CP of Venezuela, Contribution to the Athens Meeting 21J2002

Communist Party of Venezuela (CPV)
by Oscar Figuera

Dear comrades,

Please accept the fraternal revolutionary greetings of the
Party and the Communist Youth of Venezuela. Firstly, let me
express our deep appreciation to the Communist Party of
Greece, to its leadership and members, to the Greek
Communist Youth for their invitation and effort in order to
make the presence of the CPV delegation possible, for the
first time, in this very important forum of communist and
workers' parties.

Comrades, the ideas and thoughts we are going to present in
this exchange will be approached, on the main points, from
the perspective and experience we transmit from the
Venezuelan political and social process, which, just like
the struggles of all our peoples and parties, feels the
full weight of the speed and strategic course that
imperialism applies in its politics.

Some assessments of the international scene.

We, the Venezuelan Communists, perceive a world scene
marked by imperialism(s aggressive offensive its military,
economic and ideological policy, which with the application
of the neoliberal model consolidates and expands the
dominance of transnationalised monopolies, at the same time
that strives after privatisation and dismantling of
national states, having in mind the facilitation of its
domination and enhancing its prospects of overcoming the
systemic crisis of world capitalism, generated by its own
contradictions, inequalities and exclusions inherent in the
production and accumulation model. They are the death
rattles of an outdated system, lacking a historical future,
which refuses to die and will not do so without the
decisive action of the popular and revolutionary forces of
the world.

It is a scene marked by intense class struggle, by intense
interimperialist contradictions for the preservation and
expansion of their geostrategic domination fields.

In this context, the resistance of the peoples and nations
of all the continents has been re-organised, and today
presents an invaluable historical accumulation of
experience and of the lessons drawn from the disintegration
of the European socialist camp and the Soviet Union. There
are various social and political forces, but with the
ability to promote the formation of the broadest,
anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly, anti-oligarchic,
democratic and popular world front by making use of the
different forms of struggle that correspond with their
national actualities, will consolidate and broaden the
multipolarist spaces, strengthen the liberating tendencies
that are maturing in our societies and consequently
confront the tendency to negate history and life, present
in neoliberal totalitarianism and fundamentalism.

The sure threat that the predatory and genocidal character
of imperialism represents for all humanity, for the planet,
and for life itself, broadens the range of forces capable
of uniting and opens broader perspectives for the social
liberation of our peoples.

Apart from the traditional and consistent social and
political revolutionary forces, today other socio-political
forces are uniting and converging in a vast, plural and
growing neoliberal anti-globalisation movement which is a
very important part of that developing progressive
tendency. We communists have the obligation to work in
these fields in order to contribute to their anticapitalist
orientation, for which we call for, more and more urgently,
the strengthening and development of new and higher levels
of coordination and action, which will point in the
direction of constructing a renewed revolutionary
internationalism.

In comparison to this process of reconstruction,
articulation and accumulation of forces that springs from
the heart of popular struggle and revolutionary action,
unfolding as a response to the disastrous and criminal
consequences generated by the adjustment programmes planned
by the IMF, imperialism - led by the North American
financial and military complex - has been planning and
implementing for decades a set of strategic initiatives and
plans contention in order to consolidate the domination.

Such plans received renewed force with the fraudulent
arrival of Bush in the White House and particularly after
the suspicious events of September 11, which have served to
justify, before the world, the establishment of the "new
Bush doctrine", summarized in the well-known phrase "either
with us or with terrorism".

For us, September 11 speeded up and unleashed the
imperialist strategy that had already been put into
practice with the objective of imposing a unipolar world
conceived as the global dictatorship of the North American
Empire. It is the totalitarian fundamentalist vocation that
decides unilaterally, obviating all the standard of justice
and international authorities and the sovereignty of the
nations, which the North American financial, military,
industrial complex aims at imposing on the peoples of the
world.

September 11 served to stigmatise and blackmail
governments, to try to paralyse the struggle of the peoples
using terror, to criminalize internationally the
revolutionary and national liberation movements, providing
a "legal" status for the persecution of political ideas and
action which are not subordinate to imperialist interests.

It serves to impose the consensus of the political forces
that exist in the North American Congress, in order to pass
reactionary legislations that suppress internal political
action and restrict the freedom of expression, while
sanctioning budgets of hundreds of thousands of million
dollars to invest in the war industry that will allow
themselves the strategic rearmament and the reactivation of
their bogged down economy.

September 11 was the ideal pretext so that the Northern
Empire could "legitimize" its established State terrorism
policy on a global scale, relying on an ideological
offensive that would neutralize and destabilize the
conscience of millions of citizens in the world, especially
in the industrialized capitalist countries. This action has
therefore led to important democratic and progressive
sectors in the above mentioned countries, being demobilized
and isolated momentarily, favoring xenophobia, chauvinism
and the restriction of some democratic rights.

The position of the CPV with regard to terrorism.

In view of the events of September 11 the CPV maintains a
principal position. We condemn terrorism as an action
carried out isolated from the masses, that tends to
demobilize them and does not resolve the problem of power
in favour of the revolutionary forces and at the same time
facilitates and justifies the counteroffensive of the class
enemy. However, we refuse to accept that the fighting and
armed action of the peoples or their revolutionary
detachments, in armed confrontation with their oppressors,
could arbitrarily and selfishly fall into the category of
terrorism.

We refuse to accept the fact that they intend to recognize
the struggle of the Colombian rebellion as equivalent of
terrorism. The action of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
the Colombia-People(s Army (FARC-EP) is a historic answer
to the terrorism enforced by the Colombian state, that in
open alliance with the North American Empire supports
genocide by paramilitary groups, massacres its own people,
criminalizes popular protest, assassinates trade union and
social leaders in general, limiting more and more the space
for the exercise of human rights and democratic liberties,
while it denies the possibility of paving the way for peace
with social justice and true democracy.

Neither do we accept that such an adjective can be applied
to the Palestine people, whose vanguard organisations are
tirelessly fighting for the right to a homeland, sovereign
and independent, and who are faced with a systematic
extermination plan carried out by the Zionist Israeli
government, with the support of the government of the
United States of North America and the conspiratorial
passiveness of the majority of the governments in the
world.

We have resorted to these singular examples in order to
formulate a position of principles that there are just wars
and unjust wars. The imperialist war against the peoples
corresponds to the first definition, and we must condemn it
and fight it as such, while the national and social
liberation wars are just wars of the peoples that we
communists cannot shirk, that whenever we are historically
faced with this duty, we are obliged to join them and offer
them full and total support in solidarity.

This is in many respects the Venezuelan case, where the
oligarchic bloc sectors that for decades have appropriated
the political power and exploited the financial resources
of the country at their convenience, are trying everything
they can, including the fascist and terrorist military coup
- like it recently happened on March 11 -, with the direct
intervention and the backing of North American imperialism,
in order to reverse the political and social process of the
democratic and revolutionary changes that the Bolivarian
government of President Hugo Chavez Fr�as is pushing
forward, with the support of the great majority of the
people.

That is why we denounce those who carry out the worst
terrorist actions in the modern age, those who manage the
financial aspect of drug trafficking and profit from the
largest consumer, those who have carried out the most
inhuman acts of aggression against the peoples (let us not
forget Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, Guatemala, Santo Domingo,
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, Grenada, Colombia, Panama,
Yugoslavia, Iraq, Palestine and a long list of other
countries.), they want to sell their load of hatred and
death as beneficial, they want to justify their hegemonic
objectives of imperial domination and control using the
fake pretext of fighting drug trafficking and terrorism.

Therefore, we reaffirm what we stressed on the occasion of
the yankee government(s invasion of Afghanistan ( "the
terrorists are inside the White House, the Pentagon and the
North American State Department".

President Hugo Chavez Fr�as has also taken a clear position
of condemnation towards terrorism, at the same time he
affirmed that "terrorism cannot be fought by using more
terrorism", which caused an international defamatory
ideological campaign and political pressure by the North
American administration, which was a part of the offensive
of the reactionary forces against the Bolivarian
sociopolitical process.

The Venezuelan case in the Latin American and Carribean
context.

The global imperialist offensive, unleashed since September
11, has a particular impact and aggressiveness on Latin
America and the Caribbean, Venezuela being one of its
principal objectives in the region.

Its good is to do away with government and dissolve a
sociopolitical process that adopts as a state policy the
respect to the right of self-determination of the peoples,
that demands the transformation and democratization of
international relations and institutions, the right to
integration with sovereignty, of Latin American and
Caribbean unity in order to build the great homeland for
which our liberators fought, especially Sim�n Bol�var, who
with great premonition stressed that "the United States of
North America are destined by Divine Providence to plunge
America into misery in the name of freedom".

It is obvious that the Bolivarian foreign policy is not
subordinate to the interests of imperialist domination.

As has been stated by other comrades who spoke before me,
the North American government is putting pressure in order
to impose in 2005 its hegemonic plan of domination in the
region. With the "Free Trade zone of the America" (ALCA),
the North American transnationals ensure their possession
of the Amazonia - with all its wealth in energy,
biodiversity and water resources - as well as a captive
market, monopolistic access to strategic, cheap and
abundant raw materials( while at the same time reinforces
geostrategic positions in their dispute with other
imperialist blocs or emerging powers.

They are trying to impose on the peoples and nations of the
American Continent a new colonial condition ( annexation.

The government of Hugo Chavez Fr�as, the broadest sectors
of the people, the patriotic and revolutionary forces, we
have systematically rejected the new character of the
subordination contained in ALCA, demanding profound changes
that will take into consideration the interests of our
peoples and nations. Likewise, Chavez stated that the
condition for implementing any such treaty with these
features is that the people must decide by referendum.

We have also expressed our opposition - both the government
and the progressive political forces - to the military plan
that, corresponding to the colonizing strategy contained in
ALCA, is coming to constitute he so-called Colombia Plan
(now Regional Andes Initiative - IRA - abbreviations is
just what they need because it is precisely the Empire(s
rage that is unleashed against our peoples, in order to
impose their unconditional subordination to the dictates of
the transnationals).

This instrument of military intervention, facilitated by
the assumption of power of the recently elected president
of Colombia, Uribe V�lez, father of the paramilitary groups
- and their political leader, is conceived in order to
destabilize governments and neutralize or liquidate the
democratic, patriotic and revolutionary forces of Latin
America, particularly in the Andean sub-region and the
Amazon region.

As part of its sovereign policy, the Chavez government has
refused to accept the deployment of North American military
bases on Venezuelan soil and our airspace being used for
the take off of their aircraft. Likewise, it has
strengthened its diplomatic and economic relations with
various countries, including the Republic of Cuba, at the
same time that it has established intense political
contacts and actively participated in the measures aimed at
strengthening the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC).

It is exactly this sovereign, autonomous and independent
orientation that in the international scene gives impetus
to the Bolivarian revolution, which is an integral part of
a national policy aimed at reconstructing the
socio-economic structure causing the secular injustices
present in the Venezuelan society and at promoting the
leading participation of the people, the reason that is
provoking the world imperialist offensive against
Venezuela.

It is about eliminating the obstacle, the thorn in the side
of the Empire, represented in the democratic, patriotic and
national liberation Venezuelan process for the hegemonic
plans of imperialism in our Latin America and the
Caribbean. It is about stifling a democratic and patriotic
experience that has in the heart of its policies,
programmes and actions the broad masses of the people and
not speculative financial big business. It is about
impeding the carrying out of a sovereign development plan
that doesn't adopt in its premises the neoliberal model of
society.

In Venezuela, we continue to confront the terrorist
offensive of the old bloc of pro-imperialist power and we
are preparing to repel with every means at our disposal its
reactionary offensive. This requires the warm support of
all the progressive forces in the world. Already, on April
12 and 13, 2002, the popular masses succeeded in pushing
back the threat of fascism, by storming the main barracks,
by crowding the streets and avenues in great demonstrations
and by achieving, together with the military patriots, the
re-establishment of the Constitution of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela and the restitution of Hugo Chaves to
the presidency of the Republic. But the counterrevolution
insists on its offensive, convinced that the support of the
North American government and the control on the greatest
means of communication, will allow them to get their long
awaited revenge on the people.

New levels of organisation regrouping and confrontation are
developing in Venezuela, responding to a dynamics of the
intensification of the class contradictions, where the
central dispute is over the question of power. In order to
achieve this objective, the reaction not only includes in
its plans the political, military and economic
destabilization but it also includes assassination, with
which a period of violence wil be introduced in Venezuela,
among the foreseeable scenarios is civil war.

We work and accumulate forces in order to prevent this
possible development, so that a strong civilian-military
movement serves to deter the current, terrorist conspiracy.
But we are also aware of the power of the principal enemy
we are confronting, imperialism. We are prepared to fight
and win.

We are also convinced that the survival, strengthening and
development of the Bolivarian revolution will pave the way
for the Latin American and the Caribbean revolution.
Therefore, its defence is of world urgency and importance.
That is why we apppeal to the entire democratic,
progressive and revolutionary movement, particularly to the
communists, and seek their active and militant solidarity.

In this fight, we communists are called upon to play a
significant role, in order to open up the prospects for
social revolution, because for us socialism continues to be
the only hope of the peoples against the barbaric nature of
capital.

Thank you very much.