Heads of state from the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America — People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) far-left trade bloc condemned this week President Donald Trump’s efforts to address threats from regional drug cartels by deploying troops on Caribbean waters.
The leftist presidents expressed their “firm support” to Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, actively wanted by the United States on multiple narco-terrorism charges. They also condemned the U.S. over what they described as a “nefarious offensive of political and judicial persecution” against the dictator.
ALBA-TCP, sometimes simply referred to as “ALBA,” is a far-left group originally founded in 2004 by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez with the explicit intention of countering American influence in the region. Since then, other countries such as Bolivia and Nicaragua have joined the anti-U.S. club under the auspices of those nations’ respective leftist regimes.
The group held an “extraordinary” online summit on Wednesday evening in response to the United States deploying three Aegis guided-missile destroyers and troops to Caribbean waters to counter Latin American drug cartels and curb the flow of drugs entering the United States.
Maduro, a leading figure of the Venezuelan Cartel of the Suns, claims that the U.S. military operation is part of a purported “invasion” of Venezuela that seeks to oust him from power. In recent days Maduro has ordered his regime to prepare for the alleged “invasion” by deploying more than 4.5 million members of the socialist regime’s militia imposing a nationwide ban on drones. Maduro has also ordered other bizarre actions such as organizing a martial arts training exhibition and a television presentation in which the dictator sang Mexican ranchera songs calling for unity for the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
The virtual leftist gathering concluded with a statement in support of Maduro and against the United States. The bloc claimed in the text that the United States deployed its military forces “under false pretexts” and with the “clear intention” of seeking to impose “illegal interventionist policies” in the region. ALBA claimed that the “unfounded, mythomaniacal” accusations against Maduro are part of a strategy that seeks to “pave the way for foreign intervention.”
“We denounce before the world that the U.S. military deployment in Caribbean waters, disguised as anti-drug operations, represents a threat to peace and stability in the region and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations, which enshrine respect for sovereignty, equality of States, and self-determination of peoples,” the text read.
“We demand the immediate cessation of any military threat or action that violates the territorial integrity and political independence of the States of Latin America and the Caribbean,” the statement continued, “as well as unrestricted respect for the international legal framework and multilateral mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of disputes.”
Maduro, during his participation at the meeting, called for the union of all “rebel people” of Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, and other regions to stand in defense of Venezuela because, according to the dictator, “they want to turn us into slaves of the supremacists because of their racist contempt for us.”
“And here they will not succeed in colonizing or enslaving Venezuela, South America, or our America. And if one day they touch Venezuela, all of America will rise up for us, for the people of Bolívar. And they will see the greatest surprise that history has in store for an aggressive empire,” Maduro said.
Cuba’s figurehead “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel participated in the meeting with a speech in which he denounced the United States’ “demonstration of imperial strength” and echoed Maduro’s calls for unity. Díaz-Canel availed himself of the opportunity to once again condemn Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza under the premise that “the threats looming over Venezuela today are based on the same philosophy of dispossession that has turned a small strip of land into hell on earth.”
“Enough of Zionist impunity, enough of imperial complicity, or vice versa. All crimes have perpetrators and accomplices in order to be sustained over time. Israeli Zionism and Yankee imperialism exchange roles in their criminal activities,” Díaz-Canel said. “Cuba knows this well, because in its genocidal blockade, the empire has always had the unwavering support of genocidal Israel.”
Similarly, Nicaragua’s communist dictator Daniel Ortega expressed his support to Maduro by asserting that “today it’s Venezuela, tomorrow they’ll try to do it to our countries.” Ortega insisted that Latin America was declared a “territory of peace” in 2014 by CELAC, a broader U.S.-free regional bloc also heavily promoted by Hugo Chávez in the early 2010s. The communist dictator reportedly questioned the “submissive way in which the international community reacts” to President Donald Trump and referenced the lack of “reaction” against the United States’ $50 million bounty on information that can lead to Maduro’s arrest and/or conviction.
“How is it possible that all of Latin America, a territory of peace, has not reacted unanimously and strongly to the threat made by Washington’s pawns, offering a reward of millions of dollars for the life of the legitimate president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela?” Ortega asked.
Bolivia’s outgoing socialist President Luis Arce, whose political party just suffered a resounding defeat, claimed that the United States seeks to “geopolitically control” Latin America for its natural resources.
“They intend to militarize the Caribbean and South America under the guise of fighting drug trafficking, reviving old patterns of imposition that our peoples have already categorically rejected,” Arce said, reiterating his support to Nicolás Maduro over the United States’ “disrespectful actions” with regards to the $50 million bounty.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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