ISLAMABAD: Scores of progressive political workers, students, intellectuals, trade unionists, Katchi Abadi residents and citizens held a protest on Sunday at the National Press Club against the US military assault on Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro, whilst also warning against an impending ‘regime change’ operation in Iran.

Organised by the Awami Workers Party (AWP), the protesters asserted that US imperialist aggression has completely made a mockery of the so-called ‘liberal rules-based order’, and that the world was being pushed towards unending conflict with potentially disastrous consequences.

Speaking to the protesters, Aasim Sajjad said that the brazen military action and literal abduction of the Venezuelan president made clear that the only international law that now existed in the playbook of the US empire was that might is right.

He said that Washington had already demonstrated its rank disregard for human life and dignity, let alone the sovereign right of nations, by unconditionally backing the Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people, but it was now completing the ripping up of all pretences of international relations.

“Alongside its completely reckless actions in Venezuela, the Trump administration is openly threatening to annex Greenland, while it continues to tighten the noose around Iran, thereby pushing the Middle East towards an all-out conflagration,” he said.

Amal Huma of the Women’s Democratic Front (WDF) said that Venezuela was being punished for its refusal to accept the dictates of Washington, particularly with regard to the desire of US multinational oil companies to dominate the country’s vast oil reserves. She said that the Maduro government has continued the anti-imperialist policies of his predecessor Hugo Chavez, who the US tried to depose through covert operations at least twice in the 2000s.

“The Trump administration has outdone even his predecessors by explicitly announcing that Maduro has been deposed so that US oil companies can regain access to Venezuela’s reserves,” she said.

Other speakers slammed the charges against Maduro, noting that ‘narco-terrorism’ was yet another example of how the US and its Zionist stooge deploy the language of ‘counter-terrorism’ to justify their imperialistic ambitions.

The use of ‘terrorism’ was now also commonplace in Pakistan to quell internal dissent and buttress the establishment’s own militaristic and profiteering designs.

The speakers also condemned the government of Pakistan for issuing no condemnation of the US action in Venezuela, which has been severely criticised by many countries in Latin American and beyond.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2026