President Nicolas Maduro
Final Avenida Urdaneta
Esq. de Bolero, Palacio de Miraflores Caracas, Distrito Capital
Venezuela

C/o Venezuelan Embassy in Pretoria,
South Africa

May 3, 2017

Via email to: [email protected]
[email protected]

Your Excellency

BLF SUPPORTS WITHDRAWAL OF VENEZUELA FROM OAS

Black First Land First (BLF) is a Black Consciousness, Pan Afrikanist movement which embraces a Sankarist leadership ethos. To this end we are an anti racist, anti capitalist, anti colonial, anti imperialist, anti sexist, pro LGBTQI, internationalist, people’s movement. We are also registered with the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa as a political party.

BLF supports the decision of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela under your leadership to withdraw its membership from the Organization of American States (OAS).

We echo the leftist sentiment that the OAS should be abolished as it “does not represent or respect the sovereignty of its member states”.

BLF further notes the regime change agenda of Western imperialism which was hatched in Washington regarding all the progressive governments of Latin America – including Venezuela where the OAS is employed to undermine its sovereignty via foreign intervention. We note that prior to the decision to withdraw from the OAS, Venezuela has been subjected to frequent threats by the OAS Secretary-General, Luis Almagro, to suspend its membership owing to its leftist political, economic and social perspective.

Almagro for his part has not used his position to elaborate an anti imperialist perspective for the Latin American situation. He in fact has demonstrated his role as “a spokesman for the North American empire” who has displayed “a colonial and undemocratic attitude” by calling for foreign intervention and thereby promoting a coup in Venezuela. Moreover in August last year he indicated strong support to the Venezuelan opposition via a letter to its leader Leopoldo Lopez who was mobilizing support for the recall referendum against you which later failed. Quite clearly, Lopez has served invaluable time for imperialism. We remember how in 2014 he led protests against you that resulted in 43 people dying and over 800 being injured. President Morales of Bolivia has correctly pointed out that the OAS is biased against the left in Latin America and to this end Almagro is nowhere to be seen “[w]hen there’s a conspiracy against leftist democratic governments (and he) … only appears to defend the right wing.”

Evidently, your country Venezuela is under assault by imperialist forces. To this end western imperialism – in partnership with the national bourgeoisie and settler monopoly capital as well as in collaboration with the US funded opposition forces and “civil society” organizations – is conducting its war via the OAS. In this context, the OAS is playing its counter revolutionary role as a mechanism to promote and realise regime change by facilitating your removal as President so as to ultimately replace you with their puppet – notwithstanding the fact that you were democratically elected into office by the Venezuelan masses.

During this time of the western imperialist onslaught, BLF calls on the Venezuelan people under your leadership to heed the call of the revolution intimated by you to defend the sovereignty of the country and to advance the struggle for economic liberation. In this regard, the planned withdrawal of your country from the OAS signals clear and radical leadership on your part as President of Venezuela. You have indicated a very significant move [withdrawal from OAS] that must be supported by all the progressive people and forces with unremitting commitment to fight imperialism, take back the economy, and restore national sovereignty.

We know that under the pretext of fighting corruption and bad governance society is being mobilized via the imperialist funded and controlled media to cause and intensify hostility against you. In Venezuela like it happened in Brazil, and is currently happening in South Africa, corrupt agents of regime change are leading the supposed fight against corruption. In this regard, the OAS is their weapon to facilitate regime change in Venezuela. We are accordingly, not surprised that the OAS has not condemned the impeachment and removal last year of the democratically elected President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil and her replacement by the US puppet, Michel Temer.

As an anti imperialist movement, BLF understands that once imperialism is allowed to reverse the gains of the Bolivarian Revolution, the Venezuelan people shall be faced with naked oppression in the interests of profits.

BLF says that the best form of defence against imperialism in this current context is attack. To this end BLF calls on you, to use (in your representative capacity) the nominal power that your party already has as well as the other gains achieved via the Bolivarian Revolution, to deliver economic liberation now! In this way the objective of restoring the national sovereignty and taking back the economy can meaningfully begin to be addressed.

BLF fully supports the withdrawal of Venezuela from the OAS.

#USHandsOffVenezuela
#AbolishOAS
#EndOASmembership

In Solidarity

BLF President: Andile Mngxitama

Contact Details:

Black First Land First Email: [email protected]
Facebook: Black First Land First
Twitter: @black1stland1st
Website: www.blf.org.za
Andile Mngxitama
Cell number: +27 82 678 3200