Hands Off Venezuela

This resolution was passed by the 200 trade union and youth activists who attendended the Hands Off Venezuela national conference in London.

Faced with a humiliating defeat in the December 4^th National Assembly elections in Venezuela, a number of prominent opposition parties have decided to withdraw from the elections. They have used all sorts of excuses about the so-called lack of guarantees of the electoral process to justify their behaviour. But the real reason should be clear to everyone: all opinion polls indicated that they would only get about 20 seats as opposed to the more than 50 they hold now. Rather than facing the hard fact that the Bolivarian revolution and the government of Hugo Chavez have overwhelming support amongst the population, they have decided to withdraw so that they can put in question the democratic legitimacy of these elections. We declare the following:

1)       We condemn the anti-democratic attitude of the Venezuelan opposition which is the continuation of the April 2002 coup, the bosses lock out and sabotage of the oil industry in December 2002, the attempt to use Colombian paramilitaries and terrorist attacks against the Bolivarian movement in February 2004, etc.

2)       We condemn the hypocritical attitude of parties like AD and COPEI who based their 40 years rule on election rigging, and now criticise an election process which has been declared clean and fair by international observers.

3)       We reaffirm our support for the project of the Bolivarian revolution which the Venezuelan people have ratified in no less than 8 democratic and fair election contests since Hugo Chavez was first elected in 1998.

4)       We call on the movement of international solidarity to redouble efforts to prevent any attempt to isolate the Bolivarian revolution.

Hands Off Venezuela!

John McDonell MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP,
Tony Benn,
Jeremy Dear, General Secretary NUJ
Ruth Winters, President  FBU
Manzor Ahmed, National Assembly member Pakistan
Alan Woods, Hands Off Venezuela founder