[News] “We Deserve Respect”: The Bolivarian Revolution, Imperial Aggression on Venezuela, and the Struggle for a Peaceful, Sovereign Global South

[Anti-Imperialist News]

pambazuka.org
<https://pambazuka.org/The-Bolivarian-Imperial-Aggression-Venezuela>
“We Deserve Respect”: The Bolivarian Revolution, Imperial Aggression on
Venezuela, and the Struggle for a Peaceful, Sovereign Global South
Essam Elkorghli
December 19, 2025
------------------------------
[image: image.png]

New. Soldiers carrying flags embossed with the eyes of Hugo Chávez, the
leader of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.

An analysis of geopolitical violence against Venezuela, the imperial actors
driving it, and solidaric resistance rooted in the Bolivarian Revolution.

Ojalá, o como dicen los hermanos árabes, ojalá, *in sha Allah*, *Salam
Alaikum*, ojalá, que algún día, el pueblo del estados unidos tenga un
gobierno con el que se pueda conversar. Ojalá, algún día pronto, más pronto
que tarde, ese país tenga un gobierno que respete los pueblos y los
gobiernos de América Latina. No le pedimos mas nada. Que nos respeten
porque nosotros merecemos respeto.

[*Hopefully, or as our Arab brothers say, hopefully, inshallah, Salam
Alaikum, hopefully one day, the people of the United States will have a
government that one can talk to. Hopefully, one day soon, sooner rather
than later, that country will have a government that respects the peoples
and governments of Latin America. We ask for nothing more. That they
respect us because we deserve respect.*]

— Commander Hugo Chavez in 2008 following a coup attempt[i]

The US government’s long-standing campaign to isolate and vilify
Venezuela—most recently through its designation of the country as a
“foreign terrorist organization”—is not merely an attack on the government
of Nicolás Maduro. It is an assault on the Bolivarian revolution itself,
and on the right of sovereign nations to determine their own path.

This tension is not new. In 2008, following a coup attempt, Commander Hugo
Chavez expressed a hope shared by many across the Global South. Addressing
the masses of Venezuela, he famously demanded respect from the US. These
calls for respect were not confined to US meddling in the internal affairs
of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela at the time, but it is a string of
imperialist design that aims to supplant the path forged by the Venezuelan
masses.

The recent escalation of accusations—branding Venezuela as corrupt,
authoritarian, anti-democratic, rentier, and most recently a
narco-terrorist state—is merely the latest tactic in a decades-long
campaign. Its true objective is not the country itself, but the example it
sets: the political, economic, and social model of the Bolivarian
Revolution, started by Hugo Chavez in 1999, and its resonance across Latin
America and the Global South. The ultimate goal is to undermine the
principle of sovereign self-determination, punishing any nation that dares
to forge an independent path.

As Michael Parenti observed, the fundamental "mistake" of such vilified
nations is that they provide for their people, thereby depriving imperial
powers of the ability to usurp profits at the people's expense.[ii] This is
the cardinal sin of the Bolivarian Revolution. Now, at a critical
multipolar juncture marked by diminishing US hegemony and the growing
influence of China and other anti-imperialist states in the hemisphere, the
empire's response has grown increasingly desperate. Its erratic and
barbaric drive toward militarization serves a final, fragile goal: to
stabilize its waning influence in the Western Hemisphere.

*A Socialist Bolivarian Revolution with Pan-African and Plurinational
Characteristics*

When Hugo Chávez proclaimed the Bolivarian Revolution's commitment to
socialism in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he did so at a time when
history was supposedly over. The Berlin Wall had fallen, the Soviet Union
had dissolved, and Francis Fukuyama's “end of history” thesis dominated
Western intellectual discourse. Capitalism had won; we were told. Socialism
was dead. Yet Chávez, defying this narrative, showed the world that
socialism was not remotely dead—merely dormant, waiting for its moment of
resurgence.

A careful examination of the policies implemented under Venezuela's
Bolivarian Revolution reveals several notable structural changes.
Economically, the state assumed control of key industries and financial
institutions.  In agriculture, a land reform program redistributed millions
of hectares to peasant farmers, while other initiatives aimed to increase
domestic food production. Politically, a new constitution established a
framework for participatory democracy. This system supplemented electoral
representation with direct community involvement through local communal
councils, intending to decentralize political power beyond traditional
institutions. These reforms were designed to broaden popular engagement in
governance and formally enshrine the rights of women and Indigenous peoples.
[iii]

Cuba and Venezuela launched ALBA. The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples
of Our America (ALBA) was never merely a trading bloc—it was a deliberate
counter-hegemonic revolution against the Monroe Doctrine's long shadow.
Founded in 2004 by Venezuela and Cuba, ALBA proposed a unique model of
integration based on solidarity rather than surplus extraction. Unlike
US-dominated free trade agreements that demanded market surrender, ALBA
operated on principles of non-reciprocal exchange: poorer members received
oil and investment without matching returns, while wealthier members
contributed according to capacity. The Sucre currency, launched in 2009,
allowed member states to trade without the dollar, insulating them from
Washington's financial weaponry. Petrocaribe, embedded within ALBA,
delivered oil to Caribbean nations on concessional terms—often with 25-year
financing at 1% interest—funding everything from Jamaican hospitals to
Dominican schools. But ALBA's revolution was also social: it financed
literacy missions that made Bolivia illiteracy-free, funded Operation
Miracle that restored vision to millions across the Caribbean basin, and
created the International School of Medicine in Havana that trained doctors
from across the region.[iv] This was Chávez's specific brand of
revolution—anti-imperialist socialism that recognized Caribbean and South
American liberation as interdependent, creating not a federation of states
but a network of survival outside the empire's chokehold.

Deriving its political consciousness from the weight of Simon Bolivar, the
Bolivarian revolution’s anti-racist and internationalist character is
rooted in a profound historical connection often erased from Western
narratives. Simón Bolívar, the liberator of South America, found himself
defeated and exiled in 1815, his dreams of continental liberation seemingly
shattered. It was Haiti, the first free Black republic in the Americas,
that saved both Bolívar and the liberation project. Haiti provided Bolívar
with weapons, ships, and soldiers on one condition: that he abolish slavery
in all liberated territories. This historical alliance between the Haitian
Revolution and the South American independence struggle represents one of
the most powerful examples of intercontinental solidarity in human history.

The modern Bolivarian Revolution has resurrected this sacred alliance,
transforming it from historical memory into contemporary practice.
Venezuela's declaration of May 10th as Afro-Venezuelan Day every year
stands as a testament to this resurrection. This observance is not merely
symbolic—it represents the revolution's recognition that the liberation of
Venezuela's African-descended population is inseparable from the broader
socialist project. Just as Haiti demanded the abolition of slavery as the
condition for liberation, the Bolivarian Revolution recognizes that true
sovereignty requires the complete liberation of its Afro-Venezuelan masses.

Going beyond methodological nationalism where a revolution is to be
confined to the nation and absent of the internationalist dimension, the
Bolivarian Revolution extended its support to the African continent by forging
a profound alliance with Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, rewarding Qaddafi with the
Simon Bolivar award for championing continental liberation, as Venezuela
also hosted the Africa-South America summit in 2009. Chavez famously stated:

*Africa should never again allow countries to come from across the seas to
impose certain political, economic, and social systems. Africa should be of
the Africans, and only by way of unity will Africa be free and great.**[v]*

Understanding the impending imperialist wars on the Global South, the
Africa-South America summit announced the plans for the creation of a Southern
equivalent to NATO, namely the South Atlantic Treaty Organization, to be
launched by 2011.[vi] This was undermined by NATO, which launched a
catastrophic bombing campaign on Libya in 2011, thus suppressing this
geopolitical development. Further Venezuelan support for Africa was evident by
its attendance at the 2024 summit of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in
Niger. And most significantly, in its sustaining of Cuba, one of Africa's
greatest allies. Venezuela’s lifeline to Cuba (which has been blockaded for
60 years) represents indirect solidarity with Africa. Cuba has provided
more assistance to Africa than any nation—medical brigades, educators,
soldiers who fought apartheid in Angola, and education for thousands of
African students. Supporting Venezuela, which supports Cuba, means
supporting Africa's most consistent champion. As much as the empire
attempts to weaken the link between Venezuela and Cuba, Pan-Africanists
should understand that any attack on Venezuela is an attack on Cuba, its
revolution, and the massive contributions to humanity, especially in Africa.
[vii]

*Maximum Pressure: Sanctions, Fascism, and Imperialist Aggression*

As we witness the unfolding attacks by the US in the Caribbean, which have
killed 99 civilians as of the time of writing, these attacks and blockade
on Venezuela did not just start under Trump’s regime. They have been
instigated ever since the Bolivarian revolutionary process began. And this
war is not a Trumpian thing, but rather a bipartisan war on Venezuela’s
revolution that was exacerbated by Barack Obama.

*A Crime Against Humanity: Sanctions and Coercive Economic Measures*

In 2015, the Obama White House released an Executive Order[viii] declaring
Venezuela an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and
foreign policy of the United States." This declaration laid the groundwork
for a campaign of economic warfare unprecedented in its scope and cruelty.
The United Nations Human Rights Rapporteur found that by 2020 more than
100,000 Venezuelans have been killed by US-led sanctions (in 2018 alone, 40,000
were killed by the sanctions). The sanctions don’t just target the
leadership of the country, but the state’s ability to finance and provide
social services to the masses. Ultimately, the sanctions targeted the
access to medicine, where many of the deaths could have been avoided had
there been no sanctions.[ix]

The sanctions also strangled the oil industry. Due to the historical
developments of the country, Venezuela’s oil infrastructure was built by
American engineers and equipment, leaving the country dependent on the
technology of the US. The former leaders of Venezuela did not question such
dependency because of their proximate relationship with the empire.
However, after the Bolivarian revolution took place and the sanctions were
in place, the country’s ability to extract, store, and refine oil has been
undermined due to that historic dependency. This has created a necessary
alliance between Iran, China and Venezuela, where Iran aids in the
oil-for-condensate swaps, and Chinareplacing the US as Venezuela’s biggest
oil consumer.[x] This shows how prolonged sanctions can create new
commercial opportunities, turning abundance of sanctioned goods into a
survival tool and economic surplus.[xi]

*Fascism, Right-Wing Extremism and Endless Coups *

The right-wing opposition leader, María Corina Machado, recently fled
Venezuela on a boat. As she arrived in Curaçao, a Dutch colony, she
travelled on a private jet to the US and then to Oslo (Norway) to be
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Machado, who is a supporter of the barbaric
strikes on the boats in the Caribbean, was smuggled thanks to US veteran’s
Florida-based Grey Bull Rescue Foundation.[xii] During her journey, she
hoped that her own boat would not get targeted by the US forces in the
Caribbean. Prior to her journey to Oslo, at the America Business Forum, she
reiterated many of the talking points of her predecessors, like Guaidó,
that Venezuela is being ruled by thugs and that if she is instated, she
would:

“We will open Venezuela for foreign investment; a $1.7 trillion
opportunity, not only in oil and gas… but also in mining, in gold, in
infrastructure, power. … Tourism Venezuela has 2800km of pristine Caribbean
coastline ready to be developed… We will bring rule of law. We will open
markets. We will have security for foreign investment, and a transparent,
massive privatization program that is waiting for you.” She also joined
Donald Trump Jr.'s podcast, *Triggered*, where she said, “We are going to
privatize all our industry”, stressing that US companies “are going to make
a lot of money”.[xiii]

Notwithstanding her paradoxical Orwellian twist of being awarded Nobel
Peace Prize while blessing the airstrikes on civilians (in some cases,
survivors were also bombed), Wikileaks filed a lawsuit[xiv] against the
Nobel Foundation for awarding Machado the award, since it contradicts the
prize’s diktats and that Machado saw the encirclement of Venezuela and the
bombing campaign as an “Act of love”.[xv] She also is a supporter of
international Zionism and spoke in favor of Netanyahu and the genocide in
Palestine.[xvi] But what kind of Venezuelans support such barbarism
camouflaged in the figure of Machado?

Since the earlier coup attempts, right-wing factions in Venezuela have been
funded by the US. While the Organization of American States has been at the
forefront of delegitimizing any electoral process in the country without
providing any evidence of electoral errors, the electoral process in the
country has been mired with constant foreign intervention.[xvii] The
election cycle often followed with racial violence and criminal activities
against state authorities.

As in the United States, Venezuela's history is rooted in the enslavement
of Africans and the genocide of Indigenous peoples. The ramifications of
these historical crimes persist today, with a light-skinned elite
inhabiting upper-middle-class areas while darker-skinned Venezuelans live
in poor neighborhoods throughout the country. This racial hierarchy is
central to understanding the opposition's violence. Supporters of the
Bolivarian Revolution, given the contributions of the revolution to the
Afro-Venezuelan population, many of the supporters are also Black. They are
routinely depicted in opposition media and discourse as uncivilized,
uneducated, and inherently violent, with more racist ones portraying them
as monkeys, violent, docile and farewell exploiters.[xviii]

Just like in Libya in 2011, with the public lynching of Hesham Alshushan
after being tortured alive, while mainstream media claimed that he was an
“African mercenary”,[xix] anti-Black violence erupts in Venezuela’s major
right-wing hubs, namely rich neighborhoods inhabited by light-skinned
Venezuelans. The case of Orlando Figuera is much like Alshushan. During the
2017 electoral violence, opposition forces erected what is called Guarimbas
[xx] — barricades and roadblocks. They also strung barbed wire so
motorcyclists would get beheaded. When Figuera was in the vicinity of these
roadblocks, he was stabbed six times by opposition fascists. The mobs then
threw gasoline and set him on fire. Figuera suffered first and
second-degree burns on 54 per cent of his body. His crime was being Black
and a supporter of the Bolivarian revolution.[xxi] In the recent 2024
elections, similar electoral violence took place, targeting particularly
women (Cirila Isabel Gil and Mayauris Silva Vielma) who were brutally
assassinated for their grassroots organizing in support of the Bolivarian
revolution.[xxii] Yet, this is the opposition that the USAID (United Stated
Agency for International Development) and National Endowment for Democracy
(now under the auspices of the US State Department) have been funding.
[xxiii]

*Neighborly Reactionaries and the US’s Narcos*

While the US boasts about its unabashed ability to perform the barbaric
killings in the Caribbean, it only does so thanks to the succumbing
reactionary neighbors of Venezuela, notably the colonized island of Puerto
Rico and the neocolonial leaders of Trinidad & Tobago (T&T) heeding
national sovereignty to the US’s larger objectives of encircling Venezuela.
T & T declared on the 15th of December that it will allow the US military
to use its airports for logistical activities in the coming weeks.[xxiv]
Clearly, T&T is collaborating with the US in transforming the Caribbean
from a Zone of Peace to a hub of imperialist belligerence, by buying in and
regurgitating the talking points of the empire. T&T’s Prime Minister,
Persad-Bissessar stated, “I clearly said that the new radar system assists
with the detection of Venezuelan crude oil sanction-busting activities and
traffickers who have been conducting deliveries of narcotics, firearms,
ammunition and migrants into our country from Venezuela”.[xxv]

For some years, Latin America has enjoyed what’s been termed the Pink Tide,
where leftist governments were consecutively being elected and potentially
forging continental unity. However, the reactionary right has been gaining
strides in recent years. From the election of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador,
who is transforming his state into a crypto dystopia and massive carceral
system, to the election of the anarcho-capitalist Javier Milei in
Argentina, and most recently José Antonio Kast’s triumph (a Pinochetist) in
Chile’s elections.[xxvi] These seismic changes are pro-market, pro-US-led
imperialism, and with the expansion of their strongholds, they will be
crucial in proliferating the US’ larger objectives of fighting socialism
and anti-imperialism in South America.

Take the case of the justification of the current escalation of violence in
the Caribbean basin. We are told that Venezuela is largely responsible for
the narcotics entering the US, especially Fentanyl, which has been declared
by the Trump regime as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.[xxvii] However, if one
reads behind the fog of headlines, US intelligence “has assessed that
little to none of the fentanyl trafficked to the United States is being
produced in Venezuela”, which is also backed by Senator Rand Paul, who
similarly noted that “zero fentanyl is produced in Venezuela.”[xxviii]
Meanwhile,
just recently, the *Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project* has
published[xxix] that one of the US’s allies in South America is actually
the one that smuggles narcotics, not only to the US but also to the
Balkans. The US-backed Ecuadorian president, Daniel Noboa, who runs the
banana business in the country under the Noboa Trading Co., was implicated
in major cocaine shipments from Ecuador to another US ally, Panama, which
then transferred it to Croatia’s ports (535 kg, street value of 26 million
Euros). But given the hypocrisy of the US, Noboa’s complicity is completely
ignored.

Ultimately, the US is likely to back Noboa, just like it did recently with
the former right-wing narco-dictator Honduran president, Juan Orlando
Hernández. Hernández was extradited to the US in 2022 and eventually
sentenced to 45 years in prison. But the US President Donald Trump gave
“full and complete pardon” to Hernández, “who has been, according to many
people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly”.[xxx] The
irony is that convicted right-wing narco dictators are pardoned, while
innocent Venezuelans and Caribbean people are punished by drawn up claims
of their narco-terrorism. Arguably, the "war on drugs" serves as a pretext
for US military presence and intervention throughout the region, while
actual drug traffickers operate with impunity in countries aligned with
Washington.

*Conclusion: Warmongering of the Mainstream Media vs **Peace of the Masses*

One should not neglect the role of mainstream media, both centrist and
right wing, in legitimizing the geopolitical violence being unleashed on
the Caribbean people. The former furtively wants a regime change, while the
latter voyeuristically enjoys the streamed violence unleashed on civilians
in the Caribbean Sea. Outlets like *New York Times *and *CNN* constantly
criticize Donald Trump just because he represents the erratic opposition,
but they share with him the larger objectives of the US, and that is to put
their hands on the world’s largest oil reserves, and this is solely done by
maximum pressure that leads to regime change. This was also evident in the
US House’s vote in granting the Administration the power to continue the
attacks in the Western Hemisphere, bringing the two parties together.[xxxi]

As the US increases  its warmongering rhetoric, the Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth of the Department of War told attendees of the Ronald Reagan
Foundation event on 6 December, “We are asking American taxpayers to fund
the world's greatest military, we're asking mothers and fathers across
America to trust us with their most precious resource, their sons and
daughters, and we will honor their trust and their sacrifice.”[xxxii] But
this is being met with anti-war protests.[xxxiii] As the US intensified its
attacks and plans to seize Venezuelan oil tankers, mass protests erupted in
60 locations across the US demanding that the  voice of peace triumphs over
the trivialization of warmongering. These protests saw anti-war veterans,
students, elders, and people from different walks of life protest the war
on Venezuela.

If the US thinks that invading Venezuela will be easy, they should be aware
that Venezuela is not like Libya or Iraq. One aspect of the revolution that
those who don’t follow the revolutionary process in Venezuela will not
understand is how the revolutionary spirit and zeitgeist is interpellated
by the masses. They benefited from the revolution, and they aspire to
defend it. The Constitution, in which street parliaments are seen in major
and smaller cities, uplifts the masses and makes them controllers of their
own fates. Something that Libya’s popular democracy aspired to achieve, but
the political project was undermined by internal and external factors.
[xxxiv] Venezuela is different. Recently, as President Maduro insisted on
peace, his political and military leadership began preparing for war. This
began in October, with many civilian cadres graduating from the program *The
Tactical Method of Revolutionary Resistance (Método Táctico de Resistencia
Revolucionaria, MTRR). *The training has been diffused among unions,
peasants, and many others, who are all prepared for urban and guerrilla
warfare.

And as the US has experienced with a people’s war, be it in Vietnam or
through its support to the counter-revolutionary forces in Cuba, the
renowned historian Vijay Prashad provided five hypothetical scenarios for
the US in Venezuela:

   1.

   The Brother Sam Option: Unlike the imposing of a figure like Brazil’s
   Castelo Branco, Venezuela’s army has political education in the military
   academies, and people close to the leadership are loyal (including Maduro’s
   pilot who was bribed to kidnap Maduro to the US, but the pilot refused).
   [xxxv]
   2.

   The Panama Option: Sending special troops and installing US-backed
   politicians. Yet, Venezuela’s military is far stronger than Panama and
   the population is much larger.
   3.

   The Iraq Option: Shock and Awe is limited. The critical flaw in this
   plan is the profound depth of Bolivarian leadership. Its defense is
   anchored in the working-class barrios and a military prepared for
   protracted struggle, ensuring it would not crumble as Iraq's did.
   4.

   The Gulf of Tonkin: The Venezuelan authorities are aware of false flag
   operations and warned that they will not fall prey to provocations.
   5.

   The Qasem Suleimani Option: Assassination like how the US killed Qasem
   Suleimani (Iran’s head of Quds Force) is shortsighted. The Bolivarian
   revolution continues despite the death of Hugo Chavez thirteen years ago.
   [xxxvi]

While the masses in the US and Venezuela hope that none of these scenarios
unfold, progressive and peace-loving organizations in the reactionary
neighboring countries, in Venezuela, and in the US must continue to mobilize
for peace.

*Essam Abdelrasul Bubaker Elkorghli* is a Libyan doctoral researcher at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, researching imperialism,
ideology and education with a primary focus on Libya. He serves on the
International Advisory Board of Pambazuka News, assistant editor to the
Middle East Critique Journal, and member of the Global Pan-African
Movement. He writes frequently for the Black Agenda Report.

*Endnotes*

[viii] https://o
bamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/03/09/fact-sheet-venezuela-executive-order

[xi] Arslanian, Ferdinand. 2025. “US Sanctions and Cooperation among
Targets: The Case of Cooperation between Iran and Venezuela.” *Middle East
Critique* 34 (4): 703–24. doi:10.1080/19436149.2025.2520645.

[xvii] Vijay Prashad. 2020. *Washington Bullets*. Monthly Review

[xx] Right-wing opposition views the term as pejorative

[xxi] Justin Podur & Joe Emersberger. 2020. *Extraordinary Threat: The US
Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela. *Monthly
Review.

[xxxiv] Matteo Capasso. 2023. *Everyday Politics in the Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya. *Syracuse University Press.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20251219/a3b61c50/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 2606496 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20251219/a3b61c50/attachment-0001.png>