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A natural disaster is compounding a prolonged social crisis in Venezuela:

A massive natural disaster has exacerbated the Venezuelan nation’s prolonged and acute social crisis. The country is currently facing one of the worst emergencies in its recent history. The devastating earthquakes that have shaken the country have left numerous victims—possibly numbering in the thousands—caused massive destruction to infrastructure, and left entire communities in a state of helplessness.

But this natural disaster does not strike a country under “normal” conditions: it comes on top of a social, economic, and institutional crisis that has been building for years, marked by the embezzlement of public resources, the collapse of essential services, the extreme precariousness of daily life, the imposition of sanctions, and the loss of sovereignty.

This exacerbates the effects of the twin earthquakes, and vice versa; the natural disaster affecting several cities exacerbates the social crisis that already existed: poverty, a lack of efficient public services, a collapsed healthcare system, economic collapse… All of this against a backdrop of authoritarianism and corruption.

Undoubtedly,the first priority is to ensure emergency relief, assistance, and rescue—needs that the Venezuelan government, given the situation it has been driven into, finds difficult to address with the necessary speed and efficiency. In the face of these major shortcomings, theimportance of solidarity and citizen initiative is growing, as we are already seeing.

As the context in which all of this is taking place, we cannot ignore the U.S. military intervention on January 3, which has imposed a trusteeship regime over the so-called Caretaker Government headed by Delcy Rodríguez, with the country’s resources and oil revenues seized both by the U.S. and by the regime’s incorrigible corruption. Therefore, the arrival of international aid from the United States—viewed by some as a guarantee of timely assistance—risks becoming an instrument of occupation, greater political control, and legitimization of imperial tutelage, rather than serving the urgent needs of the Venezuelan people.

International aid is necessary, but it must be sovereign and subject to oversight by the people, since there is also a risk that it could be misappropriated for bureaucratic corruption or used as an excuse to intensify semicolonial interventionism.

We at Marea Socialista affirm thatthe emergency must be addressed through solidarity, sovereignty, and popular control—not through militarization or external intervention. The country’s reconstruction, moreover, will only be possible if communities, workers, and organized civil society are placed at the center.

Some strategic priorities and related proposals

From our perspective—based onan approach aligned with the interests of the working class rather than those of the elites or the ambitions of foreign powers to dominate—among the priorities and measures we consider essential to address the emergency and defend the rights of the Venezuelan people, we can cite the following:

1)Ensure that immediate assistance and support are provided to the people, with aid that actually reaches them, through transparency, social oversight, and community participation.

·Organize community committees to receive and distribute aid, with the participation of workers, social organizations, professional associations, volunteers, grassroots movements, and others. Prioritize assistance for children, older adults, women, people with disabilities, and the most affected communities.

·Publish open records of inventories, distribution routes, and resource use, subject to ongoing citizen oversight.

·Establish mechanisms for reporting and protecting whistleblowers in cases of misuse, corruption, or political manipulation of aid.

.Restoring free and democratic communicationis also essential in these circumstances, since blocking independent media does not help—and in fact hinders—efforts to address the current situation, given that so many media outlets are blocked.  

2)Mobilize international solidarity among the peoples of the world, who will demand that their governments commit to providing aid to those affected by the disaster in Venezuela.

·Call on the peoples of Latin America and the world to demand that their governments send immediate aid in solidarity, without any military or geopolitical conditions.

·Launch an international campaign of solidaritywith Venezuela, in coordination with social movements, labor unions, human rights organizations, community groups, etc. Promote international civilian brigades to provide technical, health, logistical, and reconstruction support. Facilitate, first and foremost, using public funds and resources from Venezuela and countries showing solidarity, the return of Venezuelans living abroad who wish to come back to help or search for family members who have fallen victim to the catastrophe. Special government measures to support Venezuelan migrants in the countries where they are currently residing.

3)Address the immediate humanitarian emergency through a national plan and rapid actionto provide rescue, shelter, food assistance, basic necessities, and essential services.

·Implement an effective National Rescue and Response Plan, involving firefighters and civil protection agencies, that is truly coordinated with social organizations and volunteers.

·Create collection centers and decent shelters, with community oversight and transparent priority criteria.

·Urgently restorewater, electricity, telecommunications, transportation, and medicalservices, prioritizing the hardest-hit areas.

·Ensure emergency medical care, including support from international civilian teams and access to medicines and medical supplies.

·Suspend any measure that could hinder or prevent the provision of comprehensive assistance to affected families.

4)Address the structural social crisis that exacerbates the impact of the natural disaster

·Immediately implement measures to restore wages and income so that the population can cope with the effects of the disaster and the crisiswith dignity and while preserving their rights. Immediately enact an increase inthe minimum wage as provided for in Article 91 of the CRBVso that working people can cover the costs of the basic basket of goods.

·Restore public services under democratic management and social oversight, with the participation of workers and communities.

·Redirect public spending toward health care, education, housing, and reconstruction, while eliminating bureaucratic privileges and unnecessary spending.

·Ensure the urgent assessment of infrastructure damagewith institutional and community participation. Provide immediate temporary shelter for people whose homes have been damaged and are uninhabitable.Develop a policy for emergency housing and the reconstruction of critical infrastructure.

·That the Venezuelan oil revenues currently being withheld by the United States be returned to the country to address the crisis and support national reconstruction.

·Conduct a citizen audit of embezzlement, debt, and public resources—including those allocated for the emergency—to ensure that all necessary resources are availableto address it.

·Halt all payments oncorrupt and illegitimateforeign debtand allocate those resources to meeting the needs of the Venezuelan people.

5)Defend national sovereignty and preventthe United States fromusing international aidformilitary purposes

·Do not allow the tragedy to be used to further normalize the U.S. military presence under the guise of humanitarian aid.

·Establish an independent national and international monitoring mechanism, composed of humanitarian organizations, social movements, and human rights groups, to verify that aid reaches its destination, is truly directed toward the people, and is strictly civilian in nature.

·Oversee the international aid received to prevent corrupt state institutions from misappropriating it and taking advantage of it.

Our Call as Marea Socialista to the Workers and People of Venezuela

We at Marea Socialista maintain thatthe country’s reconstruction cannot be left in the hands of foreign powers, corrupt elites, or structures under foreign control.

The solution to this tragedy must be built on unconditional international solidarity among peoples, through truly participatory and democratic grassroots organization, with transparency and under citizen oversight, through self-determination and the defense of national sovereignty, without authoritarianism or repression, and with measures to restore to the people the full scope of their rights and guarantees.

While continuing to respond to the emergency caused by the natural disaster, we must not give an inch in our struggle to defend the rightsof the working class and the Venezuelan people, who have been stripped of their rights. Participation, organization, and struggle are the best guarantee for confronting and overcoming this moment of tragedy and the national humanitarian crisis. Our goal is to break free from any government controlled or dominated by bureaucratic and economic elites, aiming to establish a government that empowers the working class and the people.

Now is the time for a great convergence of all the country’s social, labor, community, and democratic organizations, together with the solidarity missions sent from other parts of the world to address this tragedy and contribute to the struggle for the life, dignity, and sovereignty of the Venezuelan people.