[News] Venezuela: Disturbing Echoes of History

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/31/venezuela-disturbing-echoes-of-history/ 



  Venezuela: Disturbing Echoes of History

by Maria Paez Victor <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/pu3tatre/> - 
July 31, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amidst the cacophony of misinformation about Venezuela there are three 
key questions that need answers: 1) What is really happening in 
Venezuela, 2) Why is it happening, and 3) What will happen next?

*What is really happening in Venezuela?*

/*There is a Political Campaign against the Venezuelan Government*/

The United States, Canada and Europe are relentlessly attacking the 
legitimate, democratically elected Venezuelan government that represents 
the hitherto marginalized, impoverished, traditionally abandoned popular 
classes. It is a worldwide campaign to demonize Nicolás Maduro repeating 
/ad nauseam/ that he is a dictator, without any evidence and despite 
free elections. It is similar to the “weapons of mass destruction” 
canard that opened the way to the devastation of Iraq. For example, 
social media sends out more than 3,600 false news on Venezuela 
daily.^[1] <#post-113676-endnote-1>

It’s a curious dictatorship that, in 20 years of the Bolivarian 
Government, has held 23 elections for president, governors, and 
municipal representatives and in which the governing party has been 
defeated three times. And it is one of very few democracies that has a 
constitutional procedure for removing an elected president or governor.

The USA and its allies are backing the fascist forces in Venezuela, – 
the upper-class elites that governed with impunity and now lead the 
opposition. Since the start of the last century this comprador class 
overwhelmingly benefitted from Venezuela’s oil revenue bounty. Until the 
election of Hugo Chávez as president in 1999, the Venezuelan state was 
the instrument of domination by the upper classes over the lower 
classes, just as Marx described. It preserved the concentration of 
economic and political power typical of a capitalist state but contrary 
to real democracy.

Now there is a class struggle being fought in Venezuela. It is evident, 
it is inevitable, it is irreconcilable. The Bolivarian Revolution 
managed to wrestle the apparatus of the state away from the governing 
elites and facilitated participation of the vast majority in public 
affairs. It is not perfect, it has problems, but it is happening, hence 
the loathing of the upper classes and their all-out, US supported and 
led, opposition to the elected government.

/*A Hybrid War has been ongoing*/

The USA is applying a new war strategy: hybrid warfare, a combination of 
new technology (social media, drones and cyber-attacks) as a weapons 
test for their further domination of the region and other countries. 
Hybrid warfare, or war of the second generation, is “a military 
strategy, which employs political warfare and blends conventional 
warfare, irregular warfare and cyber-warfare with other influencing 
methods, such as fake news, diplomacy, lawfare and foreign electoral 
intervention.”^[2] <#post-113676-endnote-2>

The defeat of the USA in the Vietnam War is an historic precedent that 
is very relevant for the situation today in Latin America.^[3] 
<#post-113676-endnote-3> The routing of the most technologically 
advanced and powerful army in the world by poor but well organized and 
determined guerrilla fighters defending their homeland forced the USA 
military to realize that brute force bombing and chemical warfare were 
not enough to hold a country when the oppressors were not supported by 
the people. This caused the USA military establishment to seek a 
different type of war, one that would make the civilian population the 
main focus of violence, psychological, cultural, and economic tactics: 
hybrid warfare.^[4] <#post-113676-endnote-4> Multitude ways are now used 
to distort perceptions, to create general instability, fear, anxiety and 
dissatisfaction and ultimately provoke civil war.

The untimely and mysterious death of Hugo Chávez and the fall of 
international oil prices happening together spurred the USA and its 
allies to intensify their war against Venezuela. During the presidency 
of Nicolás Maduro the aggression has escalated: with a foreign backed 
opposition, world-wide media demonization, sabotage, paramilitary 
attacks, coup attempts, street violence and an economic and financial 
assault that has devastated its economy.

/*The illegal sanctions are a crime against humanity*/

Venezuela’s vulnerability has been the economy. The country has been 
subject to brutal economic sanctions that severely restrict the import 
of food, medicines and essential goods, drastically reduce the export of 
oil, and prevent Venezuela’s participation in international financial 
markets. Economic sanctions are tantamount to a blockade, they are not 
“instead of war” they are war. They have caused tremendous impacts and 
cost to the nation. From August 2017 to December 2018 alone it is 
estimated that the sanctions cost the Venezuelan economy $23 
billion.^[5] <#post-113676-endnote-5> At the same time, $30 billion of 
Venezuelan assets have been frozen in the USA. Alarmingly, this includes 
appropriation by the USA of Venezuela’s gasoline company CITGO worth $7 
billion plus $11 billion incoming this year ^[6] 
<#post-113676-endnote-6> , and distribution of CITGO’s funds to 
opposition leaders. Oil exports, which accounted for 95% of the 
country’s export income has been drastically reduced because of the 
sanctions imposed by the US on refineries and shipping.^[7] 
<#post-113676-endnote-7> International banks are prohibited from 
carrying out transactions involving Venezuelan accounts. USA and 
European banks have stolen Venezuelan funds to the amount of $5.4 
billion.^[8] <#post-113676-endnote-8> The Bank of England has 
appropriated Venezuelan gold in its vaults worth $1.5 billion. This is a 
chilling message, which says that Britain’s central bank can keep the 
gold of any country its government disagrees with. This has 
consequences. Germany took back its gold worth $40 billion last 
year.^[9] <#post-113676-endnote-9> Poland and Hungary have requested the 
return of their gold. Trust in the capitalist controlled banking system 
is beginning to waver.

Money is one thing, human lives are another. The US, Canada and their 
allies are truly terrorizing the Venezuelan population, trying to starve 
them to death and keep crucial medicines from the most vulnerable 
people, the infirm, children and the poor. “The Venezuelan 
Pharmaceutical Association reported an 85% shortage of essential 
medicines in 2018.”^[10] <#post-113676-endnote-10> Due to the sanctions, 
180,000 medical operations have been cancelled and 823,000 chronically 
ill patients are awaiting medicines.^[11] <#post-113676-endnote-11>

Two UN Human Rights Rapporteurs, Dr. Alfred De Zayas and Idriss Jazairy, 
denounced the sanctions on Venezuela as illegal, equating them to 
medieval sieges and considering them crimes against humanity.^[12] 
<#post-113676-endnote-12> Economists Mark Weisbrot and Columbia 
University Professor Jeffrey Sachs estimate that between 2017 and 2018 
the sanctions killed /40,000 Venezuelans./^^[13] 
<#post-113676-endnote-13> Unsurprisingly, their report has not been 
given the media attention it deserves.^^[14] <#post-113676-endnote-14>

As many commentators have noted, unilateral economic sanctions of the 
kind to which Venezuela is being subjected are illegal. They are a 
weapon of war and a crime against humanity. Sanctions negate or usurp 
the sovereign rights of nations, violating the principles of 
non-intervention and non-interference in the internal affairs of 
sovereign states as expressed in numerous international agreements 
including:

    + Article 2 of the United Nations Charter which states that /“All
    Members shall refrain in their international relations from the
    threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or
    political independence of any state”. /

    + Chapter IV articles 19 and 20 of the Charter of the Organization
    of American States which state that /“No state or group of states
    has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason
    whatsoever, in the internal or external affairs of any other state.” /

    + Article 33 of the Geneva Convention which states /“Collective
    penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism
    are prohibited.” /

    + The Vienna Declaration which says that: “/No state may use/ /or
    encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of
    measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the
    subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights.” /

    + Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
    which considers sanctions as crimes against humanity.

    + And any number of international commercial regulations and agreements.

This looting of Venezuelan assets has not turned out as planned. Juan 
Guaidó, opposition leader who self-proclaimed himself “president” of 
Venezuela in January 2019, has agents who are simply putting the money 
into their own personal accounts.^[15] <#post-113676-endnote-15> This 
has incensed other Venezuelan opposition leaders who have been left out 
of this munificent distribution.^[16] <#post-113676-endnote-16> US 
Senator Marco Rubio admitted publicly that they put $117 million in 
Guaido’s personal account.^[17] <#post-113676-endnote-17> The PanAm 
Post, which describes itself as ‘your leading source for news and 
analysis in the Americas’, from a mainstream perspective, reported on 
the misappropriation of these ill-gotten funds. They report that 
Colombian intelligence revealed to them that Guaido’s agents in Colombia 
stole the funds to help the 354 army deserters there. Guaidó’s supposed 
representative in Washington, Carlos Vecchio, an outlaw wanted by 
Venezuelan judicial authorities, has personally appropriated $70 
million.^[18] <#post-113676-endnote-18>

What would be the reaction in North America or Europe if a foreign 
politician admitted they had put millions in the personal account of 
self-appointed, political opposition leaders?

/*Nicolas Maduro was duly elected and cleanly won the presidency*/

On 20 May 2018, Nicolás Maduro was re-elected with 6.3 million votes 
(67%).^[19] <#post-113676-endnote-19> Six opposition candidates 
representing 16 democratic opposition parties also took part in the 
elections.^[20] <#post-113676-endnote-20> In 2012, former USA president 
Jimmy Carter, after monitoring 93 world elections concluded that the 
Venezuelan electoral process is the best in the world. More than 150 
independent, international observers testified the election in 2018 was 
clean and transparent.^[21] <#post-113676-endnote-21> That three other 
opposition parties chose not to participate, or more exactly were 
ordered not to by the USA, does not invalidate the elections. ^[22] 
<#post-113676-endnote-22>

It is indeed a serious blow to democracy to discount elections /before/ 
they have taken place and urge that they /do not/ take place, and yet 
that is exactly what the opposition and the USA and allies did: they 
told Venezuelans not to vote. To its shame, Canada did not allow 
Venezuelans living there to vote in the Venezuelan consulates – a 
reprehensible denial of the legal right of Canadians with dual 
citizenship to participate in an election in another country. So much 
for Canada’s often touted respect for the “rule of law”.

But let us not accept the farce that the quarrel with Venezuela is about 
legitimacy and democracy. This is a blatant neo-colonial war against 
Venezuela to reduce it to a puppet state, balkanize it and take 
possession of its plentiful oil, gold and other resources. These are 
modern pirates acting on behalf of corporate capital*. *

/*The Venezuelan opposition is a violent opposition*/

The Venezuelan extreme right is a violent opposition, not engaged in 
ordinary politics but in a desperate class struggle trying to provoke 
chaos and/or civil war, which would give the excuse for foreign military 
intervention that would then hand power over to them. If they should 
succeed in this manner, the only way they could retain that power would 
be by brutal oppression, just like Pinochet in Chile. The overwhelming 
majority of the Venezuelan population is black, brown, indigenous, and 
knows that whatever its shortcomings, the Bolivarian government is their 
government. It is a government that has striven to pull them out of 
poverty and exclusion and Venezuelans would not acquiesce to a dictatorship.

There are democratically minded opposition groups, but the extreme right 
opposition is prevalent. It is not interested in an electoral process 
that they cannot corrupt or win and want to become the government by 
other means.

More than 300 rural campesino leaders have been assassinated by 
mercenaries, as well as Chavista leaders, which the mainstream press 
hardly ever mentions. Between 2013 and 2017, there were 123 victims of 
the opposition violence who were lynched, beheaded, burnt, 
assassinated.^[23] <#post-113676-endnote-23>

Violent opposition events are then interpreted by the NGOs as human 
rights abuses by government forces, and never as abuses of the paid 
opposition mercenaries that kill, maim, destroy and disrupt the 
peace.^[24] <#post-113676-endnote-24> For example:

    *Street violence 2014-17*: Leopoldo López, son of two of the most
    traditional and richest families in the country is leader of the
    right-wing party Voluntad Popular which although very small, is the
    most violent and extreme right wing party in Venezuela and, not by
    chance, is backed by the USA. It does not want elections or
    negotiation, only forceful “regime change”. In 2014, López before TV
    cameras openly instigated violence to overthrow the government
    causing millions of dollars in damages to public property and the
    deaths of 47 innocent people. For this he was given a fair trial and
    sentenced to 14 years in jail but is considered by the USA as a
    “political prisoner”.

    *Helicopter bombing*: On 26 June 2017, ex-officer Oscar Pérez, on a
    stolen army helicopter terrorized the city of Caracas and threw
    grenades at the building of the Supreme Court. Two policemen died.
    This crazed criminal was lauded both by the opposition and foreign
    press as some sort of poster boy freedom fighter.

    *Assassination attempt by drones: *On August 4^th 2018 at a military
    parade, Nicolás Maduro became the first head of state anywhere to
    suffer an assassination attempt by drones. If successful it would
    have eliminated in one swoop all the leaders of the government, a
    truly devastating blow.

    *Attempt at creating a parallel puppet government*: On 23 January,
    2019 Juan Guiadó, a CIA trained, hitherto unknown deputy for the
    Voluntad Popular extremist party stood in the middle of a street,
    raised his hand and self-proclaimed himself president of Venezuela.
    There were no elections and no basis in law.^[25]
    <#post-113676-endnote-25> He did have however the complete backing
    of the USA for this charade. In fact, Guaidó cannot muster the
    obedience of a single policeman, yet the usual suspect nations close
    to Trump hurried to recognize him. Not so the 125 plus Non-Aligned
    UN member states who continue to recognize President Maduro as the
    only legitimate Venezuelan president and understand this is an
    outrageous attempt to create a parallel puppet president.

    *Invasion via false humanitarian aid*: On February 20^th , 2019, the
    self-proclaimed Guaidó staged a humanitarian aid stunt, which did
    not have UN or Red Cross support. Attempting to forcefully enter
    Venezuela from Cucuta, Colombia with USA and Colombian troops
    standing by, this political theatre proved a failure. Guaidó
    promised there would be mass desertion by the Venezuelan military on
    the other side of the unused border bridge. They witnessed instead
    the impressive sight of the Venezuelan army, steadfast defenders of
    the Constitution, standing in solid formation wall-like, impervious
    to insults, taunts and promises and right behind the soldiers,
    standing with their army, was a sea of civilians showing their
    support. At this point, the head of the Colombian army informed
    Colombian President Duque that they could not possibly invade with
    that powerful Venezuelan showing of military-civil strength.

    Men on the Colombian side set fire to the supposed “aid” trucks
    revealing that they contained not food but material for street
    riots. Even the New York Times reported this. USA vice-president
    Pence and the Presidents of Columbia and Chile were there witnessing
    this debacle. The powerful military-civic union of the Bolivarian
    forces diminished any hope that an invasion of Venezuela would be an
    “easy” win for Trump to tout into the next US presidential elections.

    *Cyberattack on the electricity system*

Two weeks later, on 6 March 2019, the entire electrical capacity of the 
country failed due to a cyber-attack on the country’s main electricity 
generating system, causing a terrifying 6-day, nation-wide blackout. The 
attack severely damaged the country’s electrical system in ways never 
imagined. No lights, no elevators, no water since pumps were not 
working. Schools were canceled; clinics and hospitals had to suspend 
medical operations. It was however remarkable beyond any expectation 
that no riots, no social unrest occurred: the people were calm, knowing 
they were under attack and that this was not the inefficiency of their 
government. Engineers were baffled never having considered such a 
blackout of this magnitude was even possible.^[26] 
<#post-113676-endnote-26> What seemed to be only science fiction turned 
out to be science. The USA army branch, the Pentagon Cyber Command, has 
been dedicated to cyber-attack warfare since 2009.^[27] 
<#post-113676-endnote-27> President Maduro claims to have solid evidence 
that the grid was indeed attacked by the USA. ^[28] 
<#post-113676-endnote-28> Five hours before the blackout, US senator 
Marco Rubio, reported to the US House of Representatives that 
Venezuelans are just about to experience the most dramatic shortage that 
they have ever felt”.^[29] <#post-113676-endnote-29> Quite a 
coincidence. Guaidó next day also admitted a hand in it. Since then 
there have been several more cyberattacks on the electrical system that 
have been dealt with expeditiously by Venezuelan engineers learning what 
they are up against.

*Attempted Coup d’etat:* If there was any doubt that the supposed 
“president Guaidó” held no authority whatsoever, it was made clear on 
the 30^th of April, when he attempted a coup d’etat. Having no popular 
or military following it failed. A small military unit was lured there 
under false pretenses and promptly left. Guaidó did manage to spring 
Leopoldo López from his house arrest, who fled to the Spanish embassy. 
Guaidó was left to wander the streets, with another failure on his 
hands. The government did not fall into the trap of arresting him and 
making a martyr out of a malcontent.

Mexican intellectual Fernando Buen Abad, has said that /“Venezuela has 
been the target of the most irrational and unjust attacks; all the most 
obscene and vile dirty tricks; all the most crude and unacceptable 
injustices.”^[30] <#post-113676-endnote-30> /

Lenin insightfully described the situation in which Fidel, Chávez and 
now Maduro find themselves/: “During the lifetime of great 
revolutionaries, the oppressing classes have invariably meted out to 
them relentless persecution, and received their teachings with the most 
savage hostility, most furious hatred, and a ruthless campaign of lies 
and slanders.”^[31] <#post-113676-endnote-31> /

/*International NGOs play a nefarious role*/

International NGOs such as USAID, NED, NDI, IRI are agents of 
destabilization of the Venezuelan political order. The local NGOs that 
they support are spies and saboteurs that defame the government 
internationally and spread malign propaganda. In Venezuela alone, 
between the years of 2002 and 2012, NED (National Endowment for 
Democracy) spent more than $100 million and created 300 new NGOs backing 
the opposition groups. These local NGOs “spin” accusations against the 
government, creating tensions within the country and criticism abroad. 
^[32] <#post-113676-endnote-32>

Social problems that are commonplace in other countries are blamed on 
the socialist policies of Maduro’s government, such as, for example 
migration. It is not true that millions of Venezuelans have fled the 
country. Ironically enough the CIA World Fact Book gives Venezuela’s net 
migration rate in 2018 as 1.2 per 1000 population. Therefore the 
difference between people leaving Venezuela in 2018 exceeded those 
arriving in the country by only 38,000 ^[33] <#post-113676-endnote-33> , 
not several million as is so often reported.

But human rights especially have become the latest weapon against 
Venezuela, a politicized punching bag distorted out of all 
recognition.^[34] <#post-113676-endnote-34> Widespread killing of 
journalists and activists in Colombia are played down by the western 
media but opposition leaders in Venezuela, who are duly and properly 
jailed for crimes, not ideas, become human rights victims.^[35] 
<#post-113676-endnote-35> When the opposition orchestrated street 
violence in 2014 they set fire to several young men who were dark 
skinned and “looked” Chavista. There was no outrage among the “human 
rights industry” when 20 year old Orlando Figuera was burned to death in 
front of TV cameras. Only Chavistas mourned him.

The latest human rights travesty was the blatantly biased report by 
former Chilean President Michelle Bachelett. 82% of those interviewed 
for the report lived outside the country. The report deliberately 
ignored copious information provided by the Venezuelan government about 
nutrition and all kinds of social programs. Bachelett’s report contained 
70 factual errors and it was rejected outright by the UN Human Rights 
Council on July 9, 2019.^[36] <#post-113676-endnote-36>

*Why is it Happening?*

/*The Venezuelan elites are a fascist force backed by the USA*/

The Patriot Army that finally defeated the Spanish Empire army in the 
second decade of the 1800s included all the people: the slaves, the 
indigenous peoples, and the “pardos” mixed lower class, in the aims and 
practice of the War for Independence. The Venezuelan elite, which was 
comfortable with the Spanish overlords, resented that one of their kind, 
the great Simón Bolívar, was leading the independence movement and his 
abolitionism was threatening to deprive them of their slaves.

The USA, nor the Europeans, did nothing to aid the Patriot’s war against 
Spain. This was not a new agenda. Thomas Jefferson said most explicitly 
in 1786:/“Our Confederation should be considered the nest from which all 
America both North as well as South, should be settled. …For now, those 
countries are in the best of hands (Spain), and I only fear that they 
will be too weak to keep them subjected until our population has grown 
enough to go on to snatch them up piece by piece.” ^[37] 
<#post-113676-endnote-37> /

Immediately after independence, the USA set out to manipulate and 
dominate the new republics. The USA Monroe Doctrine of 1823, seemingly 
intended to protect the region from further European colonization, in 
fact asserted the interests of the USA in the region. It led all 
successive governments to consider Latin America and the Caribbean their 
“backyard” populated by backward and corrupt people who need their 
“guidance”.^[38] <#post-113676-endnote-38> The farce of the USA being 
any sort of “defender” of the region from Europe was clearly laid bare 
when in 1982 the USA backed Margaret Thatcher’s unconscionable war 
against Argentina over the Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands).

USA President Theodore Roosevelt’s Carrot and Stick Doctrine led USA 
administrations to co-opt local comprador elites willing to accept any 
carrot offered for their betrayal. Over the years, the USA opposed each 
and every one of the enlightened, progressive leaders and governments of 
Latin America and the Caribbean and helped maintain rule by elites. This 
includes at least 80 invasions, coup d’etats and interventions to 
destabilize and even assassinate leaders of said governments. During the 
20th century every Venezuelan administration that however mildly, tried 
to assert some degree of sovereignty over Venezuela’s petroleum 
resources was overthrown by Washington.^[39] <#post-113676-endnote-39> 
As Simón Bolívar observed:

/“The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague 
America with misery in the name of liberty.”/

In 1999, after several decades of gross human rights violations and 
increasing corruption that left the democratic process in disrepute, and 
to the dismay of the ruling elites, a complete outsider won the 
presidential election in Venezuela with a landslide victory: Hugo 
Chávez. Yet, this comprador upper-class that now leads the opposition in 
Venezuela has maintained a great deal of its economic power, both 
commercial and financial, and media ownership/./ Contrary to opposition 
propaganda about media freedom, the Venezuelan private sector still owns 
most of the media, 6 out of 10 TV stations and 97.2% radio outlets.^[40] 
<#post-113676-endnote-40>

One of the salient characteristics of this class is racism towards their 
own people, a legacy of their slave-owning past, which in many subtle 
yet real ways persists. President Chávez was ridiculed for his humble 
rural background and Black and indigenous ethnicity. His successor, 
President Maduro, is scorned for being born in a poor urban barrio and 
his 9-years employment as a bus driver in Caracas. Racism and classism 
thrive in the Venezuelan bourgeoisie. The revolutionary struggle for 
equality in Venezuela necessarily means opposing the ideology of white 
supremacy of the upper classes, many who even deny that such obvious 
racism exists.^[41] <#post-113676-endnote-41> As David William Pear has 
stated: “/The US and Canada are not supporting “the return of democracy” 
in Venezuela as they claim… They are crushing democracy in Venezuela by 
exploiting class and race warfare, being carried out by an //elite 
white-supremist minority/ 
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/racist-imperialist-war-venezuela>/against 
the poor, Afro-Indigenous, and other Venezuelans of color.”^[42] 
<#post-113676-endnote-42> /

*/The Discovery of Oil/ *

The discovery of oil in Venezuela at the turn of the last century, 
transformed the functioning of the economy and the State. The State 
became the distributor of income derived from the sale of exported 
petroleum, doling out this bounty according to the interests of those 
closest to it: the upper classes. The private sector did not become an 
engine of economic development, employment and innovative production, as 
in a genuine capitalist economy. The typical dependency of the State on 
the owners of capital is reversed in oil exporting nations. The 
capitalists depend on the State, not the reverse. This is why the 
analysis of an oil exporting economy has to be different from the 
analysis of a conventional capitalist economy.

The Venezuelan upper classes want to regain the largess of the State on 
which they depended until the election of Chávez. The supposed 
“capitalist” class in Venezuela, with relatively few exceptions, is a 
comprador class, with strong links to foreign capital. It is a parasitic 
private sector dependent on lucrative import transactions with the help 
of state funds, loans and contracts. A private sector such as this 
prevented Venezuela from developing a thriving diversified economy.

Venezuela has the largest known petroleum reserves in the world. That it 
takes 43 days for an oil tanker to go from the Middle East to Texas, 
while it only 4 days from Venezuela, makes Venezuelan oil especially 
attractive to the USA. This is a powerful clue to the USA’s desire to 
utterly control Venezuela. John Bolton openly stated that the goal is to 
gain control of Venezuela’s oil.^[43] <#post-113676-endnote-43> 
President Trump said, gangster-like, that he did not understand why they 
were not at war with Venezuela /“because they have all that oil and are 
right on our back door”^[44] <#post-113676-endnote-44> /

/*The Constitution of 2000 created a new state*/

One of the most enduring legacies of President Hugo Chávez has been the 
Venezuelan Constitution that defined the new Bolivarian Venezuelan 
state. Country-wide representatives were elected to a National 
Constitutional Assembly to draft a new constitution. After extensive 
public consultations the new constitution was ratified by referendum. 
The Constitution is anchored in the concepts of both individual and 
social rights, such as the right to education, clean water and health 
services. It combines participatory democracy with socialist and 
communitarian features. It enshrines human rights hitherto muted or 
absent, such as the rights of women, children, all indigenous peoples, 
handicapped and the environment. It closed some of loopholes by which 
the upper classes had ruled and it asserted the sovereignty of Venezuela 
over its own resources. Its impact inside the country has been immense. 
It has also been influential in the region having inspired the new 
constitutions in Ecuador and Bolivia.

Now, after 19 years, the Constitution, which is a living document, is 
being revised by another elected National Constitutional Assembly to 
correct certain vestiges of the bourgeois liberal framework still there 
and to deepen socialist principles.

One would agree with Marx who stated that society is not based on the 
law but that the law must be based on society expressing its common 
interests and needs.^[45] <#post-113676-endnote-45> Just so, the 
Bolivarian constitution expresses the longing for rights and sovereignty 
of a majority of the people that had long been marginal to the affairs 
of state, whose human rights were only nominally recognized, and their 
desire for an alternative society to “/savage capitalism/” as Hugo 
Chávez used to call it. The Venezuelan working classes recognize that, 
however faulty, the State now defines itself by their interests and that 
the anti-democratic sector of the opposition makes no promises they 
could possibly believe.

In 2007, Hugo Chávez was re-elected with the promise of building 
Venezuelan socialism, calling it socialism of the 21^st century. It owes 
its roots not only to European thinkers such as Marx and Engels, but 
also to the intellectual legacy of Simón Bolívar’s ideas about 
sovereignty, egalitarianism, abolition of slavery and imperialism, 
regional integration, and to other Venezuelan leaders such as Simón 
Rodriguez, Ezequiel Zamora and the communitarian ancient traditions of 
Venezuelan indigenous peoples.^[46] <#post-113676-endnote-46> Hugo 
Chávez rooted Venezuelan socialism in its history, cultures and 
cosmological and spiritual traditions. Liberation theology for example, 
has greatly influenced the Bolivarian Revolution. This is a revolution 
that is recognized by the Venezuelan people as “their” socialism. This 
was Chavez’s genius and his contribution to socialism world-wide. He 
dared proclaim it, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, after the 
dissolution of the USSR and after the false rumors that history had come 
to an end; and he showed the world that socialism was still a force to 
be reckoned with.

/*It is Bolivarian Socialism.*/

There are those who deny that what is happening in Venezuela is a 
revolution or that it is even socialism. Some of these cosmopolitan 
theorists of the northern countries have too often disdained the 
Bolivarian Revolution because it did not “fit” within their narrow 
Eurocentric theoretical framework, because it is also humanistic and 
spiritual, as well as socialist, participatory and democratic. Many of 
them who claim to know so much about the conduct of revolution, want to 
dictate to the Venezuelan people what is and what is not real, yet they 
have not been able to make a revolution in their own countries in the 
USA, Canada, or Europe.

History shows us that revolution occurs when the people stand up and 
defy empires, when they bear the brunt of their malice and yet stand 
firm and defend their rights, land and self–determination. The people 
know. As Atilio A. Boron, a Latin American writer, explains, and Marx 
and Engels understood, revolution is not a creation event in a single 
explosion of violence but an historical, dialectical process where the 
encounters of the class struggle and counter-revolution determine the 
outcomes. He recalls that Fidel Castro said: /“The main mistake we made 
in Cuba was thinking that someone knew how to make a revolution.”^[47] 
<#post-113676-endnote-47> /The Bolivarian Revolution, like all strong 
social transformations is a historic movement with gains and losses, 
missteps and complexities that over-ride the status quo, the traditional 
forms of making politics.^[48] <#post-113676-endnote-48>

President Maduro has clearly stated that Venezuela /“…is decided and 
determined to create a world that is multipolar, pluri-polar, 
multi-centric. There is no one single economic model, we cannot permit 
that they impose upon us a single economic model, a single way of 
thinking.”^[49] <#post-113676-endnote-49> /

Building socialism in Venezuela meant changing the very organization of 
the state designed by elite rule. The Communal Councils and Communes 
have been at the forefront of that transformation. ^[50] 
<#post-113676-endnote-50> Venezuela’s Revolution is real, just observe 
the enemies ranged against it. They certainly think it’s socialism in 
the making and they want none of it. The Revolution is a process of 
revindication, of increasing consciousness of the people, and of defense 
of their sovereignty. It is a work in progress, “/el proceso”/ (the 
process) as Venezuelans call it, and the Venezuelan people hold the key 
to its future.

The current USA aggression is not simply against a regime, but against 
the Venezuelan nation itself, with plans to dismember it, as they did in 
in the past in Colombia (to create Panama and own the Canal), and more 
recently in Yugoslavia, Kosovo and Ukraine. They wish to divide it up 
among their willing allies: the oil rich western borderlands for 
Colombia, the eastern Esequibo for Guyana, the south-eastern Amazonic 
borderland for Brazil, and Paraguay will have its huge debt to Venezuela 
cancelled. In what is left of the nation, Canada gets the gold mines and 
the USA oil corporations get the oil. We cannot allow this to happen.

*/The aim is to deny Venezuela’s achievements/ *

USA aggression towards Venezuela also stems out of concern that the 
remarkable achievements of this emerging socialism represents a real 
alternative to capitalism. The Bolivarian Revolution has had many 
successes that in any other country would have been universally hailed 
as such:

    + An increase in the country’s rank in the UN Human Development
    Index by 7 places; now rated as having high human development
    Venezuela out performs the majority of the Lima Group
    countries.^[51] <#post-113676-endnote-51>

    + UNESCO declared Venezuela illiteracy free in 2005

    + A 50% reduction of poverty; extreme poverty reduced to 4.4%
    between 1990-2010 ^[52] <#post-113676-endnote-52>

    + A reduced infant mortality rate from 25/1000 to 13/1000
    (1990-2010); down to 12/1000 in 2017, which was lower than Colombia,
    Ecuador, Brazil and Peru.^[53] <#post-113676-endnote-53>

    + Provision of universal free health services, subsidized drugstores

    + The FAO awarded Venezuela for reducing malnutrition from 13.5 % in
    1990-92 to 3.6% in 2012. The illegal sanctions have increased
    malnutrion to 11.7% (2017)^[54] <#post-113676-endnote-54>

    + An increase in food security through a food distribution network,
    nutrition programs, subsidized packages (CLAP), free school meals,
    and communes producing food for cities.

    + Free tuition for education from nursery care to university; high
    enrolment at all levels

    + 2.7 million housing units have been built in integrated housing
    zones with all public services programs between 2012-2019.^[55]
    <#post-113676-endnote-55> 9.5 million Venezuelans have been given a
    new home. In 2019 the UN recognized Venezuela as one of the top
    countries for guaranteeing people’s right to housing. This housing
    achievement of Bolivarian Venezuela is unrivaled in any other
    country to date.^[56] <#post-113676-endnote-56>

The achievements have been ignored, muted, denied or disparaged by the 
USA, its allies and the disgraceful corporate mainstream press.^[57] 
<#post-113676-endnote-57> Since January 2019, for example, the New York 
Times, Wall St. Journal and Washington Post have run a combined 800 
articles on Venezuela. Only 4 of them refer to the Bolivarian 
government’s social programs and achievements and then only to dismiss 
them.^[58] <#post-113676-endnote-58> However, the achievements have been 
recognized by many other countries, by the UN and several of its 
agencies, and other international organizations.

*What will happen next?*

/*Disturbing echoes of History*/

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) the Phalange, the fascist forces 
of Francisco Franco, waged war against the elected, liberal, Republican 
Spanish government. What ensued was a savage, vicious civil struggle in 
which an estimated one million lives were lost.

Fascism was the preferred ideology of the Spanish upper classes. The 
Axis powers, Germany and Italy specifically, backed Franco with 
resources and soldiers. The Nazis introduced a new diabolical war 
tactic: mass bombing of unarmed civilian populations with a new 
technology, their stukka dive bombers. Who can look at Pablo Picasso’s 
masterpiece GUERNICA and not tremble with horror at the depiction of a 
brutal assault on innocent unsuspecting civilians fleeing fire falling 
on them from the skies?

Russia backed the Republic and thousands of principled foreign 
individuals volunteered to defend it by joining the XV International 
Brigade, which included the Canadian volunteers of the Mckenzie-Papineau 
Battalion. The Spanish Civil War became an international struggle of 
fascism against democracy, liberalism, and communism. But the 
governments of North America and Europe all turned their backs on the 
Republic and failed to substantially defend democracy. By doing so they 
unwittingly gave the Nazis encouragement to pursue their war plans to 
dominate Europe and more. Seeing how the leading powers Britain and 
France did not defend Spain, the Nazis surmised that they also would not 
defend Czechoslovakia if they invaded which they did in early 1939, a 
precursor to WWII. In the end, fascism won, the Republic was lost, 
Franco governed Spain for decades afterwards, the Nazis were powerfully 
emboldened and strengthened to follow their demonic ambitions of 
domination and implement the horrors of the Holocaust.

The parallels with the war that is being waged against Venezuela are 
frightening. As in Spain, the targets are innocent people, an entire 
population, not soldiers. Through hybrid warfare, new technologies are 
in use such as sanctions, cyberattacks, terrorism. Already tens of 
thousands of Venezuelans have died due to the illegal sanctions. And 
Canada and Europe are turning their backs on a democracy that is victim 
to these atrocities. Worse still, they are aiding and abetting the USA 
in its efforts to crush the Venezuelan economy, whatever the cost to the 
population, and to overthrow the Venezuelan government. Who’s next?

/*Will the USA Invade?*/

Trump has not ruled out an invasion and neither have his key advisors, 
Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams, who continue to threaten it. Bolton’s policy 
paper on Venezuela shamelessly contains 6 scenarios of attack: coup 
d’etat, military invasion by border states, economic collapse, civil 
war, paramilitary attacks and direct invasion and bombing by the 
USA.^[59] <#post-113676-endnote-59> Peaceful negotiation and diplomacy 
are not included. The paper attests to an integration of USA foreign 
policies such that its diplomatic, economic and financial policies are 
no longer distinct from its military objectives. The private and public 
spheres have been combined with militarization in US international 
relations.^[60] <#post-113676-endnote-60>

However, as Nino Pagliccia insightfully observed: /“A realistic 
successful military intervention can only take place if the Venezuelan 
high-ranking officers of the armed forces deserted in mass. This is not 
likely to happen/.”^[61] <#post-113676-endnote-61> The Venezuelan 
military, well-schooled by Chávez, is a firm defender of the nation’s 
Constitution and has vowed never to turn their arms against their 
people. They are supported by a civilian militia of more than 2 million 
Venezuelans who are trained and on standby to defend their homeland. Any 
misguided military invasion of Venezuela is certainly to trigger a 
protracted regional conflict of dire proportions.

/*Will President Maduro’s government survive?*/

The question most asked is, how can the government of President Maduro 
survive all these ongoing economic, financial, media, cultural, 
diplomatic, cybernetic and violent attacks? Why does it still receive 
obvious and enthusiastic backing of a majority of the population that 
has been deprived of so much by foreign sanctions, sabotage, violence 
and international defamation? The answer lies in the following:

    (a) The solid achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution especially
    its reduction of poverty

    (b) The military-civil union with military forces that fiercely
    defend the Constitution

    (c) The international solidarity that Venezuela has garnered from
    Cuba, Russia, China, the Caribbean countries and all the Non-Aligned
    UN members.

The Bolivarian Revolution turned Venezuela from a country with more than 
a third of the population in poverty into one of the most prosperous and 
egalitarian nations in the Latin American region. It did this by 
investing oil revenues in numerous programs to address the social needs 
of the population and a plethora of participatory democracy initiatives 
that affected the actual way that the State was administered. These 
measure are now under severe threat from the sanctions and the backward 
looking opposition. Venezuelans know this. Meanwhile President Maduro 
continues to resist the pressures and to seek a peaceful accommodation 
with the opposition providing they accept the legitimacy of the elected 
government. Thousands of communal councils, communes and collectives of 
all sorts are organizing, planting, feeding, building, helping 
Venezuelans endure the aggression to which they are subjected. They 
direct and implement many of the government social programs, most of 
them led by women.

Another reason for Venezuelan’s resiliency is the international 
solidarity it has received while striving to bring about regional 
integration and mutual support for all the global south. More than one 
hundred and forty UN members, including all the Non-Aligned Members, 
recognize Nicolas Maduro as the only legitimate president of 
Venezuela.^[62] <#post-113676-endnote-62> The continuing support of 
Russia and China is a major reason the USA has not invaded. Russia and 
China have been a lifeline to beleaguered Venezuela sending medicine, 
food and other goods, and bringing industrial investments that transfer 
know-how to Venezuelans in a demonstration of real international 
solidarity. Cuba has provided unique and fundamental help from the start 
especially in providing health and education programs. The solidarity of 
many if not most of the small Caribbean islands has been nothing short 
of heroic. They have proudly withstood USA threats and blackmail and 
have not betrayed the friendship that Venezuela offered them through 
many programs, but especially through PETROCARIBE, providing them with 
oil at preferential prices.

For 60 years USA aggression towards Cuba has failed to overthrow the 
revolutionary Cuban government despite enormous economic losses and 
truly incalculable human suffering. So, while economic war can devastate 
an economy, it is obviously not enough to change minds and overthrow a 
truly popular government*. *As President Maduro said to the UN: 
/“Venezuela is stronger than ever, we know how to resist, we are 
standing and determined to go forward constructing our own social model, 
that of the revolution of socialism of the XXI century…we are confident 
in the noble people of Venezuela who will not surrender.” ^[63] 
<#post-113676-endnote-63> /

If President Nicolás Maduro does tragically fall to an assassin’s 
bullet, it is clear that there are many able members of the government 
ready to take his place. As the death of Chávez showed, the Bolivarian 
process has not been a one-man show, but a profound social 
transformation of the society.

/*There are wider regional and global implications to this war against 
Venezuela*/

The ramifications of this assault on Venezuela’s Bolivarian socialism 
erodes the very assumptions on which states have hitherto based their 
security. The Westphalian principle of state sovereignty, which has 
stood since 1648 and which created the modern nation state, is in real 
danger from the push of powerful corporations. They see national 
sovereignty and popular democracy as a true threat to their accumulation 
of capital through exploitation of land, water and peoples. A 
participatory democracy such as Venezuela is a particular threat. 
Corporations are accustomed to working with economic, cultural, and 
especially political elites, through “representatives” in a 
representative democracy. The unpredictable and often uncontrollable 
exercise of popular power in communes, in communal councils, in 
collectives, in congress, and at the ballot box, becomes a force that 
corporations counter with implacable determination. In Venezuela, the 
class struggle has broken through some formidable boundaries with its 
participatory democracy. It has set a regional example that the USA 
considers counter to its hegemony, and so it should. As Cellina Della 
Croce has observed, /“[Venezuela] lies at the crux of a geopolitical war 
waged by global capital, with the USA at its head, to destroy the threat 
of a people-centred agenda once and for all”.^[64] 
<#post-113676-endnote-64> /

Make no mistake about this: the struggle of the Venezuelan people today, 
as it was in the 1800s, will define the destiny of the region.

This is no exaggeration. If the USA and its allies destroy Bolivarian 
Venezuela, it will immediately go after Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia, as 
they have openly stated.^[65] <#post-113676-endnote-65> In fact, it will 
impede any other regional government from exercising any real 
self-determination if it does not suit the interests of the USA and 
corporate capitalism. The fate of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution will 
determine also in great measure, the triumph or failure of any sort of 
socialism as a viable alternative to savage capitalism

/*Conclusion*/

In conclusion, the economic war against Venezuela has global political 
implications in that:

    1) Fundamental international laws and treaties that for years have
    kept the peace between sovereign states and regulated the conduct of
    war are being openly violated.

    2) Regulations and principles of ownership and banking are being
    ignored; that banks appropriate other countries’ assets erodes the
    banking system; that duly established corporations can be taken over
    by another country for political reasons erodes the legal security
    of publicly owned corporations.

    3) Diplomatic conventions guaranteeing the safety of foreign
    embassies has been shattered by the assault and take over of the
    Venezuelan embassy in Washington DC.

    4) Powerful nations have refused to acknowledge legitimately elected
    government representatives and have attempted to set up and support
    a bogus shadow government.

    5) Human rights and humanitarian issues are callously misused as
    political weapons, endangering large numbers of innocent people.

    6) Illegal and immoral economic sanctions have become an instrument
    in an undeclared war, punishing collectively an entire population
    causing tens of thousands of deaths, and contravening the Geneva
    Convention.

However, Venezuela, representing socialism in the 21^st century, is not 
responding as they wish. Along with, Cuba it is withstanding the 
pressures. Venezuelans have demonstrated even under harsh attacks, that 
they are determined to be free to chose their own government and use 
their plentiful resources for the common good. As Della Croce has 
pointed out, like Viet Nam, Venezuela is the domino that will not 
fall.^[66] <#post-113676-endnote-66>

/*María Páez Victor*, Ph.D. is a Venezuelan born sociologist living in 
Canada. /

-- 
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