Declaration of the ICL on Venezuela
We hereby share a declaration of the International Communist League (ICL) that we found published in the temporary website of CI-IC.
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
Yankees, out of Venezuela and Latin America!
Imperialism is a paper tiger!
With deep class hatred, the International Communist League condemns the aggression against the Venezuelan nation carried out by the Yankee imperialists this January 3rd, 2026. The invasion and bombardment of the Venezuelanterritory, as well as the illegal kidnappingof President Nicolás Maduro by the Army of the United States is not only a violation of their national sovereignty but also an act of war against the Venezuelan nation in their plans of dominating Latin America. In the face of imperialist aggression against Venezuela, the increasing deployment of their military forces in the Caribbean, we make a call to the whole International Communist Movement, the international anti-imperialist movement, and all the proletariat and oppressed peoples of the world to raise in a powerful movement against the imperialist aggression in Venezuela and in the world.
The United States military deployment in the Caribbean is already the largest in the history of the United States since the first Gulf War (1990-1991)1. The United States is reactivating the naval base Roosevelt Roads from the times of the “Cold War”, in Puerto Rico. A huge deployment of the Fourth Fleet with its warships, troops, B-52 bomber helicopters, including the world’s largest aircraft carrier. The United States has so far attacked 22 vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific, extrajudicially killing more than 80 people, openly violating the national sovereignty of Venezuela, Colombia, and other Latin American countries, as well as international law. Trump has declared an illegal naval blockade on Venezuela’s oil. According to Elcano Military Institute, this is the first military campaign in a war of aggression against Venezuela. On January 3rd, they have taken a step further in their aggression to Venezuela with the bombardment of the capital city Caracas as well as other parts of the country, and the kidnapping of the President Nicolás Maduro.
Going back to the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, “America for Americans,” a doctrine that the United States formulated in its dispute with the European powers over the preferential right to exploit and oppress South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, Latin America was turned into the backyard and sustenance for the emergence of the United States as an imperialist power in the early 20th Century. Imperialism promoted bureaucratic capitalism, based on the most rancid latifundium and backward production relations, turning the countries in Latin America into semi-colonies with formal political independence, that is, nations subject to the ideological, political, economic, and military tangle of imperialism, no matter how much self-government they had.
At the end of the 20th Century, after World War II, the so-called “Cold War” and the fall of Soviet social-imperialism, the United States, the world counterrevolutionary gendarme, became the sole hegemonic superpower; and Latin America has become the strategic base for Yankee imperialism in this process, on which it relies to maintain its world domination. In 1992, with the so-called “Bush Initiative for Latin America,” Yankee imperialism unveiled guidelines for deepening the political, economic, and military integration of the Americas serving to consolidate Yankee hegemony throughout the world and to combat the revolution and any movement that opposes or resists it. Several plans have been implemented as part of this major or strategic plan, such as the Puebla Plan, which reached Panama and Colombia, and the Colombia Plan, which established a system of military bases, among other plans that were implemented amid sharp contradictions with the oppressed nations of the region and contradictions of varying degrees with its lackeys.
The last decade has seen an unprecedented deepening of the crisis of decomposition of Yankee imperialism; its world hegemony is in decline and the inter-imperialist plunder for the re-partition of the world is intensifying. This is what successive administrations since Obama have characterized as the “new strategy” of national security, which states that “an era of contention between great powers is beginning.” In its most recent national security strategy (December 2025), it focuses on Latin America, declaring “The Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, which allows the United States access to “key assets”, “key locations” and support for “critical supply chains,” while declaring the need for Latin America to remain “free from hostile foreign incursion” and to have governments that cooperate in the fight against “narco-terrorists,” against whom it defines the possibility of using “lethal force.”
The specificity of this historic moment is that the intensification of aggression we are witnessing in the Caribbean and Latin America is not limited to this subjugation inherent in the imperialists’ plans for the plunder and exploitation of oppressed countries. In this moment it is particularly about continuing to fulfill the hegemonic plans of Yankee imperialism drawn up in the 1990s to reinforce its strategy of domination, in the American continent, but also adjusting them to the moment of decline of that hegemony and the unprecedented deepening of the economic, political, and military crisis in which it finds itself, seeking to advance its positions in its projection into the Pacific and in its preparations for a third imperialist world war.
Yankee imperialism also seeks to counteract the decline of the general counterrevolutionary offensive it has led since the late 1980s in convergence with revisionism, as this offensive failed to achieve its sinister goal of crushing the people’s wars and national liberation wars. The decline of this counterrevolutionary offensive becomes evident with the brilliant counter-offensive of Al-Aqsa Flood, which has undermined the plans of imperialism to the region, in addition to unmask the myth of invincibility of Zionism, the prodigy son of Yankee imperialism, before the eyes of the peoples of the world. Above all, the failure of the general counterrevolutionary offensive is evident in the persistence of the glorious People’s Wars in India, Turkey, Peru, and the Philippines, which have faced numerous encirclement aimed at annihilation and have kept high the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the mortal enemy of imperialism and reaction. Today, the United States desperately needs to ward off the rise of the anti-imperialist movement and revolutionaries in America.
Behind its rhetoric of “national security” and “enemies from within” lies the fear of the peoples, of the uprising of the United States people themselves, who have demonstrated their revolutionary potential in growing explosions of popular struggle such as those that occurred following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the combative pro-Palestinian student occupations, and the revolt against criminal anti-immigration policies this year.
The Yankees seek to normalize the displacement of a political, economic, and military force as part of implementing a system of military bases throughout the American continent and placing the armies of each country increasingly under the control and command of the United States Southern Command. They are beginning a new phase in their strategic plans in the inter-imperialist contend to maintain hegemony, to neutralize the influence of other imperialist powers and to detain the rebellion of the oppressed peoples aiming to ward off revolution. It is in order to serve these strategic plans of Yankee imperialism more faithfully that the ultra-reactionary Trump is escalating the aggression in Latin America.
The designation of international drug cartels as terrorists, declarations of being at “war against the cartels,” accusations that the presidents of Venezuela and Colombia are drug traffickers, and constant blackmail of governments in the region by threatening to “decertify” them if they do not “cooperate in the fight against drug trafficking” are all acts that are part of a systematic plan to prepare psychological, political, and legal conditions. The Yankee imperialists seek with that to centralize absolute power in the president—thus bypassing parliamentary and judicial authorization and controls— to resolve internal struggles between the Democratic and Republican Party mafias, and to generate public opinion at home to give way to the next phase of their war of aggression and in the context of fulfilling their strategic plans.
The immediate aggression is mainly directed against Venezuela. In this phase, or first military campaign, it is being carried out as an action to militarily besiege an entire country, demanding its unconditional surrender in order to impose a puppet government, using disproportionately greater power to militarily strike minor targets. But the objective of the aggression is not solely to overthrow Maduro; it is part of a broader offensive in Latin America and the Caribbean to advance in the occupation of Latin America. It is comparable to the system set up by Yankee imperialism in the Greater Middle East. In Iraq, once they waged the limited war against Saddam “in defense of Kuwait” by Bush father, they never left the region. Yankee imperialism has unleashed other wars of aggression until they set up their system of bases with the so-called Obama doctrine: military bases, an army with the main function of having “boots on the ground,” a Yankee aircraft carrier in the desert (Israel), mercenaries of different nationalities in Iraq, Syria, Iran, etc., Arab lackey armies, and the deployment of their naval, air, and ground forces to direct and wage wars of aggression of different types and intensities. Venezuela is not the ultimate goal, but rather the justification and the gateway.
The United States has extended its military operation from the Caribbean to the Pacific and has already attacked six ships there. Trump has signed—according to his own statement—an authorization for the CIA to carry out covert operations in foreign countries, ranging from clandestine information gathering to training opposition forces and carrying out lethal attacks.2 The main consequence until now has been the open aggression to Venezuela and the kidnap of its President, Nicolás Maduro. Even though, the joint military exercises of the Southern Command in Panama and Brazil this year, the growing militarization of the border with Mexico, the proposal by Petro’s lackey government to the Yankees to form an “Amazonian NATO,” the fight by the lackey governments of the region against so-called organized crime and “illegal” mining, the criminalization of migrants in the US; all of this is part of the process of aggression and occupation of Latin America. After the Ecuadorian people voted against amending the constitution that prohibits the establishment of foreign military bases in the country, the United States, ignoring the constitution and the referendum, with the support of the traitorous lackey Noboa, began the deployment of Yankee troops on December 17 to the military base in Manta. The United States has also just signed a military cooperation agreement in Paraguay, which also involves Yankee boots on the ground.
To implement this new phase of aggression and occupation, amid intensifying imperialist plunder, the Yankees need to have more absolute authority over their semi-colonies and spheres of influence. To do so, they need to tighten the reins on their own lackeys and restructure the States of Latin American countries, deepening their semi-colonial status. They need to slow down the progress of China’s commercial, economic, and political agreements with Latin American countries and ensure that the semi-colonies become increasingly subject to Yankee imperialism. This is why interference in the internal affairs of the countries of the region is also increasing, as has happened with Trump’s defense of Bolsonaro (Brazil’s far right) and open intervention in the elections in Honduras and Argentina in November, offering access to a $20 billion currency swap to help calm Argentina’s currency crisis, contingent on Milei’s party winning the legislative elections. For the times of war that are opening, it needs to have its base area more centralized and controlled. Therefore, along with greater plundering and the deployment of military boots to the strategic base of its world hegemony, it is necessarily demanded to open another chapter of greater interventionism and interference in the governments of the continent.
It is not that Latin American governments are now moving away from the traditional policy and economy of servility to the USA that they have applied as lackeys over the last century. Despite the fact that there are declared vassals, and vassals with empty anti-imperialist rhetoric, they all continue to serve Yankee policies. This is revealed, for example, by Petro’s call for Maduro to sell out his country and cede power to avoid a Yankee invasion or, as it was revealed last November, when senior Venezuelan officials from Maduro’s government, in talks that lasted months with the Trump administration, offered the Yankees a majority stake in Venezuelan oil, promising to grant preferential contracts to US companies, to reverse the flow of Venezuelan oil exports from China to the United States, and to cut energy and mining contracts with Chinese, Iranian, and Russian companies3. It was the Trump administration that rejected the offer, as it is useful to use Venezuela as a guinea pig and scapegoat to advance its strategic plan.
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The cannons of Yankee imperialism pointed against the region and its actions are signs of its weakness. The hegemony of Yankee imperialism is in decline, its general counterrevolutionary offensive is faltering, and its perverse attempt to crush the revolution is failing. It is in a deep economic and political crisis that is breathing down its neck, forcing it to act more aggressively. This is a sign of the failure of its post-Cold War military doctrine. In the words of Vice President Vance: “We have fought many wars in the last 40 years, but we have not won any.” Moments of deep crisis in the imperialist system accentuate inter-imperialist contradictions and require the expansion of wars of aggression against oppressed nations and peoples. The United States is beset by irreconcilable internal contradictions, is undergoing a long process of decline, and each new measure to counter this decline sharpens its contradictions. Imperialism is a paper tiger, we must finish it off!
If the Yankees expect the peoples of Latin America to remain silent while they attack our brother peoples and occupy Latin American territory, this would fan the flames of the new democratic revolution with the tailwind of massive anti-imperialist mobilization worldwide including within the United States itself, as the movement in support of Palestine has shown.
History teaches us that peoples fighting for their freedom are unstoppable. The path of heroic Palestinian national resistance is also the path of Latin America. A fierce resistance that confronts the greatest military powers on earth, and whose heart of anti-imperialist resistance not only remains alive after one of the greatest genocides of our times, but beats stronger and has multiplied in every corner of the globe. Instead of encircling on oppressed peoples as they imagine, the imperialists will find themselves increasingly cornered by anti-imperialist struggles, national liberation wars, and people’s wars.
Imperialism relies throughout Latin America on its native agents, the big landlords or latifundium and the lackey big bourgeoisie, to exploit the people, especially the peasantry. It is therefore essential to fight against semi-feudalism and mobilize the peasantry to carry out the revolution inseparably from the struggle against imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism.
When imperialism invades and attacks an oppressed nation, like what is happening in Venezuela, there is a change in the principal contradiction and the task of the communists is to struggle for the formation of a national united front of anti-imperialist resistance against the foreign aggression and to unite all the people and nation, with the exception of a minority of national-traitors, against the foreign aggression to develop a national resistance war against the invasion.
The war of resistance against imperialism for national liberation is part of the new democratic revolution and only through the leadership of the proletariat, through its Communist Party, is it possible to fully unfold it to sweep away the three mountains: imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism and semi-feudalism.
We communists are being called to lead the struggle against the occupation of Latin America, we must put ourselves at the forefront and the first rows of anti-imperialist combat to unite and lead the camp of the revolutionary anti-imperialists. We must raise a broad anti-imperialist movement to denounce the imperialist aggression to Venezuela and all Latin America through actions. Death to the invader!
It is crucial to oppose the submissive and conciliatory policies of the governments in power in each country. In the face of the danger of capitulation, the proletariat, the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, the national bourgeoisie, and other patriotic forces must persist in their resistance with the support of the proletariat and the peoples of the world.
We call the peoples and nation of Venezuela to unite and to rise against the imperialist aggression, through armed struggle of national resistance: Death to the invader! Yankees out of Venezuela!
We call the whole proletariat and oppressed peoples of Latin America and the world to unite against the imperialist aggression to Venezuela, to increase the anti-imperialist mobilization through actions against imperialism.
Imperialism is a paper tiger!
Yankees, out of Venezuela and Latin America!
Proletariat and oppressed peoples of the world, unite to smash imperialism!
Countries fight for independence, nations fight for liberation and the peoples fight for revolution!
Peoples of Latin America, let us rise in a powerful anti-imperialist movement!
International Communist League
January 3rd
1 According to a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS),
2 Washington Post.
3 New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/world/americas/maduro-venezuela-us-oil.html
