During his address to the People’s Assembly for Sovereignty and Peace of Our America, the president of the National Assembly (AN) of Venezuela, Jorge Rodríguez, denounced that Washington is waging a war to “devastate” Venezuela, in collaboration with “subservient” internal actors, with the objective of seizing its resources. This was a reference to the imperial threat, present for the past four months, with US troops deployed in the Caribbean under the pretext of a supposed fight against drug trafficking.

“The brutal aggression” deployed by the United States involves the presence of “22 percent of the naval force of the most brutal empire that humanity has ever known in the Caribbean Sea,” Rodríguez stated.

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This action, Rodríguez declared, constitutes “Monroe Doctrine 2.0.” The president of the National Assembly also criticized the U.S. strategy, based on an “extravagant narrative” about drug trafficking, which, in his view, seeks to justify recent actions in the region. “They’re smarting from the fact they haven’t been able to isolate us,” he asserted, referring to the United States’ frustration with Venezuelan resistance.

Rodríguez recalled that the blockade imposed by Washington reduced the country’s income “to one percent,” affecting the supply of food, medicine, and other essential resources for the Venezuelan population.

Furthermore, he denounced the existence of 962 illegal, illegitimate, and unilateral U.S. sanctions, which have cost these lives and affected social programs, such as the one that used dividends from the CITGO company to pay for expensive treatments for children.

The head of the Venezuelan Parliament detailed the workings of the Simón Bolívar program, created by Commander Chávez and maintained by President Maduro, which used resources from a Venezuelan company located in the United States to finance complex surgeries for children. However, when the United States illegally appropriated these funds, instead of being used for children’s treatments, they were used by Juan Guaidó’s “Narnia government” to acquire mansions.

Rodríguez stated that, despite constant imperialist attacks and those from the internal far right, Venezuela has managed to move forward, although he acknowledged that “it sounds easy, but it hasn’t been easy at all.”

Faced with these aggressions, Rodríguez issued a clear warning: “Should any aggression dare to enter the sacred territory of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, rest assured that we must defend it with our lives; we will give our lives.” He also emphasized the national unity surrounding President Maduro, including those who do not subscribe to the Revolution, in a unified rejection of imperialist interference and in defense of peace.

Finally, the Speaker of the Venezuelan Parliament reaffirmed that Venezuela is a nation of peace, promoting a National Council for Peace at the initiative of President Nicolás Maduro. However, he clarified that this is not the peace of the subservient, the submissive, or the enslaved, but the peace of free men and women and sovereign peoples.

The People’s Assembly for Peace and Sovereignty of Our America inaugurated its session in Caracas, Venezuela, this Tuesday, December 9. The international meeting, which will continue until Thursday, December 11, is taking place in the Venezuela Hall of the Military Circle and brings together national and international guests from all continents, fostering dialogue and unity in the Global South.

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