Hands off Venezuela!

Posted on by abmn

As if to top 2025 as an awful year, 2026 has thrown at us as early as January 3rd what some of us already feared: the Trump administration has used the US military to directly intervene in a Latin American country for the first time in decades, with USian commandos kidnapping Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, as well as as airstriked against at least five military targets, along with ports and airports. Trump accuses Maduro of “narcoterrorism” – never mind the fact that the very same Trump has recently pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras, who was doing time after being sentenced for 45 years due to drug trafficking. What Trump is doing is not fighting “drugs“, and is not ‘liberating” a country from a dictator (though yes, Maduro is one – more on that later), but trying to reaffirm the dominance of US imperialism against the rising of China as a world power using the very same colonial doctrines the US has had for a very long time – but hasn’t directly used in a few decades in the continent. What happened now sets an extremely dangerous precedent for the rest of the world, and particularly for the rest of Latin America, especially other countries with large amounts of natural resources like Brazil and Colombia.

The fight against fascism cannot be separated from the fight against capitalism, much less from the fight against colonialism, which has historically been one of the main goals of fascist organisations worldwide. But let us make it clear: ABMN‘s stance against this aggression must in no way be confused with support for Maduro‘s government. The man is a brutal dictator who has stolen at least one set of elections and has used brutal state repression to impose misery and hunger for the majority of Venezuelans, while the military higher-ups have a luxurious life, and it’s not hard to see why a large amount of Venezuelans unfortunately support Trump’s actions, nor why 8 million people have fled the country over the last 11 years. What we must keep in mind, however, is that Maduro‘s fate must be decided by the Venezuelan people, not by a white supremacist pedophile who barely recognizes brown people as humans – and that EVERY SINGLE TIME the US has attacked a country with the excuse of toppling a dictator, the situation became WAY, WAY worse for the oppressed and exploited of that country. We must never forget Iraq and Afghanistan, to mention just two examples, not the least because this is NOT something new or Trump-exclusive, despite what some pearl-clutching liberals might say – Obama, Bush and many others were like this, the whole history of the United States is a history of pillaging and enslaving the rest of the world and particularly the rest of the American continent. 

So, what can we do? Very difficult times are coming for Venezuela and Latin America, and there’s no easy way out, not least because there’s still a lot in the dark. Right now, however, our task is to show support for those who are fighting against the invasion, including those inside the USA, as well as the possible new wave of refugees that’s coming. If there’s a demonstration near you that you can reach in relative safety, take part in it; if you can speak out as a band or artist, do it, even a simple “Trump, hands off Venezuela” helps more than you can imagine. And more than anything, take part in the propaganda war, because in whichever continent you are, there will be people trying to distort the narrative, either to support this act of imperialist agression and to call for something similar somewhere nearby, or to paint Maduro as a leftist saint and support some other “anti-imperialist” dictator who has no business oppressing his people!

TRUMP, HANDS OFF VENEZUELA!

BLACK METAL IST KRIEG – AGAINST IMPERIALISM AND COLONIALISM!

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