John McDonnell |
The left wing Labour Member of Parliament John McDonnell has tabled
an Early Day Motion condemning the murder of Danilo Anderson, the
Venezuelan prosecutor investigating the April 2002 military coup
against president Chavez (see Prosecutor investigating anti-Chavez coup killed in terrorist attack). John McDonnell has been a vocal supporter and collaborator of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign from the very beginning (see Successful Hands Off Venezuela meeting at Portcullis House (London, UK)).
The motion comes after another motion also moved by John McDonnell on
November 17th (EDM 854), which also condemned US interference in
Venezuela and its efforts to remove the democratically elected
president Hugo Chavez. On the House of Commons web site you can see the
full text of the November 17 th motion and the list of thirty-two MPs
who signed: http://edm.ais.co.uk/weblink/html/motion.html/EDMI_SES=03/ref=854
The current EDM condemning the murder of Danilo Anderson is still
open. This means that MPs can still add their name to it (at the moment
of writing, 7 have done so). The motion (EDM 127) reads:
HANDS OFF VENEZUELA CAMPAIGN
That this
House condemns the murder by a car bomb of Danilo Anderson, the leading
prosecutor investigating the coup attempt in 2002 against President
Chavez of Venezuela; expresses its concern that this crime is a further
attempt to destabilise the country by those elements in Venezuela and
elsewhere who refuse to respect the will of the Venezuelan people
expressed in the referendum in August which gave overwhelming support
to President Chavez; and congratulates the Hands Off Venezuela campaign
for the work it is undertaking to support the people of Venezuela.
You can check whether your MP has signed or not (http://edm.ais.co.uk/weblink/html/motion.html/ref=127), and then ask them to do so if they have not already.
The motion correctly points to elements within the country and also
elsewhere as responsible for the murder of Danilo Anderson. This is
quite correct. In fact over the last few months there has been a
consistent campaign in Miami , by opposition elements, openly calling
for Chavez and other prominent figures of the revolutionary movement to
be killed. The latest, but not the only, example of this was that of
known TV presenter and prominent oppositionist Orlando Urdaneta. In an
interview on Miami ’s Channel 22 TV station on October 25th, he said
that “the way out of all of this is for this character [Chavez] to be
eliminated”. The interviewer asked how Chavez could be “eliminated” and
Urdaneta specified: “easy, just one person with a rifle with a scope”.
In order not to leave any room for doubt he added: “if people are
waiting for someone to give the order, I am giving it right now”. These
people, Venezuelan and Cuban reactionary oppositionists, are free to
openly call for terrorist activities while in Miami protected by US
visas. This, like the case of the Miami Five (see The Cuban “Miami Five”: Jailed in the US for fighting terrorism) shows the hypocrisy of the US administration and their so-called “war on terror”.
