Less than 29 days had passed since the brutal imperialist aggression of January 3, when the National Assembly decided to discuss the Amnesty Law for Democratic Coexistence, proposed by President Delcy Rodríguez.
This law, presented as a step toward “national reconciliation” and “social peace” in Venezuela, primarily benefits right-wing and far-right opposition leaders, including coup plotters and participants in terrorist attacks against the people that resulted in fatalities. Meanwhile, it maintains and even intensifies repression against militant trade unions and left-wing organizations that fight against the government's subservience to the US-imposed agenda, its concessions to Venezuelan and foreign business interests, and the complete dismantling of all the gains achieved during the Bolivarian Revolution.
Its approval cannot be understood apart from the other measures that the Delcy Rodríguez’s government is applying, following the colonialist agenda imposed by Donald Trump.
Since January 3, the Government has placed the control of Venezuelan oil and mineral resources in the hands of large Yankee and Western energy corporations through the reform of the Organic Hydrocarbons Law (LOH) [1] and the new mining law; it has privatized the health sector for the benefit of private insurance companies and clinics, and has just announced the liquidation of the few social and labour rights that remained of the Organic Labor Law for Workers (LOTTT) approved under the Government of Hugo Chávez.
To implement these and other policies, the US imperialism and the oligarchy want to forge a political pact between the government and the right-wing and far-right opposition that guarantees stability. As Trump himself explained on January 31, it is about "getting together" the parties—Maduro's regime and the opposition—and "doing something" to push forward a transition [2] . The Amnesty Law is part of that objective.
An amnesty tailored to the right wing and business interests
Like all laws created within the capitalist system, the Amnesty Law for Democratic Coexistence reveals legal loopholes that allow the state administrator to implement it at will and for the benefit of the bourgeoisie. It grants general and full amnesty for crimes or offenses committed within the context of political events from 1999 to the present, specifically mentioning historical moments that left deep wounds on the people due to the violence organized and funded by the Venezuelan oligarchy and US imperialism, such as the April 2002 coup attempt, the employers’ lockout, and the various coup and terrorist attempts that resulted in dozens of deaths.
The privilege granted to the most corrupt and pro-imperialist oligarchic political class is blatant. Leaders like Capriles Radonsky, who since 1999 have openly incited violence, generating chaos and deaths among citizens of our neighbourhoods simply for being dark-skinned and labelled as Chavistas, have never been prosecuted or charged. They were even allowed to participate in elections for public office, and since last year they have been politically reinstated. Today, these criminal oligarchs are members of the National Assembly.
We see the same with other pro-fascists like Leopoldo López, Juan Guaidó, and María Corina Machado (MCM), who left the country without facing any legal consequences for the terrorist attacks they instigated and the coups they promoted. Now they engage in international lobbying, proudly thanking imperialism for its deadly attacks against our people, and impatiently await orders from their superior, Trump, to return, fulfil his promise to unite the factions, and thus completely stabilize the capitalist regime in Venezuela, now under his own tutelage, openly directed and controlled from the US.
While the real criminals, corrupt officials, masterminds of massacres, and their financiers remain free, plundering the nation and impoverish the population, repressive measures are maintained against the humble and the workers who have always risked their necks and given their lives for a dignified future.
Neither justice nor reparation for the unfairly imprisoned workers
This law makes abundantly clear that neither the state bureaucracy and the Bolivarian bourgeoisie from its ranks, on which Delcy Rodríguez's government relies, nor the right wing, the far right, and the long-established oligarchy of Fedecámaras and other business organisations, have the slightest interest in ending the repression. Nor do they have any interest in investigating the mistreatment suffered by hundreds of young people from working-class backgrounds at the hands of the police.
During the mass protests of July 28 and 29, 2024, right-wing and far-right leaders such as MCM, Leopoldo López, Capriles, and Guaidó tried to take advantage of the suffering and desperation of our humble people that were outraged with the government, in order to take over Miraflores.
Thousands of people from working-class neighbourhoods, expressing their anger against the capitalist policies favouring business interests and the right wing turn of Nicolás Maduro's government—policies that attack the gains and rights achieved before and during Chávez's presidency—participated in the protests and were unjustly imprisoned. Most were young people and workers from our poor neighbourhoods, who had once fervently supported the revolution.
Using support for amnesty to impose “social peace”
Naturally, the mothers and families of these prisoners from working-class backgrounds, who have been mobilizing for a year and a half demanding their release, have received the law with relief and hope. However, it does not include any compensation, investigation, or accountability for the blatant human rights violations and the serious physical, psychological, and material damage inflicted on the prisoners and their families.
Nor does it cover their reinstatement to their jobs and the recognition of their employment benefits during this entire time of unjust and arbitrary imprisonment.
The government and right-wing opposition intend to use the logical support of these humble families for the release of their sons and daughters to lump together their pacts and erase the crimes of murderers like MCM, Guaidó, Leopoldo López, Capriles, among others, and the possible legal consequences.
At the same time, laws that were passed under the false pretence of fighting imperialism and the far right, such as the Internal Commotion decree or the Hate Crimes Act, will continue to be used against anyone who demonstrates to reject the actions of submission to the US and the oligarchy that are being passed, as has already happened to oil workers, workers in basic industries, electricity workers, and some social activists.
All the repressive laws passed in recent years remains intact in the hands of the corrupt bureaucracy and businessmen, who threaten workers' and community fighters in the same way that imperialism uses military attack as blackmail to impose its measures, if its commands are not compliantly followed, including controlling the population and the left.
The repressive laws created by the government bureaucracy will continue to be useful for the domination of the oppressed and can be used with greater brutality at any time, even keep them available to any other right-wing government to be unleashed against the working masses who raise their voices for their rights.
For now, the bureaucracy guarantees to the US imperialism the neutralization of any alternative organization and struggle on the left. The law also makes this clear, excluding from the amnesty the ongoing legal proceedings against leaders of Critical Chavismo, workers, and peasants who are imprisoned or being administratively harassed for denouncing corruption, supporting social struggles, or demanding their political rights to participate in elected office. Likewise, the electoral registration cards of organizations such as the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), the Patriotic Party of Venezuela (PPT), and other leftist groups remain seized by the government through the judicial and state administration.
To raise a class alternative
The bourgeoisie and the Bolivarian bourgeoisie, represented by the employers' associations Fedecámaras and Fedeindustria, enthusiastically applauded this law as an instrument to impose "social peace" while they negotiated with the Government a reform of the Organic Labor Law, which includes further deteriorations of work conditins and salary reductions and the elimination of social benefits and fundamental rights.
The government has listened attentively to their suggestions. It is clear that it will not only favour the plundering and looting of the country's energy and mineral resources by imperialist corporations, but also, will guarantee that these corporations and Venezuelan businesses can exploit the workforce to the fullest extent and at the lowest possible cost, as has already been implemented through various presidential, ministerial, and judicial decrees.
We, the revolutionary working class, must be aware that neither the far-right ProMAGA movement in the US, represented by MCM, nor the capitalist bureaucracy that governs in obedience to Trump, nor the supposedly moderate right wing of Capriles or the self-proclaimed social democrat of Enrique Márquez, can be the solution to our problems.
The only way to fight for social rights, democratic freedoms, decent wages, among other just demands, is to organize ourselves and build an alternative of our own class, which allows us to grow with the strength of the popular masses to end this bourgeois state of repressive bureaucrats, gangsters, corruption and capitalists, installing a true revolutionary state governed directly by the workers and the organized humble people.
