For peace in Venezuela and Colombia, put life before war

Statement by Social Movements of ALBA on the situation in Venezuela:

We again denounce the actions of US imperialism in its attacks against the people and government of Venezuela. We have done this more than one hundred times, and we will have to do it a hundred times more, while this militaristic and pro-intervention “obsession” continues. This time it is happening in the context of a global pandemic. While all of us are trying to look for ways to take care of ourselves, putting life before profit, the government of Trump goes against all humanist sense, and even common sense, carrying-out military operations in the Caribbean Ocean and deploying troops on the Colombian-Venezuelan border. The government of Iván Duque continues to ignore that Colombia is a sovereign country and not a dispatch office of the White House.

In the United States, the people are forced to suffer from the frivolity and disinterest of their government, that refuses to establish mechanisms of contention and protection of the population. There is no public health system that allows them to respond to the situation and it has prioritized the transfer of resources to the concentrated circuits of capital. Trump is not only incapable of caring for his population, much less so help other people in the world, but he also attacks them, as illustrated in the latest aggression against the Bolivarian Revolution.

While the countries of the Lima Group applaud the empire, they continue to be focused on their policies to safeguard big capital while bodies pile up on the streets like in Ecuador. The Colombian government even took advantage of the situation to prioritize state terrorism and the assassination of political and social leaders while it cedes the sovereignty of the Colombian people, yet again, to illustrate the turmoil of its subservience.

This military deployment is clearly a smoke screen to hide the grave public health crisis caused by the bad-governance of the US and a disastrous electoral campaign to direct the vote again to Donald Trump. From Our America we stand in solidarity with the people of the United States in light of the crisis of the pandemic. The working people are not guilty for the acts of the murderous elite that are in power.

We also want to express our active solidarity with the people of Colombia and its people’s organizations that continue to suffer the inaction of its government to confront the pandemic, in addition to the continuous military and paramilitary massacre. We know that the “issue of Venezuela” is used by the Colombian elite to hide the misery, inequality, and violation of every kind of right within Colombia. A possible military confrontation led from Colombian territory would only worsen this situation. It would condemn a people that have been fighting for more than six decades for peace with social justice, to be a platform of war in the continent. As such, social movements in Colombia have categorically rejected the use of their territory to attack a brother country.

Trump uses the lie of his worry over narco-trafficking to promote this war. But in the forests and in the neighborhoods of our cities we know very well the consequences of narco-trafficking: the destruction of life, communities and ancestral production. It causes death and violence, so that a few in our countries and in the US can get rich off the backs of our people. To truly combat narco-trafficking we must start from within the US. We must help our peasants and kick out the DEA and its coup efforts. Stop using this smoke screen to bring war to our land.

To the Venezuelan people and the legitimate government of Nicolás Maduro, we express our complete commitment and support, we are part of the same people of the Great Homeland that continues to defend the dream of Bolívar, the right to live in peace, without intervention, with dignity and sovereignty.

We call on all the people and people’s organizations from our platform and allies to stand up against this latest military aggression by the empire. As Social Movements of ALBA we have created a Continental Commission for Peace and we call on all to join so that we can put peace before profit.

It is time for peace, it is time to put life before war

April 5, 2020

ALBA MOVIMIENTOS