Manik Mukherjee, vice president of the All India Anti-Imperialist Forum (AIAIF), made the following statement:
The All-India Anti-Imperialist Forum (AIAIF) strongly condemns the US initiative aimed at overthrowing President Nicholas Maduro from power and, thus, the implementation of a coup in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The United States and its supporters, the opposition forces, are constantly spreading the lie that President Maduro is a dictator, usurper and illegitimate. However, President Maduro was elected by the people of Venezuela last May by an overwhelming majority, and the elections were supervised and monitored by more than 150 international groups that considered elections free, fair, transparent, peaceful and democratic. With typical imperialist arrogance, the United States declared right-wing opposition leader Juan Guaydo a "legitimate president" who was not even a candidate in the last presidential election. This is tantamount to gross unlawful interference with the sovereignty of another country in the name of democracy in order to get rid of recalcitrant governments. The United States has a notorious history of installing puppet regimes in recalcitrant states under the pernicious slogan of “regime change” and support for reactionary right-wing dictatorships if they follow the line sponsored by the United States. They are trying to follow the same tactic in Venezuela. Since the time of Hugo Chávez, they have conspired to destabilize the people's government in Venezuela. They played an important role in the destruction of the Venezuelan economy, imposing completely unfair and illegal economic sanctions, and now intend to openly intervene to achieve a regime change. Such interventions have nothing to do with democracy, but the only goal is to strengthen US hegemony and tyranny.
The so-called “pro-democratic mass movement,” as the Western media portrayed, is organized from the outside, feeding the disaffected elements trained by the US rulers. These forces have long been working in Venezuela, causing the economy to fall due to the manipulation of money and oil prices from the outside and inside; and by reorienting supplies of food and medicine from delivery to supermarkets and transferring them as contraband to Colombia, where they are sold in inflated local currencies with dollar manipulation.
Guaido declared himself the temporary head of state on January 23, 2019. Having no legal basis for this, he nakedly trampled on democratic rights with the full support of the American imperialists and their lackeys. He called on the army to rebel against the democratically elected President Maduro. However, the army did not recognize him as the president of Venezuela and supports President Maduro. Guaydo announced his plans to overthrow all the social security measures of previous governments, carry out mass privatization and pursue neoliberal capitalist policies.
All progressive-minded people from different backgrounds are protesting against the abominable course of the coup d'état by the American rulers, led by Donald Trump, who is trying to fight and seize Venezuela!
AIAIF calls on the peoples of all countries not to be deceived by the false propaganda of the United States and to protest against the manipulation of the US imperialists and firmly support the Venezuelan masses fighting to defend their sovereignty.
Manik Mukherjee
Vice president
All India Anti-Imperialist Forum
January 2019
