Alliance for Global Justice congratulates Venezuela for a clear, transparent, consistent and peaceful electoral process implemented on July 28. We also congratulate President Nicolás Maduro on his re-election and the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) for administering a free and fair election. We denounce reports by hostile foreign governments and corporate media sources aligned with them that seek to undermine the legitimacy of the Venezuelan election and the results announced by the CNE.

We reject unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud repeated by the far-right opposition to the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) for several months leading up to Venezuela’s presidential elections, with U.S.-backed candidate Edmundo González refusing to accept the election results unless he wins, echoed by the United States and its geopolitical allies in Latin America. It should be noted that these claims have been made against the broader backdrop of multiple assassination attempts against Nicolás Maduro pointing to different North American agencies as the intellectual authors of the attacks, “heavy investment” aimed at influencing Venezuelan civil society via funding agencies such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the renewal of illegal U.S. sanctions on Venezuela in violation of the Qatar Agreement.

The United States has been persecuting the Bolivarian government of Venezuela for more than 20 years. In 2002, the U.S. organized a coup against President Hugo Chávez, who was kidnapped and nearly executed on the orders of Washington, D.C. Later, at the end of 2002 and beginning of 2003, it organized a supposed “oil strike” that caused multi-million dollar losses. During the years of Nicolás Maduro’s presidency, the U.S. has imposed more than 900 economic coercive measures estimated to have resulted in around 40,000 Venezuelan deaths. They have tried to assassinate the constitutional president of Venezuela on multiple occasions and endorsed a self-proclaimed president, Juan Guaido, who was sworn in on the street and immediately recognized by the U.S. State Department and its allies.

[From an August 3rd email and originally posted at:  afgj.org/alliance-for-global-justice-stands-with-democracy-in-venezuela-rejects-us-destabilization-attempts ]

Alliance for Global Justice stands for democracy in Venezuela, rejects U.S. destabilization attempts

At this moment, we are facing a new attack by the State Department against Venezuelan democracy, but Venezuela has shown itself to be an expert in overcoming all the obstacles and coups d’état that the State Department organizes against the Bolivarian revolution. We have no doubt that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela will survive this new attack, just as we have no doubt that U.S. influence sinks into disrepute with each of its failures.

Elections are internal affairs of sovereign countries for which no other country has the right to intervene. Let us not forget the elections of Al Gore and George Bush Jr. that were decided after a count and re-count of votes that took more than three months, during which no foreign power intervened. It is time for Washington to abandon its interventionist policy in the region and establish relations of true brotherhood with the peoples of the world.

Unsurprisingly, the July 28 electoral victory of President Nicolás Maduro has been met with aggressive opposition from the Venezuelan far-right, under the orchestration of U.S.-funded Unitary Platform leader María Corina Machado and her puppet Edmundo González. González is among the only candidates who has refused to accept the terms of the Barbados Agreements, which required all parties to recognize the results of the elections and refrain from any engagement in violence. González, a former diplomat and alleged CIA agent with ties to the notorious School of the Americas, has joined Machado in promoting violent far-right mobilizations across the country, calling on the “international community” to reinforce the opposition’s claimed victory while refusing to cooperate in the Supreme Court of Justice’s investigation of the elections.

We stand with the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans mobilizing in the streets to defend their democracy by demanding that the United States and all countries respect the decision expressed by the Venezuelan people on July 28, as announced by their legitimate authorities. We demand respect for Venezuela’s self-determination and reject all attempts by the United States and its geopolitical allies to interfere in and destabilize Venezuela’s sovereign affairs. Such efforts are not only in violation of international law but also basic standards of diplomacy.

Stand with the Venezuelan people: tell Biden/Harris to cease all attempts to destabilize Venezuela’s democracy!