Tagged with Venezuela

Once he’s through with Venezuela, Corbyn must denounce your mum, continental breakfasts and boring rock bands

Demands for political opponents to undertake humiliating self-criticism before a mass audience seemingly fell out of favour roughly about the time the Chinese Communist Party wound up the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

But fashions are always cyclical. Since 2015, a wonderfully nostalgic Labour right has gleefully nicked this page from the Maoist playbook, in the form of the popular parlour game they call ‘Corbyn must denounce …’

The rules are quite simple. All you do is set your liberal commentator buddy up with a couple of quotes from a scorned backbencher, anonymously if need be. The rightwing press will take it from there. Continue reading →

Venezuela: cheerleading the Pinochet option

Capriles and MaduroWhen the most constructive thing you can find to say about a country facing the real possibility of a military coup is to brand Seumas Milne the moral equivalent of Gary Glitter, you need to consider whether you ought to be commenting on international politics in the first place.

Yet such was the basic premise of Nick Cohen’s column in The Observer this Sunday, which opens with the contention that supporters of the Venezuelan government are “no different” to sex tourists. Continue reading →

Putting people first : Venezuela builds 700,000 new homes

Venezuela new home in Great Housing MissionDespite facing many difficulties, Venezuela’s latest achievements in housing are a timely reminder of why our solidarity with Venezuela remains so important, writes Matt Willgress

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro recently inaugurated the 700,000th house built under a state-led initiative called the Great Housing Mission to provide housing to all Venezuelans, continuing the impressive results of a public housing program began in 2010 under late President Hugo Chavez, which has continued to deliver for Venezuelans despite the economic difficulties the country has faced in recent years. Continue reading →

Fifty leading trade unionists express solidarity with Venezuela

Venezuela solidarityFifty leading trade unionists have issued the following statement in support of Venezuela:

On March 9 US President Obama signed an executive order declaring  “a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela” and imposed a further round of sanctions on the country. This has been condemned by major regional bodies in Latin America and the Caribbean, governments all over the world and much of global civil society, including the ITUC and numerous other trade union bodies.

We the undersigned – representatives of trade unions and working people in Britain – stand in solidarity with Venezuela’s unions of Railway workers, Urban and transport workers, Oil and electric workers, Education, Public Sector and Health workers, and Construction Workers who have organised mobilisations over the last month saying ‘Venezuela is not a Threat – We are Hope‘ and ‘Obama – Repeal the Executive Order. Continue reading →

South American Left united as US aims for regime change in Venezuela

Yankees go homeOn 9 March, US President Barack Obama signed an executive order declaring “a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela” and imposed a further round of sanctions on the South American country.

Following the introduction of sanctions earlier in the year and numerous hostile statements from leading figures in the US administration, including John Kerry and Joe Biden, this latest act of aggression has sent out a clear signal that the US has prioritised the overthrow of the elected government.

It is also remarkably similar to an order signed by Ronald Reagan in 1985 against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which added presidential authority to the destabilisation of a country which at the time — like Venezuela today — was trying to build a different type of society. Continue reading →