How Cynical can they be, Giving Lessons on Democracy to Venezuela?

By Graciela Ramirez on April 16, 2017

Photo: Bill Hackwell

When Commander Hugo Chávez was elected President of Venezuela in 1999 he said there will be no more illiteracy, children will not die from curable diseases, the elderly will have their senior years guaranteed, there will be no more mothers who die during childbirth or from miserable poverty, there will be shelter, land and work for all, young people will study and will graduate in new schools and universities, sports, music, literature, and all expressions of art and culture will become the heritage of the people.

And women, the indigenous, mestizos and black people who were always forgotten and humiliated, will have their rights and their place along with everybody else in the Bolivarian Revolution. And Chavez said more; there will be participatory democracy, a constituent assembly, the Constitution will be sacred and never again will the country’s natural resources be given away.

The data backs up Chavez’s promises, the proof is there no matter how much effort the Empire, the oligarchy and the media puts into trying to undermine these facts and figures. There it is, the work of Chavez that Maduro continues: illiteracy and infant mortality has been reduced by 50%. Poverty has gone down from 54.2% in 1995 to 23.9%in 2012. More than 21% of the budget has been put into health and Social Security. There are now 75 public universities where tens of thousands of students have been enrolled tuition free. The Mission social programs have been created to lift up the quality of life for the most vulnerable. Since the Bolivarian Revolution began it has faced 19 elections and has emphatically won 18 of those.

You have to be extremely cynical to try and give lessons in democracy to Venezuela. It is pretty low to portray terrorists, armed with an arsenal of weapons of military grade, responsible for the deaths of 43 people in 2014, as being political prisoners. You lack even an ounce of moral decency to talk in the name of freedom and democracy while you pull out all the stops in your attempts to overthrow a sovereign government that has the support of the majority of its people.

The Organization of the American States (OAS) with its vile Secretary Luis Almagro and the right-wing governments of the region, along with the Europeans that follow the dictates of Washington, are these reactionary cynics. All of them are direct accomplices of the soft coup intended for Maduro in order to be rid of him and the Bolivarian process. They deserve our constant condemnation and total repudiation. At this point in its dark history of interference this is all we can expect from the decrepit OAS.

It is an embarrassment to all of Latin America that Imperial servants like Almagro leads an international organization of 34 countries while being the main cheerleader for the pro Yankee hysteria. Almagro is of such a fascist mindset that he does not even attempt to hide his servitude to the interests of the most powerful country on the planet. The most grotesque thing is that this is all being done in the name of freedom and democracy. His open advocacy for confessed terrorists and criminals shows that in a long line of similar puppets he is unparalleled in his manipulation of truth, his ignorance, disrespect and perversity.

The Empire and their servants should know that we never forget the lesson of the Bay of Pigs nor do we forget when the coup against Chavez happened on April 11, 2002 that he was back in 3 days, stronger than ever because of the popular uprising of the people that propelled his return.

The love and solidarity for the work of Hugo Chavez is not fading, neither is the huge respect for Bolivarian Venezuela and the Government of Maduro and there are tens of thousands of Latin Americans who are willing to give their lives if necessary to defend it.

Venezuela is today, along with Cuba and the ALBA countries, the dignified path for a better future that will succeed through the resistance of our people.

In these difficult hours we remember the words of Jose Martí, “Let Venezuela give me a way of serving her, she has in me a son.

To the 15 years of the Bolivarian triumph against the Coup, They shall not pass! 

Graciela Ramirez is an Argentine activist, Coordinator of the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity and a member of the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity.

Source: Network in Defense of Humanity