Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Friday slammed recent U.S. missile strikes against a Syrian airbase, calling the attacks “illegal” and “in violation of international law,” VTV reports.
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Drawing parallels between aggression against Syria and Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution leader said U.S. imperialism “is based on lies in order to undertake its interventions against nations,” citing Libya and Iraq as other examples. Expressing solidarity with Syria, he also said his country “will never be silent against injustice, war and death.”
Both countries, according to Maduro, are being attacked by internal “extremist” forces attempting to destabilize their nations for U.S. imperial interests.
In Venezuela, these destabilizing forces take the form of right-wing protests and political maneuvers.
Since Tuesday, right-wing opposition protesters have been attacking National Guard and police officers with sticks, rocks and trash cans in the socialist country’s capital. The riots were organized in protest against a recent decision by the Supreme Court to temporarily assume some responsibilities of the National Assembly as long as the legislature continued to be “in contempt” of the constitution, a ruling that was eventually overturned.
The country’s opposition-controlled National Assembly also backs the protests, going as far as calling on the U.S. Congress to “take action” against Venezuela’s democratically-elected government. During a Thursday meeting with senators in Washington D.C., Venezuelan opposition leader Julio Borges called on the U.S. government to implement “major pressure” against Maduro’s administration.
In Syria, those calling for renewed U.S. intervention are acting as forces of destabilization, Maduro said.
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“I call on the conscience of the world, the conscience of humanity, to stop this extremist vision of the world,” Maduro added.
U.S.-backed aggression against Venezuela has intensified so much that the country’s Bolivarian Armed Forces is bracing for possible conflict in the near future. In response to U.S. Southern Command threats made against Venezuela promising regime change, the socialist country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense are calling for global attention.
“We are alerting the international community that a plan is underway to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Venezuela, in contravention of the Charter of the United Nations and its principles and purposes,” the government institutions said in a joint statement Friday.
“This is a call to all of our peoples of Our America in the face of serious aggressions against our country.”