A few days after being elected president of the National Assembly in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó urged the military to revolt against President Nicolas Maduro and called for a mass demonstration against the government. On January 23, Guaidó declared himself president and received the immediate endorsement of the Trump Administration. President Trump has since stated that all options for resolving the crisis — political, economic, and military — “are on the table”.

In response to these events, the DJPC calls for an end to aggressive US intervention in Venezuela including an end to economic sanctions. Further,

• We reject the roles currently being played by Elliott Abrams and John Bolton, now taking charge of the situation. In the past, Abrams fostered an illegal war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua by supporting the paramilitary “contras” and suppressed information about the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador. Bolton has long rejected international law and has continually promoted a policy of aggressive intervention in Central America and other countries.
• We call instead for a diplomatic solution led by Mexico, Uruguay, Pope Francis, the UN and others who have expressed their willingness to facilitate a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
• We are reminded that US intervention in such cases has been both deadly and destructive in the past, e.g. Chile in 1973, Iraq in 2003, Honduras in 2009, Libya in 2011, Yemen in 2015. We should also recall the failure of the previous US-backed coup attempt against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 2002.

Above all, we express our support for the people of Venezuela who have suffered increasing levels of violence and economic hardship in recent years and will only suffer further in the event of a military clash.

If you feel you would like to voice your opinion on the issue of Venezuela, we strongly encourage you to write letters to the Editor, we can’t do it as an organization, but you can do it as an individual, here is how you do it:

Letters to the Editor

Send your letters to the editor (250 words or fewer) via e-mail: [email protected] or

The Open Forum
The Denver Post
5990 Washington St.
Denver, CO 80216

Please include full name, city and phone number. Contact information is for our purposes only; we will not share it with anyone else. You can reach us by telephone at 303-954-1331.

— The Denver Justice and Peace Committee