News Release

Venezuela Embassy Protectors: Out of Jail, Focusing on Building Peace Movement

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Four members of the Embassy Protection Collective, Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers, Adrienne Pine and David Paul were arrested Thursday after the U.S. government broke into the Venezuelan embassy in an apparently unprecedented move that legal experts described as a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The four were released Friday afternoon and participated in protests in front of the Venezuelan embassy and White House over the weekend.

As Trump administration officials escalated threats toward Iran, Rev. Jesse Jackson and other clergy participated in the Sunday protest and called for a revived peace movement: “We don’t just need a new president. We need a new commitment, a movement for peace in the world,” said Jackson. See “U.S. Government Fails in Bid to Restrict Final Four Venezuelan Embassy Protectors, Protests Continue Through Weekend” by Sam Husseini for Washington Babylon.

DAVID PAUL, dpaul4peace at yahoo.com
A nurse practitioner based in California, Paul stressed the humanitarian consequences of the economic measures the U.S. government has taken against Venezuela. See study by Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs: “Report: U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela Are Responsible for Tens of Thousands of Deaths.”

MARGARET FLOWERS, M.D., mdpnhp at gmail.com, @MFlowers8
KEVIN ZEESE, kbzeese at gmail.com, @kbzeese

Zeese and Flowers are co-directors of PopularResistance.org — she is a medical doctor and he is an attorney. They were both part of a peace delegation to Iran earlier this year.

Zeese said: “We are going to defeat this coup with the Venezuelan people who have stood strong against attacks on their economy. This should be a major issue in the 2020 election. We are changing the politics of this issue. This was the first time ever that U.S. citizens were in an embassy to help stop a coup. We need to put a stop to U.S. coups. International law must be obeyed. We were in the Venezuelan embassy to protect it. We were there legally. The U.S. government came in illegally.”

Flowers: “We know what we went through in the embassy was nothing compared to what the Venezuelan people are dealing with. We know that the U.S. invading Venezuela would be catastrophic. We held out for 37 days, we did everything we could do and we’re going to continue to fight and work in solidarity with the people of Venezuela to uphold international law.”