PRESS RELEASE – LAST Monday, the government of U.S. President Donald Trump issued an unbelievable communiqué threatening Venezuela with “strong and prompt” economic sanctions if elections are held on July 30 to elect the members of the National Constituent Assembly.
At the height of the absurd, Mr. Trump’s government condemns the holding of free and democratic elections in Venezuela, which will be carried out under the authority of the National Electoral Council, as contemplated by our legal system.
The U.S. government is accustomed to humiliating other nations in its international relations and thinks that it will receive subordination as a response. But more than 200 years ago, Venezuela decided to be free and independent, for which we accept neither tutelage nor threats from any country.
The convocation of a Constituent Assembly is clearly contemplated in our National Constitution (Articles 347, 348 and 349) and it is a mechanism that will allow us to promote a great process of national dialogue directly from the grassroots. It is an act of political sovereignty of the Republic, and nothing and nobody can stop it.
With this behaviour, Mr. Trump’s government unabashedly shows its absolute partiality with the violent and extremist sectors of the Venezuelan opposition, who favoured the use of terrorism to overthrow a popular government, democratically-elected on April 14, 2013.
The Bolivarian Revolution has been under permanent threat from the U.S. government, which for years has financed conspiratorial actions against our country. It is appropriate to recall how they promoted and supported the coup in 2002 against President Hugo Chavez, which was defeated in less than 48 hours by the decisive intervention of the Venezuelan people and the patriot military.
Hidden behind the obsession of the White House against Venezuela is its clear intention to retake the control of the wealth of our country which, for decades, was plundered by U.S. companies. It was with the Bolivarian Revolution that this process of pillage was stopped and our wealth was put to the service of the development of the Venezuelan people and the integration with our brothers in the Caribbean and Latin America.
We call on our Caribbean brothers and sisters, who have permanently expressed their solidarity with the people and government of Venezuela, to understand the magnitude of the brutal threat contained in the communiqué of the White House, which is a threat against all free peoples.
The xenophobic and racist government of Mr. Trump has decided to ignore the fundamental principles of international law, such as self-determination and independence, to advance in a process of recolonization of Latin America and the Caribbean. What they are seeking against Venezuela, in a perverse alliance with the subjugated right-wing governments of the continent, they can apply it tomorrow against any other nation that refuses to bow to its mandates. That is why our call is to defend the sovereignty of Our America together.
In these days in which the future of freedom or submission of our peoples, of being independent or neo-colonies is defined, the anti-imperialist thinking of the Liberator Simón Bolívar is more applicable than ever:
“The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of freedom.” Simon Bolivar, 1829.