Tell Bush & Congress: U.S. Hands off Venezuela!

Tell Bush & Congress: U.S. Hands off Venezuela!

URGENT ALERT ON BEHALF OF BOLIVARIAN VENEZUELA! Demand U.S. Hands Off Venezuela! Extradite Luis Posada Carriles!

Please join our online campaign to demand U.S. Hands Off Venezuela by sending emails to President Bush, your senators, your congressperson, and key congressional leaders telling them you want the U.S., its military and the C.I.A. to leave Venezuela alone!

Go to http://www.iacenter.org/venezcampaign.shtml

En español: http://www.iacenter.org/venezcampaignsp.shtml

for the following letter to be sent in your name:

Sample Text (you will be able to edit it on the website):

........................................................

President Bush, Senators and Congressional Representatives:

Recent intelligence reports from Venezuela and the U.S. point to menacing plans for the assassination of President Hugo Chavez. The United States government directly and indirectly has a major responsibility for these plans. A concentrated defamation campaign has been carried out by the US government against President Chavez and has been bolstered by the mainstream media in this country. This campaign has opened the doors to the most violent sector of the opposition in Venezuela.

The United States has set off a deliberate campaign to threaten, undermine and destabilize the democratic government of Venezuela. This includes statements calling for regime change, unsubstantiated accusations of links and support to terrorist groups, funding opposition organizations through the NED and USAID, and in many other ways.

Statements hostile to the Venezuelan government made by high ranking officers of the United States government, including President George Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, US Special Envoy to the Western Hemisphere for the Secretary of State Otto Reich, and Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega are meant to poison and rupture relationships, contrary to a good neighbor policy.

Recently declassified information has also shown the United States' own role in the failed April coup of 2002 and the oil sabotage that followed.

The Bolivarian government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was democratically elected, winning 9 election processes in just 7 years. These have been faultless elections with a high voter turnout, many of them monitored by international observers including the OAS and the US-based Carter Center.

The majority of the Venezuelan people support President Chavez, who governs within the legality of the Venezuelan constitution. Under his leadership, the government is using the country's resources, particularly the oil revenues, to meet the needs of the people, 80% of whom have been living in poverty until now.

As a sovereign nation, Venezuela has the right to freely choose its trading and political partners and bolster its own protection without the interference of any foreign government, particularly that of the United States. This is not a threat to any neighboring country or to the integrity and national security of the United States.

I call on the United States government, the military and the C.I.A. to cease and desist from all activities that threaten and undermine the Venezuelan democratic government and the physical integrity of its President Hugo Chavez Frias.

I demand that the bilateral United States-Venezuela extradition treaty of 1922 be honored, and that Luis Posada Carriles, a CIA agent who escaped from prison in Venezuela where he was facing charges of masterminding the 1976 explosion of a Cubana airliner that killed 73 people, be extradited to Venezuela as that country requested.

Sincerely,

(Your signature will be appended here based on the contact information you enter on the IAC website)

posted July 23, 2005