Residents in solidarity with Venezuela
ALEXANDRA - South African Communist Party (SACP) has demanded that the USA repeal an Executive Order it imposed on Venenzuela.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) has demanded that the USA repeal an executive order it imposed on Venezuela.
This was said at the Global Day of Action in solidarity with Venezuela held at the Altrec Sports Complex, Alex, by the party’s national, provincial and youth leaders, MK military veterans, Swaziland exiles, and Venezuelan and Cuban officials.
The order which points to Venezuela as a threat to the USA was instead said to be the USA’s pretext to launch an attack, embargo or to impose sanctions against Venezuela as a punitive measure for its programmes on self-determination which were being adopted in the Latin American region.
The Venezuelan ambassador Mairin Merida said the order was a disguise for regime change in order to impose a leadership amenable to the US and its interests. “The USA wants to get hold of, and exploit, our abundant resources by creating conditions of dependency through an opposition party which has been unsuccessful on its own to unseat the current regime in many democratic elections.”
She said the attempted destabilisation would not work as her government had implemented many popular and successful programmes for social and economic emancipation of citizens which was disliked by the USA. The programmes she said reduced unemployment by 80 percent in the two terms of the current socialist regime. Other programmes were on democratic participation, social justice, a right to life and equality.
In solidarity, the Cuban ambassador Carlos Fernandez de Cossio said the USA was at loggerheads with most Latin American countries which strove to entrench their sovereignty. He said if not opposed, the order would lead to the USA exploiting the region and leaving many people in social and economic hardships. “It would weaken progressive forces in the region whose duty is the struggle for liberation against oppression and regional destabilisation.” The solidarity event he said was part of a struggle to restore international respect among nations and to expose the intention of the order which was the USA’s first step before a military attack.
The party’s head of international relations Chris Mahlako said millions globally were in solidarity with Venezuela for wanting to affirm its sovereignty. This he said was at the displeasure of the USA by a country with no military means to be a threat to anyone as it has no military bases elsewhere and had recently reduced its military spending. He said the executive order was an abuse of a platform for dialogue with other sovereign states.
