During the current lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, African workers are scrambling to feed our children, pay our rent or mortgage or cover any medical expenses.
Many of us are forced to work in jobs outside of the house or to go to work sick because we have no medical coverage, little employment and no access to tests for the virus.
This is the nature of the vicious parasitic capitalist system built on the backs of African people and our stolen labor and resources.
The government is stuffing the pockets of the big corporations with trillions of dollars, but they say they’re giving us $1200, which for most of us doesn’t even cover our rent.
The government is very different in Venezuela, though. It put the needs of the working class and poor above profit and all else.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced sweeping measures to ensure the well-being of the working people on March 23.
According to the website, Venezuelanalysis.com, President Maduro declared that “all commercial and residential rent, as well as all capital and loan interest payments, are to be suspended for six months.”
He also laid out that public and private sector workers will receive a special government bonus and wages of small and midsize companies will be paid by the state until September.
According to the website, “a pre-existing workplace stability decree has also been extended until the end of the year, outlawing job dismissals as a result of the quarantine.”
Loan applications by small and medium businesses are to be fast-tracked, whereas in the U.S., small businesses can’t access any of the $350 billion that congress said was supposedly available to them because “it’s already gone.”
Maduro also presented a special agricultural investment plan that pays farmers for the contents of subsidized food boxes that are given out to seven million families.
Telecommunications companies in Venezuela have also been barred from cutting off customers for six months.
While Venezuela has been blocked by U.S. sanctions from getting loans to fight the pandemic in its country, China, Cuba and Russia have given the country international aid for an additional 4500 hospital beds to be able to cope with the crisis.
During the medical lockdown, face masks have been given to the people and over 13,000 doctors are currently carrying out house-to-house medical visits and two million diagnosis tests are due to be performed next week.
U.S. government sends warships and indicts President Maduro of “narco-terrorism!”
Three days after the protective lockdown in Venezuela to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. slapped unprecedented and outrageous charges of “narco-terrorism” against President Maduro and top-ranking Venezuelan officials.
The U.S. imperialist State also unveiled its plans to overturn the Maduro government, in a well-known, long standing and so far unsuccessful attempt, to replace him with the neocolonialist dog Juan Guaido, who represents the interests of the white ruling class.
The U.S. government accused President Nicolas Maduro, National Constituent Assembly Diosdado Cabello and several other officials of conspiring with FARC rebels to “flood” the U.S. with cocaine in its indictment.
This is ridiculous because it is a documented fact that the U.S. government controls the world drug trade and is the one that “flooded” the African communities of the U.S. with cocaine!
The Trump administration began dispatching U.S. navy warships to the Caribbean on April 2 in an effort to increase the pressure on Venezuela.
President Donald Trump and other high-ranking officials announced the initiative in a press conference last week.
The move is part of a wider military operation in the region, which in addition to navy destroyers, will reportedly involve surveillance aircraft and on-the-ground special force units as a threat to the people and government of Venezuela.
The Associated Press reported that the operation is one of the largest in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama.
The U.S. has levied sanctions against Venezuela in the oil, gold, mining, food and banking industries since January 2019.
A report published by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that although the “pervasive and devastating economic and social crisis began before the imposition of the first economic sanctions,” the new sanctions could worsen the situation.
In other words, under sanctions the people are starving!
This is why the U.S. government and parasitic capitalism must be wiped off the face of the Earth forever!
The African People’s Socialist Party, the organized African working class, is fighting for the liberation of Africa and African people everywhere and stands in genuine solidarity with the people and government of Venezuela.
Our Party has formed The People’s War campaign in order to struggle for political and economic power in the hands of the African working class.
Victory to the people of Venezuela!
Victory to African people!
We are winning!