Havana - The Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America (OSPAAAL) made a call to the international community to reject the fascist riots, the imperialist meddling and the media terrorism against Venezuela.

“Venezuela deserves and has the right to peace”, stated Lourdes Cervantes, OSPAAAL Secretary General during a meeting of solidarity convoked by the Coordination Group of the Cuban Chapter of the Continental Articulation of Social Movements toward ALBA.

The meeting, which took place in the Venezuelan Embassy in Havana, is part of the Continental Campaign “For Peace and Self-Determination of the Venezuelan People”, being celebrated since May 11 and extending through May 17.

Cervantes reassured the “unequivocal support” to the Bolivarian Revolution and President Nicolás Maduro and called to “pronounce an emphatic NO to the fascist riots, the imperialist meddling and the media terrorism” against the fatherland of Simón Bolívar and Hugo Chávez.

She said that what has been happening in Venezuela since last February 12 is the attempt of the oppositionist right to “restore barbarity”.

“Cornered in its own incapability to recover privileges and extend the plundering, it takes off the mask and appeals to terror, assassinates and destroys to create the chaos that will give the pretext for the imperial meddling, always ready to take place”, she specified.

She underlined that the attempt of coup “crashes against the will of a people that defends its future and whose clear majority supports the work of its President, Nicolás Maduro”

OSPAAAL’s Secretary General highlighted the importance of the dialog being held by the government with the opposition in search of a political solution to end violence. “We endorse all actions in favor of that purpose”, she pointed out.

She also declared that “we will not join the cause of those who pretend to use the political will reiterated by the Bolivarian government to reach peace to bring the people of Venezuela to their knees through the use of force and greater violence”.

“The Bolivarian and chavista people do not kneel. They will not snatch Venezuela away from us”, she emphasized after underlining that “the fatherland of Bolívar and Chávez is an inseparable part of the Great Fatherland envisaged by the ALBA of the Social Movements”.

Representatives from other social organizations in the island that make up the Coordination Group of the Cuban Chapter of the Continental Articulation of Social Movements toward ALBA also took the floor during the meeting.

Luis Montero, on behalf of the Cuban Chapter Network In Defense of Humanity, condemned the actions of ultra rightist groups that disregard – he said – the 18 elections won by the followers of Chávez since the triumph in the 1998 elections.

He underlined that the opposition in Venezuela follows the policies of the so-called “soft coup”, elaborated by strategists from the United States to overthrow governments that refuse to obey Washington’s orders.

Montero, who presides over the Scientific Council of the University of Havana, pointed out that the United States finds it inadmissible that Venezuela exercise its independence and carry out social changes in favor of the large majorities.

Ernesto Freyre, head of the International Relations Department of the Cuban Labor Union, conveyed the rejection of the Cuban workers to the destabilizing attempts against the Bolivarian government, and extolled the attitude of the Cuban collaborators in that country.   

“Despite the violence generated by the fascist sectors, our collaborators accompany and will continue helping the Venezuelan people unconditionally”, he emphasized.

Elpidia Moreno, Leonardo Chirino and reverend Raúl Suárez also spoke during the meeting, which was attended by members of the diplomatic corps, of the OSPAAAL Executive Secretariat and political representatives from 28 Third World countries.

Moreno, official of the Federation of Cuban Women’s International Relations Department, brought the greeting of solidarity of her organization to the women from Venezuela, and condemned the violence unleashed by extreme rightist oppositional forces against the Bolivarian Revolution.

Chirino, on behalf of the National Association of Small Farmers, likewise condemned the wave of violence of extremist sectors that –he said– seek to overthrow by force the legitimate government of President Maduro, and expressed the support and solidarity of the Cuban farmer sector with Venezuela.

Suárez, director of Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial Center, called the international community to join the solidarity campaign with Venezuela and condemn the violence that has caused tens of deaths and innocent wounded in the country.

In his conclusions, Edgar González, Chargé d’Affairs of the Venezuelan Embassy in Havana, expressed his thankfulness to the island’s political and social organizations that convoked the solidarity meeting and to the government and people of Cuba for their permanent support to his country.

He highlighted the efforts of President Nicolás Maduro to preserve peace in Venezuela, but without abandoning principles, which could threaten the advances of the Bolivarian Revolution. “There are no step backwards or concessions to the opponents, and much less to the rightist extremists”, he emphasized.

González ratified “the Bolivarian, chavista, Latin American and profoundly human” vocation of the political and social project headed by the late President Hugo Chávez.

The meeting was presided over by a political poster of the well-known graphic designer Rafael Enríquez, art director of the magazine Tricontinental, as modest contribution of OSPAAAL and all social, political and mass organizations in Cuba, to the continental solidarity campaign “With Venezuela, from People to People”.

“This poster will multiply in walls, posts, venues of organizations of the popular movement, in the fists held on high today simultaneously in diverse cities of Latin America to demand peace for Venezuela”, stated Cervantes in her initial words of presentation of the event.