Caracas, November 25 (teleSUR-RHC)-- Waving signs that read: “We are oil workers” and “We are socialists,” employees of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, held demonstrations in Caracas and the central city of Guayana to protest the U.S. government’s spying on their employer, as revealed last week in an exclusive report published by teleSUR.

“We will not permit capitalism to continue taking steps in its fight for the destabilization of Venezuela,” said Jesus Sanchez, manager of the Paraguana Refining Center, according to an account published by Ciudad CCS, a state newspaper.
       
According to a March 2011 document released by whistle-blower Edward Snowden and provided to teleSUR and The Intercept, the U.S. National Security Agency —with the help of a team of intelligence agents working from the U.S. Embassy in Caracas— infiltrated the communications of PDVSA, acquiring information on thousands of its employees, including the company’s former president, Rafael Ramirez.

Elsa Orta, a member of the Socialist Front of Petroleum Workers, told Ciudad CCS that, “The workers in the petroleum industry are in support of the government of President Nicolas Maduro before the North American meddling and its spying on PDVSA.” 

PDVSA was clearly supportive of the rallies, which took place outside its offices in Caracas and Guayana.  In a news release, the company noted: “With songs, banners, slogans and speeches,” its workers had “forcefully repudiated Yankee interference.”

“Today, we are here in defense of our oil and to denounce … the government of the United States, which seeks to control our resources,” said Vladimir Hernandez, a PDVSA employee quoted in the company’s press release.
   
Over the weekend, PDVSA President Eulogio del Pino said he plans to “seek redress for damage” from the U.S. government.

President Nicolas Maduro is also demanding that the U.S. release the identities of the intelligence agents who posed as diplomats inside its embassy in Caracas.