Before dawn, reports emerged of explosions echoing across Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, as US forces launched direct military strikes against targets in and around the city. The attacks hit critical infrastructure and state installations, throwing parts of the capital into chaos and darkness. US statements also claim that Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, was kidnapped and removed from power. At present, the full extent of the human cost of this assault remains unclear.
This escalation does not arise in a vacuum; rather, it represents the latest and most overt phase of a long-running campaign of US aggression against Venezuela: economic strangulation, covert destabilisation, coup attempts, and now open military force. For over a decade, Washington has sought to bring Venezuela to heel, punishing its people for resisting and advancing its own strategic and economic interests.
We unequivocally condemn this barbaric US attack on Venezuela, and we equally condemn the governments and institutions that have either endorsed the assault or responded with silence. Consistent in its approach, the US readily resorts to fresh crimes by spilling the blood of the Venezuelan people to seize control of its oil and energy resources, and to reassert its dominance in Latin America in competition with rival powers such as Russia and China.
US officials continue to cloak these actions in the familiar language of ‘democracy’ or ‘national security’, but the truth is clear: they are blatant acts of imperialist aggression aimed at weakening Venezuela’s sovereignty, bringing further suffering and loss of life.
As with countless countries before it, Venezuela is paying the price for the structural crisis of imperialism. This assault follows a well-worn pattern: economic siege gives way to political destabilisation, which escalates into open violence once ‘lighter’ methods fail. In this sense, the assault is no exception, but a logical outcome of imperialism.
The task of communists everywhere is to oppose this escalation unequivocally, to reject all justifications for imperialist violence, and to stand in complete solidarity with those resisting US domination in Venezuela.