Cuba denounces attempted coup in Venezuela

This statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba first appeared in Granma, Cuba’s official newspaper, on Aug. 1, 2024, titled: “Cuba denounces the irresponsible attempts to resort to violence and destabilization with the aim of producing a coup in Venezuela.”

On July 28, 2024, the Venezuelan people expressed their will that comrade Nicolás Maduro Moros continue to be their president and decided in favor of the defense of peace, independence and self-determination of their homeland.

In the face of imperialist harassment, external interference, media and political manipulation and the opportunistic onslaught of the oligarchies and their representatives, the Venezuelan people decided to maintain their majority support for the option founded by Commander Hugo Chávez Frías and which has been sustained in the face of threats and external aggression, under the leadership of President Nicolás Maduro Moros, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its allied parties.  

The Bolivarian and Chavista people defeated in recent periods the violence of paramilitary groups fed from abroad that left many Venezuelan families mourning, the assassination attempts, the armed incursions of mercenaries and the imposition of a supposed president without any authority or legitimacy whatsoever. It resisted unilateral coercive measures, economic sabotage, among other actions aimed at subverting the constituted internal order.

We denounce that – under the pretext of not recognizing the official results of the electoral process, in agreement between international actors and sectors of the internal opposition and in ignorance of the powers of the Venezuelan state — a return to the stage of the use of violence and destabilization is irresponsibly encouraged in order to propitiate a coup against the powers of the state to overthrow the legitimate government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

With that purpose, the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) met to analyze the presidential elections in Venezuela, when that organization lacks moral or legal authority to settle matters that only concern Venezuelans.

Considering the long history of the OAS in the service of U.S. imperialism, of meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign states in our region, the support and promotion of coups, military dictatorships, repression and torture exercised by governments fully supported by the United States, there is no basis for an internal process such as the elections held in Venezuela to be analyzed there.

The double standards with a clear ideological bias of the discredited Secretary General – actively involved in the acts of violence in Venezuela in 2019, in the support of a self-proclaimed president without being elected by the people and in the promotion of the coup d’état in Bolivia in that same year, just to cite the most recent events – would be enough to disqualify the maneuver held today in Washington.

In an unusual manner and with no respect for the internal order of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela or any other nation, the United States and some members of the OAS tried to impose in its Permanent Council a resolution urging the Venezuelan electoral authority to recount the votes cast on July 28, with the observation of international organizations, a demand that is not made to any country. However, the dignified attitude of a group of countries prevented the approval of the interfering document.

A major conflict in Venezuela, as some seem to stimulate in opposition to the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, would have unpredictable and very negative consequences for the entire region. On July 14, 2017, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz warned, “Those who seek to overthrow by unconstitutional, violent and coup-like means the Bolivarian and Chavista Revolution will assume a serious responsibility before history.”

We reiterate Cuba’s firm support and solidarity with the Bolivarian Government led by comrade Nicolás Maduro Moros and the civil-military union of the heroic Venezuelan people. 

Havana, July 31, 2024.