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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/30/how-venezuela-has-held-back-covid-19-in-spite-of-the-u-s-sanctions-stranglehold-on-its-economy/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/30/how-venezuela-has-held-back-covid-19-in-spite-of-the-u-s-sanctions-stranglehold-on-its-economy/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">How Venezuela Has Held Back COVID-19 in
Spite of the U.S. Sanctions Stranglehold on Its Economy</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">by Vijay Prashad - October
30, 2020<br>
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<p>Not for one minute during this pandemic has the United
States stopped trying to overthrow the government of
Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. A seam of cruelty runs
through U.S. policy, which by its sanctions regime
prevents Venezuela from open trade of its oil to import
key medical equipment to help break the chain of the
virus and heal those infected by it.</p>
<p>Billions of dollars of Venezuelan government money have
been seized by banks in the North Atlantic world, money
which President Maduro says is needed to fight COVID-19;
even though Maduro’s government says that the money held
by the Bank of England can be turned over to the United
Nations to buy goods for Venezuela, the government of
the UK refuses to part with the funds.</p>
<p>Despite this, Venezuela’s people have been able to hold
down the rate of infection, and its medical workers have
been able to heal large numbers of those who have been
infected with COVID-19. Former Venezuelan Ambassador to
Mexico María Lourdes Urbaneja Durant was the second
health minister in the government of former President
Hugo Chávez. She is trained in the fields of social
medicine and public health, training which made her a
natural leader in the Bolivarian Revolution’s attempt to
shift the foundation of medical care from the private to
the public sector. In mid-October, I spoke to Ambassador
Urbaneja, who left her embassy post in Mexico last year
to return to Venezuela, where she has been weathering
the storm of this pandemic.</p>
<p>Venezuela, she told me, has been able to face the
challenge of the pandemic because of the “participation
of the people” in every aspect of the fight against
COVID-19. Popular participation is, she said, “a pillar
of the Bolivarian Revolution,” and it can be glimpsed in
the way people’s organizations are helping with testing
and contact tracing, as well as in maintaining the basic
functions of daily life. The government has developed
the patria.org digital platform, where 18 million
Venezuelans (out of the population of 28 million) have
participated in surveys on the impact of the virus and
on their needs in these difficult times; this process
has allowed the government to target its resources
toward the most affected communities. Venezuela has
benefitted from material support from China, Cuba,
Russia, and Turkey, as well as from the Pan American
Health Organization and the World Health Organization.</p>
<p><b>Social Medicine</b></p>
<p>Since 1999, when Chávez became president, the
Bolivarian Revolution has struggled to create a robust
public health sector. Ambassador Urbaneja joined the
health ministry as director of international cooperation
under Dr. Gilberto Rodríguez Ochoa. Venezuela’s medical
sector had been assaulted by the structural adjustment
policies of the International Monetary Fund, with the
privatization of health delivery defining the industry.
As Dr. Rodríguez Ochoa attempted to strengthen the
public health institutions, the pro-privatization
doctors’ unions in both public and private hospitals
resisted the reforms; but the government was adamant
that the country needed a robust public health system.</p>
<p>Ambassador Urbaneja followed Dr. Rodríguez Ochoa as the
health minister. A veteran of the Revolutionary Left
Movement in Venezuela, Ambassador Urbaneja had studied
at the Institute of Neurosurgery and Brain Research in
Chile with Professor Alfonso Asenjo Gómez from 1970 to
1973, during the tenure of the Popular Unity government
of President Salvador Allende. During the coup against
Allende, she was arrested, freed by a comrade as she was
being taken to the Estadio Chile (now the Víctor Jara
Stadium), and taken on a humanitarian aid plane back to
Venezuela. She then trained as an epidemiologist at the
National School of Public Health (<a
href="https://portal.fiocruz.br/en">FIOCRUZ</a>) in
Brazil, where she had a front-row seat as Brazil created
its Unified Health System (SUS).</p>
<p>Ambassador Urbaneja’s commitment to social medicine led
her into the Latin American Association of Social
Medicine (<a href="https://bit.ly/3e5Swaj">ALAMES</a>),
which she headed, and whose insights about the need for
health care delivery where people live defined her
approach. The creation of Misión Barrio Adentro in 2003
led to the construction of thousands of medical clinics
across Venezuela. This followed from the Venezuelan
Constitution of 1999, which <a
href="https://venezuela.justia.com/federales/constitucion-de-la-republica-bolivariana-de-venezuela/titulo-iii/capitulo-v/#articulo-83">enshrined</a>
the ALAMES principles, such as to create a decentralized
and participatory health care system with community
control over the policies of the system. Privatization
of the system was prohibited by the constitution. This
was the system that was created by the process in which
Ambassador Urbaneja participated. The structure
developed then continues to play a vital role—despite
the shortages—to reach people in the pandemic.</p>
<p><b>Resilience</b></p>
<p>After she left the Ministry of Health and Social
Development in September 2003, Ambassador Urbaneja was
deputed to be Venezuela’s ambassador to Uruguay
(2004-2006), Chile (2006-2012), Ecuador (2012-2015),
Brazil (2015-2016), and then Mexico (2016-2019). Her
tenure as ambassador began with the election of the
Frente Amplio government in Uruguay and ended with the
election of the Morena party in Mexico: a long wave
through Latin America’s pink tide. During this period,
Ambassador Urbaneja participated in the construction of
the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), which was
to promote the sovereignty of the region. In a crisis,
such as the pandemic, this platform could have brought
the countries of the region together; but Unasur has
been eroded by the rise to power of the governments of
the oligarchy.</p>
<p>When Ambassador Urbaneja reminiscences about her time
as a student in Chile—which just voted to rewrite its
dictatorship-era constitution—she remembers a slogan—<i>I’m
hungry and what about it! I’m still from the PU</i>.
The PU is the Popular Unity government, which despite
the challenges imposed on it by the United States still
held the faith of the people. Much the same spirit
governs Venezuela, she says; despite the pressure from
the United States, and its allies, the people of
Venezuela remain committed to the democratic project set
in motion by the election victory of Hugo Chávez in
1998.</p>
<p><em>This article was produced by <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/globetrotter-/h38xn6/717968501?h=KV-hVx4K7VhQv3aa4S-H-WMqmWkVJrdcwDrdj3M9zyE">Globetrotter</a>.</em></p>
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<p> <em><strong>Vijay Prashad’s</strong> most recent book
is No Free Left: The Futures of Indian Communism (New
Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2015).</em> </p>
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