In the face of the political crisis in Venezuela, as anti-capitalists, we declare that:

1) We reject the offensive by the opposition against the Bolivarian government. The Venezuelan opposition is led by profoundly antidemocratic sectors, tied to the dominant class. These sectors are preparing an authoritarian reaction against the gains of the Bolivarian revolution, even if some of these gains have been watered down by the crisis in the country. The opposition has not hesitated in resorting to attacking, burning, and assassinating vulnerable citizens in recent years, and have escalated their methods to hijacking helicopters and the use of firearms.

While this offensive is nothing new, it is framed in a context of coups, whether soft or authoritarian in character, in different countries in Latin America, such as the cases of Brazil, Honduras, and Paraguay, which have been met with passive complicity by foreign governments and the international press. The immediate consequence of those coups has been a heavy handed repression of activists and the poor. In this case we see that same complicity and masking of the Venezuelan opposition's violent nature. If the political destabilization gets its way of mounting a coup, as some in the opposition seek for Venezuela, we very much fear that they will use the same cruelty and viciousness against the leftist activists and the population in the poorest neighborhoods in cities across Venezuela...