On 4 March, a protest organised by the Revolutionary Communist Group and Rock Around the Blockade took place outside the Bank of England in London. It demanded that the Bank stop withholding Venezuela’s sovereign gold deposits from the democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro. Thirty-one tonnes of gold, worth £1.2bn (USD1.4bn) has been embargoed by Britain since 2020. Britain’s Supreme Court refused to release the gold to the Maduro government to fund humanitarian relief, and instead put the gold at the disposal of the unelected Venezuelan opposition under the leadership of the US-back stooge Juan Guaido. Despite the end of Guaido’s sham 'interim presidency' in December 2022, Britain still refuses to recognise the elected government of Venezuela and intends to give the gold to the opposition controlled '2015 National Assembly' whose mandate expired in 2021.

On 12 October activists from RATB, Papua Militant, Mafapo, Indignados, Fight Racism Fight Imperialism and more attended an event in London organised by P12O. The event was an expression of solidarity with all people of Latin America in the struggle against imperialism. The demonstration was named "Resistance Day" in order to combat myths surrounding "Columbus Day" and to celebrate the efforts of liberatory and anti-imperialist struggles in Latin America and all around the world.

Below is a video of our supporter's speech from the event, accompanied by a poem sent to us from Bartolina Sisa Resistance, a Bolivian solidarity organisation based in London:

On 8-9 January the Revolutionary Communist Group and supporters of its newspaper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! took to the streets demanding that Britain return $1.8bn of gold to Venezuela.

The action was called in response to the criminal ruling on 20 December, where Britain's Supreme Court recognised as the owner of $1.8bn of gold held in the Bank of England's vaults, not the legitimate socialist party government of Venezuela, but rather the discredited opposition ‘interim president’, Juan Guaido – the failed puppet of US imperialism. Whilst Nicolas Maduro's government in Venezuela demands the gold be used for imports of food, medicine and Covid-19 vaccines, the British government, Supreme Court and Bank of England see fit to decide who is and who is not the legitimate head of state, riding roughshod over the Venezuelan democratic process that re-elected Maduro in 2018.

In London the Revolutionary Communist Group joined forces with Rock Around the Blockade, Julian Assange Defence Campaign, Bolivia Solidarity Campaign, Great Patriotic Pole UK, Papua Militant International, Economic and Philosophical Science Review and Hands Off Venezuela! Holding an open mic rally and marching to the Bank of England.

As comrades pointed out, this is not just about the gold – Venezuela's struggle for socialism represents the threat of a good example. Despite crippling sanctions, sustained destabilisation and coup attempts, Venezuela continues to resist! 3.7 million units of social housing have been built and distributed through the Great Housing Mission – whereas in Britain, with an economy 18 times the size of Venezuela's, 30,000 households are on council housing waiting lists and homelessness is soaring whilst social housing is sold off and demolished to make way for luxury flats.

The Revolutionary Communist Group fully supports Venezuela's sovereignty and the Bolivarian revolution's 20-year resistance to imperialist exploitation. We unequivocally oppose British imperialism’s war against Venezuela and its support for US-sponsored ‘regime change’. We will continue to organise in the streets to defend Venezuela's right to resist. Return the gold – No sanctions, no coup – Hands off Venezuela – Solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution!

(First published on FRFI)

RCG calls for Hands Off Ecuador!

Re-posted from www.frfi.org.uk

Branches of the Revolutionary Communist Group took to the streets across Britain to demand no imperialist intervention in Ecuador. Tomorrow the people of Ecuador go to the polls to vote in the second round of Presidential elections.

Venezuelan communes and communal councils produce PPE and distribute it freely to those in need

Below we publish an open letter to the BBC in response to their website article "Coronavirus: 'Forced to work' as medics fighting Covid"

At a time when the US and EU sanctions on Venezuela are strangling its economy, undermining its currency, restricting access to vital medical and hygiene supplies, and costing damages of an estimated $194bn (2016-2019), it is a distortion from reality to speak of economic shortages in Venezuela without mentioning these crushing sanctions. Yet you routinely fail to do so, and in your video article they were not raised once. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, former UN special rapporteur Alfred de Zayas, estimated these sanctions have killed up to 100,000 Venezuelans.

SBI logo

On the date of Venezuelan national hero Simon Bolivar’s 1815 letter from Jamaica, outlining his vision of anti-imperialist and revolutionary solidarity across the Americas, Venezuela launched their institute for international solidarity. On 6 September 2020 the Revolutionary Communist Group participated in the online launch of the Simon Bolivar Institute for Peace and Solidarity Among Peoples, hosted by Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza and President of the new institution Carlos Ron, who thanked the RCG for our solidarity campaigns and protest outside of the Bank of England demanding they return the £820 million of gold stolen from Venezuela.

Protesting the theft of Venezuela's gold by the Bank of England

The Revolutionary Communist Group organised a protest outside the Bank Of England in London on 15 August, joined by Latin American solidarity activists. This was to oppose the theft of 31 tonnes, £820m worth of Venezuela’s gold: a violation of the Latin American country’s sovereignty; a breach of international law; an act of piracy; and a dangerous disruption of efforts to defeat the global Covid-19 pandemic. In total alignment with Britain's piratical imperialism, London's High Court of Justice on 2 July ruled against the repatriation of Venezuela's gold destined to be used for emergency Covid-19 provisions.

Evo Morales election rally in 2014

Below we publish an open letter to the BBC in response to their website article 'Evo Morales: Exiled Bolivian ex-president accused of rape' (21 August 2020).

Nicaragua

We are deeply concerned at a number of reprehensible and mendacious articles smearing the Government, People and Sandinista Revolution of Nicaragua. These include: “President nowhere to be seen as Nicaragua shuns coronavirus curbs”, (The Guardian, 8th April), "'Our players are afraid': Nicaraguan football ploughs on amid the crisis", (The Guardian, 1st April) and "Love in the time of COVID-19: negligence in the Nicaraguan response" (The Lancet).

The central claim of all three articles is that Nicaragua is out of step with the WHO, that there is insufficient public education about social distancing and hygiene, and that our health system is inadequate (The Lancet). Added to this are lurid accusations in The Guardian that our Government secretly controls the independent Nicaraguan Football League, that President Daniel Ortega “might even have died” and is “so detached (that) his absence hardly mattered at all”, that there is a “macabre plan” underlying these supposed misdeeds, that an “uprising” in 2018 suffered a “brutal police crackdown”, and, in the most despicable, shameful and disgusting smear of all, that our democratic Sandinista Government (described as a “regime”) “actually wanted to rid itself of part of the population”. This in regards to a country which has suffered centuries of actual genocide, oppression and occupation, first at the hands of racist and colonialist foreign occupiers, and then externally armed right-wing dictatorships and terrorists.