union Parliament’s decision to recognize the puppet government being imposed on the people of Venezuela demonstrates why we have a common enemy in the U.S./EU/NATO “axis of domination.”

There can be no confusion—despite the sectoral fights inside the capitalist class that is currently playing out in their struggle against Trump, they are united when it comes to projecting the dominance of the Pan-European imperialist project. They are prepared to fight to the last drop of your blood and mine to defend their privilege.

That is why the Black Alliance for Peace is clear: We say “not one drop of blood from working class and poor to defend the interests of the capitalist oligarchy.” We want peace and People(s)-Centered Human Rights, but we recognize that there is no peace without justice. Real social justice, which requires radical structural change, cannot be realized without struggle. And there can be no effective social change without clearly identifying the enemy—the source of our oppression—and being able to imagine an alternative.

The people of Venezuela have made a choice. We will not debate the merits of their process—its contradictions or problems. Our responsibility as citizens/captors of empire is to put a brake on the U.S. state’s ability to foster death and destruction on the peoples of the world.

BAP is calling on all African/Black organizations to oppose U.S. intervention in Venezuela. Create public educational materials for the groups you are working with. You can pull from BAP’s statement on Venezuela, which raises the important principles we must defend: https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/defendvenezuela

We are also joining with organizations from across the country to support a national day of action against U.S. intervention February 23. We will share more information on that on our site as that information is produced. If you might be interested in organizing actions on that day, please get in contact with us at info@blackallianceforpeace.com.

Also feel free to distribute this information on Venezuelan actions: https://blackallianceforpeace.com/newsletter/whitesupremacyofusinterventions

HANDS OFF VENEZUELA!

STOP U.S. SUBVERSION AND LAWLESSNESS!

CLOSE U.S. AND NATO BASES!

U.S. OUT OF AFRICA—SHUT DOWN AFRICOM!

Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Why We Must Oppose U.S. Intervention in Venezuela

JANUARY 26, 2019—We, the members of the Black Alliance for Peace, uphold our political stance in the face of aggressions waged by the United States. Two of BAP’s core principles are an unwavering commitment to self-determination for peoples and nations alike and opposition to imperialism in all its varied and brutal forms. Therefore, unlike so many who are confused about Venezuela, we say without equivocation that we oppose the illegal and immoral attempts by the United States and their Organization of American States (OAS) allies to interfere in the internal affairs of Venezuela.

No objective right has been bestowed upon the United States to impose its will on any sovereign people or nation. We categorically reject the arrogant and white supremacist assumption that the United States—itself a capitalist dictatorship—should arbitrarily take the liberty to presume leadership and rationalize its intervention into any nation by evoking a flimsy, laughable and ostensible argument that it is supporting democracy and/or human rights.

Were it not for the abject hypocrisy exercised by the United States, the irony in the case of Venezuela would be more laughable than tragic. On the one hand, a nation that annually pretends to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., skirts over the many people’s understanding that he was murdered because of his opposition to U.S. state violence. That the United States would unleash a plan to subvert Venezuela—which would cost thousands of innocent lives—reminds us as Black people of the same methodology applied during the murderous and draconian tenure of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover who unleashed the COINTELPRO program in U.S. Black communities.Militarized U.S. police forces, many of whom have received training from the Israeli state, enjoy impunity for the state-sanctioned execution of our people.

Like the war party that it was during the Vietnam War period, the majority of Democrats have dropped their supposed fundamental opposition to Trump to line up in support of this criminal intervention. As always, the “party of the people” demonstrates its brand of subjective righteousness and justice.

We pose the question to progressive forces in the United States: How much more war, how much more death and destruction will you endure before you break with the capitalist duopoly of your government and say no more war, no more subversion, no more killings in my name by a state that by every definition has become a rogue state and threat to global humanity?

There can be no equivocation in the face of injustice and the psychopathology of white supremacist ideology that is unable to respect the rights and humanity of people of the Global Majority—Black and Brown people who are the ones who suffer from these imperialist adventures mobilized by the U.S./EU/NATO axis of domination.

The idea of a benevolent hegemon might be a comforting myth that assuages the conscience of left and progressive forces who engage in open class/race collaboration with the white supremacist, colonial/capitalist patriarchy that is the Western European project. But for those of us relegated to what Frantz Fanon called the “zones of non-being,” we cannot afford any illusions about the nature of what we are up against.

We call on those principled individuals and organizations located at the center of empire to put aside your divisions, stop your collaboration with the rulers and live up to your responsibility to the people of the world who suffer at the hands of this mad, criminal state.

Now is the time to say no, now is the time to build our movement, now is the time for all of us who say we believe in peace to be ready to fight for justice!

HANDS OFF VENEZUELA!

STOP U.S. SUBVERSION AND LAWLESSNESS!

CLOSE U.S. AND NATO BASES!

U.S. OUT OF AFRICA—SHUT DOWN AFRICOM!

Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Joint Statement on Venezuela by Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC)

 The United States has been conducting a brutal, 20-year-long campaign of destabilization against Venezuela in an attempt to cause “regime change” in that country.  This has taken the form of economic sabotage and financial manipulation as well as support for the mobilization of right-wing forces in increasingly violent demonstrations.

This is not a recent policy but one that has also been carried out under the Obama and Bush administrations as well as the present Trump administration.  In 2002, right-wing forces inside Venezuela attempted a coup against then-President Hugo Chavez. Many sources have confirmed that the U.S. gave the go-ahead to the opposition to orchestrate the coup and promised support.  Soon after the coup, the people of Venezuela turned out in the streets in massive numbers and restored Chavez to the presidency.

Barack Obama continued the assault on the Venezuelan revolution by imposing crippling sanctions and asserting that Venezuela was a “security threat” to the United States. These attacks from the U.S. exemplify attempts to realize full-spectrum dominance, the epitome of imperialist intervention which has brought so much suffering to the world.

Some of the very same opposition leaders who were involved in the 2002 coup attempt are today behind the present unrest, which has seen well-financed opposition forces leading violent protests against the government of Nicolas Maduro.  The U.S. corporate media has reported on these actions but has blamed the violence on the Venezuelan government and has not reported the huge mobilizations in defense of the Maduro government.

Now a bipartisan bill has been submitted in the Senate (S.1018) with the intention of further destabilizing Venezuela.  For more information on this bill and some actions you can take to oppose it, please go to http://afgj.org/take-action-today-to-support-venezuelas-democracy.

The economic crises in Venezuela is severe.  The Venezuelan economy is dependent on its large oil resources.  The oil has been nationalized since 1976, but there has been a continual push from U.S. interests as well as wealthy Venezuelans to privatize it.  Though the oil remains nationalized, the refining, transportation, and markets are all private and have been used to undercut the ability of the oil industry to support the economy.  Additionally, in the past few years, with the encouragement of Wall Street, oil production around the world has been kept high, driving down the price, which hurts oil-dependent economies, including those of countries that the U.S. opposes, such as Russia and Iran, in addition to Venezuela.

The U.S. media also has been full of stories of Venezuelan supermarkets with near-empty shelves and long lines of people seeking basic necessities. What hasn’t been reported is that the privately owned food corporations are deliberately hoarding supplies intended for working-class neighborhoods while making sure that food and other goods are readily available in the wealthier areas.

The Bolivarian Revolution has always endeavored to be an ally of the people of United States and to extend a hand of friendship and solidarity.  When the U.S. government turned its back on the people of the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Venezuelan government offered humanitarian aid but was rebuffed. Venezuela provided fuel assistance to low-income Black and Brown people when the U.S. government would not.

These acts reinforced the strong support that many in the Black community had for the process in Venezuela and deepened the commitment of Black activists to stand in solidarity with the people of Venezuela and their process. This support is in line with the long-standing Black radical tradition of defending nations under imperialist attack by the U.S. government. 

The defeat of the Bolivarian Revolution at the hands of U.S. imperialism and its reactionary right-wing allies in Venezuela would be a defeat for progressive forces all over the world and a disaster for the people of Venezuela and its people, as it has been in Libya and Ukraine and Haiti and every nation that has lost its sovereignty to the two-party commitment to imperialist intervention.

UNAC and the Black Alliance for Peace demand:

End US interference in the affairs of Venezuela!

Self-determination for the Venezuelan people!

End the sanctions and economic warfare now!

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