AKEL on the International Day of Action in Solidarity with the Venezuelan people
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 19th April 2016, Nicosia
AKEL expresses its unreserved and full solidarity with the people of Venezuela on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity which has been established on 19th April.
The achievements and gains of the Venezuelan people with the choice of the path of the Bolivarian Revolution as of 2002 had led to the socialization of a significant part of the country’s natural wealth, the strengthening of the welfare state in favour of the popular strata and to the deepening cooperation and defence of the sovereignty of the Latin American countries. The former leader of the country Hugo Chavez had played a decisive role in these policies, which the current President Nicolas Madouro is continuing, as well as the progressive forces that support the Bolivarian Revolution such as the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) and the Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
The radical choice of the people of Venezuela represented a reversal in the policies that were being implemented for decades in the country itself, but also throughout Latin America. Looking back at the contemporary history of Latin America one sees alternating dictatorships, coup d’état overthrows of democratic governments, all kinds of interventions by the US and elsewhere, whilst the peoples of the continent – and particularly the indigenous peoples – lived for centuries in conditions of social squalor. The prevalence of a progressive political current on the continent – in which first Cuba and then Venezuela constituted the backbone – showed an alternative path for the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.
It is a fact that in recent years Venezuela’s path is being undermined –both from within and outside the country – by all means, aiming at the overthrow of the country’s progressive course. Numerous political and economic aggressive actions by any possible means undertaken by the country’s ruling class and the international economic circles are seeking to strangle the Venezuelan economy’s most productive sectors through artificial shortages of basic products in the domestic market and by other means, including violence. In addition, the global decline in oil prices is forcing the country’s economy to confront new challenges.
AKEL in the context of the International Day of Solidarity has signed the Declaration of Solidarity with the People of Venezuela, along with dozens of other Parties. AKEL reaffirms that it remains a supporter of the sovereign right of the Venezuelan people to choose its own path of socio-political development and stands against any attempts to question this right.
