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Berta Cáceres’ Organization Expresses Solidarity with Bolivarian Revolution

The indigenous organization of recently assassinated leader Berta Cáceres expressed their solidarity with Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution and especially women in light of recent opposition violence and US threats for tougher sanctions.

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The Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), founded by Lenca indigenous leader Berta Cáceres, who was assassinated March 2016, released a recent statement expressing their solidarity with Venezuelan women this week.The Women’s Coordinating Committee of COPINH condemned the opposition violence against Venezuelans and the opposition’s insistent invitation for US interference, recalling the effects of the US backed coup d’état in 2009 in their country.

Last Saturday, Caracas was the backdrop for a women’s march in support of the Bolivarian Revolution. Thousands of women poured onto the streets of the Venezuelan capital to demonstrate their commitment to women’s rights and liberation.

Undeniably, the Bolivarian Revolution has created unparalleled opportunities for women. Within the last 18 years of revolution, women have consolidated their access to education, healthcare and other social services with unprecedented numbers of women entering universities and professional fields throughout the country.

Likewise, grassroots movements have upheld women’s voices and political participation in their organizations, communes and other sectors. Social missions directly tailored to caregivers, mothers and elders have provided key economic resources to women across generations.

Recent violence in Venezuela has escalated as the number of deaths associated with opposition guarimba protests have reached 44.

The Lenca people’s statement also invites international reflection on the oppositon’s call for regime chage in Venezuela as their country is one of the most devasted by US intervention within the hemisphere especially since the 2009 coup d’état.

The June 28, 2009 coup d’état resulted in the forcible removal of President Manuel Zelaya and also marked the indefinite stall of the Honduran people’s call for a constitutional assembly. 

As the 2009 coup d’état unfolded in Honduras resulting in widespread repression, Venezuelan grassroots movements expressed solidarity by demonstrating and sending humanitarian aid to the Central American nation.

In the weeks following the coup, thousands of Hondurans used their bodies to protect the Venezuelan embassy as coup supporters and the military attempted to attack the South American nation’s headquarters in the Central American nation’s capital.

The US backed coup in Honduras has left a devastating impact on civil society as grassroots movements continue to struggle against transnational corporate extraction and rampant violence particularly US funded and trained police and military violence.  

COPINH’s statement comes as President Nicolás Maduro’s recent announcement of a constitutional assembly offers a unique opportunity to bridge together different sectors of Venezuelan society as well as to strengthen pre-existing institutional guarantees in defense of human rights and 21st Century Socialism.

Undoubtedly, Venezuela’s latest initiative is significant to the multitudes of Hondurans and COPINH’s base which have struggled since 2009 to defend their self-determination in ways that the Bolivarian process has made possible for millions of Venezuelan.

COPINH’s statement in solidarity with Venezuela is poetically necessary as they defend the Bolivarian Revolution as if it were their own.

COPINH in Solidarity with the Venezuelan Women’s Revolutionary Movement

Barrio Las Delicias, Intibucá, Intibucá; Honduras C.A, Tel: 2783-0817

Copinhonduras.blogspot.com; www.copinh.org

Facebook. Copinh Intibucá; Twitter: @copinhhonduras

The Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) salutes the Venezuelan women on their day of mobilization and struggle in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution.

We know that the sisterly people of Venezuela have been suffering an imperialist onslaught, involving economic warfare, disinformation campaigns and disrepute. Knowing this, COPINH ratifies its solidarity with the Venezuelan people, as in 2009 when we gathered outside the Bolivarian embassy in Tegucigalpa to defend it against the Honduran golpistas (coup-supporters). Today we raise our voices, once again to accompany, not only the Bolivarian government but also the people, against new coup attempts, who respond to the same imperialist interests that seek to plunder and militarize Our America. We understand the difficult situation and we call for the unity of revolutionary forces and for the deep dialogue that will enable [Venezuela] to overcome the crisis.

As COPINH, we continue to defend our territories, and reaffirm that we firmly believe that this work is possible only with the active and proactive participation of women, who have not only had to face capitalist and racist violence, but also faces patriarchal violence. We believe in the fundamental participation of women to defend the achievements of the peoples of Our America and to confront those that ravage our territories. That is why today, accompanied by our Berta Cáceres, we salute with joy the mobilization of women in Caracas, against the coup and in defense of the Bolivarian revolution.

Berta Lives On, the Struggle Continues!

Berta did not die, she multiplied in all Latin American struggles!

With the ancestral strength of Berta, Lempira, Mota and Etempica, our voices are full of life, justice, dignity, freedom and peace!

Women’s Coordinating Committee of COPINH

La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras.  

Introduction and translation by Jeanette Charles for Venezuelanalysis.com