International Academic Statement Against US Bombing of Venezuela and Kidnapping of President Maduro

We, the undersigned scholars, students, and academic workers, unequivocally condemn the Trump administration’s January 3 strikes against Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. The attacks are a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter by a US president claiming, “I don’t need international law.”

The unilateral act of aggression is the culmination of a quarter-century of US hybrid warfare targeting the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, first under President Hugo Chávez and subsequently under Maduro. This regime change campaign has included draconian economic sanctions, repeated coup attempts, financing of anti-government NGOs, and corporate media disinformation.

As the Trump administration has evidenced in its invocation of the Monroe Doctrine and brazen threats against other left-led countries in the region, the egregious onslaught on Venezuela’s sovereignty constitutes an unprecedented kinetic escalation of Washington’s crusade to shore up its declining imperial hegemony across the hemisphere and around the globe. It moreover poses a serious menace to the regime of political sovereignty that was the lasting achievement of the Bandung era of national liberation, threatening to generalize across Latin America and the Caribbean the state dismemberment and semi-colonization visited upon Iraq, Haiti, DRC, Libya, Sudan, and Syria over the past three decades. Together with the ongoing genocide in Palestine, these wars of encroachment waged by the West represent an existential danger to humanity.

As such, we the undersigned demand the following:

1. The immediate release and repatriation of President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.
2. The immediate and unconditional lifting of all US unilateral coercive measures against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, its officials, and associated entities; the return of all pilfered Venezuelan state assets, including CITGO.
3. The immediate withdrawal of all US military assets and bases from the region, as consistent with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States’ (CELAC) 2014 declaration of the Americas a “zone of peace.”
4. The payment of reparations to Venezuela for the destruction inflicted in the January 3 strikes as well as for the economic losses caused by US sanctions over the last decade; the UN General Assembly should appoint an independent commission of economists to calculate the total dollar amount owed to the Venezuelan state.
5. The end of the US blockade against Cuba and payment of reparations likewise to be assessed by an independent UNGA-appointed commission.

As of January 16, 420 researchers and scholars have signed the statement.

Partial list of signatories (click here for the statement and full list in pdf form)

1. Atilio A. Boron, Universidad Nacional de Avellaneda y Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA)
2. Sandra Oblitas, Rectora de la Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela (UBV)
3. Miguel Mazzeo, Universidad Nacional de Lanús y UBA
4. Mariela Castro Espín, Miembro Titular de la Academia de Ciencias de Cuba
5. Steve Ellner, Latin American Perspectives
6. Omar Hurtado Rayugsen, Presidente del Centro Nacional de Estudios Históricos, Venezuela
7. Elias Jaua Milano, Centros de Estudios para la Democracia Socialista (CEDES)
8. Ramon Grosfoguel, Associate Professor of Chicanx Latinx Studies, University of California, Berkeley
9. Alejandrina Reyes, Rectora Universidad Nacional Experimental Simón Rodríguez / Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales Simón Rodríguez IISSR Centro CLACSO
10. Archana Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
11. Juan Eduardo Romero, Historiador/Diputado Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela
12. Claudio Katz, UBA/CONICET
13. Fernando Buen Abad Domínguez, Universidad Internacional de las Comunicaciones/ Cátedra MacBride
14. Néstor Kohan, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA)
15. Paris Yeros, Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Brazil
16. Carlota McAllister, York University
17. David Kazanjian, University of Pennsylvania
18. Max Ajl, University of Tunis & University of Ghent
19. Lucas M. Koerner, Harvard University
20. Reinaldo Iturriza López, Centros de Estudios para la Democracia Socialista (CEDES)
21. Freedom Mazwi, University of Zambia
22. Esther Lezra, University of California Santa Barbara
23. Sarah Raymundo, University of the Philippines
24. Francisca López Civeira, Universidad de la Habana
25. Anna Zalik, York University
26. Matteo Capasso, Northwest University, China
27. Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, New York University
28. Ilka Boaventura Leite, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
29. Nazia Kazi, Stockton, Stockton University
30. Javier Sánchez, Universidad de Antioquia
31. Bikrum Gill, Virginia Tech
32. Javier I. Echaide, University of Buenos Aires (UBA) / CONICET, Argentina
33. Corinna Mullin, City University of New York
34. Iván Pincheira, Universidad Academia Humanismo Cristiano, Chile
35. Nina Farnia, Albany Law School
36. Martha Prieto Valdés, Académica de Mérito de la ACC-Cuba
37. Esteve Morera, York University
38. Farwa Sial, SOAS
39. Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome, Brooklyn College, CUNY
40. Gabriel Rockhill, Villanova University
41. Patrick Higgins, University of Houston
42. Luccas Gissoni, Universidade Federal do ABC
43. Edh Rodríguez, ANEP/CFE (Uruguay)
44. Hilda Saladrigas Medina, Universidad de La Habana-ACC
45. Jennifer Ponce de León, University of Pennsylvania
46. Olmedo Beluche, Universidad de Panamá
47. Maria Haro Sly, Johns Hopkins University
48. Nidia Matilde Beltrán Prieto, Directora y docente UBV
49. Pedro Lovera Parmo, Universidad de Santiago
50. Immanuel Ness, Brooklyn College
51. Sara Aldabe, UBA-CONICET
52. José Romero Losacco, Instituto Venezolano de Investigación Científica (IVIC)
53. Rosa Elizabeth Acevedo Marin, Universidade Federal do Pará, Brasil
54. Ernesto Wong Maestre, CEEP UBV
55. Ethel Tungohan, York University
56. Adam Miyashiro, Stockton University
57. José Antonio Hernández Macías, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
58. Vicente Battista, Escritor/Argentina
59. Jaime Caicedo Turriago, ASPU Asociación Sindical de Profesores Universitarios, Colombia
60. Renate Bridenthal, Brooklyn College, CUNY
61. Maribel Almaguer Rondón, Universidad de Camagüey, Cuba
62. Maria Auxiliadora César, Universidade de Brasilia
63. Claudia Chaufan, York University
64. Arturo Guillén, Departamento de Economía de la UAM Iztapalapa
65. Raul Kroeff Machado Carrion, Fundação Maurício Grabois – Brasil
66. Olga Fernández Rios, Instituto de Filosofía y Vicepresidenta Academia de Ciencias de Cuba
67. Paula Vidal, Universidad de Chile
68. Stefan Kipfer, York University
69. Alberto Quintero, IVIC
70. Sandra Angeleri, Independent Scholar
71. Douglas Marín, Universidad Central de Venezuela
72. Ben Norton, Tsinghua University
73. Christo El Morr, York University
74. Cory Fischer-Hoffman, Independent Scholar
75. Taylor R. Genovese, SUNY – Dutchess
76. Ranu Basu, York University
77. Disamis Arcia Muñoz, Universidad de La Habana
78. Magnus S. Kjærgaard, Aarhus University, DK
79. Jordan Corson, Stockton University
80. Adrienne Pine, UC Riverside
81. Jesús Peña, UNEARTE
82. Ana Sáenz, Centro Marie Langer
83. Greg Albo, York University
84. ​​Mayda Álvarez Suárez, Academia de Ciencias de Cuba
85. Alejandro Pedregal, Aalto University
86. Jeannette Graulau, Lehman College
87. Marcelo Colussi, Escritor / Guatemala
88. Timothy Kerswell, Development Watch Centre
89. Jaime Acosta Gonzalez, UC Riverside
90. Christian Flores, UNEARTE
91. Maria Luiza Pinho Pereira, Universidade de Brasília
92. Marxlenin P. Valdés, IDEAS Multimedios
93. Adrian Ortega Camara Lind, Beijing Normal University
94. Harjeet Badwall, York University
95. Tamara Lajtman, IEALC, UBA
96. Jorge Luis Oviedo Castillo, REDH Honduras
97. Joaquin Barrutia, Emory University
98. Carlos San Vicente, UCV
99. Michael Pelias, LIU Brooklyn
100. Josefina Morales, UNAM