On Tillerson and Venezuela

Early this morning, the Charge d'Affairs of the Venezuelan Embassy in Jamaica hosted a meeting with the Cuban ambassador to Jamaica, the Nicaraguan ambassador to Jamaica, as well as representatives from the Jamaica Peace Council, the Jamaica-Cuba Friendship Association, the Chiapas Support Committee, the Belize Organisation for Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution, and Jamaica LANDS. A declaration was produced from the meeting:

As you should know, the US Secretary of State should be visiting Jamaica tomorrow; Venezuela is at 'the top of the agenda' for his meeting with the Jamaican government. Some statements were shared in the meeting at the Venezuelan Embassy, before informal talks that were led by the hosts. You can read excerpts of the statements below:

"Our current and precarious economic situation, which has left us deep in the clutches of the international finance capital led by the International Monetary Fund, should not be traded in for the 'carrot and stick' policy which has always been a part of the US's arsenal and is now being used to garner support in our region for regime change in Venezuela."

- Jamaica Peace Council on February 6, 2018

"Before departing for his imperialist tour, the Secretary of State announced that 2018 will be the year of the Americas and made clear that he will seek to encourage division and submission among Latin American governments. In doing so, he will come up against the repudiation inspired by his announcements and the dignity of the peoples of the region, who bear the memory of the hundreds of thousands of dead and disappeared by the military dictatorships sponsored by the United States, and that Secretary Tillerson today calls to repeat."

- Cuban Ministry of External Affairs on February 5, 2018

"Like Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iran, North Korea and Cuba, Venezuela is marked down for regime change! The change in administration in the US means little or no shift in the policy imperatives for preserving and prolonging a waning Empire, whose time has come! The age old policy of divide and rule continues, in fact, whether Democrat or Republican, they all are reading from the same script. Tillerson’s crusade will seek to coerce, bully, bribe, blackmail and intimidate targeted governments in the region, which lack a sense of history, to breach all the international protocols that they have signed and are committed to upholding."

- Jamaica Peace Council on February 4, 2017

"Tillerson has been obsessed with regime change in Venezuela for a long time. Just like the US is upset that the DPRK and South Korea are stepping closer towards reunification again, they are upset that the Venezuelan government and Opposition are reconciling their differences in peace talks in Santo Domingo. The US does not want to see these conflicts resolved, instead preferring to prolong them so that it can divide and rule the world."

- Jamaica LANDS on February 2, 2018

The peoples and governments of the Third World are under attack from US hegemony; the priority of anti-imperialists must be to combat - by whatever means necessary - US imperialism and its agents. When our own governments serve the US instead of our own people, we must reclaim them.

We must remind our government that its legitimacy hangs on a fine thread; less than 24% of the electorate supported the current ruling party in the last election, and the Prime Minister is eroding the independence of the judiciary that may bring us to a constitutional crisis; while we are not liberal democrats, we would not rather Fascism. The government, serving the IMF, has failed to resolve wage negotiations with its own workers in a timely manner. The government put an entire parish under military lockdown because crime was scaring tourists, not because crime was harming our people. The government openly embraces the settler-colonial governments that aim to occupy Palestine and Turtle Island, the ones who deport African and Caribbean migrants and refugees.

With all this noted, it is ironic that this same government dared to question the legitimacy of the Bolivarian Revolution and side with imperialists against it in the OAS. The imperialists and their collaborators wish to see a return to Operation Condor in Venezuela and other countries in the South.

In international spaces, we must identify, isolate, silence, and attack suspected apologists for US imperialism and those who derail anti-imperialist discourse with talking points from the US government; their interests and alignment with the US military are clear. We cannot allow American imperialists to decide or participate in discussions to decide who our enemies are.

This is not to say that US hegemony is the only contradiction in the world, but it is the primary contradiction facing the peoples of the Third World, and the one that affects us most violently and directly. We must weaken it wherever possible, while still analysing our other contradictions and figuring out how to address them without giving US imperialism the power to determine our directives or any opportunities to strengthen itself.

All solidarity to the Bolivarian Revolution! All solidarity to popular struggles against US imperialism!