The Venezuela Chapter of the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity urges you to subscribe to the following statement by sending your complete name, country, organization and occupation to the following email address: Redintelectualesvenezuela@gmail.com
We are appealing to you, people of all countries of the world, people concerned about freedom and social justice, who share with us the ideal that all human beings have the right to live and that we are all free and worthy of respect. We call on you knowing that you may feel that international institutions and the corporate press have told you the truth about the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and that they performed abiding by ideals of the U.N. Charter and Agreements to respect Human Rights.
We appeal to you because we know they have lied to you and they have not given you the opportunity to know what Venezuela actually is, what is going on there, its human accomplishment and why the image of our country has been grossly distorted.
They have not told you the truth in order to provoke the current situation, that worsens every day, they have taken coercive measures that are carried out by banks, big industries and financial and media corporations, as well as other actions undertaken directly by governments. In particular the Trump administration in the United States has chartered a course to sanction and isolate Venezuela until the function of governing is just not feasible. In the face of this situation, current events in Venezuela have been described as crimes against humanity by some experts, such as Alfred de Zayas. He has warned that as the scenarios unfold the general public is not receiving the real information about what is really going on in Venezuela.
We are coming to you, whom we feel are brothers and sisters of the people, with a view to tell you the truth and ask you to condemn, by way of what links humans as a single family, the events being carried out against Venezuela and to join us in our demand for justice on behalf of the honorable and free people here in resistance.
Venezuela is a country inhabited by 32 million people, placed over territories extraordinarily rich in oil, gas, gold and, fresh water. We are the nation where the process of South America’s independence began. We have undertaken an intense revolutionary process that since its beginnings has faced the hostility of each subsequent administration in Washington that has tried hard to over throw it. Venezuela has however proven its resilience by having a people’s, socialist and anti-imperialist government through more than 20 elections, during and after two coup attempts.
Venezuela was declared by the Obama administration as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States, an action condemned by over 10 million people who signed petitions against it. Venezuela has been financially persecuted because of this, which has resulted in the loss of more money than what is needed to grant free education for 26 years, at all levels and in optimal conditions. Our country is being persecuted internationally, in violation of principles consecrated by the Law of Geneva and the Law of the Hague, founding principles of international organizations, to such an extent that the country’s savings in gold were confiscated by the London Bank while the United States granted the administration of its assets to people who have not been appointed by legitimate authorities.
Furthermore, Venezuela is now a place where the concept of democracy is at stake, not just for the country but for the concept itself since it is being established that a person who has not run for the office of president in any election has declared himself the Interim President because of his total backing by Washington.
But above all, Venezuela is made up of 32 million people, a population that is being threatened day by day, through press releases and digital communication, by the United States spokespeople who say they will spare no effort to bend Caracas’ will, to maximize the pain on all Venezuelans, to achieve an America free of Bolivarianism, and where they say they will use all available force and technology, as if it was a foreign policy based on science fiction.
Before being sanctioned Venezuela had reached the region’s highest literacy rate, highest university enrolment rate, our best sports development; we had reached our lowest level of inequality and the highest level of human development ever; and we had opened up ourselves to give oil and opportunities to people in the poorest villages in the region, such as in Central America and the Caribbean.
But this has not been told; instead according to the international press, there is an alleged humanitarian crisis in effect in Venezuela since 2016, a groundless argument because the country has not reached levels of hunger and misery to justify the crisis. They have omitted that there is a daily battle in this country to prevent hunger while unilateral coercive measures are imposed against all efforts, aggression and terrorist acts are committed, such as the partial destruction of Venezuela’s power grid. The international media corporations omit that everyday women and men are sowing and distributing food stuff home by home, together with the National Government, and using their inventiveness to keep public services working.
Venezuela is also made up of mothers of young people who were burnt alive in 2017 because they looked like Chavistas, deaths that are not reported abroad because the responsibility for these horrendous crimes was committed by sectors opposed to the Government.
People like these mothers compel us to communicate to you that there are people in Venezuela insisting for the recognition that they have rights, for their rights not to be nullified through financial suffocation, and for justice to be brought in cases that should be known by the entire world.
This is why we are requesting your support to convene and act before the Russell Tribunal or other agencies which allow a space that could hear the voices of the Venezuelan people, to put on record the ongoing suffering in our country due to actions banned by International Public Law and which runs contrary to the idea that people can define their own system of government and their decisions should be respected by all other nations.
We call on you because we don’t want the world to forget the anguish we are living everyday with the threat of a military invasion always hovering nearby, for the increase in deaths and diseases that might be prevented if the country would be able to use its own resources and be part of the normal integration of international markets, understanding that the only way the world can improve is if people, despite being oppressed, refuse to be oppressed and act despite the permanent lies in large media corporations.
Venezuela Chapter of the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity
4 May 2019