“If today someone does not get something in a pharmacy, the only person responsible is the United States Government and its Venezuelan puppets, who are constantly asking for more sanctions against the people of Venezuela,” the president of the National Assembly said Thursday. Constituent (ANC) and first vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Diosdado Cabello during a march commemorating the 31 years of the events of El Caracazo.
This assertion by Cabello corresponds to the effects that the coercive measures imposed by the United States since 2018 on the Venezuelan population have produced and that in the judgment of recognized experts in Human Rights, such as Alfred de Zaya, have caused the death of at least 100,000 people due to lack of access to medicines that the government has not been able to acquire, due to the limitations to import and income through restrictions on the sale of crude oil, the main source of income in Venezuela.
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Likewise, in the face of permanent threats from the Trump administration, the top leader of the red [PSUV] awning said that Washington at this point would only have the option of a military invasion, but that “would be the worst mistake that a US president could make,” since “the response would be immediate against Trump’s allies in this country,” referring to the extremist fraction led by Juan Guaidó, who in the past few weeks met with the US president and other senior officials of that country to demand more sanctions.
On the other hand, the coercive measures implemented from the United States against Venezuela and for which the government of President Nicolás Maduro has sued his US counterpart in the International Criminal Court, have -according to the first vice president of the PSUV- a long-standing record, since these are actions that imperialism tried to implement in early 1989 through institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. At present, these same agencies impose sanctions and financial and commercial blockages because “they have the same bosses,” that is, the United States Government.
It should be remembered that the events of El Caracazo began as a popular response to the neoliberal package of measures of the International Monetary Fund announced by the newly installed government of Carlos Andrés Pérez, but quickly the population was massacred by members of the Armed Forces, which was ordered to fiercely repress the protesters.
In memory of such events, the call to commemorate El Caracazo this year was titled “The World Against Neoliberalism.”
“31 years later, we honored the popular rebellion that saw no other way of expressing itself, threw itself out on the street and is still on the street but now with the Revolution,” Cabello told the media.
The Chavista leader also stressed the differences between the performance of the Armed Forces then and now: “We saw how the Armed Force was used to slaughter a people on February 27, 1989. Today it is totally different, it is anti-imperialist, Bolivarian, deeply Chavista and is here to forge independence with our people”.
Translated by JRE/EF
Whitney Webb
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
