Venezuela will not bow to imperialist threats, government figures told the international solidarity conference in the capital Caracas on Saturday.
Foreign Minister Jorege Arreaza said: "We have one thought -- we want peace."
More than 200 delegates from over 60 countries on six continents on gathered at the Teresa Carreño Theatre in the Central Park district for the Todos Somos Venezuela (We are all Venezuela) conference.
Hundreds more from national organisations, including trade unions and the Communist Party of Venezuela, packed the theatre, chanting slogans of Latin American unity, defiance of US imperialism and support for President Nicolas Maduro.
Some 35 came from Bolivia alone, including oil and construction workers, while China sent a ten-strong delegation. South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia and Kenya all sent representatives.
Mr Arreaza drew a parallel between former US President Ronald Reagan's support for the Contra counter-revolutionary death squads in Nicaragua from 1981 and Washington's current backing of the Venezuelan opposition.
The Democratic Unity Roudtable coalition's four-month campaign of regime-change violence this year left 124 people dead, including members of the security forces and bystanders attacked on the mere suspicion of being government supporters.
"Today it is Venezuela, but yesterday it was Nicaragua, it is Syria, it is Palestine," Mr Arreaza warned.
"The war was promoted from Washington, Bogota and here in Venezuela too," he said, adding to the "oil war" against Caracas and its allies Russia and Iran.
"We have seen things we thought we would never see in Venezuela. Men burnt alive for being Chavistas, or presumed Chavistas, 29 of them, nine of whom died."
But the mainstream media "held the government responsible for the deaths," giving US President Donald Trump the justification to threaten military intervention.
Mr Trump had already ordered "hard sanctions," which Mr Arreaza warned would worsen the food and medicine shortages that fuelled the riots.
Those sanctions were punishment for Venezuela electing the new National Constituent Assembly (ANC) to amend the constitution and chart a path out of the crisis. Six people died on July 30 as the oppsoition tried to disrupt voting in a last-ditch rampage.
But “bespite these threats and violence, eight million went out to vote on July 30,” The foreign minister said.
Mr Arreaza hailed the worldwide response to conference invitation, issued at short notice.
If late president Hugo Chavez was alive today, the minister said, "he would be proud to see the countries of the world showing their solidarity.”
The “eternal commander” Chavez “sounded the alarms of imperialism” when he declared the socialist nature of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution in 2005, he said.
ANC speaker Delcy Rodriguez, recently returned from peace talks with the opposition in the Dominican Republic, said: “Venezuela is the victim of an unconventional war.”
“They have sown violence against the people, just as in Syria and Iraq,” she said. “The Bolivarian Revolution has not had a moment of peace.”
She said Venezuela's revolution was “emancipating, indomitable” but had been “stigmatised as a dictatorship by Washington, which intends to impose the Monroe plan on our continent” – referring to the 18th-century doctrine labelling Latin America as the US sphere of interest.
“They have the impudence to address our internal affairs as if they were the affairs of the empire,” Ms Rodriguez said.
But she insisted: “We want peace, we want dignity,” she said, looking forward to a “beautiful dawn” of equal relations
“President Nicolas Maduro is not alone in the world. The Bolivarian revolution is not the only one.”
Foreign Minister Jorege Arreaza said: "We have one thought -- we want peace."
More than 200 delegates from over 60 countries on six continents on gathered at the Teresa Carreño Theatre in the Central Park district for the Todos Somos Venezuela (We are all Venezuela) conference.
Hundreds more from national organisations, including trade unions and the Communist Party of Venezuela, packed the theatre, chanting slogans of Latin American unity, defiance of US imperialism and support for President Nicolas Maduro.
Some 35 came from Bolivia alone, including oil and construction workers, while China sent a ten-strong delegation. South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia and Kenya all sent representatives.
Mr Arreaza drew a parallel between former US President Ronald Reagan's support for the Contra counter-revolutionary death squads in Nicaragua from 1981 and Washington's current backing of the Venezuelan opposition.
The Democratic Unity Roudtable coalition's four-month campaign of regime-change violence this year left 124 people dead, including members of the security forces and bystanders attacked on the mere suspicion of being government supporters.
"Today it is Venezuela, but yesterday it was Nicaragua, it is Syria, it is Palestine," Mr Arreaza warned.
"The war was promoted from Washington, Bogota and here in Venezuela too," he said, adding to the "oil war" against Caracas and its allies Russia and Iran.
"We have seen things we thought we would never see in Venezuela. Men burnt alive for being Chavistas, or presumed Chavistas, 29 of them, nine of whom died."
But the mainstream media "held the government responsible for the deaths," giving US President Donald Trump the justification to threaten military intervention.
Mr Trump had already ordered "hard sanctions," which Mr Arreaza warned would worsen the food and medicine shortages that fuelled the riots.
Those sanctions were punishment for Venezuela electing the new National Constituent Assembly (ANC) to amend the constitution and chart a path out of the crisis. Six people died on July 30 as the oppsoition tried to disrupt voting in a last-ditch rampage.
But “bespite these threats and violence, eight million went out to vote on July 30,” The foreign minister said.
Mr Arreaza hailed the worldwide response to conference invitation, issued at short notice.
If late president Hugo Chavez was alive today, the minister said, "he would be proud to see the countries of the world showing their solidarity.”
The “eternal commander” Chavez “sounded the alarms of imperialism” when he declared the socialist nature of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution in 2005, he said.
ANC speaker Delcy Rodriguez, recently returned from peace talks with the opposition in the Dominican Republic, said: “Venezuela is the victim of an unconventional war.”
“They have sown violence against the people, just as in Syria and Iraq,” she said. “The Bolivarian Revolution has not had a moment of peace.”
She said Venezuela's revolution was “emancipating, indomitable” but had been “stigmatised as a dictatorship by Washington, which intends to impose the Monroe plan on our continent” – referring to the 18th-century doctrine labelling Latin America as the US sphere of interest.
“They have the impudence to address our internal affairs as if they were the affairs of the empire,” Ms Rodriguez said.
But she insisted: “We want peace, we want dignity,” she said, looking forward to a “beautiful dawn” of equal relations
“President Nicolas Maduro is not alone in the world. The Bolivarian revolution is not the only one.”