Venezuelan Grassroots Organizations Express Support for Cuba

They condemn Washington’s military threats and call for an end to the U.S. blockade. This week, the Social Movements and Communes Council, an entity attached to the Simon Bolivar Institute for Peace and Solidarity Among Peoples, accompanied by other Venezuelan grassroots organizations, held the solidarity gathering “A Hug for Cuba” at the Cuban Embassy in Caracas.During the event, social movements expressed their unconditional support for the Caribbean island amid increasing international pressures, stating that Cuba has the active backing of the Venezuelan people in the streets and in any scenario in defense of the sovereignty of the Greater Homeland. They denounced what they described as recent threats of direct military intervention by U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, saying they constitute a war escalation intended to spread fear on the Caribbean island, in complicity with far-right sectors based in Miami.

Grassroots organizations warned that Washington’s current intentions represent the continuation of a criminal policy of more than six decades of economic, commercial and financial blockade.

Venezuelan communal organizations praised the Cuban people’s creative resistance in the face of arbitrary U.S. sanctions and rejected accusations against Army Gen. Raul Castro and members of the Cuban military, emphasizing that those accusations criminalize the defense of territorial integrity. Finally, the social movements issued an urgent international call to stop the White House’s policy of hostility, demanding the immediate lifting of the blockade, Cuba’s removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and the end of what they described as unfounded judicial charges against Castro.