Civil society groups and the South African Community Party, led by party General Secretary Solly Mapaila, united outside the US embassy in Pretoria on Thursday to call for the immediate release of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.

Both Maduro and Flores were captured by US forces on Saturday during the US military invasion of Venezuela and flown to New York, where they appeared in court on Tuesday facing narcotrafficking charges.

Mapaila said: “We are here to condemn the US aggression against Venezuela and the democratically elected President of Venezuela Nicola Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. We are saying we want their immediate release.”

He condemned the trumped-up charges against the pair, saying they are not fair and completely wrong.

He said the US invasion of Venezuela was out of keeping with the United Nations Charter’s Article1 and 2, which uphold international law, respect for other countries’ national sovereignty and independence.

“It (US) is bullying everybody and this is not accepted and it has now threatened Cuba and we want to stand in solidarity with the people of Cuba. We would want to tell them to be strong. They have been strong for more than 60 years against US aggression and atrocious sanctions imposed on Cuba just because Cuba is practising a different political and economic system from that of the United States,” Mapaila said.

He also condemned the act by the US to capture a Venezuela oil tanker with a Russian flag.

“I mean this is a direct violation and provocation. They have been doing the same in the Taiwanese state. The United States is the main destabiliser of world peace,” he said.

Mapaila said the demonstration was aimed to call for the US to bring back Maduro to his country together with his spouse. 

“Hand Off Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico and Greenland. The US must play a role for peace in the world rather than becoming the destabiliser that it is today,” he said.

Mzwandile Mukhuane from the Socialist Party of Azania, said his political party also expressed its solidarity with the struggle of the Venezuelan people and called for the US to get its hands off Venezuela. 

“The Venezuelan people have the right of sovereignty. They are independent. They have a right to say who must govern them. They don’t want a hand to intervene and tell them what to do. We know that the US imperialism is there for the oil extraction and for their multi-corporation,” he said.

Mukhuane said that failure by the US to release Madura and his wife will see the party mobilising for more people to join protests against the US.

“We will close the economy because we know that they (US) are the majority beneficiaries of the economy through the multi-corporations,” he said.

Muhammed Desai from the South Africa Latin America Association said: “We are here to condemn the blatant invasion of Venezuela by the United States and the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.”

Secondly, he said, his organisation condemns the US’s flagrant violation of international law. 

“The United States seems to think that it is a gangster state that can ignore all understandings of the multipolarity and multilateral world. And thirdly, we are here because we identify with the people of Venezuela. These are the people who are resilient. These are the people that uplifted their people from unemployment, from poverty, from lack of education. These are the people that we want to create a better world with.”

Desai said the protest marked the first public outrage in South Africa since the US military invasion of Venezuela.

“We are expecting many more protests in the coming days and the coming weeks,” he said.

Sarah Mokwebo, member of the Young Community League of South Africa, echoed the same sentiment and condemned the capture of the Venezuelan president along with his wife.

She said: “It is very important to be in solidarity with all countries because everyone can be a victim of the US. We have now seen that everything the president of the US does, does not need evidence. It is not on the basis of reasoning or on the basis of something that would have happened. He just takes whatever the decision that he takes and he victimises the people.”

Mokwebo also cited that South Africa was the victim of the US due to false claims of white genocide in the country.

“There is an attack against South Africa every other week and there is no evidence and there is nothing that we have done. We are dealing with a lunatic, for a lack of a better word. Everybody must be in solidarity with Venezuela.” 

rapula.moatshe@inl.co.za

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