Here is the complete text of a letter sent by Nicolas Maduro, the elected president of Venezuela, on 7 February. It marks a time when his country is facing massive foreign intervention and is being threatened with military invasion. An integral part of the war is a massive campaign of disinformation waged through major commercial media,as a means to prepare the ground for intervention. The letter might have been sent to the people of the United States. This does not mean that it doesn’t apply to the people of Australia as well. Our political leaders are also a part of the drive towards war.
If I know anything, it is about people, such as you, I am a man of the people. I was born and raised in a poor neighborhood of Caracas. I forged myself in the heat of popular and union struggles in a Venezuela submerged in exclusion and inequality.
I am not a tycoon, I am a worker of reason and heart, today I have the great privilege of presiding over the new Venezuela, rooted in a model of inclusive development and social equality, which was forged by Commander Hugo Chávez since 1998 inspired by the Bolivarian legacy.
We live today a historical trance. There are days that will define the future of our countries between war and peace. Your national representatives of Washington want to bring to their borders the same hatred that they planted in Vietnam. They want to invade and intervene in Venezuela – they say, as they said then – in the name of democracy and freedom.
But it’s not like that. The history of the usurpation of power in Venezuela is as false as the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It is a false case, but it can have dramatic consequences for our entire region.
Venezuela is a country that, by virtue of its 1999 Constitution, has broadly expanded the participatory and protagonist democracy of the people, and that is unprecedented today, as one of the countries with the largest number of electoral processes in its last 20 years. You might not like our ideology, or our appearance, but we exist and we are millions.
I address these words to the people of the United States of America to warn of the gravity and danger that intend some sectors in the White House to invade Venezuela with unpredictable consequences for my country and for the entire American region.
President Donald Trump also intends to disturb noble dialogue initiatives promoted by Uruguay and Mexico with the support of CARICOM, for a peaceful solution and dialogue in favour of Venezuela. We know that for the good of Venezuela we have to sit down and talk, because to refuse to dialogue, is to choose strength as a way. Keep in mind the words of John F. Kennedy: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate”.
Are those who do not want to dialogue afraid of the truth?
The political intolerance towards the Venezuelan Bolivarian model and the desires for our immense oil resources, minerals and other great riches, has prompted an international coalition headed by the US government to commit the serious insanity of militarily attacking Venezuela under the false excuse of a non-existent humanitarian crisis.
The people of Venezuela have suffered painfully social wounds caused by a criminal commercial and financial blockade, which has been aggravated by the dispossession and robbery of our financial resources and assets in countries aligned with this demented onslaught.
And yet, thanks to a new system of social protection, of direct attention to the most vulnerable sectors, we proudly continue to be a country with a high human development index and low inequality in the Americas.
The American people must know that this complex multiform aggression is carried out with total impunity and in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations, which expressly outlaws the threat or use of force, among other principles and purposes for the sake of peace and the friendly relations between Nations.
Thousands of Venezuelans queue to sign open letter ‘denouncing’ Western-backed coup
Award-winning investigative journalist Max Blumenthal recently travelled to Venezuela to report on the ongoing US-backed coup attempt there. And his reporting – along with that of other alternative news sources – exposes how the establishment corporate press is downplaying or ignoring important aspects of Venezuela’s situation. In particular, he detailed how thousands of Venezuelans had queued to sign an open letter denouncing US-led foreign intervention.
Video from Max Blumenthal
We want to continue being business partners of the people of the United States, as we have been throughout our history. Their politicians in Washington, on the other hand, are willing to send their sons and daughters to die in an absurd war, instead of respecting the sacred right of the Venezuelan people to self-determination and safeguarding their sovereignty.
Like you, people of the United States, we Venezuelans are patriots. And we shall defend our homeland with all the pieces of our soul.
Today Venezuela is united in a single clamour: we demand the cessation of the aggression that seeks to suffocate our economy and socially suffocate our people, as well as the cessation of the serious and dangerous threats of military intervention against Venezuela.
We appeal to the good soul of American society, victim of its own leaders, to join our call for peace, let us be all one people against warmongering and war.
Long live the peoples of America!
Nicolás Maduro
President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
The US government and their armament manufacturers need a new war! This time they have chosen Venezuela. The people of the US need to get their heads out of the sand and make their government see sense! If it weren’t for the oil in Venezula and the need for their armament manufaturers to continue making weapons the world would be a much more peaceful place. VIA MADURO!