National Demonstration To Stop US Intervention against Venezuela & Cuba!

May 20, 2006

Washington, DC

www.May20Coalition.org

Contact: 917.887.8710

M20Coalition@mindspring.com

Official call for demonstration:

WHEREAS, Washington, under the Bush Administration, and with bipartisan support in

the US Congress, has an open policy of overturning the Cuban government and

destroying the Cuban Revolution.

WHEREAS, the US government has openly allocated dozens of millions of dollars

towards that end, including direct payments to its clients and agents inside Cuba, the

so-called dissidents.

WHEREAS, US citizens and legal residents continue to be deprived of our

Constitutional right to travel to Cuba to learn the truth about its reality and forge ties

of friendship with the Cuban people. The US government continues to hunt down and

threaten people who exercise their right to travel, including members of the

Venceremos Brigade, IFCO/Pastors for Peace, and the US/Cuba Labor Exchange.

WHEREAS, Washington, under the Bush Administration, with bipartisan support in the

US Congress, has engaged for a number of years in an escalating campaign of hostile

propaganda and action to undermine and overturn the democratically elected

government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

WHEREAS, this policy has included support for the April 2002 military coup in

Venezuela and the 2003 employers "strike" and sabotage of the oil industry, both of

which were defeated by the massive mobilization of Venezuela's working people in

defense of their government.

WHEREAS, Washington's pressure on the Venezuelan government to organize a recall

referendum backfired in August 2004 when 60% of Venezuelans voted to support the

Chavez government.

WHEREAS, the US government has an open policy of dispersing millions of dollars to

its clients and agents in Venezuela in order to weaken and overturn the Venezuelan

government.

WHEREAS, the Bush Administration refuses to extradite the notorious terrorist Luis

Posada Carilles, a main author of the 1976 destruction of a Cubana airliner, killing 73

civilian passengers, to Venezuela under a binding extradition treaty, where he would

face justice.

WHEREAS, the US Justice Department refuses to release from prison after 7 years the

Cuban 5—Fernando Gonzalez, Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez,

and Ramon Labanino—heroic fighters against terrorism, despite the August 2005

decision of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversing their convictions and

ordering a new trial.

WHEREAS, the government of Cuba offered to send over 1500 doctors to Louisiana

and Mississippi to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the government of

Venezuela has provided discounted energy supplies to impoverished US communities

which, along with many other examples, shows the desire for fraternal relations

between the peoples of our countries.

THEREBY, BE IT RESOLVED

[Listed organizations and prominent individuals (currently more than 100)]

issue a call to all solidarity, anti-war, labor, and progressive organizations to support

a national mass mobilization in Washington, DC on Saturday, May 20, 2006 around

the following main slogans:

Stop US intervention and hostile campaigns against Venezuela;

Stop Washington's economic and political war against Cuba;

End the blockade of Cuba;

Allow US citizens and legal residents to travel freely to Cuba;

Normalize US-Cuban relations.