[News] But What About the Oil? US Senators Get to the Heart of the Matter in Wake of Venezuela Sanctions

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  But What About the Oil? US Senators Get to the Heart of the Matter in
  Wake of Venezuela Sanctions

By Rachael Boothroyd, March 24th 2015
*http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11289*

Last week, lawyer and journalist Glen Greenwald acerbically asked if 
there was “anyone, anywhere, that wants to defend the reasonability” of 
Obama’s claim that Venezuela is an “extraordinary threat” to U.S. 
security. On Tuesday at a Senate Foreign Relations Hearing on Venezuela, 
a band of rightwing “human rights” specialists including US senator 
Marco Rubio decided to make a Herculean attempt.

Entitled “Deepening Political and Economic Crisis in Venezuela: 
Implications for U.S. Interests and the Western Hemisphere”, the hearing 
revealed little about Venezuela. The usual baseless claims regarding 
alleged human rights abuses, Venezuela’s “links” to Hezbollah and the 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as well as an “invasion” 
headed by the Castro brothers which has seen “Cubans crawling” all over 
Venezuela (thanks to Senator Rubio) were all trotted out. The usual 
thoroughly discredited “sources of evidence” were also cited.

As expected, murdered FARC commander Raul Reyes’ dud computer records, 
discovered (and not tampered with, obviously) by Colombia’s honourable 
military forces in the jungle raised their head once more, and we even 
had anecdotes that were astutely ferreted out of unsuspecting mystery 
Cubans at charming dinner party encounters by Dr. Christopher Sabatini 
subsequently submitted as testimony to Castro’s vice-like grip over 
Venezuelan politics.

What the hearing did reveal, however, aside from Senator Rubio’s lack of 
regular interaction with reality, is that U.S. intervention in Venezuela 
looks set to intensify over the coming year and will be implemented 
through a variety of mechanisms. Chiefly; further “targeted” sanctions 
against Venezuelan officials, more funding for Venezuelan opposition 
groups and NGOs, destabilisation of Venezuela’s economy, specifically 
its oil industry, an international media campaign against the country 
aimed at constructing a matrix of opinion surrounding human rights 
abuses and through further efforts to weaken Latin American integration 
and unity.

Firstly, let’s begin with the impressive curriculum vitae of our band of 
merry expert witnesses, invited to present their “evidence” and give 
their opinion to the Senate.

/Alex Lee/
Deputy Assistant Secretary for South America and Cuba.

Lee has substantial blood on his hands, having intensified the U.S. “War 
on Drugs” in both Colombia and Mexico. He was directly responsible for 
the Merida Initiative in Mexico, implemented during the disastrous 
presidency of Felipe Calderon, leading to the increased militarisation 
of the country and contributing the bloody situation it is living today. 
He also helped create Plan Colombia, further blurring the already 
sketchy line between Colombian state authorities and paramilitaries, 
resulting in the murder of thousands, mass graves filled with “false 
positives” and the aerial spraying of poor rural workers’ homes and land 
with countless damaging consequences for their health.

/Mr. John Smith/
Acting Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)

OFAC is tasked with implementing sanctions against “targeted foreign 
states, regimes, terrorists and their financial supporters, 
international narcotics traffickers, transnational criminal 
organizations, and weapons of mass destruction proliferators.” Smith has 
worked at this office since 2007 and thus throughout the Obama 
administration’s sanctions on Syria, Libya, Iran and Russia. Smith also 
served as an expert to the United Nations’ Al-Qaida and Taliban 
Sanctions Committee from 2004 to 2007.

/Mr. Douglas Farah/
President at IBI Consultants

President of IBI Consultants, a Senior Fellow at the International 
Assessment and Strategy Center and former journalist. As the Center for 
Economic Policy Research (CEPR) pointed out, Farah’s presence as a 
witness “signals that the committee is not especially interested in 
facts. Farah has written and testified about supposed links between 
Venezuela, Iranian weapons, Hezbollah, the FARC and "terrorism" in 
general, without evidence, for years.”

/Mr. Santiago Canton/
Executive Director of Partners for Human Rights
Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights

Former Executive Secretary for the Inter-American Commission on Human 
Rights for the Organization of American States (OAS). In 2002 Canton 
sent a letter recognising the defacto and unconstitutional government of 
Pedro Carmona, which briefly came to power in Venezuela via a 
short-lived coup against then President, Hugo Chavez.

/Dr. Christopher Sabatini/
Adjunct Professor at School of International and Public Affairs at 
Columbia University

Sabatini was Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the 
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) between 1997 and 2005. He has 
also served as an advisor for the U.S. Agency for International 
Development (USAID). Both of these U.S. agencies have a longstanding 
history of funding anti-government groups and NGOs in Venezuela which 
has been well documented by authors such as U.S. attorney Eva Golinger.

*Sanctions: Less is more?*

One of the hottest topics at the hearing was the third set of “targeted” 
sanctions recently imposed by President Barack Obama against selected 
Venezuelan officials. To pass the  sanctions without Congressional 
approval, Obama invoked the IEEPA (International Emergency Economic 
Powers Act) and declared a national emergency…a designation which even 
Christopher Sabatini conceded may have been “a little overblown”.

 From the exchanges which took place, there can be no doubt that further 
action is already being set in motion. The ink has barely settled on 
Obama’s farcical declaration, and yet many senators at Tuesday´s hearing 
were already chomping at the bit to get a fourth round of sanctions 
penned up. There was less consensus, however, around what kind of 
sanctions to implement. Targeted or sectorial sanctions? Or should we 
just go the whole hog and slap a veto on Venezuelan oil?

With the glee of a kid in a sweet shop, Senator Rubio beseeched those 
present to identify further “human rights abusers’ in Venezuela in order 
to open up more possibilities of “who to sanction”.

Equally partial to the enactment of further sanctions was Senator 
Menendez, who called for Venezuelan Defence Minister Padrino Lopez, and 
Venezuelan Ambassador to the U.N., Rafael Ramirez, to be added to the 
next list. As well as a whole host of others.

“Do you agree that… the parameters set forth in our legislation and 
their expansion under the president’s executive order leave many other 
Venezuelan officials eligible to sanctions?” Menendez asked Andrew Lee, 
who answered in the positive.

Yet others at the hearing, such as CEO and Republican Senator Perdue, 
failed to conceal their frustration with what they clearly consider to 
be the application of inadequate sanctions in an urgent situation.

“How long would we be patient, to watch the human rights violations in 
Venezuela, before we stiffen those sanctions?” asked an ominous Senator 
Perdue, whose preference seemed to be for slapping Venezuela with a set 
of economic sanctions, such as those which have been imposed against 
Russia. Up until now, Perdue explained, U.S. pressure in all of its 
forms has been unsuccessful in “steering” the Venezuelan government in 
the required direction or substantially “changing its behaviour”.

“We have really very little evidence around the world that sanctions 
against individuals have ever really changed behaviour. So again, I 
think it’s more a question now, let’s see how long it’s gonna take. My 
question is, what’s a reasonable expectation on our part of these 
sanctions relative to changing behaviour?”.

“If we really wanted to change behaviour in Venezuela, oil is the way to 
do it”

Senator Perdue recommended keeping world oil prices low through flooding 
the market with US shale oil, and the expansion of “critical” projects 
such as the Keystone XL pipeline.

According to the senator, projects such as Keystone will be vital for 
reducing U.S. “dependence on oil from bad actors such as Venezuela”.

Secondly, and borrowing a leaf out of Vice-president Biden’s book, 
Perdue drew particular attention to the fact that Venezuelan oil 
initiatives in the region such as Petrocaribe are a point of weakness 
for Venezuela (and thus a possible target), and finally even suggested 
that it would be advisable to cease Venezuelan oil imports to the U.S.
“It seems quite hypocritical to me to limit what others are doing in 
Venezuela while we are quite happy to keep importing 30 billion dollars 
of oil each year… Mr Smith, what do you believe would be the impact if 
we were really to get serious about changing behaviour in Venezuela, to 
go after the oil? Which would mean that we would have to pay a price too”.

Of course, the next time Maduro states that falling oil prices are the 
result of U.S. geopolitical strategy to unseat his government, the press 
will doubtlessly suffer a bout of amnesia surrounding these comments.

Despite the pressure from Perdue, however, Lee confirmed that at the 
present moment the State Department prefers to deal out sanctions to 
specific individuals with one hand while it continues to aid and abet 
Venezuelan opposition movements with the other.

“We have made, after consulting with a variety of civil society actors 
and political actors in Venezuela, we have made the decision that it 
really advances US interests not to use sectoral sanctions in Venezuela.”

One might wonder how such an essential part of the United States’ moral 
crusade, applied with such categorical success in Iraq, Libya, Syria and 
the Ukraine, could be counter-intuitive to U.S. interests. However, as 
Senator Kaine pointed out, it wouldn’t exactly be ideal if Venezuelans 
were to think “Oh look, we’re just having problems because the US is 
doing bad things”.

In spite of the significant and ever-present pressure from hardcore 
Republicans to slap Venezuela with sectoral sanctions and “go after its 
oil,”  Washington appears to be pinning its hopes for now on engineering 
a “favourable” outcome at this year’s upcoming legislative elections, 
using it’s tried and tested “democracy promotion” techniques as opposed 
to a visibly aggressive foreign policy.

“We think that if Venezuela is to stop this downward slide, it is 
basically through more democracy and the best way to express that is to 
uphold elections that are seen as credible,” explained Lee.

Given that the U.S. incursion into the Ukraine hasn’t gone entirely to 
plan, it would seem that replacing those 30 billion dollars worth of oil 
imports would present a problem that the White House isn’t quite ready 
to deal with just yet.

*Ensuring a “credible” outcome in the upcoming parliamentary elections*

While Lee didn’t give specific details as to what would constitute 
acceptable elections, he did admit that “credible elections results 
could reduce tensions in Venezuela,” and his department has “urged 
regional partners to encourage Venezuela to accept a robust 
international electoral observation mission, using accepted 
international standards”.

One can only assume then that credible election results translate to 
extensive U.S. presence during the electoral process, as well as a 
majority win for the opposition.

This puts Venezuelans in a tricky position that no doubt Nicaraguans 
over the age of 40 can empathise with - a choice between continued U.S. 
aggression or a lurch to the right, with a majority opposition in the 
National Assembly moving to block any progressive legislation.

Unfortunately, the current administration as well a number of senators 
consider these elections to be a “critical” opportunity to “gain seats 
in the National Assembly”  in order to have the “opposition put pressure 
on the Maduro government” (Senator Barbara Boxer).

If we combine this reality with current polls in Venezuela, which show a 
majority intention to vote for the ruling PSUV party, then we can see 
that U.S. “civil society and political actor” allies will probably 
require a little nudge in the right direction if the U.S. is to gain the 
desired results. Fortunately, the Obama administration approved an 
increase in funding for such groups earlier this year, and as such, U.S. 
democracy promotion agencies are free to nudge away without impediment.

If history is anything to go by, and it usually is, then the majority of 
these funds will end up in the pockets of opposition NGOs and youth 
groups (this has a dubious legal basis, given the fact that Venezuelan 
political parties are prohibited from receive funding from abroad), with 
the rest somehow finding its way into the hands of the violent armed 
groups which headed last year’s barricades and which just last week 
attempted to fire bomb one of the government’s state universities in 
Tachira.

Of course, the political opposition groups which receive U.S. funding 
wholeheartedly deny any connection to “anti-democratic” groups.

As such, the financing for the firearms, wages and sponsored Facebook 
pages being used by political saboteurs and fascists in Venezuela 
continues to be a total mystery. In much the same way as it is in the 
Ukraine.

*The Elephant in the Room: “Are we talking to our friends in the region?”*

Further on into the hearing, Senator Boxer astutely decided to point out 
the elephant in the room:  that U.S. actions towards Venezuela had been 
met with “widespread criticism” by regional actors. A reaction which she 
described as “very upsetting for a lot of us” and which is currently 
presenting a critical obstacle to Washington’s attempts to destabilise 
Venezuela.

“What steps are we taking to engage with Latin American nations about 
the recently announced sanctions. Have any countries in the region 
expressed support for our action?” Boxer asked.

Evidently, the reasons behind Washington's extensive ostracism on the 
continent have suffered a considerable time delay in arriving to U.S. 
shores. Rather than acknowledging  a history of imperialism, bloody 
coups and neo-colonialism, (the longstanding tradition of 
non-intervention that White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, appears to be 
so proudly referring to here), Boxer seemed to have decided that the 
plebs to the South of the border just can’t seem to get that the White 
House is doing this for their own good! Diplomacy certainly can be 
frustrating.

“What are we doing to make sure they understand that what we did was the 
right thing, the moral thing, the correct thing, for the people of 
Venezuela?” she implored with a desperation that was only assuaged when 
Alex Lee did in fact confirm that the U.S. was working with friends and 
allies in the region.

While discretion prevented Mr. Lee from detailing exactly what 
activities are currently taking place backstage in order to instill 
Latin American governments with levels of comprehension comparable to 
those of the U.S., he did confirm that the current administration had 
made this work a priority. The only snag is that, thanks to the region’s 
transformed political climate, it now has to be carried out by proxy. No 
longer recognised as a main political player in the region, Lee stated 
that the U.S. is now working “indirectly through other countries”. Where 
there’s a will, there’s a way!

*Human Rights and Government “Accountability”*

Putting to one side the truly galling levels of hypocrisy which 
characterizes U.S. foreign policy, there is a reason why these targeted 
sanctions should worry those who are interested in defending the 
Bolivarian revolution.

These individual sanctions might not have the same implications for the 
Venezuelan people as sectoral sanctions, but they are certainly not 
pointless. The U.S. has a long term game plan aimed at creating the 
conditions for the removal of the Venezuelan government and intervention 
by proxy in the region. However, the White House is also conscious of 
the challenges to its own hegemony which have emerged from the 
construction of a growing alternative model in Latin America, which must 
be disarticulated at all costs. Which means it’s not as simple as 
overthrowing the Maduro administration.

It is this which partly explains why the U.S. is choosing to focus on 
building a discourse around human rights violations and the 
delegitimisation of democracy in Venezuela for consumption in the West, 
where a history of colonialism and imperialism presents few obstacles to 
the establishment of such a narrative. These “individual” sanctions, 
despite their disappointing lack of teeth for those at the hearing, are 
vital for constructing this international matrix of opinion and for 
manufacturing consent to justify any kind of present and future action 
against Venezuela.

They also have material repercussions: the global remit of human rights 
abuses provides an international legal framework which allows current 
Venezuelan government officials to be pursued at international courts in 
the event of the unconstitutional overthrow of the Maduro administration.

Senator Rubio spelled it out most clearly: defy the U.S. and expect to 
spend decades languishing in an international prison on the orders of 
the Hague.

“One day we’re gonna have freedom in Venezuela, there will be a 
functional government again… and these individuals responsible for the 
human rights abuses are going to have to be accountable for what they're 
doing. That´s why it’s so critical that these human rights abuses be 
documented now, so in the future these individuals will be held to 
account for the crimes they are committing against the people of 
Venezuela”.

Rubio’s assertion was of course accompanied by a vehement denial that 
the U.S. is working to effect regime change in Venezuela. Rather, those 
on the heroic panel were simply “raising their voices” on behalf of the 
Venezuelan people.

We could of course just dismiss these voices as the ramblings of 
paranoid cold war relics, but these are the voices which the Obama 
administration has been listening to far more than those emerging from 
Latin America. It was, after all, rightwing hardliner and anti-Castro 
Senator par excellence Rubio who designated the latest 7 Venezuelan 
officials to be targeted for sanctions.

It’s not surprising given that Rubio’s stance coincides much more 
harmoniously with White House interests than those in Latin America. In 
Venezuela, for instance, 62% of citizens think that the U.S. shouldn´t 
even be able to pass judgment on Venezuelan affairs, while 92% reject 
any kind of intervention in the country.

Senator Boxer can bemoan the lack of regional support for US actions, 
but dialogue begins with respect for plurality of opinion, sovereignty 
and agency, which are impossible within the asymmetrical power relations 
perpetuated through imperialism and neo-colonialism. These are the 
qualities which have made the regional organisations spearheaded by 
Chavez so successful, and why they have managed to bring even rightwing 
governments in the region into the fold.

The U.S. quest for dominance is destined to further isolate it in the 
region as it continues to attempt to impose its worldview and 
geopolitical interests on Latin American countries, which have 
experienced a growing anti-imperialist movement over the past 15 years.

In order for the current U.S. strategy to bear fruit in Venezuela, it 
requires a sudden upsurge of support for the right, the disarticulation 
of a whole anti-imperialist and participative political discourse and 
practice in the region, as well as the erosion of regional institutional 
mechanisms such as the CELAC and UNASUR which now enjoy more legitimacy 
on the continent that the OAS, World Bank, and IMF combined.

When even Manuel Santos and Ernesto Samper are talking about sovereignty 
and “new eras” in Latin America, formulating this equation seems 
unlikely, although certainly not impossible. It is doubtful that Senator 
Boxer will be getting a more favourable reply to her questions any time 
soon.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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