On the United States of America’s Attack on Venezuela and Capture of President NicoláS Maduro

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) unequivocally condemns the United States of America’s military assault on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the reported capture and forcible removal of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in what amounts to the most blatant act of imperial aggression in the Western Hemisphere in decades.

This morning, the United States launched a coordinated series of airstrikes and special operations inside Venezuelan territory, including in Caracas and other regions, resulting in explosions, widespread alarm among civilians, and the reported seizure of President Maduro and his wife. United States President Donald Trump personally took to social media to declare that Venezuela’s head of state had been captured and flown out of the country to face indictment in New York, framing the operation as a strategic triumph and boasting about future American control over Venezuela’s oil resources.

Let it be clear to the world that this is not a lawful operation under international law, nor is it an act of self-defence. It is a naked exercise of unilateral military power that tramples on the sovereignty of a nation and sets a dangerous and destabilising precedent. If allowed to stand, it signals that any powerful state may invade, bomb, abduct, and remove the leadership of sovereign countries without consent, oversight, or legitimacy.

President Trump’s boastful and reckless rhetoric, including his public celebration of the attack and crude references to Venezuela’s natural resources, exposes the arrogance and impunity with which the United States acts when it believes itself above international law. His conduct reflects a worldview in which military force replaces diplomacy and domination replaces cooperation, continuing the history of the United States’ imperial posture toward resource-rich nations of the Global South.

This attack follows months of escalating threats and military pressure against Venezuela, including the deployment of US military assets to the Caribbean, repeated warnings that “all options” were on the table, and sustained economic warfare through illegal sanctions. These actions were always designed to weaken Venezuela and prepare the ground for regime change by force in order to install a puppet government, and the EFF warned that such escalation would inevitably lead to open military aggression.

Venezuela has, for decades, stood tall against imperial domination and refused to surrender its commitment to socialism and freedom to foreign powers. Under relentless political, economic and financial sanctions, deliberate economic sabotage, and sustained international isolation, the Venezuelan people have endured immense hardship. President Nicolás Maduro has remained steady in defending his country’s independence, protecting its national resources, and resisting external attempts to dictate Venezuela’s political future.

The EFF recognises that leadership forged under siege is tested not by comfort but by resistance. We believe that President Maduro’s commitment to his people and to the principles of sovereignty and socialism will not be broken by abduction, intimidation or foreign force. History has shown that leaders and movements rooted in popular struggle do not disappear simply because imperial powers declare them defeated.

History also leaves no room for doubt about the United States’ preferred method of dealing with defiant sovereign leaders. In 1989, the United States invaded Panama and forcibly removed President Manuel Noriega under the guise of restoring democracy. In 1961, Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was assassinated through a conspiracy involving the CIA and the Belgian state because he refused to surrender Africa’s mineral wealth to Western control.

In 2003, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq was illegally overthrown and executed by the United States under George Bush on the fabricated pretext of weapons of mass destruction — weapons that have never been found to this day. In 2011, Libya was destroyed and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi brutally killed through a NATO-led assault sanctioned by Barack Obama, plunging one of Africa’s most stable states into permanent chaos.

These incidents are a clear pattern of imperial violence against leaders who resist Western domination. Today Venezuela joins this list, and tomorrow it will be another sovereign nation. If the world remains silent, even President Cyril Ramaphosa could one day be targeted on the basis of fabricated narratives, including the current dangerous and dishonest propaganda of a so-called “white genocide” in South Africa, weaponised in retaliation to our support of Palestine.

The international response has been swift as countries such as Russia, Iran ,and Cuba have condemned the United States’ actions while several European governments and institutions have expressed deep concern and called for restraint and de-escalation, and regional actors including Mexico have urged dialogue and respect for international law. These responses reflect a growing global unease with unchecked US militarism and its destabilising consequences.

Within Venezuela, the government has denounced the assault as an act of war, declared a state of emergency, and called on its people to remain united in defence of their country. Reports of explosions in residential areas and widespread panic among civilians highlight the human cost of this aggression and expose the falsehood of claims that such interventions are “surgical” or humanitarian in nature.

The EFF reiterates that history has consistently shown that foreign military intervention does not bring democracy or peace. It brings chaos, suffering, and prolonged instability, paid for by the working class and the poor. The forcible capture of a sitting head of state by a foreign military power is an unprecedented escalation that threatens the very foundations of international order and collective security.

The EFF therefore calls on the United Nations and all states committed to sovereignty and peace to condemn this illegal act in the strongest terms, demand the return of the President and his wife unharmed, and to retreat from this military action.  South Africa, given its own history of colonial domination and foreign interference, has a moral obligation to reject this aggression and stand firmly with the Venezuelan people.

The EFF has been involved in high-profile parliamentary disruptions to draw attention to issues.

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