Robert Serra was at 27 the National Assembly’s youngest parliamentarian representing the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela. He was found dead in his home in the first week in October. 

Serra was a rising figure within the Chavismo movement, and had been a prominent student leader. 

In response to opposition claims that Serra’s death was a result of an isolated or common crime, Justice Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres stated that “according to the evidence obtained, everything points to a planned, organised and detailed (assassination) technique.”

Ernesto Samper, the former Colombian president and now secretary-general of the Union of South American Nations, said: “The assassination of the young legislator Robert Serra is a worrying sign of the infiltration by Colombian paramilitarism.” 

In Britain, an open letter signed by dozens of MPs, trade union leaders, figures from the peace movement and others expressed “condolences and solidarity to Venezuela following the murder of Robert Serra” and condemned “this murder and other examples of extreme, anti-democratic violence aimed at destabilising Venezuela’s elected government.”

Serra’s murder joins the list of assassinations of government figures. 

In April, local councillor and former intelligence chief Eliecer Otaiza was murdered. Serra’s bodyguard, detective Alexis Barreto, was assassinated two years ago.

Among these cases is also the car bomb assassination of state lawyer Danilo Anderson in 2004, who at the time was responsible for prosecuting several anti-government figures suspected of participating in the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, speaking about Serra’s assassination, revealed that a few weeks earlier Education Minister Hector Rodriguez had also been the target of a similar but failed plot.

The murder took place within a context of the violent street actions by anti-democratic forces of the right-wing opposition — that led to the death of 42 people — earlier in the year.  

The government has termed it an ongoing “economic war” with sections of the business class aligned to the opposition seeking to use their economic power to undermine the government.

Worryingly for many, the situation resembles the prelude to the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, when sections of the opposition did not distance themselves from violent actions including the assassination of a general.  

The history of the brutal dictatorship of Pinochet that followed is a stark warning of what could happen in Venezuela if the left was ousted.

Something else that resembles the Chilean situation of the 1970s are the dirty tricks of US intervention in the ongoing attempts to destabilise and ultimately overthrow the Maduro-led government. 

Over a 10-year period, from 2000-2010, US agencies including the US Agency for International Development (USAid) and its Office for Transition Initiatives (OTI), set up in Caracas in 2002, channelled more than $100 million dollars to opposition groups in Venezuela. 

Scaled up to the population and economic size of Britain, this would be the equivalent of Britain’s opposition groups receiving $800m from the US embassy to influence British politics. The scale is breathtaking and such foreign funding would simply not be allowed in most countries, including the US itself.

As Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world this may not be surprising but it doesn’t make it acceptable.

Furthermore, it is not only in Venezuela that progressive forces find themselves under attack by a resurgent right wing. This also the case in Ecuador, according to its President Rafael Correa. 

Nor is it just in Venezuela that US intervention remains a particularly dangerous reality.

A week before the tragic news from Venezuela, the Latin American Progressive Encounter (Elap) conference in Quito brought together the continent’s progressive movements to discuss deepening social justice, but just as importantly how to resist US-backed attempts to stop and reverse the “pink tide.” 

Former president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted by a coup in 2012, argued: “The right has reacted to the weakening of capitalism and also the resurgence of the social political classes that have come to power,” adding that with “citizens’ revolutions throughout Latin America, the conservative sector is going through a revival in the face of what they feel is their weakening.” 

Hence these attempts — thankfully defeated so far— in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua to overturn democracy and social progress. The case of Honduras is a warning to all.

Fittingly, Elap concluded with a public rally bringing thousands together to commemorate the defeated coup attempt in Ecuador in 2010. 

Let’s make sure we do all we can to stop any more coups or new Pinochets in Venezuela, Ecuador or anywhere else in the years ahead.

For more information on Venezuela see www.venezuelasolidarity.co.uk . The resurgent Right in Latin America will be among the topics discussed with guests from across the continent at the Latin America Conference on November 29 with speakers including Owen Jones, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Tariq Ali and Che’s daughter Aleida Guevara – information and registration at www.latinamerica2014.org.uk