The European Parliament awarded the Sakharov prize to the sectors who have been the protagonists of violence in Venezuela and are responsible for dozens of victims among the Venezuelan population.

Significantly, one of the awardees is Leopoldo López. Recall that López was convicted for embezzlement of funds from the State Oil Company of Venezuela and the Municipality of Chacao, which he led between 2000 and 2008. It was Leopoldo López who led the demonstration upon the Miraflores Palace, which originated dozens of dead and served as pretext to develop the coup d'état that, in 2002, for 3 days removed President Hugo Chávez. Leopoldo López was also one of the main instigators of the 2014 violent actions, which included the barricades known as "guarimbas" and which resulted in 43 dead. It was due to his responsibility for this terrorist action that he was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2015.

But Leopoldo López is only an example of how sectors of the so-called Venezuelan opposition have used all means to attain their ends. Recall the actions of terrorist violence that plagued different points of Venezuela during the first months of this year, put to an end by the elections for the Venezuelan Constituent National Assembly. Actions when known figures of the so-called opposition instigated, promoted and were responsible for the criminal action of terrorist groups, for the economic boycott, hoarding of goods, price speculation, premeditated destruction of food and medication, the destruction of health centers and other public infra-structures, bombings and assassinations, which caused more than a hundred dead and many hundreds wounded.

The European Parliament, unconstrained with prizing murderous violence, uses the Sakharov prize as a political weapon, continuing its campaign of interference and attack against the legitimate Government of Venezuela, Venezuela and its people, seeking to interrupt and destroy the process of democratic, economic, social, political and cultural advances and the affirmation of the sovereign will and national independence initiated in 1998.

The results of the election for the Constituent National Assembly and the recent regional elections in Venezuela, confirm the clear rejection by the majority of the Venezuelan people of the violence of the coup-plotting armed groups, of the blatant and unacceptable action of interference and threats of intervention of the US and their promotion of constant economic boycott and financial blockade.

These results demonstrate the will of the Venezuelan people in continuing the path towards the future and not the past, that is, in defending and pursuing the Bolivarian process , finding and building solutions that defeat the attacks and the threats directed towards Venezuela, advancing in the path to sovereign development, the improvement of living conditions, peace and cooperation with all peoples of the world.

CPPC reaffirms its solidarity with the Venezuelan people and with the Portuguese community in Venezuela, in defense of their rights and rejecting the political, economic, media and diplomatic aggression moved against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

October 26th 2017

National Leadership of CPPC