The full statement reads:
On July 21, the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) was the object of a new aggression that demonstrates the Nicolas Maduro government's repressive escalation against the struggles of the workers' and popular movement that confronts the neo-liberal adjustment and government policies that destroy workers' wages.
The event took place in the context of a massive mobilization called by the Unitary Trade Union Platform to demand that the National Budget Office's (ONAPRE) instructions that significantly reduce the salaries and collective rights of the workers of the public administration be repealed. The government, through the mayor's office of the Libertador municipality (Caracas) and the PSUV Party, tried to violate the political and democratic right of the workers to carry out their mobilization by stationing shock groups and repressive state bodies along the entire route of the mobilization planned by the Unitary Trade Union Platform. This practice was developed for many years by the dictatorial, social-democratic and social-Christian governments - the latter two grouped in the "Punto Fijo" pact - to intimidate and repress the workers' and popular struggles in the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's of the last century.
The permanent encirclement and provocation by these shock groups against the workers' mobilization was expressed in physical attacks against several workers, among them our comrade Jackeline López, member of the Central Committee of the PCV and national leadership of the Clara Zetkin Women's Movement, who was beaten by shock groups from the Caracas City Hall, an attack which was coordinated by regional and national leaders of the PSUV who prevented the arrival of the workers and pensioners to the vice-presidency's offices.
The anti-communist and anti-worker repression did not end with the mobilization. At the end of the day, officials of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) -the political police of the State- chased a PCV vehicle in which comrade Adelaida Zerpa member of the Central Committee and the Political Bureau of the PCV, and comrade Angel Castillo, national coordinator of the June 2nd Collective of the Barrio Adentro (Healthcare) Workers and a PCV member, were returning to the Party headquarters. Upon arriving at the headquarters, the SEBIN officials surrounded the vehicle, brutally assaulted comrade Adelaida Zerpa and took comrade Angel Castillo hostage, without any justified cause and thus violating his fundamental human rights.
After the pressure exerted by the denunciation of the PCV, the Venezuelan workers and popular movement, and international solidarity, comrade Angel Castillo was released. However, a court summons was issued to him for an alleged investigation, the cause of which is not specified in the text. Undoubtedly, these actions are part of the operations of harassment, censorship, hate messages, intimidation and repression against the revolutionary workers' and popular movement, which is in turn part of the deepening of the policy of criminalization and judicialization of the workers' struggles in the country.
This concrete fact, which demonstrates the rise of the anti-communist and anti-worker violence of the government, is closely linked to the systematic campaign of anti-communist defamation carried out by spokespersons and high-level leaders of the PSUV through State channels. Through this media, the PCV is being irresponsibly accused of receiving financing from former officials of the PSUV government accused of corruption, or of receiving economic support from U.S. imperialist organizations. Recently, PSUV Vice President Diosdado Cabello, in his weekly television program, issued new irresponsible statements accusing the PCV, and particularly the General Secretary of the Central Committee comrade Oscar Figuera, of being an executor of imperialism's plans against Venezuela. It is within the framework of these lies and this false "anti-imperialist" struggle, that the government and the PSUV leadership have been justifying their aggressions against the political and democratic rights of the PCV and the workers' leaders of the Unified Trade Union Platform.
As we have denounced on different occasions, the government and the PSUV leadership are using a false anti-imperialist discourse to exercise repression against the workers and the popular movement that is rising up against the savage pro-imperialist and anti-worker policies. While discursively maintaining the appearance of a confrontation with U.S. and European imperialism, the government is making a pact with Washington and its monopolies, mainly the oil monopolies. The recently approved Organic Law of Special Economic Zones and the advances towards a reform of the Hydrocarbons Law demonstrate the hypocrisy of a government that claims to be "leftist" when it is pushing the most shameful surrender of the sovereignty and wealth of the country to foreign capital.
We call on the Communist Parties and the global workers movement to remain alert in the face of this escalation of the aggressions of the government and its repressive bodies against the political rights of the PCV and the Venezuelan workers' and popular movement. International solidarity and a strong denunciation against the criminalization and judicialization of the workers' struggles in Venezuela plays an important role in the containment of this ferocious governmental onslaught that corresponds to the offensive of capital against the rights of the Venezuelan workers. From the PCV, we are grateful for the multiple manifestations of solidarity that various Communist Parties of the world have sent us through public and private channels.
Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV).
Also read:
— KKE: Hands off the communists of Venezuela! Solidarity with the Communist Party of Venezuela