Venezuela continues to face escalating pressure and threats from the United States following the January 2026 U.S. military operation in Caracas that resulted in the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. At the same time, many people committed to defending Venezuela’s sovereignty are also grappling with difficult internal debates, contradictions, frustrations, and divisions inside the broader solidarity movement and the Venezuelan left itself.
How do we defend a country under siege without collapsing into fragmentation?
What does unity look like during moments of crisis, uncertainty, and exhaustion?
And what can grassroots movements teach us about resisting imperialism while continuing to build popular power from below?
Join us for an urgent conversation with Venezuelan grassroots organizers, researchers, and popular educators working directly inside the communal movement.
Speakers
Hernán José Vargas Pérez
Former Deputy Minister of Communal Economy who has also held various positions in Venezuela’s Ministry of Popular Power for Communes. Hernán is a researcher focused on social reproduction and popular economies and an activist with ALBA Movimientos.
Cira Pascual Marquina
Popular educator at the Pluriversidad Patria Grande, the educational initiative of El Panal Commune, and member of the International Communal Democracy Network. Alongside Chris Gilbert, she coauthored Venezuela, the Present as Struggle: Voices from the Bolivarian Revolution and other works focused on communal democracy and popular power in Venezuela.
