Following two massive earthquakes on 24 June, Venezuela’s La Guaira, a densely populated coastal strip just north of Caracas, has been declared a ‘disaster zone’. As we publish, the death toll stands at over 1,450, with 40,000 feared missing. 3,150 people are injured and 12,700 have been displaced; there are 774 collapsed buildings and 38 hospitals damaged. In the face of this catastrophe the Revolutionary Communist Group stands with the Venezuelan people in demanding the British government return the 31 tonnes of gold stolen from Venezuela and hoarded in the coffers of the Bank of England.
Relief efforts sabotaged by imperialism
The impact of the quakes is amplified by the 1,088 US-led unilateral coercive measures (sanctions) on Venezuela, and the theft of $20bn of Venezuelan overseas funds and assets that remain frozen as a result. Due to these sanctions, between 2016 and 2020, the Venezuelan economy lost 91% of export revenues and its GDP shrank by 65%.
In the face of this humanitarian disaster, the US has refused to lift a single sanction from Venezuela or release a dime of frozen assets. Instead, the Treasury Department issued General Licence 60 which authorises only certain transactions to chosen organisations. This is simply window dressing and will do nothing to support the Venezuelan people. Insidiously, the US has mobilised SOUTHCOM marines and the warships USS Fort Lauderdale and USS Billings in place of a civilian search and rescue team. This opportunistic deployment of US troops has raised alarm in Venezuela, with analysts pointing to the legacy of the 1,300 UN ‘peace keeping’ MINUSTAH troops in Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake. Bankrolled by the US, MINUSTAH was used as a militarised force to repress protests in Haiti and was responsible for the re-introduction of cholera, adding an estimated 200,000 people to the death toll. Later a string of child sex abuse scandals were linked to MINUSTAH troops who also left hundreds of fatherless children in their wake, while little of the $13bn raised in aid ever reached the mass of displaced people.
Venezuela responds
As Venezuelan analyst Roberto Malaver decried: ‘US help? The US has no reason to help Venezuela after it bombed it, killed Venezuelans and Cubans, and kidnapped its president and his partner. If the US wants to help, it should lift the sanctions and free Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores.’
The reality of the Bolivarian revolution’s response to the earthquake is this: through the state and the mobilisation of the grassroots communal movement, 30,000 Venezuelans are on the ground in La Guaira. The state has set up registration points in Caracas so the flood of volunteers can be deployed where they are most needed. Cuban medical personnel, who were already working in Venezuela through the ‘Barrio Adentro’ community health programme, were the first international workers at the scene, attending to casualties since the night of the disaster.
As of 27 June, 73,900 families have been given assistance, 12,000 people had received medical attention, Ipostel (postal) depots have been set up as shelters attending to thousands of families. 7,225 tonnes of food have already been distributed. The military-civic union that the 27-year Bolivarian revolutionary process is built on has been activated: La Guaira has been designated as a military zone with the army controlling the roads to ensure routes into the disaster zone are cleared for aid and the arrival of over 2,624 international rescue personnel.
British duplicity and lies
Instead of taking practical and useful steps to assist the Venezuelan people at this time of crisis, Britain’s Labour PM Keir Starmer, having resigned days before, released a paltry £2m in ‘humanitarian funding’, deploying a small international search and rescue team including RAF personnel from Brize Norton, with a saccharine message from King Charles offering his ‘most heartfelt condolences’ to the Venezuelan people. In comparison, the gold withheld in the Bank of England since 2019 as part of a sanctions regime against Venezuela is today valued at over £3bn.
Meanwhile the capitalist press has gone into overdrive with hypocritical BBC stories of ‘poverty-stricken Venezuela’ with a ‘sluggish’ state response leaving relatives to dig through rubble ‘with their bare hands’. The Guardian’s repeat offender, Tom Phillips, has outdone himself in a hatchet job with his US-trained Venezuelan counterpart Clavel Rangel, alleging: ‘There was scant sign of government help reaching many areas, exposing how years of economic misrule and corruption have left authorities woefully unprepared for a disaster on this scale’ (26 June 2026).
The Guardian quotes opposition politician Jesus Armas (of the Primero Justicia party) who claimed ‘we saw people working… from civil protection and the police and national guard – without gloves, without helmets and without any kind of tools’. These are pernicious lies. A basic search on social media returns a plethora of photos and videos of the Venezuelan armed forces, national guard and rescue services, dressed in protective equipment, on the ground in La Guaira with diggers and other heavy plant machinery in action. Cynically, Phillips includes photos of casualties on hospital beds in a car park at the Jose María Vargas hospital as evidence of a failed health system after ‘Nicolas Maduro led the country into economic freefall’, without explaining that this was one of the 14 hospitals evacuated due to damage in the quakes.
Not once does Phillips mention the impact of US sanctions and the freezing of Venezuela’s overseas assets. Not once does he mention the 31 tonnes of gold in the bank of England a scant few miles from the Guardian’s head office in London. Nor does Phillips inform us that since 3 January, when the US bombed Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, the Trump administration has forcibly taken control of the oil sector; controlling all export and sales at gun point. Revenues from Venezuelan crude are now held in the US treasury department, requiring Caracas to submit a budget request to access funds. This is not just lazy journalism, this is a criminal omission to sustain a narrative that covers for imperialist economic and military warfare on Venezuela.
The truth is there in plain sight, Phillips and Rangel know it – however it does not fit their narrative of a failed state, ripe to be picked apart by the US, Britain and Europe who are chomping at the bit to turn Venezuela’s crisis into their opportunity to overthrow the Bolivarian revolution once and for all. Enough with ‘condolences’ from ‘King’ Charles, enough with crocodile tears from the British government, enough with fake news and the tired old tropes about the Venezuelan economy – there is only one acceptable response to this disaster –
Give Venezuela back its gold! Lift all sanctions! The Revolutionary Communist Group is taking to the streets with these demands – Join us!
EMERGENCY PROTEST!
Tuesday 30 June at 18:00 at the Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, London EC2R 8AH
Help us publicise the protest by sharing this link: https://revolutionarycommunist.org/events/emergency-protest-venezuela-earthquake-bank-of-england-return-the-gold/
Other action you can take:
1: Organise more PROTESTS to lift sanctions – contact @rcgfrfi to organise a local event
2: Sign the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign petition : https://tinyurl.com/Vzlgold
3: Donate to the aid fund of Peoples Forum who are organising to get aid directly to the communal organisations on the ground in Venezuela: www.peoplesforum.org/vzrelief
