Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's trip to Venezuela

Today, 17 September 2006, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is making his first trip to Venezuela. This follows five official visits by President Hugo Chavez to Iran and three by Mohammad Khatami - Ahmadinejad's predecessor - to Caracas.

It is expected that during the two-day visit over 20 agreements will be signed, including one for building a vehicle production line in Venezuela. Then at a ceremony on Monday 18 September, Mr Chavez and Dr Ahmadinejad will inaugurate the petroleum drilling operation of Petropars, a state-owned Iranian company, in the Orinoco oil belt. They are also going to Bolivar state, in eastern Venezuela, where they will hand-over tractors to farmers. These tractors are manufactured by an Iranian-Venezuelan joint venture inaugurated by Khatami in March 2005. To date the Iranian regime and capitalists have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Venezuela.

While we appreciate the need of every government to have good diplomatic and trade relations with a large and varied number of governments throughout the world, we are, nevertheless, highly critical of the Chavez government's extraordinarily close and fraternal relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). We believe that this is based on a misconception of the IRI as a 'revolutionary' and 'anti-imperialist' regime. This relationship, which has included Mr Chavez calling Dr Ahmadinejad his "brother" on a number of occasions, helps boost the regime and weaken the mass movements in Iran - particularly the struggles of workers for their basic trade union rights.

We therefore urge all Venezuelan revolutionary, socialist and labour activists to publicise the true nature of the Iranian regime among the masses of the Bolivarian movement. The IRI is one of the world's most repressive regimes:
- workers have no right to set up trade unions, to go on strike or elect their genuine representatives;
- women are second class citizens with half the legal rights of men;
- young people are forced to abide by a medieval ideology down to the smallest details of their lives;
- national minorities are deprived of their most basic rights;
- the whole population is robbed of genuine democratic rights and free elections.

We ask that all Bolivarian activists raise the issue of repression in Iran, particularly the plight of the working class, in their trade union branches and the meetings of their Bolivarian Circles and Missions. They should also attempt to lobby their local and national representatives, including President Chavez and other officials in the cabinet.

Help Iranian workers make the same gains as their Venezuelan brothers and sisters!

Iranian Revolutionary Socialists' League
17 September 2006