ARGENTINA--Big demonstration in front of the Venezuelan Embassy

[From the Partido de Trabajadores Socialistas, Argentina]

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

In repudiation of the massacre of workers in Aragua

Big demonstration in front of the Venezuelan Embassy

(PTS, 01/12/08) Today a big rally and demonstration was held in front of the Embassy of Venezuela in Buenos Aires to repudiate the brutal murder of the comrade workers' leaders Richard Gallardo, Luis Hernández and Carlos Requena and to demand an investigation and punishment of the murder. Around a thousand comrades from the different tendencies of the left that had called the action accompanied a delegation of leaders that delivered a statement before the authorities of the Embassy. Juan Carlos Giordano (Izquierda Socialista), Vilma Ripoll (MST), Néstor Pitrola (PO), Christian Castillo (PTS), Juan Carlos Beica (Convergencia Socialista) and Héctor Heberling (MAS) had an interview with an official, who could not answer why up to that moment -- three days after the cowardly murder -- President Hugo Chávez had still not repudiated this massacre of workers. Then a comrade from Izquierda Socialista read a report of the different workers' and popular mobilizations that took place after the crime against these workers' leaders and part of the plan of struggle launched by the leader Orlando Chirino and the comrades of the UNT to demand the investigation and punishment of the massacre. Finally, the national leader of Izquierda Socialista, Juan Carlos Giordano, spoke, giving a moving biographical sketch of the life of dedication to the workers’ cause of these comrades, explaining that a harsh blow against the class-conscious left had taken place, but that “from every Richard, from every Luis, from every Carlos, from each one of them, a thousand class-conscious, anti-imperialist and socialist workers will go out, just like they were.” “They will not be able to finish this struggle for class independence; they were struggling for a truly socialist society, without exploited or exploiters, a society without businessmen, for a society that is not the present Venezuela: that is why they killed them.” Comrade Giordano also recalled how, 24 hours before he was murdered, comrade Richard Gallardo had raised the need to prepare workers’ self-defense, “a question that he did not actually see, but that is set out now more than ever, in the Venezuelan working class.” In his intervention, Giordano rejected the version, promoted by the right-wing Venezuelan opposition, that the comrades were murdered for having made public an alleged fraud in the last Venezuelan elections, when two of them were independent workers' candidates for the Unidad Socialista de Izquierda (USI): "The facts are more than clear; the comrades were actively backing the struggle and the seizure by the workers of the Colombian multinational 'Alpina,' and they had been violently repressed by the Aragua state police the very day of their assassination, after they demanded a repudiation by the brand-new Governor Elect from the PSUV." In ending the demonstration, Christian Castillo stated that "we promoted this united demonstration as a first step of an intense internationalist campaign that we have now begun with the comrades of the Fracción Trotskista (Cuarta Internacional) from Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Europe, together with tendencies like the UIT-CI, the LIT-CI, the comrades of the PO, of the MST, and all the tendencies that are present here today to repudiate and demand the investigation and punishment for the massacre of the class-conscious leaders of Aragua." "The fascist assassins acted in accord with the repression against the workers of 'Alpina,' repression that should not surprise us in the so-called "socialism of the twenty-first century," of Venezuela. We have already seen repression against the workers of Sanitarios Maracay and the workers of Sidor; such a strange 'socialism,' that permits exploiting and murderous multinationals like 'Alpina' or that of Pepsi Cola, where comrade Luis Hernández was a leader, multinationals that hire assassins with complete impunity, to eliminate those who fight for their rights, and their businesses are defended by the repressive forces of the [Venezuelan] state."

The demonstration ended with the emotional cry: "RICHARD GALLARDO, LUIS HERNÁNDEZ Y CARLOS REQUENA: ¡PRESENTES! ¡HASTA EL SOCIALISMO SIEMPRE!