Solidarity Street Demonstrations To Demand US Keep
Hands Off Venezuela and Cuba

by Stephen Lendman

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that just days before an
international expression of solidarity demanding the
US keep its hands off Venezuela and Cuba, Rep. Dan
Burton (a right wing Republican in good standing)
introduced an anti-Venezuelan resolution in the US
House of Representatives.  His resolution on May 11
was just another step along the way in the Bush
administration’s fourth attempt to oust President Hugo
Chavez as the democratically elected leader of the
Venezuelan people.  The resolution shows at least two
things: that the US government’s stated commitment to
democracy is farcical and empty on its face and that
any resemblance in it between the truth about the
Chavez government’s achievements in combatting drug
trafficking and money laundering (and all else for
that matter) and the malicious inaccuracies and
misstatements of facts in the Burton resolution is in
writing for all to see. 

Of course, the whole notion of the US making a
determined effort to eliminate so-called ellicit drugs
is even more absurd as I’ve explained several times
before in other writing.  Dan Burton and his
Republican cohorts know quite well that doing that
would be counter to the real US policy of protecting
the ellicit trade to guarantee the huge profits from
it flow unobstructed into the US economy.  The
so-called “war on drugs” is really a war to keep the
stuff flowing freely.

On May 20 the People Will Have Their Say

So in glorious and committed counterpoint to the
shameless Burton resolution, large demonstrations will
take place on the streets of Washington, DC and Los
Angeles on May 20 demanding “US Hands Off Venezuela
and Cuba.”  A broad coalition of progressive
organizations and noted individuals have organized
them including: Venezuela, Cuba and Latin America -
oriented solidarity groups and other groups supporting
and fighting for the rights of blacks, Latinos, women,
immigrants and the civil rights of all people.  In
addition, prominent activist figures will also
participate including Noam Chomsky, Cindy Sheehan and
Danny Glover.

And on the same day, there will be similar
international solidarity actions in Venezuela, Cuba,
Columbia, Australia, Canada and other countries.
These demonstrations around the world are historic as
they reflect a growing movement to combat US imperial
aims in Latin America, Central America and the
Caribbean.  It was in those regions that offshore US
imperialism first took flight once it left the
incubator of the lands it stole from its original
native inhabitants whose only offense was having lived
on them for the past 20 - 30,000 years.  Poor Mexico
paid the price first for its geographical sin (in the
words of its former dictator Porfirio Diaz) of being
“so far from God (and) so close to the US.”  That poor
choice of its country’s borders resulted in their
ending up enclosing half their former territory.  I
guess the Mexicans never really wanted California and
the rest it lost anyway. 

On May 20, the voices of people yearning to be free
from the yoke of a global criminal enterprise
otherwise known as the United States of America will
take to the streets in an expression of their
commitment. These voices will resonate in solidarity
against clear US aggressive and hostile intentions
against Venezuela and Cuba aiming to crush their
revolutions and the burgeoning one in Bolivia to keep
them from spreading throughout the region.  The stakes
are very high on both sides.  Call it a war between
the rights of free people determined to remain so
against a powerful and predatory neighbor that has
other ideas and will ruthlessly pursue all means to
achieve them.  On May 20, the voices in the streets
will have their say,
. and the sound heard will be: no mas - no more, and
they’re willing to fight for it.  It also happens to
be the day the Bush administration intends to release
its so-called “Commission for Assistance for a Free
Cuba” report. 

A little translation is in order.  By assistance,
Washington means new policy sanctions against the
Castro government (the longest standing thorn in its
side) and its commitment to be the sole authority to
decide what economic, social and political priorities
are best for that country.  It doesn’t matter what the
Cuban people want.  After all, they only live there,
which in Washington - think means nothing. 

It doesn’t matter what the Venezuelan people want
either, unless they’re willing to forego all the
benefits they now have and allow them to be replaced
by the poverty and human misery they had before Hugo
Chavez came into office and changed everything.  Don’t
bank any time soon on that happening as the
overwhelming majority of the Venezuelan people twice
democratically elected Hugo Chavez as their president
and want to keep him as their leader.  And why
wouldn’t they.  Before him, they were repressed and
desperate, and now they’re the beneficiary of his
wonderful economic, political and social policies that
have transformed their lives for the better.  They’re
not about to give that up without a fight.  But
Washington policy makers may not understand that, and
even if they do, are likely to take that fight to the
people and try to prevail by any means possible,
regardless of the consequences.

The One Threat Above All Others Washington Fears

Washington also fears another threat: the one it fears
most above all others - a good example that may spread
and become unstoppable, so it must be crushed and not
allowed to advance further.  It follows that it now
views any collaboration between Venezuela and Cuba
(and now a likely tripartite alliance with Bolivia) as
unacceptable as the benefits from it to their people
will only encourage a further spread of them to other
nations that may want the same things.  Any why not?
When governments improve the lives of their people,
why would they ever want or be willing to give up what
they gained.

So the battle lines are now drawn, and the importance
of what’s at stake will play out in the streets around
the world on May 20.  Those demonstrations mark a
significant first step beginning and hopefully a
turning point that will lead to a mass movement of
millions of working people inside the US and around
the world unwilling any longer to accept being
subjugated by US imperial rule.  Hopefully they will
follow on and build from the historic US nationwide
street demonstrations fighting for the rights of
immigrant workers demanding equity and justice and
being willing to accept nothing less.  It may be one
new civil rights movement growing from another and
mushrooming into a giant national and worldwide
expression of the people here, throughout the region,
and spreading everywhere fighting for the rights they
deserve.  An epochal struggle may have begun, and the
path ahead for it is fraught with danger.  It’s the
people against a powerful giant predator willing to
accept nothing less than total global domination with
no “outliers” going their own way allowed.  Stay
tuned.  The people may have other ideas.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
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site at sjlendman.blogspot.com