Venezuela: Guacas Declaration

We, spokesmen and spokeswomen of 36 Communal Councils and 8 Communes of the Socialist Peasant Communal City Simon Bolivar of the Municipality Paez of the State of Apure, summoned by our Self-Government in an extraordinary and extended session in view of the incursion and occupation of our territory by armed men belonging to the TANCOL ELN since January 14 of this year, we address the Venezuelan people, the Bolivarian Government, the National Direction of our PSUV party, the communal and social organizations of the Socialist Peasant Communal City Simon Bolivar of the Municipality Paez of the State of Apure, we address the Venezuelan people, the Bolivarian Government, the National Direction of our party PSUV, the communal and social organizations of Venezuela and the world, to declare the following:

We declare ourselves in peaceful, democratic and patriotic resistance against the armed occupation of our lands, our farms, our houses, our roads and rivers by armed men belonging to the Tancol ELN. Our struggle will be PEACEFUL because we do not believe in violence as a form of struggle. Our weapons will be peace, our patriotic symbols, reason and truth. It will be DEMOCRATIC because it will be with the people, with mobilization, in popular assembly, exercising the democracy that the Bolivarian revolution has built to resist those who believe that only a handful of armed men are needed to dominate a people. And it will be PATRIOTIC because our struggle is against the incursion of a foreign force with clear expansionist purposes that, under the argument of a supposed internationalism, wants to control territories within the country, which constitutes a violation of the sovereignty of Venezuela, and that for the patriots is unacceptable.

We will deploy in the territory of the Socialist Communal City Simon Bolivar to carry out assemblies in all the communal councils and communes, to consult and build with the people the plan of resistance that begins today. We will go unarmed raising the National Flag and the flag of peace. Thus, we hold the ELN responsible for any aggression, for our lives, physical integrity, security and freedom.

We request the National Assembly to appoint a commission of deputies to verify the denunciations made by the Self-Government and that this investigation on the situation in the Socialist Peasant Socialist Communal City Simon Bolivar allows us to make recommendations to the Bolivarian government to be acted upon.

We urge the Legislative Council of the State of Apure and the Municipal Chambers to hold special sessions in the Communal City to verify the situation and make recommendations to Governor Eduardo Piñate to address the situation.

We call the communal and social movement of the whole country to active solidarity with the Simon Bolivar Socialist Peasant Communal City in the face of the armed occupation of this TANCOL group.

We express our support to the national government, to the FANB and to the deployment of Operation Bolivarian Shield 2022 against the TANCOL groups that, as President Nicolás Maduro said, “whatever they are called, they are enemies of the Republic”, and we request their deployment in the territory of the Simon Bolivar Socialist Peasant Communal City.