VENEZUELA - June 15th
Three SIDOR workers imprisoned due to their fighting
Now they are Free!
It is urgent to stop right now the repression by the Venezuelan Boli-bourgeoisie against the labor movement!
The attack on workers aims to impose the worst plans of famine and looting of Venezuela to pay the IMF for the fraudulent debt
The Boli-bourgeoisie goes on fattening their super-profits by starving the people
Meanwhile, the Movement for the Democratic Unity (MUD), under the command of Obama, is prepared to continue its work
Tuesday, May 26 the Bolívar State Criminal Court issued the release order for three workers detained by SEBIN (Bolivarian National Intelligence Service) since September 19, 2014, as a consequence of the strike than the SIDOR steel workers performed. Thus SIDOR workers earn a first battle to the jailer and anti-labor Government of Maduro, while they call to continue the fight until the full freedom of their comrades.
September 19 in the morning, workers Leinys Quijada, Rederick Leiba and Heberto Bastardo, workers of the Siderurgica del Orinoco (SIDOR) and belonging to the United Trade Union of Workers of the Iron and Steel and its related industries (SUTISS), were arrested by officers of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service. A prosecution was opened to the workers with false charges of “Arms trafficking” and “Association to commit a crime” with the intention of breaking the fight by more than 12,000 workers in strike carried out for the signing of a collective agreement. The detention was carried out once the Government had put an end to the strike using its repressive institutions and militarizing the factory. Now the Prosecutor's office has issued the order considering that it "does not have the necessary evidence to support these accusations for a long time".
Repeatedly the anti-labor Government of the Chavezista Boli-bourgeoisie, a lackey of Obama’s, has tried to place the responsibility for the critical state of SIDOR on the workers who were fighting for opening the discussion and implementation of a collective agreement in accordance with their needs, something that the government had been postponing for four years. The attack on the SIDOR workers - who are the most advanced detachment of the Venezuelan working class - as well as to the workers of CIVETCHI (who are in prison and sentenced to a 5 years term), is an attempt to warning the whole of the working class. A monumental devaluation has corroded the wage; inflation, layoffs - as in the automotive industry - high cost of life is what it's up to the masses in this crisis, while the bourgeoisie has done nothing more than enriching themselves.
The real enemy of Chavezism isn't the MUD. Between themselves they argue and fight, as bourgeois gangs, to see whose is now the time to manage and steal the Venezuelan oil income. The Maduro Government requires applying the attack against the masses along with the MUD, for thus not be used as a squeezed lemon. The plan of the MUD is just using Chavezism now to the end, so then to be them, with Capriles, which continue the same economic plan and guarantee the regular payment of the fraudulent debt of more than 105 billion dollars to the IMF. That repayment of external debt is the cause of inflation, devaluation, the high cost of life... They are the super-profits of the bourgeois fractions and the sacking of Venezuela at the hands of imperialism. That is the crisis. And if this gets out of hand, the breed of "Bolivarian" officers will take by assault the administration of the business of the bourgeoisie and be the institution that finishes crushing the masses.
This is the paradox of the decline of Chavezism. It began with their young officers like Chávez slaughtering the masses in the Caracazo of the late ' 80s and early 90's (with more than 5000 dead). Now again the officersof the bourgeois military will not hesitate to repeat that historical experience. For now, Maduro, guarded from behind by Capriles, is responsible for the attack on the masses. The latter is preparing to win the next elections. At the same time he uses throngs of desperate wings of the Venezuelan bourgeois and petty bourgeois classes to attack and wear out Maduro. Capriles is not heading any action in the streets. He prepares for a "serious" bourgeois replacement within the Bolivarian Republic in the upcoming elections. Thus it works this two-party regime of the "Bolivarian Republic", which can explode if the crac deepens and also does the emergence of the masses, particularly the labor movement.
From this last point of view, in relation to the control of the labor movement, Maduro is still a guarantee for the whole bourgeoisie and imperialism. For this reason, although controlling him and kicking him in his ankles, they hold him to keep the labor movement at bay. The famous "Chavezista militias" proved to be no more than groups of hired assassins and lumpen to attack the working-class struggles. The attack on the workers of SIDOR and CIVETCHI is just a sample of where the Bolivarian Government is capable of reaching at the time of its decline and bankruptcy.
Maduro is one link in the reactionary "Bolivarian revolution," which came to expropriate the revolutionary processes of the masses in the Americas all these years. His partners are brutally attacking the working class, as in Brazil and Argentina. They have violently repressed the miners in Huanuni, the heart of the Bolivian working class, and dissolved its parent Union, the heroic COB of the ' 52 revolution. They are selling out Colombian resistance and Cuba to imperialism with the Castro brothers, who have become new partners of imperialism, Coca Cola and Cargill.
In his bankruptcy Maduro the more attacks the masses, the more "speaks with the bird" posing of anti-imperialist, while punctually repaying the fraudulent Venezuelan debt, as we have shown.
The working class must break with Chavezism and the bourgeoisie, to be able to really fight for their interests, for decent wages, and against the brutal high cost of life and their unprecedented sufferings. The Venezuelan pseudo-left... is hung to the Maduro coattails and turning their backs on SIDOR workers, which are the advanced detachment in the Venezuelan working class struggle.
In 2014, the Maduro Government militarized SIDOR and detained the strikers’ leaders, while the Chavezista trade union bureaucracy betrayed the Steelworkers and the rank and file workers rebelled...
SIDOR workers were also denouncing the irregularities and corruption in the high management of SIDOR who were ruining the company through their dark business and by the diversion of resources that has been expressed in the lack of maintenance and investment in equipment, etc.
The government imprisoned instead those who, through their great fights, had achieved the re-statization of SIDOR, and make it produce; it never went for the real culprits. This anti-worker Government refuses to cancel its debt with the workers and to sign a collective agreement, citing that there is "no money". These are pure lies! there is surplus money from the oil income, but this is robbed hands full by the imperialist transnational corporations and their junior partners of the bourgeois MUD and the Bolivarian bourgeoisie: "Hummer Socialists and Communists of Rolex" as clearly the SIDOR workers have identified those servants of imperialism, direct agents to the service of the IMF.
The SIDOR strike of last year was betrayed when the Secretary of Organization of the SUTISS, a member of the “Trade Union Alliance” current of the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the Bolivarian Party, NT), José Melendez, signed along with other 3 leaders, a "secret agreement" about the contract, behind the backs of the workers, in order to break the fight. But despite the betrayal, workers ignored in their assemblies such "agreement", and in response they strengthened their fight, which could only be dismantled with the intervention of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) by militarizing the areas, and putting behind bars the mentioned three SIDOR workers.
These treacherous ways of agreeing with the Government behind the backs of the workers is something common to all the members of SIDOR Union bureaucracy, particularly the sector led by Jose Luis Hernandez and Jose Melendez, both supporters of the Government that once and again have thus demonstrated their role as traitors to the worker fights and also attacking the more advanced of the workers at SIDOR Vanguard sectors. In the case of Jose Melendez, his actions have earned him a resounding rejection of the Union rank and file, the fear to which was then expressed in the suspension of the Union elections through maneuvers and resorting to blatant intervention by the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) to avoid the sure defeat of Melendez and his slate.
On May 1 the SIDOR workers marched across the Venezuelan State of Guayana raising the struggle for the freedom of their fellow prisoners and that of the other workers imprisoned for their fighting. The departmental delegate of SIDOR, Cruz Hernandez said: “(our demand) is the full freedom for our three comrades detained illegally for making use of their legitimate right to protest. We demand respect for democratic freedoms and the release of all political prisoners." This, as part of the campaign for the release of comrades detained for fighting since September, 2014.
The 8 CIVETCHI fighting workers are still detained and sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment by the anti-labor Government of Maduro; also Rodney Alvarez of Ferrominera is still waiting in prison for its trial
However, Frederick Leiba, Leinys Quijada and Heberto Bastardo cases are not the only ones of workers imprisoned for their fighting. Currently there are 8 workers of the CIVETCHI joint venture sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment in Tocuyito jail for trying to organize a Union, and also the known case of Rodney Álvarez, worker of FERROMINERA who led fights for the implementation of the already signed collective agreement of the company, who is imprisoned in El Rodeo II, detained since mid-2011 whose trial was aborted after four hearings and four years of waiting, and now referred to its initial phase. His Counselor Sarabia demanded from the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) that it works to quicken the trial process, "since everyone knows that he is innocent and that he is not guilty of anything".
Meanwhile Attorney Prosecutor, Bladimir Martinez, in recent statements and to the proximity of the audience of the day Tuesday, 16 June, insists on blaming Rodney Alvarez despite various demonstrations and testimonials, and the claim by hundreds of workers who point out that the PSUV Trade Union bureaucrat Hector Maican was who shot a gun the day of the tragic events.
Maduro and his Government, jailer of workers and its infamous Chavezista bureaucracy are solely responsible for the death of Renny Rojas López, worker of FMO. The fact is that FMO and SIDOR workers come for years, being hunted down and brutally suppressed by the Government, who is prone to criminalizing the fighting of some delegates and workers or anyone who is not a supporter of the PSUV and the Government. Meanwhile workers have been collecting to cover the costs of the trial and the maintenance of the three sons of Comrade Alvarez; for lack of money the boys, for two years now, have failed to attend school.
To maintain the super-profits of the Boli-bourgeoisie and the plans of imperialism, the Maduro Government throws all its crises over the workers and people
Hundreds of workers and peasants are prosecuted... The "Socialist" left, servants of Chavezismo, looks the other side
But there are also the cases of hundreds of workers, peasants and indigenous people being processed, with measures restricting freedom or threats of imprisonment for having taken part in some Assembly, strike, occupation of factories, land occupation, or simply for distributing a flyer. This is the Bolivarian Republic of the multi-million-dollar Boli-bourgeoisie and corrupt oligarchies where the exploited are suffering enormous economic hardship and persecution.
But before so brutal attack on the working class, and other popular sectors, the Venezuelan left -grouped around C-CURA- is rising - as it did in the Meeting of Workers in Valencia - the policy of asking Maduro, the very same gang leader of the jailers and repressors, to halt the repression, to stop the paramilitary bands and free the prisoners. Their program is putting the working class under the protection of the murderous Maduro Government, i.e. that workers do not break with the Government and its institutions and trust their executioners. It's the same left which left alone the SIDOR workers in their mobilization and act on May 1, at the same time that Maduro went to the act on 1 May in Cuba submitted by the Castro brothers to imperialism to receive the support of the restorationist Cuban bourgeoisie. That is, together with the WSF, these fake lefts support the head of the millionaire Boli-bourgeoisie which along with the rest of the exploiters are stealing the oil income, while they make the Venezuelan working class pay for the crisis, with hunger, shortages and unemployment. On this the “left” also keeps the most absolute silence.
It will not be in the hands of this justice of the bosses of the Bolivarian Republic, which have long imprisoned condemned and persecuted workers where true justice will come from. SIDOR workers, who have vowed to continue the fight until they gain full freedom to his companions, have full authority to summon a great labor Conference in the Venezuelan Guayana, with delegates from the rank and file of all the labor movement that already are in struggle, to make stand up the Venezuelan working class unifying their ranks with an independent program, independent from the Government and the MUD (as enemy of the working class as Maduro), and in particular to all labor organizations who have imprisoned or persecuted affiliates, rising along with their pressing demands, the freedom of all worker and popular political prisoners, and for the ceasing of prosecution to all the persecuted for fighting. At the same time they should set up a Commission of Inquiry formed both by base employees elected at FMO and by Renny Rojas’ family for judging and punishing the real culprits of the murder of Renny Rojas and Ramón Jiménez, President of the Construction Workers Revolutionary Union (UNETE), riddled with bullets by the Chavezista trade union bureaucracy.
In order to be able to fight for all the demands of the labor movement, it is necessary to tear away all our colleagues from the prisons of the Bolivarians. Therefore the struggle for the freedom of the workers and popular political prisoners should be taken by all the working class, poor farmers and other exploited.
Full freedom for Leinys Quijada, Frederick Leiba and Heberto Bastardo, workers of SIDOR!
Immediate and unconditional freedom for the 8 workers of CIVETCHI and Rodney Álvarez, Ferrominera worker!
For the cessation of prosecution to hundreds of workers, peasants and indigenous people persecuted for fighting!
Down with the assassins, stop the repression to workers, peasants, students and popular fighters!
We want Alcedo Mora alive! Free the imprisoned workers and popular leaders!
For workers and peasants Courts to prosecute the killers of our comrades!
Dissolution of the Bolivarian national guard and police and the SEBIN!
All combative worker organizations must immediately settle the self-defense committees to protect our struggles and threatened comrades!
Dissolution of the caste of officers of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB)! Committees of rank-and-file soldiers for refusing to suppress the people!
It is urgent to stop right now the attack of hunger and misery by the Government of Maduro, who is reserving the dollars to the Boli-bourgeoisie and the IMF, while hunger is killing workers and their families! The MUD is prepared to continue the Chavezista work, multiplying their attacks against the workers and the people.
Enough is enough! The Venezuelan working class must intervene in national politics!
Let's put up the Venezuelan labor movement! We must re-found the UNT bottom up!
Open the way to the workers of SIDOR! Open the way to those who are fighting!
Congress of delegates from rank and file, next to the iron and steel workers, to retrieve the workers organizations from the hands of the Boli-bourgeoisie and its corrupt trade union bureaucracy
Out with the Ministry of Labor and its resolutions that benefit the bosses!
Plan for a joint national struggle to impose all the demands of the labor movement!
The Venezuelan left has submitted, for years, the working class to the Boli-bourgeoisie. The time has come to stop being an appendix of Chavezism, and break with the Bolivarians.
In the Venezuelan State of Guayana, while SIDOR workers are taking the streets, the Venezuelan pseudo-left has abandoned them. This left calls for "fighting for labor agreements" and aims to put the working class on their knees before the Ministry of Labor of Maduro. Afraid of "playing in the hands of the right", the fake left ends up submitting the working class to Maduro, who is today applying the IMF plans. It wants to make the workers believe that fighting for decent wages is to "playing the game for Capriles". That is precisely Maduro’s blackmail for submitting the working class to one of the worst attacks in its history.
Open the way to the working class!
Neither Capriles nor the Boli-bourgeoisie! They are all representatives of the IMF!
The Venezuelan pseudo-left is an appendix of the "Bolivarian revolution" which is a fraud against the workers and the oppressed masses. It covers shamefully with a mantle of silence that Maduro and Castro are partners in the handing out of Cuba to imperialism, Cargill and Coca Cola; and, together with the Pope, the sell-outs of the Colombian resistance and the guarantors of the worst attacks against the Venezuelan working class.
Struggling to put up a revolutionary party in Venezuela has been left in the hands of international forces fighting for re-founding the Fourth International and liberating the working class from the grips of the Bolivarian bourgeoisie, which has strangled the most advanced revolutionary processes in the Americas, from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska in recent years.
FLTI