Labor federations around the world are condemning the Trump administration’s acts of war in Venezuela.
In a raw display of imperialist aggression, the United States bombed the country, kidnapped its president and his wife, and imprisoned them in New York City on January 4. Special forces and military aircraft killed eighty civilians and military personnel.
“We join the international labor community in condemning President Trump’s unconstitutional actions in Venezuela,” said the main US labor federation, the AFL-CIO, in a social media post.
It linked to a joint statement from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA). The World Federation of Trade Unions has also condemned the attacks, as have unions from Greece to South Africa to Nepal to the Czech Republic.
“These acts in no way defend democracy; they are clear acts of aggression as part of a militarised foreign policy agenda motivated by unilateral economic interests,”said ITUC General Secretary Luc Triangle in the statement. “Threats of kidnapping and the misuse of the courts to attack a sovereign government undermine the international rule of law and set a precedent of imperial coercion that jeopardises peace everywhere.”
The indictment against ousted president Nicolás Maduro is on drug charges, though the Department of Justice has removed from its indictment the claim that he led a made-up criminal organization known as the “Cartel de los Soles.”
But Trump has been blunt about his economic motives. He declared that the United States would “run” Venezuela to juice the country’s natural resources for the benefit of oil companies, and to extract rare earth minerals used in consumer electronics and vehicle manufacturing, in competition with China. He reasserted the United States’ dominance over Latin America and the Western Hemisphere as its colonial sphere of influence, rebranding the nineteenth-century Monroe…
Auteur: Luis Feliz Leon
