Thousands of people mobilized in 30 Italian cities on Saturday, January 10, to express solidarity with Venezuela and demand the immediate release of President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores. “While in Caracas and across Venezuela, following the bombings and the kidnapping of Maduro by the [US] administration, the Bolivarian people have been taking to the streets for days in defense of national sovereignty and the Chavista revolutionary process, internationalist support for Venezuela’s struggle against US imperialist terrorism is also being voiced in Italy,” the youth association Cambiare Rotta stated.
The demonstrations were launched by grassroots trade unions, youth organizations, student collectives, and left political formations. Together, they denounced US aggression against Venezuela and imperialist threats targeting other territories, including Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, and Greenland. “The United States is once again showing its warmongering, imperialist, and violent face – the same one we have seen in the genocide in Palestine and which has recently struck Venezuela, bombing neighborhoods, killing civilians, and taking the lives of 32 Cuban heroes who were in Caracas defending the people and the revolution,” Potere al Popolo Rome wrote.
Read more: Cubans and Venezuelans killed by the US honored in Caracas
Rejecting the portrayal of Venezuela as an authoritarian state – a narrative promoted by the US and enthusiastically endorsed by much of the European political establishment, including Giorgia Meloni’s government – demonstrators voiced support for Venezuelan sovereignty and for the socialist project pursued since the leadership of Hugo Chávez. “It is clear that imperialism fears the possibility that people might rebel and demand something different from the barbarism they want to impose on us,” said Marta Collot of Potere al Popolo on Saturday. She added that the struggle of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, and of all those who stand in solidarity with it, is ultimately a struggle for a world centered on the interests of the working class rather than on the profits of oligarchies promoting policies of war and armament.
While participants recognized the latest US attacks and threats as a dangerous escalation of imperialist aggression, many stressed that this trajectory began well before the recent assault on Venezuela. “In reality, the qualitative shift happened some time ago, when the entire West, including the European Union, allowed Israel to carry out the systematic annihilation of the Palestinian people without obstruction,” warned the grassroots trade union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB). “Unfortunately, Europe is not defending us from this imperialist assault on humanity as a whole, quite the opposite,” the union added. “EU leaders are increasingly focused on convincing us of the need to rearm, fully subordinated to Trump’s arrogance and unwilling to accept any solution in Ukraine that, if implemented, would undermine their plans to revive the military industry, which now seems to be their only answer to a crisis of credibility and the ongoing deindustrialization of our continent.”
Read more: Africa voices outrage against US invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of President Maduro
In contrast to what protesters outlined as European governments’ complicity in US-led aggression worldwide, the people in the streets affirmed their support for the Venezuelan people and the political vision they are pursuing. “We express our full solidarity with and support for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, recognizing that the Chavista and Bolivarian revolutionary process represents a viable and necessary alternative to Western barbarism,” Potere al Popolo Rome concluded.
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