[Onthebarricades] VENEZUELA: Oil workers repressed

[Andy]

Declaration of the JIR of Venezuela: We repudiate the brutal repression against the oil 
workers

BY: JIR (FT-CI), Thursday, September 27, 2007

In Puerto La Cruz 
We repudiate the brutal repression against the oil workers

The Juventud de Izquierda Revoluionaria (JIR-PRS)* repudiates the violent repression 
against the oil workers of Puerto La Cruz, carried out today Thursday, in the morning at 
the entrance of the CVP (Corporación Venezolana de Petróleo) in Anzoátegui.

The workers were mobilizing for the Collective Petroleum Contract inthe morning, to 
deliver a document about the situation of the collective contract to the PDVSA President 
and Minister Rafael Ramírez, but the answer they got was brutal repression by the
Anzoátegui state police**, who attacked the peacefully protesting oil workers. This 
[workers'] mobilization was part of the national day of struggle for the Collective 
Petroleum Contract. In these very moments, a small group of workers, among them José 
Bodas, general secretary of Fedeptrol-Anzoátegui, is locked inside the CVP building.
The brutal repression now has three workers wounded by bullets, as union leaders report.

Once more, workers struggling for their basic rights in the country have suffered a brutal 
repression, whether at the hands of the police who are under the executive authorities of 
the states or of the Guardia Nacional, that answers to itself (". la Guardia Nacional que
responde a la Guardia Nacional"). All these repressive acts exactlyagainst those sectors of 
workers who are in the front line for their demands are not an accident. Today the same 
oil workers who confronted the coup plotters of April 2002, and those who were in the 
front ranks to defeat the oil work-stoppage sabotage, organized by the right wing and 
ordered from the US, by taking control of several refineries like that of El Palito, and 
preventing the success of Washington's assault, are repressed. How is it now fair to these 
workers that they are suffering repression?

We call on all the political forces of the left, on the workers' organizations, unions and 
popular organizations, on the social movements, on student centers and human rights 
groups, etc., to repudiate this brutal act. In view of this attack, the broadest unity is 
needed, to carry out protests urgently in front of all PDVSA installations, in front of the 
Ministry, in front of [the presidential palace] Miraflores. This deed cannot go unpunished, 
since it indicates that now workers' protests are beginning to be criminalized; precisely
those sectors that defeated the entire right-wing offensive and imperialist policies in the 
country [are being targeted].

We hold the government of this state and its police, and the national government, which 
runs PDVSA, responsible for all these acts, as well as for the fate of the workers who are 
still in the CVP installations in Anzoátegui.

Caracas, September 27, 2007

* * *

This is the first statement this morning from [the union tendency] C-CURA-Petróleo:

OIL WORKER WOUNDED BY A BULLET IN ANZOATEGUI IN DEMONSTRATION TO DEFEND THE 
COLLECTIVE PETROLEUM CONTRACT

- Press of C-CURA Petróleo

The act took place this Thursday morning, September 27, when the oil workers from 
Anzoátegui state mobilized in front of the building of the Corporación Venezolana de 
Petróleo (CVP), which unites the mixed enterprises, to present their demands and opinions 
on the discussion of the collective petroleum contract to Minister Rafael Ramírez, who was 
to make an appearance at this organization. The workers were repressed by the 
Anzoátegui state police with tear gas canisters and bullets, with the deplorable result that 
one worker was wounded by a bullet in the back; the current state of health of the worker 
comrade is not known, but when he was being moved to the medical assistance center, he 
was in a weakened state. 

In view of this abominable act, in the best repressive style of the Fourth Republic, we, the 
oil workers of the country, demand of Pedro Carreño, Minister of the Interior and Justice, 
that, since he indicated in recent statements to the national communications media that 
"the policy of the Venezuelan government on the subject of security could not be 
repressive," he should give an explanation regarding [this repression], because it is 
repressive, for the workers who mobilize in defense of their basic rights like the right to 
enjoy a fair collective contract.

Meanwhile, we, the oil workers of Anzoátegui, are calling on the rest of the oil workers and 
the rest of the groups of private- and state-sector production workers, to mobilize in 
repudiation of this sort of repressive, counter-revolutiona ry actions, that restrict the right 
of legitimate protest by the organized workers' movement in defense of their rights.

===

[*The JIR is the Venezuelan section of the Fracción Trotskista-Cuarta Internacional, a 
principled international Trotskyist tendency. 

[**The Governor of Anzoátegui state is Tarek William Saab, described by Wikipedia as "one 
of the best known supporters of President Hugo Chávez." Governor Saab stands at the 
head of the state apparatus that includes the state police, who carried out the repression 
against the oil workers, which thus took place under chavista auspices. - YM]
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