The US is gearing up for a war in the Caribbean, a war on Venezuela. Since September, the US military has firebombed fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela, murdering dozens of people – and getting away with it. US President Trump claims, without a scrap of evidence, that the victims are ‘narco-terrorists’, boasting about the extra-judicial killings on Twitter. The Trump regime has refused to rule out air-strikes on Venezuela’s mainland, preparing the ground for US bombs to rain down on South America for the first time this century. We must oppose this war on Venezuela.

Just as the fictitious claims of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ were peddled to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, today’s lie is that Venezuela is a narco-state flooding the US economy with drugs. Venezuela does not produce cocaine and even the United Nations office on drugs and crime reports that just 5% of the region’s cocaine is transited through Venezuela. Facing regional opposition, Trump has broadened his targets, bombing boats in the Eastern Pacific as well as imposing 50% tariffs on Brazil, slapping sanctions on Colombian President Gustavo Petro and declaring him an ‘illegal drug dealer’. Further supporting military intervention, the bourgeois media uncritically repeats the lie that Venezuela is a ‘dictatorship’.

The real motive behind this aggression is control over Venezuela’s oil and a desire to crush any government that asserts independence from imperialist interests. The US has openly discussed regime change, placed a $50 million bounty on President Maduro, and deployed military assets to the Caribbean. Sanctions have devastated Venezuela’s economy, causing severe shortages of medicine and vital goods, with UN special rapporteur Alfred De Zayas estimating 100,000 deaths as a result. Imperialist Britain is complicit, freezing over $1 billion of Venezuela’s gold reserves in the Bank of England and refusing to recognise the elected Maduro government.

Venezuela is not a threat to peace or to the people of the US: it is merely the threat of a good example. The Bolivarian Revolution launched 25 years ago in Venezuela is committed to building socialism and independence. The United Socialist Party in government has invested oil revenues in social programmes: building millions of social homes, providing free healthcare, eradicating illiteracy, and creating new universities. The communal movement empowers local communities to decide priorities and oversee projects, representing a model of grassroots democracy and participatory socialism. Eight million volunteers have joined the Bolivarian militia to defend their country against foreign intervention. They will not give up the gains of their revolution.

Internationally, Venezuela supports anti-imperialist struggles in Latin America, Palestine, and beyond. Its example threatens imperialist control in the region, which is why it is under attack. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado, a figure aligned with far-right and imperialist interests, is part of the campaign to destabilise Venezuela and justify intervention.

Venezuela needs our solidarity, and its demands must be brought into every progressive, anti-war and socialist movement:

• End all foreign intervention and respect Venezuela’s sovereignty.
• Release Venezuela’s gold from the Bank of England, lift all sanctions and end the economic war.
• Recognise the democratically-elected Maduro government.
• Build political solidarity with Venezuela and all peoples resisting imperialism.

As the Palestinian communist Ghassan Kanafani said, ‘Imperialism has laid its body over the world… Wherever you strike it, you damage it, and you serve the World Revolution.’ Venezuela is on the front lines of this struggle. Our task is to stand in solidarity and oppose all forms of imperialist aggression.