Communiqué: In view of the upcoming presidential elections, the dispute between the right-wing currents -both in Government and in opposition- for the control of political power is intensifying. While both poles responsible for the national catastrophe fight for the benefit of their petty economic interests, the working people pay the consequences of an unprecedented crisis.
The bourgeois parties grouped in the so-called United Democratic Platform (PUD) denounce the «non-fulfillment» of the agreements on electoral guarantees signed in Barbados with the government of Nicolás Maduro, putting on the table the possibility of the reestablishment of some of the illegal and criminal unilateral coercive measures of imperialism against Venezuela.
Recently, the U.S. Government, which had threatened not to renew General License No. 44 and again block Venezuela’s oil and gas operations, has opted to replace it with General License No. 44A. This new instrument prohibits all the operations that had previously been permitted, as well as the freedom of any company to establish negotiations with the Venezuelan State and Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA); obliging them to obtain their respective license before the Treasury Office of the US Government, as a condition to maintain their operations in Venezuela or to sign new agreements, as Chevron has done so far.
In view of this scenario, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) reiterates its condemnation of the reestablishment of the illegal extraterritorial «sanctions» with which U.S. imperialism intends to impose its will on the Venezuelan economy; which represents a flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of our country.
However, we warn the Venezuelan working class that the parties of the bourgeoisie are those who promote the application of «sanctions» and take advantage of them, without caring about the disastrous consequences for the people: Since 2019, the PUD parties used the unilateral coercive measures to appropriate public wealth and assets of the nation abroad; and, at the same time, the Government-PSUV used the «sanctions» to apply unconstitutional laws such as the so-called anti-blockade law or the law of Special Economic Zones in order to disapply constitutional controls and thus justify the looting of the country, as for example, the swindle of $23 billion revealed -without any astonishment- in PDVSA.
Thus, it is understandable that shortly after the announcement of General License 44A, the Minister of Petroleum and President of PDVSA, Pedro Tellechea, instead of condemning this gross imperialist interference, has urged the companies to request their respective individual licenses before the U.S. Treasury Office, with the assurance that they will be granted. It is evident that this new maneuver is also part of the agreements and negotiations between the governments of Nicolás Maduro and Joe Biden.
The reimposition of the «sanctions», far from opening the way to elections with guarantees for all the political actors, are the perfect excuse for the Government-PSUV to forge a fraudulent process; the only way that would allow them to win in the face of the gigantic rejection generated by their anti-worker and anti-popular policies.
From the Central Committee of the PCV we call on the working people of the city and the countryside to condemn this macabre game of the bourgeois parties, in which the only winners are the business sectors and imperialist monopolies. The reimposition of «sanctions» to which both forces are betting on, only serves to justify the freezing of wages, the destruction of labor rights, privatizations and the surrender of the country to the transactional companies in onerous conditions.
Whoever governs, the rights of the working people will be defended!
IX Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela
April 20, 2024
Tribuna Popular 