Venezuela survived another attempt aimed at destabilizing the Bolivarian Revolution. On the evening of August 4, a drone targeted President Nicolás Maduro, while he was addressing a National Guard parade. Two explosive-laden drones were shot down by the security services as they approached the dais where the President, along with the country’s top military leadership, was present. The attack happened on the 81st-anniversary celebration of the Bolivarian National Guard on Bolívar Avenue in Caracas using two M600 model drones, each of which was carrying one kilogram of C4 explosives. The attack left 7 injured.

Initial investigations have exposed the role of country’s right-wing elite in collusion with ultra-right elements from Colombia and the US state of Florida. In May, the Donald Trump administration in the United States had demanded that Maduro resign after he had won the country’s national election with a landslide majority. The campaign against Venezuela was intensified in 2015 when former US president Barack Obama issued a decree declaring Venezuela a threat to US national security.

This is the not the first time the Bolivarian Republic has come under attack after the country embarked on the socialist path under former President Hugo Chavez. In June 2017, a helicopter hijacked by an anti-government group launched grenades and fired shots at Venezuela's Supreme Court and Interior Ministry.

In 2002, a U.S.-backed coup attempted to overthrow President Hugo Chavez. But tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers rallied behind him, thwarting the coup. The U.S. continues to impose heavy economic sanctions against the country in an attempt to cripple the economy and force Venezuela into the path of privatization. The impact of these sanctions is felt by the Venezuelan people who struggle to deal with the high levels of inflation and scarcity of food and medicine.

Despite the harsh economic sanctions, Venezuela’s socialist policies have given power to the poorest of the poor in the country. In terms of housing, education, health and gender representation, the Bolivarian republic continues to be a role model for many.

The US under Donald Trump is creating a new Monroe Doctrine in an attempt to make the Latin American as its “backyard” to be used for capitalist exploitation, and erase the history of people’s struggles against imperialism in the region.

The situation can be summed up in the words of Hugo Chavez:

“The government of the United States doesn't want peace. It wants to export its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war. If it wants peace, what's happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? Palestine? What's happening? What's happened over the last hundred years in Latin America and in the world?”