Protest against 'US attack' on Venezuela

National Trade Union Federation Pakistan, Home-Based Women Workers Federation Pakistan stage demonstration outside KPC

KARACHI:

The National Trade Union Federation Pakistan, the Home-Based Women Workers Federation Pakistan and several allied organisations on Sunday staged a protest demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club against what they described as armed aggression by the United States against Venezuela.

The protesters expressed solidarity with the Venezuelan people's anti-imperialist resistance and strongly condemned what they termed Washington's "war frenzy". Participants carried Venezuelan flags and portraits of Latin American revolutionary leader Hugo Chávez and Venezuela's "abducted" President Nicolás Maduro.

Addressing the gathering, Federation Secretary General Nasir Mansoor said that, true to its imperialist character, the US had imposed a criminal war on Venezuela after Gaza. He termed it open terrorism that the president of a sovereign country was "abducted" for opposing US domination and for using oil and gas revenues for public welfare.

He said the war was not only against Venezuela but a threat to all nations seeking freedom from imperialist dictates, recalling the US invasion of Iraq on the basis of fabricated claims.

Renowned progressive intellectual Dr Asghar Dashti said the war aimed to crush the Bolivarian Revolution and reassert US multinational control over Venezuela's oil by installing a puppet regime.

Home-Based Women Workers Federation General Secretary Comrade Zahra Khan said the aggression reflected the long history of US intervention in Latin America under the Monroe Doctrine, and criticised the silence of BRICS countries, particularly China.

The protesters demanded that US president Donald Trump be tried at the International Court of Justice, called for the immediate release of President Maduro and his wife, and criticised Pakistan's rulers for allegedly nominating a "war-mongering" leader for the Nobel Peace Prize. Participants later staged a rally and burnt an effigy of the US president.