We became an unusual and extraordinary threat to U.S. imperialism in 1999. From that moment on, our enemy declared war, not a conventional war, but war nonetheless. At the beginning they covered their faces with the masks of the Meritocrats of PDVSA, Fedecamaras, the CTV and the political forces of the opposition. Today, as a result of desperation, the masks have come off.
The origin of this conflict was our decision to be free and independent and to move towards an alternative model to capitalism: Socialism of the 21st Century. It is an obvious consequence of this sovereign decision that we, as a people, have all the wealth that imperialism needs to regain the space that it has been losing in world geopolitics for decades: gold, oil, minerals of all kinds, as well as our strategically enviable geographical location.
Recognizing the real enemy in this unconventional war and particularly on the eve of parliamentary elections is strategically necessary to guarantee victory and above all the continuity of the revolutionary process in democracy and peace.
The enemies of the Venezuelan people are those who, without any shame and without a sense of belonging, travel the world demanding more economic blockades to limit the import of food, medicines, spare parts, machinery and materials for national production.
Those who have promoted, with Washington’s financing, actions of violence in the streets, encouraged hatred among Venezuelans, even burning compatriots alive for being or appearing to be Chavistas. Those who hired mercenaries to assassinate Venezuelans, like those of SilverCorp and Gideon. Those who supposedly provided humanitarian aid in January 2019 to justify an invasion of our sacred territory across the border with Colombia.
They are the monopolies that, following their manuals of economic warfare, hid and hoarded food and medicine, subjected the people to long queues, while the “political leaders” deceived their followers in December 2015 promising them a “final queue”.
The enemies of peace are those who manipulate by calling the Bolivarian revolution a dictatorship, but who, with an undemocratic attitude, have called for abstention. Those who, without proof, have proclaimed fraud in the face of any electoral result that does not favour them from the 24 elections that have taken place in 22 years. Those who demanded changes in the electoral power and yet have just declared their non-participation in the upcoming elections of December 6.
They do not love their country and their people when, on April 11, 2002, during a coup d’état and the kidnapping of Constitutional President Hugo Chávez, they disowned our Liberator Simón Bolívar by hiding his portrait in a disgraceful act in the Miraflores Palace. The same people who today disrespect our glorious Bolivarian National Armed Force by offending it and trying to blackmail it with supposed promises of amnesty so that they can legitimize an eventual rupture of the constitutional fabric.
It is the enemies who, since 2013, have attacked our currency, the Bolivar, manipulating more than 300 billion percent of its value through web portals, taking it from 8.26 BsF/US$ to 300 billion BsF/US$. The same people who with this weapon of war have induced an increase in all prices of the economy by 12,493,965,695% between January 2013 and May 2020 and a contraction of national production by more than 50%. But the enemies are also those who, at this point, do not recognize such an attack and attempt to explain the hyperinflation through the theoretical monetarist veil. They are also the ones who every day, at 9:00 am and 1:00 pm, celebrate a new attack on our sovereignty.
All of them are nothing but spokespersons for the real enemy and let us not be confused, it is not Donald Trump, who like Barack Obama, George Bush and Bill Clinton have been spokespersons.
The real enemy is imperialism, composed of the big corporate, financial and communication capitals that have been transnationalized; of the owners of the US Federal Reserve; of those of the World Economic Forum in Davos. It is the capitals that feel threatened by the possibility of the consolidation of a just model of equality, that fear the word socialism. Those of the Doctrine of Containment and the Cold War against the socialist hope of the USSR, whose spokesman in 1947 was Harry Truman.
The real enemies are the architects of the Conservative Revolution with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Tacher as its spokesmen and those who, from the 1980s onwards, established neoliberalism in Our America, plaguing our peoples with poverty, hunger and misery; those who dismantled the Welfare State in Europe; the same ones who confessed to having achieved the impossible goal of destroying the Bolshevik Revolution.
It is those capitals that, not by chance, were behind the coup d’état against Federico Chaves (Paraguay, 1954), Jacobo Árbenz (Guatemala, 1954), Juan Bosch (Dominican Republic, 1963), João Goulart (Brazil, 1963), Salvador Allende (Chile), María Estela Martínez de Perón (Argentina, 1976), Juan José Torres (Bolivia, 1971), Manuel Zelaya (Honduras, 2009). The same ones who invaded Panama in 1989. Those of Plan Condor. Those of the Contra in Nicaragua (1980s). Those who, in La Higuera, Bolivia, ordered the assassination of Che Guevara in 1967. Those who have been criminally blockading the Cuban people for 60 years and the Iranian brothers for 40 years.
This is not just any enemy that the Venezuelan people, inundated with enviable wealth, have been confronting since 1999 for proclaiming to the world our decision to be sovereign and socialist. In these 22 years of revolution we have seen what they are capable of, and the levels of criminality with which they have attacked us without regard for the suffering of women, children and the elderly.
The unity of the revolutionary forces is more than ever essential in these times of onslaught and threats by U.S. imperialism, as well as the massive participation of the patriotic people in the coming elections.
Let us not see ghosts where there are none. And let us not lose perspective, or be distracted. The real enemy is imperialism. Let us concentrate our efforts on defeating it, on recognizing that the attack on the Bolivar is the most powerful and effective weapon that, from the economic point of view, they have used against the Venezuelans. Let us strive to destroy it. Let us focus on circumventing the trade and financial blockade instead of using it as an excuse. The Cubans, the Russians and the Iranians have much to teach us.IMPERIALISM
The only way to defeat the real enemy is by deepening the Bolivarian revolution, and that means asking ourselves, day by day, in each of our spaces, decisions and actions, the usual question from Commander Chavez: Where is socialism? Let this be the guide to defeat the real enemy.