Alwaght- Venezuelan workers have risen up to resist ongoing US-backed violent right-wing protests that have plunged the country into chaos and leaving several dead.
At least 20 people have been killed in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas during the last three weeks of political turmoil and violent protests in the Latin American state.
The country’s president Nicolas Maduro is blaming the US-backed opposition of taking advantage of the global slump in oil prices to try to oust him from office.
The move to defend the government by Venezuelan workers comes after several private companies connected to the country’s right-wing opposition asked staff members not report on duty next week.
Claiming to defend their workers’ safety amid ongoing protests, the companies are backing opposition calls for a national strike against President Nicolas Maduro.
But for workers supportive of Maduro and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) the strike is merely a trap intended to sabotage Venezuela’s economy.
“These actions planned against our revolutionary people are a desperate attempt by the empire to overturn our Bolivarian Revolution,” Jesus Diaz, a member of the Popular Movement of Lara State, told Resumen Latinoamericano website.
The Popular Movement of Lara is a coalition of communes and workers’ organizations in the northwestern state. The movement says it is well organized and has vowed to defend the country’s Bolivarian Revolution.
Workers defy bosses
Workers supportive of the Bolivarian Revolution have also vowed to take over and manage factories abandoned by right-wing bosses. “If they continue with their guarimbas, we will take over their factories,” Diaz added.
Guarimbas are street blockades organized by right-wing protesters who use Molotov cocktails, burning tires and rocks to attack police and civilians.
Imperialist and right-wing governments – led by the US are deeply opposed to the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela and have been using all means at their disposal to topple the socialist government and other leftist leaning government in Latin America.
Venezuela has consistently been targeted as a part of this war on popular democracy, with low global oil prices being used as the latest pretext to topple the government.
US seeks to loot Venezuelan oil
The US administration of Donald Trump has publicized its policy of pursuing regime change in Venezuela.
Speaking in January before his confirmation, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that he would “urge close cooperation with our friends in the hemisphere, particularly Venezuela’s neighbors Brazil and Colombia to seek a negotiated transition to democratic rule in Venezuela.” The so-called ‘transition to democracy’ is the disguise being used to carry a civilian coup in Venezuela through street protests. Tillerson, a former executive in ExxonMobil claimed that the economic crisis in the oil-rich South American country was “largely a product of its incompetent and dysfunctional government, first under Hugo Chavez, and now under his designated successor, Nicolas Maduro.”
In 2007, late President Chavez ordered the nationalization of 22 major multinational corporations operating in the country including ExxonMobil, then headed by Tillerson who now appears to be on a revenge mission against the revolutionary Venezuelan government.
Cuba, Bolivia warn of foreign plots against Venezuela
On Thursday, Bolivian President Evo Morales said the current protests in Venezuela are part of a US plan to overthrow President Maduro and loot the country's oil.
He further slammed ongoing right-wing opposition protests in Venezuela, claiming they serve the interests of multinational elites looking to privatize the country’s oil resources.
He added that foreign and domestic attacks against President Maduro and the Bolivarian Revolution are intended to send a threatening message to anti-imperialist governments around the world.
The Cuban government has also called on the international community to respect the sovereignty of Venezuela and to stop interfering in its internal affairs. Speaking on Thursday, Cuba Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said that "Venezuela is a sovereign state, with a democratically elected and legitimate government"
Rodriguez urged "international actors" to avoid "any interference in the internal affairs" of Venezuela.
He reiterated that these actors "should avoid any interference in internal affairs that encourage a coup and extreme violence."
