A group of 70 Latin America scholars & others have issued an open letter opposing US military intervention in Venezuela. The letter focuses on the regime change aspect of US saber-rattling. It is not the letter antiwar activists might write which would focus on the threat any form of intervention presents to the people of Venezuela but it is not a compromised letter. Several of the signatories are Assad supporters, including Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Tim Anderson, Vijay Prashad, Medea Benjamin. Their signatures do not invalidate the letter or the importance of speaking out against the threat of US intervention. It is not, as it has been called, ‘apologia for Maduro’ although it is probable many of the signers hold uncritical views of Maduro.
When opponents of the Assad regime call for a humanitarian US military intervention to save the Syrian Arab Spring uprising, they reveal their rightwing political character & allow Assadists to hijack the principles of opposition to war. When they oppose the Maduro regime, support a coup engineered by the US, & are cavalier about US military intervention, they show themselves to be utterly politically bankrupt. What have they missed in their political education that 150 years of US militarism has taught the entire rest of the world–especially the people of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Granada, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Chile, Korea, South Sudan, Hawaii, Mexico, & other countries too numerous to mention?
We mercilessly castigate Tim Anderson & his ilk when they support Assad, deny the Rohingya genocide, deny the Uyghur genocide, support Duterte’s vigilante war against the poor, call Kashmiris ‘jihadi terrorists’, & other such despicable things. We fully understand they support the repressive Maduro regime & don’t give a damn about the people of Venezuela. But if you focus on their signature on this letter rather than the threats of US military intervention, you show yourself to be on the wrong side of justice–in fact, on the side of a coup & US war against the people of Venezuela.
Photo is an injured Venezuelan protester facing off against riot police. Once again it must be reiterated that the Maduro government has no more right to shoot rubber bullets or any other kind of ammo at unarmed protesters than the Assad regime has to bomb civilians or the US to invade Venezuela.
(Photo by Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images)