The Scottish Socialist Party’s executive has released the following statement with regard to the ongoing political and social struggle in Venezuela.
The Bolivarian Revolution, by massively redistributing wealth and power in Venezuela, has delivered tremendous gains for poor and working class people in just under two decades. The Scottish Socialist Party is a proud supporter of this unfinished political process.
The US and UK governments have recently leapt at the opportunity to condemn the Venezuelan government under the façade of promoting human rights. They hold the government responsible for over 150 deaths this year, absolving Venezuela’s right-wing opposition and private business chiefs of responsibility for deliberately escalating the country’s severe economic and political crisis.
[x_pullquote type=”right”]Right-wing politicians in Britain [now] using the international media’s distorted image of Venezuela to attack the socialist movement more generally[/x_pullquote]The US, which spends millions of dollars per year in support of the right-wing Venezuelan opposition, has imposed sanctions, while senior officials – including Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson – have openly discussed the possibility of regime change in Venezuela. This is particularly alarming given the US’s historic role in regime change throughout much of Latin America.Theresa May has also placed herself firmly in opposition to the Bolivarian government on supposedly humanitarian grounds, all while striking multi-million-pound deals to sell British weapons to the likes of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, regimes among the most oppressive in the world.
Right-wing politicians in Britain have now taken up the tactic pioneered in the US of using the international media’s distorted image of Venezuela to attack the socialist movement more generally, attributing the crisis in Venezuela to the progressive policies instituted under Hugo Chávez.
The Scottish Socialist Party stands in solidarity against these opportunistic attacks, in resolute defence of the Bolivarian Revolution, and in solidarity with the Venezuelan people, who have an unassailable right to self-determination and freedom from foreign intervention.
We urgently call on all socialists and progressives, regardless of what they believe the future course of the Bolivarian Revolution should be, to do the same.
Saturday 12th August 2017