The Criminal Assault on Venezuelan Sovereignty

The International Union of Scientists strongly condemns the United States of America’s military attack on Venezuela which resulted in hundreds of casualties, the destruction of infrastructure, and the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. We condemn the extrajudicial murder of Caribbean fishermen, the piracy of tankers carrying Venezuelan oil, the bombing of Caracas, and the ongoing embargo. Using the embargo and threats, the US regime claims to control Venezuela and has issued demands to the interim government. These brazen acts of lawlessness are the latest disgraceful actions in a systematic campaign of US imperial aggression spanning multiple continents. We will not remain silent while the products of our profession are used against global sovereignty and self-determination.

This kidnapping follows a longstanding pattern: the US has conducted hundreds of covert and violent regime-change operations around the world. For the Americas, in 1823, the US adopted the Monroe Doctrine, which was eventually used as a pretense for dozens of military interventions and coups across the region. To name just a few: the US-backed coups against Guatemala’s Arbenz in 1954, and Chile's Allende in 1973, and the kidnappings of Panama’s Noriega in 1990 and Haiti's Aristide in 2004. Now, Maduro's abduction follows Trump's so-called ‘Donroe Doctrine’, in which he explicitly claims US dominion over the Western Hemisphere.

The same pattern of murderous hegemonism extends globally. In June 2025, with US backing, Israel conducted the mass assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. The ensuing US bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities damaged scientific infrastructure built over decades. In December 2025, under the guise of ‘fighting terrorism’, US airstrikes hit Nigeria's Sokoto state. Like the Global War on Terror that resulted in an estimated 4.6 million deaths, the US-backed genocide in Gaza and the proxy war in Ukraine are two recent egregious cases of systematic American violence. What’s new about these latest attacks is that the rhetoric is explicitly imperialistic.

Scientists and engineers working within the US military-industrial complex, including some university programs, are complicit in this violence. The drones bombing Nigerian villages, the missiles killing Iranian scientists, the surveillance systems enabling decapitation strikes and kidnappings: all emerged from university, government, and corporate laboratories that employ scientists. When scientists accept US military funding, they become accessories to these crimes against humanity.

As scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, we believe that research and its derived technologies should benefit and improve the lives of people everywhere, including those living in Global-Majority nations. These recent US attacks destroy scientific infrastructure and damage research for the betterment of humankind. The murdered scientists of Gaza or Iran had families, students, and ongoing research. The blockade and bombing of Venezuela harms research there and throughout Latin America. Sanctions block scientific materials and data sharing. US imperialism directly undermines scientific progress in the Global South, while demanding the complicity of scientists in the West.

We demand the immediate return of President Maduro to Venezuela, an end to all US regime-change operations, and an investigation into this kidnapping by international courts. We call on scientists worldwide to refuse Pentagon funding, boycott US institutions developing weapons systems, and support colleagues in targeted nations. Before more colleagues are murdered, before more research is destroyed, before international law becomes meaningless, the time for scientists to act is now.

The kidnapping of President Maduro and America’s global assault on sovereignty demand our response. We must choose whether our science serves imperialist aggression and wars or humanity.