VENEZUELAN: REBELS SCORE THE PENTAGON
The following article has been translated from the March 21. ... issue of Pueblo y Revolucién, underground publication of the FALN” | Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacién Nacional] of Venezuela. The original title is "The Tactics of the Pentagon and the Movements of National Liberation," . =
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The peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America have suffered in ‘the last centuries from the exploitation and colonialism of the | imperialist countries, among which the United States plays a funda~
mental role, This colonial subjugation has been intensified, maintaining immense and rich countries in the worst condition of under~development, backwardness and exploitation. But it has been this same: penetration that has aroused the consciousness of the people, clarifying for ‘them. their fundamental objectives.
Today the ‘world colonial system of imperialism is being shaken _ by the most acute contradictions, It is beginning to disintegrate. — The oppressed peoples of the world are already firmly posing national liberation, in a form going beyond the old molds of the “representative democracies" which maintain and safeguard the present system of exploitation.
Yankee = imperialism and, within it, the Pentagon, has been a determining factor in the chain of exploitation to which the underdeveloped countries have been subjected,
Today the political objective of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America is to place the advanced classes in power as the only formula that can guarantee independent development and the extermination of exploitation.” But the present ruling classes understand that the breaking-away of the colonial and semicolonial countries constitutes a final stage in the extermination of the system itself, Consequently imperialism, and especially the North American Pentagon, has projected the aim of repressing every attempt or popular manifestation that places in danger its stability in any of the subjugated countries today. . Revolutionary movements, all the people's sectors, are repressed if not exterminated, in hope of halting the processes of revolutionary transformation. Thus the Pentagon orients, guides and participates in the struggles against the nation- — al liberation wars launched by the progressive sectors, Directly or indirectly it is a belligerent force in Vietnam, Venezuela, eto. The Pentagon orients the training, in special schools in Panama and the United States, of officials of the puppet governments in order to meet the regular revolutionary forces,
Venezuela constitutes a most coveted prize in the eyes of the United States, hence the highly elaborated policy of penetration which ex ctends” from the military field to the cultural, including the political, economic and ideological arenas. Through its military mission, the Pentagon partit¢ipates in the raids against the glorious guerrilla-forces of the FALN., Through the Yankee embassy it manipulates the successive puppets, yesterday Betancourt, today -Leoni, With foreign capital it distorts our’ economy, keeping our country dependent and underdeveloped, Mixed capital is now appearing as a new formula in this penetration, On the ideologicalcultural level, the United States seeks to disorient the broad masses, Thus the United States Information Service, better known as the USIS, keeps up 200 hours of radio propaganda a day, fifty newscasts and documentary programs a month, spending more than two million Bolfvares [one Bolfvar = U.S. $.22] for this. Imperialism wants to keep Venezuela in its clutches; it will do everything, But it will not succeed,
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In recent years, this phenomenon has undergone a change in form, They have seen that openly dictatorial regimes do not guarantee control of the peoples for imperialism, Consequently, they have introduced an element that confuses the masses and creates illusions among them, In the new situation they pose the vital necessity of. "representative. democracies," which are nothing but a different form in which repression and exploitation take place,
Let us strengthen the struggle for national liberation in Venezuela and throughout the world,
DEFENDANTS SEEK