On March 9, President Obama issued an alarming and outrageous Executive Order
declaring Venezuela to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the
national security and foreign policy of the United States…” imposing
sanctions and basically threatening to overthrow the democratically
elected government.
Venezuela has not threatened the U.S. in any way, except by being
politically independent and working to develop independent, sovereign
economic policies in collaboration with other Latin American countries
that also reject US domination. We note that the Union of South
American Nations (UNASUR), which represents every country in South
America, has condemned the Executive Order as a "threat of interference"
against Venezuela's sovereignty. Presidents Hugo Chavez and Nicolas
Maduro were both elected in what the Carter Center, runs by former
President Jimmy Carter, declared to be the best election process in the
world.
On the other hand, the US has, since 1998 when Hugo Chavez Frias and the
Bolivarian movement won the first of many elections, carried out covert
and overt interference leading to violence and threatening Venezuelan
democracy. These actions include funding and advising opposition
parties and groups that have in turn fomented violence in Venezuela and
in April 2002 the US supported an attempted coup d’état (April 2002) in
which President Chavez was kidnapped by opposition groups.
US interference and aggression has continued since Nicholas Maduro was
elected president in April 2013. The most extreme opposition groups
funded and encouraged by the US led violent street actions and attacks
from January - May 2014. While other governments in Latin America and
the Vatican assisted the Venezuelan government in bringing much of the
opposition to dialogue, US officials and members of the US Congress
House of Representatives approved sanctions against Venezuela in May
2014 — de facto support for the extremist opposition. In February 2015 a
new coup plot “operation Jericho” was uncovered that planned bombings
of government and civilian centers in Caracas and involved some of the
same opposition figures involved in the 2002 coup.
As residents of the Chicago we reject the pressures from the US
government and others that led to a Chicago City Council resolution in
2014 supporting US interference in Venezuela. It is clear to us that
Venezuela’s government and people are no threat to the people of the
United States or to US National Security. On the contrary, support for
violence and attempts at destabilization by the US government are a
threat to peace and to the well being of the people of the United States
and of Venezuela. We call on President Obama, to rescind the executive order naming
Venezuela a US national security threat and to end sanctions against
Venezuela and Venezuelan officials and we call on the US government to
end all interference in Venezuela.
