International Peoples’ Assembly in Caracas

   A charter of the International Peoples Assembly

   To militants, social and political activists of the world

   Dear Comrades,

   From the 23rd to the 27th February 2019, the International Assembly of the People gathered in Caracas, Venezuela to continue the process of building our anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggles as well as to extend solidarity to the Bolivarian revolution.

   Altogether 500 people from 181 organizations of 87 countries and 5 continents (Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and Oceania) met, debated, sang, chanted and experienced revolutionary solidarity in the common struggle to give hope to the people of our planet.

   We have been coming together over a three-year process to confront the historic challenge of unifying the struggles of the working class and peoples of the world. We are convinced that the unity of our anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal and anti-racist struggles is the only way to achieve a better world for all.

   During the past three years, the International Assembly of the People has been networking in the different regions: Building political networks, facilitating dialogue amongst activists, organising regional conferences, setting up and running regional political education schools, discovering and reinforcing people that have the courage and the zeal to fight injustice everywhere.

   The most evident injustice today is the imperialist attack on Venezuela. In a project to restore the power of the oligarchy and plunder of the immense mineral resources of this beautiful, rich country; the Empire cannot bear the presence of a socialist-inspired revolution that intends to deliver the country’s wealth to the Venezuelan people; but they will never win. That is why Venezuela was the place for the International Assembly of the People to celebrate and support the Bolivarian Revolution.

   The original design of the Assembly was to bring together 1,500 representatives of diverse struggles in Caracas. Following the increased aggression against Venezuela, a decision was taken to amend the design of the Assembly to a one of 500 persons with an explicit focus on solidarity for the Venezuela.

   The holding of the Assembly is an important and inspirational milestone in the process started three years ago. We are energised by this tremendous Caracas gathering and are more convinced than ever to continue the process of unifying our common struggles all over the world. We will continue to work at regional, country and community levels. We will pay attention to the battle of ideas, the coordination of the struggles, to communication, mobilization and political education training with the only aspiration of giving tools, ideas, and strength to each and every person in the world who stands up against any injustice. That is our call.

   Coordinating Committee of the International Peoples Assembly

   Work Plan

   I) MOBILIZATION

   - In order to build on the work of the International Assembly of Peoples, we commit ourselves to defining, in each region, a calendar of mobilizations and to strengthen mobilizations in the region that are already or that will be identified. This calendar will promte an anti-imperialist day of action in the second semester of 2019.

   II) Coordination

   - To publicize the nature, political platform and plan of action of the International Peoples Assembly with the purpose of spreading and deepening participation in our coordination.

   - To establish and to strenghthen mechanisms of communication at a regional level that will enable us to improve our coordination and the work of the regional operative secretariats.

   - We will develop regional assemblies or activities that allow us to strengthen our coordination, including: o VIII Assembly of Peoples of the Caribbean, in Trinidad and Tobago, from August 15 to 19, 2019.

   o Mesoamerican meeting at the end of July or beginning of August 2019.

   o II Asia Assembly in the second semester of 2019.

   o III Assembly of Alba movimientos the first semester of 2020.

   o Sub regional assemblies and a regional assembly in Europe before the second half of 2020.

   o IV Pan-African Regional Conference in 2020;

   o Regional Assembly in the Arabic area.

   - We will continue to build our International Peoples' coordination, for which the Coordinating Commission, at its next meeting, will define the methodology of the process and a division responsibility to refine our definition of and follow through on the Action Plan in order to develop the processes for our next International Assembly.

   III) COMMUNICATION

   - We commit ourselves to spreading the word about and strengthening our instruments of communication and coordination, with relation to the social movements of the International Assembly and other platforms that the communication committee can establish to engage in the battle of ideas in our regions.

   IV) POLITICAL FORMATION

   - We are committed to continue developing and deepening processes of political formation, as well as to strengthening the coordination of regional training schools to develop internationalist awareness and knowledge of the processes of struggle of the peoples of the world.

   V) MILITANT INTERNATIONALISM

   - We will demonstrate and promote our support and solidarity in the face of any aggression against the peoples of the world.

   - We will organize brigades and exchanges between our millitants to carry out concrete actions that will develop internationalism.

   - We are committed to accompanying electoral processes in countries in resistance to guarantee respect for popular will and exchange organizational experiences for the electoral battles.

  Activities Schedule

   - March 8 International Day of Women's Struggle.

   - March 21 International Day for the Elimination of Racism

   - 24 marzo March for Human Rights (Argentina)

   - March 30 Earth Day in Palestine.

   - April 7 Day of Struggle to Free Lula

   - April 17 International Day of Peasant Struggle

   - May 1 International Day of Workers' Struggle

   - May 25 Africa's Freedom Day

   - July 28 Day of Struggle in Solidarity with Haiti

   - October 7 International Day of Youth Struggles

   - October 15 International Day of Rural Women

   - October 16 International Day of Struggle for Food Sovereignty

   - Second Semester We propose to discuss the organization of an International Day of Anti-imperialist Struggle

   - From November 1 to 3 Anti-imperialist Meeting for Democracy and Against Neoliberalism

   Letter of solidarity with the Peoples in Struggle

   We, 500 people from 87 countries, from diverse popular organizations social movements, youth and women’s groups, political parties, and trade unions, in struggle against occupation and war, environmental extractivism, racism, patriarchy, militarism, and exploitation have come together in Caracas, Venezuela. Here we are united in our fight against imperialism, capitalism and all its manifestations.

   We, the International Assembly of the People, came to Venezuela in this historic moment to express our solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution. In confirming our commitment to international solidarity, also express our solidarity with all peoples who are attacked, oppressed, imprisoned, silenced and starved by imperialism and thus:

   We stand with the people of Haiti who rose up again in their long tradition of heroically fighting to throw of the yoke of colonialism and neo colonialism – also in support of Venezuela;

   We stand with the people in Colombia yearning for peace in their own country as well as struggling to preserve peace with Venezuela;

   We stand with the people of Cuba, a bullwark against Western Imperialism for the past 60 years and an inspiration for all of us;

   We stand with the people of Puerto Rico in their ongoing struggle for self-determination;

   We stand with people in the Ukraine battling fascist imperialist intervention;

   We stand with the Basque and Catalan people struggling for the liberation of their hundreds of political prisoners and for the total emancipation from oppressing states;

   We stand with the Afro descendants in the Americas, especially Brazil, Colombia and the United States, in their resistance to police brutality and structural and systemic anti-Black racism; We stand the people of Palestine who struggle for the liberation of their land and people from the Zionist occupation and oppression;

   We stand with the Kurdish people in their fight for their self-determination;

   We stand with the people of Western Sahara who fight for their self-determination;

   We stand with the Egyptian people in their struggle against the bloody regime of Sisi;

   We stand with the oppressed people of the Congo enslaved, maimed and killed for centuries due to capitalist plunder of the heart of Africa;

   We stand with the people of Yemen who are being starved and bombed by the coalition led by Saudi Arabia and its imperialist allies;

   We stand with the people of Sudan in their revolution for freedom and democracy;

   We stand with the peoples of Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Libya in their struggle against the imperialist military intervention and for their right to freedom and peace.

   We reiterate our support for all peoples fighting for sovereignty, self-determination, freedom and socialism.

   Long live peoples’ struggles

   Political Declaration “Che Guevara” Internationalist Brigade

   We are 200 young men and women from 40 countries on 4 continents, representing more than 100 popular organizations, including peasant, student, union, community, women’s, LGTB and afro groups. We represent a wide cultural, economic, political and ideological diversity. From February 16th to 22nd, we met in the city of Caracas and in different and diverse spaces of popular power. We carried out the Che Guevara internationalist brigade through which we did voluntary work and lived revolutionary practice in the flesh alongside the people. We continued along the path that blazed by Che, which led us to Venezuela in the spirit of internationalism and solidarity. Over these days we reaffirmed out commitment to the Boliviarian revolution and our confidence in the legitimate president of the people, Nicolas Maduro Moros.

   We have witnessed a historic moment in the crisis of capitalism which has intensified violence against young people all over the planet. The privatization of education is creating education systems at the service of the interests of accumulated capital which is exclusionary and does not help resolve the basic problems of the population. The criminalization of marginalized youth increases repression while making it harder to construct and project for living with dignity.

   We can see that imperialism is being invented in order continue repressing and despoiling the peoples of the world, an offensive in which Venezuela is currently at the epicenter. This generates a multi-dimensional war waged at an economic, psychological, communications and military level. They are trying to appropriate natural resources and destroy the revolutionary morale and identity that enable the Chavist people to continue defending their rights and their sovereignty.

   The Struggles That Unite Us:

   1. Defending territories and natural resources, against environmental degradation and the privatization of nature.

   2. Supporting sovereignty and defending self-determination, against imperialist war and exploitation by transnational companies.

   3. Resisting attacks on youth and militarization, in favor of life.

   4. Promoting popular feminism, representing the rights of women, LGBTs, indigenous peoples, defending equality against the patriarchy, racism and religious intolerance.

   5. Supporting a popular political Project built buy the people, in defense of social rights (education, culture, health, transport, housing, etc.) and opposing fascist and neoliberal policies.

   6. The defense of dignified labor and the construction of economic alternatives. Resistance against precaraisation and the super exploitation of the work of young people.

   7. Defending the democratization of communication which respects and transmits local culture, against mass media. To carry out our struggles we need to take on some concrete tasks and commitments:

   1. Strengthening the construction of the International Coordination for the Militant Youth, keeping its anti-imperialist, anti-patriarchal, anti-colonialist, anti-neoliberal and anti-racist nature.

   2. We must return to grass roots organising, to politize, mobilize and organize people and especially the youth. We have to organize working class youth, who are the group most affected by the imperialist offensive and simultaneously, the most dynamic demographic in class struggle.

   3. At times of crisis, it is imperative to create tools to denounce the enemy’s project, and at the same time, declare out own through agitation and propaganda, creating new forms of communication through creative capacity. It is not enough to reject the project of the enemy, its also necessary to declare and new social vision.

   3. Develop political and ideological training of the youth, understanding that only through political and educational training we can assure greater confidence moving towards the strategic horizon.

   4. It is necessary to advance mass struggle. These are mobilisations that can change the correlation of forces. Out power is in the number of people that we can organize and get on the streets If the enemy gains strength through the accumulation of capital, in the media monopoly and the military apparatus, we accumulate our strength thought numbers in the street.

   5. We must build unity among the popular forces, both nationally and internationally. We cannot emphasize minor difference to the detriment of unity. It’s necessary to organize unified spaces that strengthen the struggle against a common enemy. We cannot emphasise small differences at the expense of unity. It is necessary to organized unified spaces which strengthen the struggle against a common enemy.

   6. We must take advantage of the creative power of the youth, and build innovative tools for the organization of this social sector, through popular mediums of communication, methods of struggle and organisation that reach young people.

   7. Replicate the International Brigades aimed at strengthening solidarity with the struggles of brother peoples that are being fiercely attacked by imperialism and by the destructive logic of capital.

   Long live the Bolivarian Revolution!

   Long live Chavez!

   Long live the Militant Youth!

   Caracas, Venezuela, February 26th, 2019

   International Campaign for Peace and Sovereignty in Venezuela

   I) MOVILIZATION

   1. On March 16, 2019 we will organize an International Day of Struggle for Peace in Venezuela and the cessation of the economic blockade. On this day we will mobilize our movements and organizations of the peoples in front of US embassies and consulates, or else in other symbolic places of the imperialist and interventionist action that has been practiced by the Donald Trump government against sovereignty and self-determination of the Venezuelan people.

   2. In all the mobilizations organized by the peoples, we will support the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people, for peace and democracy in Venezuela and for a world without imperialism.

   3. We will organize mobilizations and activities to rescue the legacy of the commander Hugo Chávez and in solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution, as on March 5, the date of Chavez's sowing, on July 28, the date of his birth and also on the 13th April, in which the Venezuelan people have defeated the 2002 coup against President Chávez and the Venezuelan people.

   4. We will be on alert to defend the Venezuelan Embassies and Consulates because they are territories of the Venezuelan people in our countries, which in some countries has been attacked and beaten by right-wing and fascist forces.

   5. We will promote actions of denunciation and boycott of companies involved in aggressions against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

   II) POLITICAL ARTICULATION

   1. We propose to articulate ourselves at the local, national and international level with other progressive political forces, democrats and the left to organize the Committees for Peace in Venezuela, which will promote broad and unitary actions against US imperialist interventionism.

   2. We will continue to strengthen and promote regional spaces of movements and organizations of the peoples in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution, of its socialist and feminist character and also of the legacy of the commander Hugo Chávez.

   3. We will explore the possibilities of promoting an International Network of Jurists and Lawyers that will take legal action against the aggressions against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

   4. We will promote articulations with people and groups of intellectuals, religious, artists and culture workers that promote activities and processes for Peace in Venezuela.

   5. We will promote the articulation between political organizations with parliamentary or institutional representation to promote actions in the political and diplomatic spheres in defense of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, for Peace and for the accountability of those responsible for the interference against Venezuela.

   III) POPULAR COMMUNICATION

   1. We are committed to publicize and strengthen communication tools that allow communication information, disseminate information and establish a common discursive line between: People Dispatch, Newsclick, Fato Brazil, New Frame, The Mast, Latin American Summary, AlbaTv and other platforms that the communication committee can establish to boost support and support for the Bolivarian Revolution.

   2. We will promote campaigns to denounce the aggressions against the peoples of Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution for what we will develop, at least three campaigns:

   a) against the interventionist war and for Peace;

   b) denounce and publicize the actions and effects of the blockade and the economic war against the Bolivarian Revolution;

   c) to make known the exercise of participatory and protagonist democracy in Venezuela and the support of the Bolivarian people for their revolution and President Nicolás Maduro.

   3. Promote the articulation between the network of Alternative and Community Media -MAC- with the alternative and popular media that exist in our countries, to make known the reality of the Bolivarian Revolution and the struggles of the Bolivarian People.

   IV) POLITICAL TRAINING

   1. We will incorporate knowledge of the process of the Bolivarian Revolution into the training and mystical plans of the political training schools of our organizations and movements, which have been developed at the regional level.

   2. We will promote, through the International Pedagogical Political Coordination, the creation of a repository of materials and multimedia content in several languages, on the process of the Bolivarian revolution that our training schools can access.

   V) MILITANT INTERNATIONALISM

   1. We will promote and strengthen the Solidarity Brigades with Venezuela that contribute to the process of development, strengthening and defense of the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people.

   2. We will develop exchanges of knowledge, technological support and technical assistance to Venezuela, or from Venezuela to other countries, to share experiences that enable the strengthening of capacities in different areas of knowledge in order to positively impact the strengthening of the sovereign and sustainable economy of the Bolivarian Revolution.

   3. We will articulate Solidarity Actions from People to People to collect and deliver medicines to the Venezuelan people, at the same time we denounce the criminal blockade that prevents the purchase of medicines necessary for the continuity of life.

   4. Promoting and promoting, in coordination with the embassies of Venezuela, support actions (health, labor, education, culture) towards Venezuelan migrants who have left their country as a result of the imperialist aggression against the Bolivarian Revolution.

   5. In order to express our solidarity, we will develop, as of June 25, an International Mission of organizations that constitute La Vía campesina, of popular exchange and in support of the Bolivarian people.

   Manifesto in Solidarity with Venezuela

   1. Assembled together in Caracas, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, between February 24 and 27, 2019, delegates from more than 90 countries from the five continents, representing social and political organizations and movements reaffirm our defense of the sovereignty and self-determination of Venezuela, we pronounce ourselves in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution and the legitimate and constitutional President, Nicolás Maduro.

   2. During the last two decades, the Bolivarian Revolution is moving forward in a process and project of deep transformation, based on participatory and protagonist democracy, focused on peoples interests, which has communal organization and aims the feminist socialism proposed by Hugo Chávez. With this perspective, it has produced changes in the horizon that also involve the construction of a multicenter and multipolar world, with important changes in the neocolonial relations that affect our region and the South. With a vision of redistribution of wealth that comes from the plentiful resources that the country produces, Venezuela has attained unprecedented results in its history with universal access to public and free education, eradicating illiteracy and allowing unprecedented access to higher education. Similar achievements are registered in health, housing and other social rights.

   3. US imperialism, guardian of the corporate, financing, military and transnational interests it embraces, is determined to bring the process down in order to take direct control of the natural resources. To give an end to the proposal of sovereignty and self-determination, the United States has unleashed all hybrid and permanent war strategies; it has tried all possible tactics: coups, terrorism, financial speculation, economic blockade, induced inflation, among others.

   4. Since 2008, there is a clear structural, multidimensional, and historical crisis of capitalism; in this context, the United States seeks to maintain its world hegemony by all means, including war, which results in aggression, invasions and wars to seize natural wealth, and control the markets, the territories and the governments. In this sense, the geoeconomic dispute with China and Russia threatens to lead humanity towards a total war.

   5. Thus, in order to protect free market and the freedom of corporations to plunder and exploit our peoples, in various parts of the world, they are moving forward with economic pressures, such as the blockade against Venezuela, Cuba and Iran, and war aggressions, as those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and land occupations such as Palestine. They also impose economic, psychological, and cultural wars, such as the one that has been violating Venezuela for several years. Paradoxically, it is the "defense of human rights and democracy" that has served as a crutch to camouflage the most serious collective aggressions. But the peoples resist and have managed to stop these attempts of control as it was the situation in Crimea and Syria.

   6. The imposition of the rules of the game of corporate and globalized capitalism can only be sustained by eliminating democratic possibilities and rights of the working class, spreading chaos, destruction and death. Therefore, we reject the escalation of pressure from the United States government, such as the military action that, disguised as "humanitarian aid", advances against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This is a new phase of the war that seeks to reinstate a model of political subordination, which can be seen in the aim of overthrowing the elected president Nicolás Maduro.

   7. A new moment of this interventionist plan is now expressed in the external pressures promoted by ad hoc bodies, such as the so-called Lima group, which, coordinated with sectors of the Venezuelan far right, seeks to establishing an authoritarian coup d'état ignoring Venezuelan democratic institutions. We note with surprise that even institutions, such as the European Union, succumb to US pressures and, contrary to international law and democracy, proceed to recognize a self-proclaimed "president", who no one has elected. This is supported by an ideological and communicational engineering based on the dissemination of fake news and fictitious scenarios, which are positioned both through corporate media and digital networks.

   8. Today, in Venezuela, sovereignty and self-determination are at issue, these are pillars of the dignity of the peoples that seek to build a future for humanity and fairer and more egalitarian societies. For this reason, and in internationalist solidarity with the people of Venezuela and their legitimate government chaired by Nicolás Maduro, we proclaim:

   1. To stop the economic blockade that leads to the suffering of the people, threatens the economic and productive project and the redistributive policies, and which has already cost Venezuela more than 30 million dollars.

   2. To defend sovereignty, participatory and protagonist democracy and the Venezuelan right to organize its economic project and manage its natural resources with based on sovereign criteria.

   3. The peoples of the world want peace; we do not want another war. Latin America and the Caribbean are peaceful territories, as it has been declared by CELAC in 2014, and as it needs to be projected into the future. Venezuela has the right to solve any difference through dialog and the multiple mechanisms provided by its own constitution and within the framework of the public international law.

   4. The peoples of the world, represented by the International Peoples’ Assembly, defend the Bolivarian Revolution as a project that provides a sense of ethics and future for humanity.

   We call the entire world to raise its voice to build on peace and stop the war.

   Caracas, February 27, 2019

   International Peoples Assembly