The Canadian Association for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CALACS) expresses its strongest and most categorical condemnation of the military aggression and intervention in Venezuela, carried out by the Government of the United States of America on January 3, 2026. The events that have unfolded since the removal and kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and his wife Cilia Flores, represent a grave violation of sovereignty and set a terrible precedent for the governments and peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The use of U.S. military force and capacity for interventionist and imperialist purposes is not new in the history of the Americas. It has long shaped the struggles of Latin America and Caribbean nations to resist colonial domination and extractive capitalism. Distinguished in the present moment, however, is the open breach of Venezuela's sovereignty and the flagrant violation of international law, the use of force against the Venezuelan President and the security forces, the forcing of exclusive sale of Venezuelan oil to the United States, Donald Trump's threats of terrorism and drug trafficking charges against the presidents of other nations in the region, and the stigmatization and radicalization of the Venezuelan population.
As Canadian scholars committed to the critical analysis of social, cultural, political, and economic processes in the Caribbean, Latin America, and their diasporas, we believe that the recent U.S. intervention in Venezuela is extremely disturbing. As a growing number of analysts have already highlighted, such actions look too much like an era of “renewed imperialism” over sovereign nations and territories in the Western Hemisphere. We reject all forms of subjugation by force, the plunder of strategic resources, baseless threats against the governments of other Latin American nations, external coercion, violation of the sovereignty of peoples, and undermining of the political stability of the region and the world.
The CALACS Board calls on state representatives – from all nations, but especially from the United States – to respect and make use of international law and human rights to negotiate for peace and respectful coexistence between individuals and nations, respecting above all the self-determination of peoples and the inalienable right of nations to shape their political, economic, and social destiny, free from all external intervention. In turn, CALACS reaffirms its commitment to strengthen, to the best of its ability, transnational solidarity actions that unite peoples and political and academic groups to generate critical and informed knowledge about the region, upholding the right to truth and justice.
Finally, the CALACS Board expresses its deep concern about the situation facing the Venezuelan civilian population, which is most affected by political instability and the lack of respect for their human and civil rights.
We call on the academic community, intellectual networks, and social movements around the world to influence public debate and provide the means and spaces to gather critical and well-documented information on the events unfolding.
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CALACS Statement: Position on the intervention in Venezuela and its geopolitical consequences (EN/FR/ES/PT) below: