Venezuela

In midst of an interesting and wide-ranging discussion on the Joe Rogan Experience, Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard said that if elected president she would drop all charges against NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

“What would you do about Julian Assange? What would you do about Edward Snowden?” Rogan asked in the latter part of the episode.

“As far as dropping the charges?” Gabbard asked.

“If you’re president of the world right now, what do you do?”

“Yeah, dropping the charges,” Gabbard replied.

Rogan noted that Sweden’s preliminary investigation of rape allegations has just been re-opened, saying the US government can’t stop that, and Gabbard said as president she’d drop the US charges leveled against Assange by the Trump administration.

(Article by Caitlin Johnson, republished with thanks from https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/05/14/gabbard-says-shed-drop-all-charges-against-assange-and-snowden/.)

“Yeah,” Gabbard said when asked to clarify if she was also saying that she’d give Edward Snowden a presidential pardon, adding, “And I think we’ve got to address why he did things the way that he did them. And you hear the same thing from Chelsea Manning, how there is not an actual channel for whistleblowers like them to bring forward information that exposes egregious abuses of our constitutional rights and liberties. Period. There was not a channel for that to happen in a real way, and that’s why they ended up taking the path that they did, and suffering the consequences.”

This came at the end of a lengthy discussion about WikiLeaks and the dangerous legal precedent that the Trump administration is setting for press freedoms by prosecuting Assange, as well as the revelations about NSA surveillance and what can be done to roll back those unchecked surveillance powers.

“What happened with [Assange’s] arrest and all the stuff that just went down I think poses a great threat to our freedom of the press and to our freedom of speech,” Gabbard said. “We look at what happened under the previous administration, under Obama. You know, they were trying to find ways to go after Assange and WikiLeaks, but ultimately they chose not to seek to extradite him or charge him, because they recognized what a slippery slope that begins when you have a government in a position to levy criminal charges and consequences against someone who’s publishing information or saying things that the government doesn’t want you to say, and sharing information the government doesn’t want you to share. And so the fact that the Trump administration has chosen to ignore that fact, to ignore how important it is that we uphold our freedoms, freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and go after him, it has a very chilling effect on both journalists and publishers. And you can look to those in traditional media and also those in new media, and also every one of us as Americans. It was a kind of a warning call, saying Look what happened to this guy. It could happen to you. It could happen to any one of us.”

Gabbard discussed Mike Pompeo’s arbitrary designation of WikiLeaks as a hostile non-state intelligence service, the fact that James Clapper lied to Congress about NSA surveillance as Director of National Intelligence yet suffered no consequences and remains a respected TV pundit, and the opaque and unaccountable nature of FISA warrants.

Some other noteworthy parts of Gabbard’s JRE appearance for people who don’t have time to watch the whole thing, with hyperlinks to the times in the video:

• Rogan gets Gabbard talking in depth about what Bashar al-Assad was actually like when she met him and what he said to her, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone bother to do before.
• The two discuss Eisenhower’s famous speech warning of the dangers of the military-industrial complex, and actually pause their dialogue to watch a good portion of it. Gabbard points out that in the original draft of the speech, Eisenhower had intended to call it the “congressional-military-industrial complex”.
• Good discussion on internet censorship and the dangers of allowing monopolistic Silicon Valley corporations to control public speech, then later discussing the possibility of breaking up these corporations or treating them as public utilities.
• Rogan asks Gabbard what she thinks happens to US presidents that causes them to fail to enact their campaign promises and capitulate to the will of the warmongering establishment, and what as president she’ll do to avoid the same fate. All presidential candidates should have to answer this question.
• Rogan asks Gabbard how she’ll stand against the billionaires for the American people without getting assassinated. All presidential candidates should have to answer this question as well.

I honestly think the entire American political system would be better off if the phoney debate stage format were completely abandoned and presidential candidates just talked one-on-one with Joe Rogan for two and a half hours instead. Cut through all the vapid posturing and the fake questions about nonsense nobody cares about and get them to go deep with a normal human being who smokes pot and curses and does sports commentary for cage fighting. Rogan asked Gabbard a bunch of questions that real people are interested in, in a format where she was encouraged to relax out of her standard politician’s posture and discuss significant ideas sincerely and spontaneously. It was a good discussion with an interesting political figure and I’m glad it’s already racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

________________________

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John Bolton wants US oil
corporations, instead of
PDVSA, which is owned
by the Venezuelan people,
to be able to extract,
export & sell Venezuela's
natural wealth (see
embedded video).

The most recent of many attempts by the United States to overthrow the government of Venezuela has also failed, but not without a terrrible cost. According to a 27 page report by economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs (pdf here) the sanctions imposed on Venezuela since 2017 and theft of billions of dollars of Venezuela's gold and bank deposits have cost the lives of 40,000 Venezuelans, yet, in spite of all these hardships, ordinary Venezuelans, including members of the armed forces, rallied to defeat the attempted coup of 30 April.

The United States government leaders have made little effort to conceal their motives for having caused this much death and suffering. Watch below, National Security adviser John Bolton (pictured above), explain to Fox News on 29 January 2019 how United States' oil corporations will soon be able to able to take over the extraction and export of Venezuelan petroleum once their actions against Venezuela achieves their goal of having their appointed 'President' Juan Guaido take over from from the elected President Nicolas Maduro.

US coup in Venezuela motivated by oil and corporate interests - Neocon John Bolton spills the beans

"We're looking at the oil assets. That's the single most important income stream to the government of Venezuela. We're looking at what to do to that. We're in conversation with major American companies now. I think we're trying to get to the same end result here."

"It'll make a big difference to the United States, economically, if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela. It'd be good for the people of Venezuela. It'd be good for the people of the United States. We both have a lot at stake here making this come out the right way."

The above confirms the worst fears of the motives of the neo-con swamp that still controls the White House's foreign policy: All their platitudes about 'freedom' and 'democracy' for Venezuela are nothing more than a cynical smokescreen to cover their plans to take from Venezuela its natural wealth and hand it across to their corporate mates.

Until these thieving, lying criminals are thrown out of office and, together with their military industrial complex mates, are made to face justice, there cannot be peace.

From CNN And Washington Post Demand That Trump Further Escalate Tensions With Russia (1/4/2019) by Caitlin Johnstone:

CNN has aired a segment (embedded below within this article)in which pundit Fareed Zakaria tells the network's audience that the US president has "been unwilling to confront Putin in any way on any issue” and asks "will Venezuela be the moment when Trump finally ends his appeasement?"

The segment is a near-verbatim reading of Zakaria's Washington Post column from a couple of days prior, so that’s two massive prongs through which this false and pernicious narrative is being driven into mainstream consciousness claiming that the Trump administration has been far too dovish toward Moscow, rather than dangerously hawkish as is actually the case.

Zakaria begins his segment by describing the Trump administration's (completely illegitimate) efforts to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, then describing Russian efforts to counter this agenda as an attempt to “taunt the United States.” He then spends the rest of the segment asking if Trump will be brave and patriotic enough to further escalate tensions against a nuclear superpower. Zakaria concludes by implying that if Trump fails to increase world-threatening nuclear tensions to effect yet another US regime change intervention in yet another oil-rich country, it will be because he is a Kremlin agent.

Article continues.

The Black Alliance for Peace joined activists from peace organizations based in the United States to embark as a delegation to Venezuela to uncover the truth. They are reporting to you on march 15, 2019, the day they were supposed to fly back to the United States. While American Airlines refuses to fly to Venezuela because of so-called danger, this delegation found the embattled country pleasant and safe.
Learn more about the U.S. intervention in Venezuela: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=https%3A%2F%2Fblackallianceforpeace.com%2Fnewsletter%2Fbapheadstovenezuela&v=SvN-8VvmLZg&event=video_description&redir_token=2iBNPSrsrcVHCMnrD6-emVCYAkt8MTU1MjgzNDU2MUAxNTUyNzQ4MTYx

At 1:00pm on Sunday 10 March originally, incorrectly the given date was 10 May - Ed) outside the State Library in Swanston Street Melbourne, supporters of investigative journalism, free speech and human rights will rally to demand that the Australian government act to free journalist Julian Assange from the arbitrary imprisonment he has faced inside the London Ecuadorian embassy since October 2012 when he sought asylum, that is more than 6 years ago.

Assange's living conditions inside the narrow confines of the Ecuadorian Embassy were already poor. They have been deliberately made worse by the new Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno. This is consistent with President Moreno's treatment of the Ecuadorian people to whom he made many promises in the election 19 February 2017, which he subsequently broke.

As described below by John Pilger in his address to the Sydney rally of last Sunday 3 March, Assange's health and even his life are now at risk. So, the need for the Australian government to act to protect one of its citizens is even more urgent.

Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy after the Swedish government requested that he be extradited to Sweden to be questioned by police over allegations that he had sexually assaulted two women. The women had initially made the allegations when he visited Sweden in August 2010, but Swedish police, who interviewed Assange closed the case and told him he could leave the country.

However the case was re-opened by a special prosecutor in November 2010. The prosecutor requested that Julian Assange be extradited from England for questioning, but failed to give him any assurance that he would not be extradited to the U.S. Assange then sought asylum in the Ecuadorian emabassy.

At this point, the Australian government could easily have acted to resolve the situation. They could have insisted that the Swedish government give Assange a guarantee against extradition to the U.S. or, failing that, expedite his return to Australia, if necessary, with an escort by members of the Australian Federal Police.

But the Australian government failed to act. In more than 8 years since then, it has either done either nothing or has acted to make Assange's circumstances worse.

Assange was granted asylum by Ecuador on 16 August 2012, but the UK government refused to allow him to leave the UK to go the Ecuador. As he has been threatened with arrest by the UK authorities for "skipping bail" should he step outside the embassy, Assange has been effectively imprisoned inside the embassy and, since February 2017 has faced additional hardships deliberately imposed upon him by the new Ecuadorian government, as described above.

On Sunday 3 March, the Socialist Equality Party, publishers of the World Socialist Web Site organised a rally in Sydney to support Julian Assange. The speech by John Pilger and the embedded video, previously published on their web site, is re-published below:

“Julian Assange will never obey Big Brother”

"Whenever I visit Julian Assange, we meet in a room he knows too well.

There is a bare table and pictures of Ecuador on the walls. There is a bookcase where the books never change. The curtains are always drawn and there is no natural light. The air is still and foetid.

This is Room 101.

Before I enter Room 101, I must surrender my passport and phone. My pockets and possessions are examined. The food I bring is inspected.

The man who guards Room 101 sits in what looks like an old-fashioned telephone box. He watches a screen, watching Julian. There are others unseen, agents of the state, watching and listening.

Cameras are everywhere in Room 101. To avoid them, Julian manoeuvres us both into a corner, side by side, flat up against the wall. This is how we catch up: whispering and writing to each other on a notepad, which he shields from the cameras. Sometimes we laugh.

I have my designated time slot. When that expires, the door in Room 101 bursts open and the guard says, “Time is up!” On New Year’s Eve, I was allowed an extra 30 minutes and the man in the phone box wished me a happy new year, but not Julian.

Of course, Room 101 is the room in George Orwell’s prophetic novel, 1984, where the thought police watched and tormented their prisoners, and worse, until people surrendered their humanity and principles and obeyed Big Brother.

Julian Assange will never obey Big Brother. His resilience and courage are astonishing, even though his physical health struggles to keep up.

Julian is a distinguished Australian who has changed the way many people think about duplicitous governments. For this, he is a political refugee subjected to what the United Nations calls “arbitrary detention.”

The UN says he has the right of free passage to freedom, but this is denied. He has the right to medical treatment without fear of arrest, but this is denied. He has the right to compensation, but this is denied.

As founder and editor of WikiLeaks, his crime has been to make sense of dark times. WikiLeaks has an impeccable record of accuracy and authenticity which no newspaper, no TV channel, no radio station, no BBC, no New York Times, no Washington Post, no Guardian can equal. Indeed, it shames them.

That explains why he is being punished.

For example: Last week, the International Court of Justice ruled that the British Government had no legal powers over the Chagos Islanders, who, in the 1960s and 70s, were expelled in secret from their homeland on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and sent into exile and poverty. Countless children died, many of them from sadness. It was an epic crime few knew about.

For almost 50 years, the British have denied the islanders’ the right to return to their homeland, which they had given to the Americans for a major military base.

In 2009, the British Foreign Office concocted a “marine reserve” around the Chagos archipelago.

This touching concern for the environment was exposed as a fraud when WikiLeaks published a secret cable from the British Government reassuring the Americans that “the former inhabitants would find it difficult, if not impossible, to pursue their claim for resettlement on the islands if the entire Chagos Archipelago were a marine reserve.”

The truth of the conspiracy clearly influenced the momentous decision of the International Court of Justice.

WikiLeaks has also revealed how the United States spies on its allies; how the CIA can watch you through your i-phone; how presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took vast sums of money from Wall Street for secret speeches that reassured the bankers that if she was elected, she would be their friend.

In 2016, WikiLeaks revealed a direct connection between Clinton and organised jihadism in the Middle East: terrorists, in other words. One email disclosed that when Clinton was US Secretary of State, she knew that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were funding Islamic State, yet she accepted huge donations for her foundation from both governments.

She then approved the world’s biggest ever arms sale to her Saudi benefactors: arms that are currently being used against the stricken people of Yemen.

That explains why he is being punished.

WikiLeaks has also published more than 800,000 secret files from Russia, including the Kremlin, telling us more about the machinations of power in that country than the specious hysterics of the “Russia-gate” pantomime in Washington.

This is real journalism—journalism of a kind now considered exotic: the antithesis of Vichy journalism, which speaks for the enemy of the people and takes its sobriquet from the Vichy government that occupied France on behalf of the Nazis.

Vichy journalism is censorship by omission, such as the untold scandal of the collusion between Australian governments and the United States to deny Julian Assange his rights as an Australian citizen and to silence him.

In 2010, Prime Minister Julia Gillard went as far as ordering the Australian Federal Police to investigate and hopefully prosecute Assange and WikiLeaks—until she was informed by the Australian Federal Police that no crime had been committed.

Last weekend, the Sydney Morning Herald published a lavish supplement promoting a celebration of “Me Too” at the Sydney Opera House on 10 March. Among the leading participants is the recently retired Minister of Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop.

Bishop has been on show in the local media lately, lauded as a loss to politics: an “icon,” someone called her, to be admired.

The elevation to celebrity feminism of one so politically primitive as Bishop tells us how much so-called identity politics have subverted an essential, objective truth: that what matters, above all, is not your gender but the class you serve.

Before she entered politics, Julie Bishop was a lawyer who served the notorious asbestos miner James Hardie, which fought claims by men and their families dying horribly with asbestosis.

Lawyer Peter Gordon recalls Bishop “rhetorically asking the court why workers should be entitled to jump court queues just because they were dying.”

Bishop says she “acted on instructions ... professionally and ethically.”

Perhaps she was merely “acting on instructions” when she flew to London and Washington last year with her ministerial chief of staff, who had indicated that the Australian Foreign Minister would raise Julian’s case and hopefully begin the diplomatic process of bringing him home.

Julian’s father had written a moving letter to the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, asking the government to intervene diplomatically to free his son. He told Turnbull that he was worried Julian might not leave the embassy alive.

Julie Bishop had every opportunity in the UK and the US to present a diplomatic solution that would bring Julian home. But this required the courage of one proud to represent a sovereign, independent state, not a vassal.

Instead, she made no attempt to contradict the British Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, when he said outrageously that Julian “faced serious charges.” What charges? There were no charges.

Australia’s Foreign Minister abandoned her duty to speak up for an Australian citizen, prosecuted with nothing, charged with nothing, guilty of nothing.

Will those feminists who fawn over this false icon at the Opera House next Sunday be reminded of her role in colluding with foreign forces to punish an Australian journalist, one whose work has revealed that rapacious militarism has smashed the lives of millions of ordinary women in many countries: in Iraq alone, the US-led invasion of that country, in which Australia participated, left 700,000 widows.

So what can be done? An Australian government that was prepared to act in response to a public campaign to rescue the refugee football player, Hakeem al-Araibi, from torture and persecution in Bahrain, is capable of bringing Julian Assange home.

The refusal by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra to honour the United Nations’ declaration that Julian is the victim of “arbitrary detention” and has a fundamental right to his freedom, is a shameful breach of the letter and spirit of international law.

Why has the Australian government made no serious attempt to free Assange? Why did Julie Bishop bow to the wishes of two foreign powers?

Why is this democracy traduced by its servile relationships, and integrated with lawless foreign power?

The persecution of Julian Assange is the conquest of us all: of our independence, our self-respect, our intellect, our compassion, our politics, our culture.

So stop scrolling. Organise. Occupy. Insist. Persist. Make a noise. Take direct action. Be brave and stay brave. Defy the thought police.

War is not peace, freedom is not slavery, ignorance is not strength. If Julian can stand up to Big Brother, so can you: so can all of us."

While the world’s attention was focused on the Venezuelan opposition, as it tried to transport US aid into Venezuela against the government’s will, a major protest took place in Caracas that was opposed to US intervention in Venezuela.

Video and commentary first sourced at https://therealnews.com/stories/massive-protest-in-support-of-the-bolivarian-revolution-largely-ignored

The crisis in Venezuela will not be solved by sanctions that “can lead to starvation”, a UN-appointed rights expert said on Thursday. Special Rapporteur Idriss Jazairy, who reports to the Human Rights Council, issued the warning against the background of widespread suffering in the South American country, linked to spiralling economic woes and deep political uncertainty. (Article first published at United Nations site 31 January 2019.)

An estimated three million people have left the oil-rich country since 2015, while supporters of self-appointed interim President Juan Guaidó, continue to demonstrate against the government of the incumbent, Nicolás Maduro, who was re-elected last May amidst allegations of electoral irregularities and a widespread opposition boycott.

“Sanctions which can lead to starvation and medical shortages are not the answer to the crisis in Venezuela,” Mr. Jazairy said in a statement, prompted by the imposition of sanctions on Venezuela’s national oil company by the United States.

Precipitating an economic and humanitarian crisis…is not a foundation for the peaceful settlement of disputes - UN independent rights expert, Idriss Jazairy

“I am especially concerned to hear reports that these sanctions are aimed at changing the government of Venezuela,” he added, while also noting his concern about reports of serious rights violations that include “the growing risk of violence and implicit threats of international violence”.

In a call for “compassion” for the people of Venezuela, Mr. Jazairy, who is UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures, insisted that “precipitating an economic and humanitarian crisis…is not a foundation for the peaceful settlement of disputes”.

Such “coercion” by outside powers “is in violation of all norms of international law”, the rights expert maintained, before calling on the international community to engage in constructive dialogue with Venezuela to find solutions to problems that include hyperinflation and the fall in oil prices.

In a recent statement issued by the office of António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General urged parties to “lower tensions” in Venezuela and called for all relevant actors to commit to inclusive and credible political dialogue.

Concerned by reports of casualties during demonstrations and unrest in and around the capital, Caracas, the UN chief also called for a transparent and independent investigation of those incidents.

Last Saturday, the UN Security Council met to discuss the situation in the country, in which the UN’s top political official said that dialogue and cooperation were vital to ending the crisis.

The meeting was requested late last week by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo following days of political unrest and deadly clashes in Venezuela between protesters and security forces.

The UN human rights office OHCHR reported on Tuesday, that at least 40 had been killed in the unrest, including 26 shot by pro-Government forces. More than 850 were detained following demonstrations in the past week, including 77 children.  

“We must try to help bring about a political solution that will allow the country’s citizens to enjoy peace, prosperity and all their human rights,” Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN Under Secretary-General of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, urged the 15-member body.

Nearly all 30 million Venezuelans are affected by hyperinflation and a collapse of real salaries, Ms. DiCarlo warned, citing shortages of food, medicine and basic supplies, along with a deterioration of health and education services and basic infrastructure such as water and electricity.

Mr. Jazairy, urged all countries to avoid applying sanctions unless approved by the Security Council, as required by the UN Charter.

Guaido supporters attempt to intimidate Venezuelan Army soldiers who are defending their country's border

The attempt by supporters of American puppet 'President' Guaido to take across the Venezuelan border truckloads of supposed humanitarian aid - and, who knows what else? - has failed, according to a report before 9:30pm Venezuelan time (UTC-8).

The soldiers of the Venezuelan Army stood firm and prevented the truck and its accompanying Guado supporters from crossing the bridge (except for three who had commandeered an armoured car and had recklessly driven that armoured car into a crowd of soldiers and civilians who were defending the border, injuring at least one female civilian).

Successful delivery of 'humanitarian aid' would have set a dangerous precedent

Whether or not those initial trucks contained weapons, it would have set a dangerous precedent to have allowed them to freely travel into territories controlled by the Venezuelan opposition. Had the first trucks crossed the border, this would have almost certainly led to many more trucks and trucks containing weapons concealed beneath supposed humanitarian aid. Elliott Abrams, (United States Special Representative for Venezuela) currently advising the United States attempted coup, previously served prison time for smuggling weapons in humanitarian aid vehicles to Nicaragua in 1986. A repetition of such weapons-smuggling into Venezuela in the coming days would make a bloody civil war inevitable.

Guaido supporters attempt to intimidate Venezuelan soldiers

Following this failed attempt, a threatening crowd of Guaido supporters stood against the line of Venezuelan soldiers variously shouting at them, trying to persuade them to desert or, failing that, aiming to intimidate them by repeatedly filming or photographing them at close range. (As shown in the above illustration, snapped from the live Ruptly video stream). The clear implication was that those soldiers, who defended the border on that day, would be identified and subsequently made to suffer repercussions, should they and their U.S. government controllers ever succeed in overthrowing President Maduro.

See also : Venezuela crisis: Border clashes, ‘masked thugs’, torched ‘aid’ & fake Red Cross (24/2/19 | RT, ‘PR stunt to justify intervention in Venezuela’: Experts slam US regime change ‘gangsterism’ (23/2/19 | RT, Australian Venezuela Solidarity Network Facebook page

UPDATED: On 20 February 2019, I attended the meeting with the Venezuela Consul at Trades Hall. Every seat was occupied and it was difficult to move around the hall due to the crowd, which included members of the local Venezuelan and spanish-speaking communities.

At a packed meeting at the Melbourne Trades Hall, on the night of Wednesday 20 February, Victorians heard the Venezuelan consul, Daniel Gasparini, refute the corporate media narrative against the government of Nicolas Maduro, the elected President of Venezuela.

This corporate narrative includes claims that President Nicolas Maduro is a corrupt and incompetent, that his socialist policies have brought on economic ruin and that the overwhelming majority of Venezuelan people are opposed to him. Nicolas Maduro was only able to win the last Presidential election it had been rigged in his favour.

Against all international law, Juan Guiado, whom 85% of Venezuelans had never heard of, suddenly announced on 23 January that he was now interim President of Venezuela and that Nicolas Maduro was no longer the elected President. He was clearly taking his orders from U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, with whom he had spoken the previous day.

Regarding the claim that the election was rigged, Daniel Gasparini explained to the meeting that the Presidential election had been overseen by a number of international monitors who all verified that the elections were conducted fairly. Nicolas Maduro won 5,823,728 votes (or 68%) against 1,820,552 votes (21%) for Henri Falcon of the Progressive Advance Party and 925,042 votes (11%) for the independent candidate Javier Bertucci. [1]

Daniel Gasparini also explained how, as with the United States coup in Chile of 11 September 1973, the U.S. is now doing its utmost, principally with sanctions, to make life very hard for ordinary Venezuelans. In doing so, it hopes that many will blame the government or else see the overthrow of that government as the only way to end the hardship and social disruption. Clearly the United States has failed in this goal. Against Juan Guaido's explicit and repeated requests for an invasion by the United States, 86% of Venezuelans oppose this invasion.

In spite of all the bullying and threats, most recently by United States President Trump against Venezuelan soldiers they remain resolved to defend their national borders, even against U.S. operated trucks attempting to carry supposed humanitarian aid - with who knows what else - across the border.

Donald Trump's hopes to remove from power a government resolved to serve the people of Venezuela, rather than U.S. corporate interests, without direct military intervention, has clearly failed. Direct military invasion would be necessary to remove Maduro and would result in world wide condemnation of the United States and its vassals, including Australian Prime Minister Morrison.

Should it ever come to that, then we must do what we can to make this voice of just protest as loud as possible.
Certainly at the Federal elections, all candidates seeking our vote, Liberal, Labor, Greens, Independents, should be held to account for their support for United States aggression or their silence.

Footnote(s)

[1] The Presidential election was conducted amidst a vicious campaign against that election by hostile foreign powers and their local agents, which includes much of the Venezuelan corporate newsmedia. That campaign tried to persuade Venezuelans to boycott the election. They urged this boycott in spite of the fact that the election was being properly overseen by reputable international observers. Clearly Guaido and others who wanted to flog off Venezuela's PDVSA oil company to foreign corporations, knew they could not possibly win at the ballot box, so they chose a boycott as their the next best option. Given that only 46.01% of Venezuelans voted in that election they were somewhat successful in this.

Trump made naked threats to invade Venezuela made on 19 February, in a speech truly evocative of Hitlers'. Instead of threatening Jews, Trump is threatening people he perceives as 'communists'. The unquestioning crowds, the dumbed-down US elite cheering war on, show the result of an American education system and press entirely given over to propaganda. US Congress, mostly robots under control by Neocon money, has to authorise any military action - but will they even try to stop it?

Trump's naked threat to Venezuelan soldiers

"You can choose to accept President Guaido's generous offer of amnesty to live your life in peace with your families and your countrymen or you can choose the second path, continuing to support Maduro.

If you choose this path, you will find no safe harbour, no easy exit, and no way out. You will lose everything."

Trump's naked threats to invade Venezuela made on 19 February, in a speech truly evocative of Hitlers'. Instead of threatening Jews, Trump is threatening people he perceives as 'communists'. The unquestioning crowds, the dumbed-down US elite cheering war on, show the result of an American education system and press entirely given over to propaganda.

Where is Antifa now that America and Venezuela face true Facism

Antifa - that joke - in the face of real fascism - has nothing to say. It is as if they are not even aware of what is going on.

Perfidious Democrats

The Democrats are going along with this, with the courageous exception of Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Tulsi Gabbard.

Under US law, however, Congress must approve foreign military action and the president doesn’t have the power to act on his own. But Congress is weak on Venezuela's self-determination. Basically they don't criticise the propaganda: “I appreciate the need to squeeze Maduro,” said Eliot Engel (the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee). “But the White House must think through the potential repercussions that these sanctions could have on the Venezuelan people if Maduro does not leave office in the coming weeks.” (Source)

Himself threatened by a neocon coup, Trump illegally, against international law, works ever more feverishly for the Neocon coup in Venezuela. What Trump and the EU are all going along with is totally illegal. They are supporting the crudest violation of international law and morality.

The main lies and how the mass media promotes them

Spirit of Eureka condemns the Morrison government and the ALP Opposition’s compliant endorsement of the US intervention and preparations for a “regime change” in sovereign Venezuela. This points to the urgent need for an independent Australian foreign policy that upholds and promotes the sovereignty and independence of countries to determine their own destiny.

Less than four days after the US announced the removal of its diplomatic recognition of the elected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and declared its support for Juan Guaido, a self-proclaimed and little-known Opposition politician as the new President of Venezuela, the Morrison government dutifully echoed US policy.
The toadying Australian government condemned the democratically elected government of President Maduro and called for his replacement by the un-elected and largely unknown Guaido.

The shameful fawning by the Australian government to US imperialist plotting in the affairs of sovereign Venezuela was mirrored in an ALP public statement signed by Bill Shorten, Leader of the Opposition and Penny Wong, Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister. The ALP statement recognises the un-elected Juan Guaido as the new President of Venezuela, withdrawing diplomatic recognition of Maduro.

In effect the two main parliamentary parties obediently threw their support behind the US intervention and preparations for an illegal and undemocratic regime change.

This is in spite of the UN National Assembly confirming its continuing recognition of Maduro as the democratically elected President of Venezuela.

There is ample evidence indicating US imperialism has been planning a “regime change” in sovereign Venezuela since Venezuela’s oil industry was nationalised in the early 2000s. Many years of severe economic sanctions imposed by the US aimed at crippling the Venezuelan economy have taken their toll on the lives and living conditions of the people, particularly the poor.

On January 24, 2019, John Bolton, US National Security Advisor told Fox Business “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

In their wholehearted endorsement of US intervention in Venezuela both the Morrison government and the ALP Opposition are acting as puppet agents of US imperialism andits oil monopolies.

The recent oil sanctions imposed on Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm by the US aim to force Maduro to hand over power to US backed Guaido.

Trump and Pence have repeatedly stated that “all options are on the table”, refusing to rule out military intervention, whilst the figure of 5,000 US troops to Columbia is being canvassed by Mike Pence and the US military.

Political and economic interventions by the US in Venezuela have deepened the hardships for people in that country creating political and economic instability and thus the context for direct foreign military intervention by the US to impose its “regime change”. It’s a very dangerous situation for the people of Venezuela and the region that can lead to a prolonged bloody civil war in Venezuela and in the region.

The Australian government’s and the Opposition’s obedience and support for the US political and economic interventions and preparations for an illegal “regime change”, implicate Australia in any future violence, civil war and suffering in Venezuela.

Spirit of Eureka has fervently opposed US imperialist invasions, destruction and suffering imposed on the people of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and other countries subjected to its foreign interventions, coups and “regime changes”. We do not wish this to be repeated and imposed on the people of Venezuela.

We in Australia have also had a taste of US engineered semi-coup in the 1975 removal of a progressive Whitlam government which was taking tentative steps towards independence from US and Britain.

We call on the Australian government and the Labor Opposition to:

‐ reverse their support for the un-elected puppet Guaido as the new President of Venezuela
‐ recognise the Maduro government as the legitimately elected government of Venezuela with Nicolas Maduro as its legitimate President
‐ condemn US interference and intervention in Venezuela’s sovereignty
‐ call for an end to US economic sanctions
‐ support self-determination of the Venezuelan people without any foreign interference

We call for an independent and peaceful Australian foreign policy upholding the sovereignty, independence and self-determination of all people and countries.

Website: www.spiritofeureka.org

The next Meeting of IPAN in Victoria will be on 20 February, Level 4 Trades Hall at 5.30 pm. This meeting will commence earlier due to a small overlap with a meeting on Venezuela on the same night, at 7pm in the Trades Hall, at which the Venezuelan Consul will be speaking. IPAN meeting will be at 5.30pm – 7pm to enable people interested to learn more about the situation in Venezuela to attend.
Just when you thought all your co-citizens were asleep at the wheel on Australian Government support for America's latest regime change initiative, the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) has issued a response. IPAN reminds us that this is not our decision, nor the USA's to make, but is a decision for the Venezuelan people. IPAN has made several recommendations, including that Australian needs to develop an independent foreign policy.

IPAN made the immediate points that:

 Venezuelans have the right to decide who governs them
 US sanctions on Venezuela are not endorsed by the UN
 UN diplomacy needed immediately for non-military resolution to the crisis
 Urgent need for an independent Australian foreign policy

The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) has reported that it is deeply concerned with the Morrison government and ALP Opposition’s support for the United States call to remove the current rule of the Maduro government and the installing of the interim president Guaido in Venezuela. This is not our decision, nor the USA’s to make, but is a decision for the Venezuelan people.

“The position of the Australian government and opposition flies in the face of lessons from the recent, and not so recent, US led wars that Australia has supported and engaged in”. stated Ms Annette Brownlie, IPAN Chairperson.

What is required is an urgent diplomatic solution facilitated by the UN – not military intervention nor US sanctions that have not been endorsed by the UN.

“This situation also points to the urgent need for an independent Australian foreign policy that upholds and promotes the sovereignty and independence of our country and all other countries”, stated Ms Brownlie.

IPAN considers support for military or economic intervention would be counterproductive to resolving the crisis being experienced by the Venezuelan people.

Former UN special rapporteur to Venezuela, Alfred de Zayas, who finished his term last year has criticized the US for engaging in “economic warfare” against Venezuela which he said is hurting the economy and killing Venezuelans.

Mr de Zayas has argued that,

“The key to the solution of the crisis is dialogue and mediation… There is nothing more undemocratic than a coup d’état and nothing more corrosive to the rule of law and to international stability when foreign governments meddle in the internal affairs of other states.”

“Only the Venezuelans have a right to decide, not the United States, not the United Kingdom … We do not want a repetition of the Pinochet putsch in 1973. What is urgent is to help the Venezuelan people through international solidarity – genuine humanitarian aid and a lifting of the financial blockade so that Venezuela
can buy and sell like any other country in the world – the problems can be solved with good faith and common sense”.

Support IPAN

The next Meeting of IPAN in Victoria will be on 20 February, Level 4 Trades Hall at 5.30 pm. This meeting will commence earlier due to a small overlap with a meeting on Venezuela on the same night, at 7pm in the Trades Hall, at which the Venezuelan Consul will be speaking. IPAN meeting will be at 5.30pm – 7pm to enable people interested to learn more about the situation in Venezuela to attend.

National Conference in Darwin

The next conference of IPAN is planned for Darwin.

Venezuela’s problems are not the result of the government issuing money and using it to hire people to build infrastructure, provide essential services and expand economic development. If it were, unemployment would not be at 33 percent and climbing. Venezuela has a problem the U.S. does not, and will never have: It owes massive debts in a currency it cannot print itself, namely, U.S. dollars. When oil (its principal resource) was booming, Venezuela was able to meet its repayment schedule. But when the price of oil plummeted, the government was reduced to printing Venezuelan bolivars and selling them for U.S. dollars on international currency exchanges. As speculators drove up the price of dollars, more and more printing was required by the government, massively deflating the national currency.

It was the same problem suffered by Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe, the two classic examples of hyperinflation typically raised to silence proponents of government expansion of the money supply before Venezuela suffered the same fate. Professor Michael Hudson, an actual economic rock star who supports MMT principles, has studied the hyperinflation question extensively. He confirms that those disasters were not due to governments issuing money to stimulate the economy. Rather, he writes, “Every hyperinflation in history has been caused by foreign debt service collapsing the exchange rate. The problem almost always has resulted from wartime foreign currency strains, not domestic spending.”

Venezuela and other countries that are carrying massive debts in currencies that are not their own are not sovereign. Governments that are sovereign can and have engaged in issuing their own currencies for infrastructure and development quite successfully. I have discussed a number of contemporary and historical examples in my earlier articles, including in Japan, China, Australia and Canada.

Although Venezuela is not technically at war, it is suffering from foreign currency strains triggered by aggressive attacks by a foreign power. U.S. economic sanctions have been going on for years, causing the country at least $20 billion in losses. About $7 billion of its assets are now being held hostage by the U.S., which has waged an undeclared war against Venezuela ever since George W. Bush’s failed military coup against President Hugo Chávez in 2002. Chávez boldly announced the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a series of economic and social reforms that dramatically reduced poverty and illiteracy as well as improved health and living conditions for millions of Venezuelans. The reforms, which included nationalizing key components of the nation’s economy, made Chávez a hero to millions of people and the enemy of Venezuela’s oligarchs.

Nicolás Maduro was elected president following Chávez’s death in 2013 and vowed to continue the Bolivarian Revolution. Recently, as Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi had done before him, he defiantly announced that Venezuela would not be trading oil in U.S. dollars following sanctions imposed by President Trump.

The notorious Elliott Abrams has now been appointed as special envoy to Venezuela. Considered a war criminal by many for covering up massacres committed by U.S.-backed death squads in Central America, Abrams was among the prominent neocons closely linked to Bush’s failed Venezuelan coup in 2002. National security adviser John Bolton is another key neocon architect advocating regime change in Venezuela. At press conference on Jan. 28, he held a yellow legal pad prominently displaying the words “5,000 troops to Colombia,” a country that shares a border with Venezuela. Clearly, the neocon contingent feels it has unfinished business there.

Bolton does not even pretend that it’s all about restoring “democracy.” He blatantly said on Fox News, “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” As President Nixon said of U.S. tactics against Salvador Allende’s government in Chile, the point of sanctions and military threats is to squeeze the country economically.

Killing the Public Banking Revolution in Venezuela

It may be about more than oil, which recently hit record lows in the market. The U.S. hardly needs to invade a country to replenish its supplies. As with Libya and Iraq, another motive may be to suppress the banking revolution initiated by Venezuela’s upstart leaders.

The banking crisis of 2009–10 exposed the corruption and systemic weakness of Venezuelan banks. Some banks were engaged in questionable business practices. Others were seriously undercapitalized. Others still were apparently lending top executives large sums of money. At least one financier could not prove where he got the money to buy the banks he owned.

Rather than bailing out the culprits, as was done in the U.S., in 2009 the government nationalized seven Venezuelan banks, accounting for around 12 percent of the nation’s bank deposits. In 2010, more were taken over. Chávez’s government arrested at least 16 bankers and issued more than 40 corruption-related arrest warrants for others who had fled the country. By the end of March 2011, only 37 banks were left, down from 59 at the end of November 2009. State-owned institutions took a larger role, holding 35 percent of assets as of March 2011, while foreign institutions held just 13.2 percent of assets.

Over the howls of the media, in 2010 Chávez took the bold step of passing legislation defining the banking industry as one of “public service.” The legislation specified that 5 percent of the banks’ net profits must go toward funding community council projects, designed and implemented by communities for the benefit of communities. The Venezuelan government directed the allocation of bank credit to preferred sectors of the economy, and it increasingly became involved in private financial institutions’ operations. By law, nearly half the lending portfolios of Venezuelan banks had to be directed to particular mandated sectors of the economy, including small business and agriculture.

In a 2012 article titled “Venezuela Increases Banks’ Obligatory Social Contributions, U.S. and Europe Do Not,” Rachael Boothroyd said that the Venezuelan government was requiring the banks to give back. Housing was declared a constitutional right, and Venezuelan banks were obliged to contribute 15 percent of their yearly earnings to securing it. The government’s Great Housing Mission aimed to build 2.7 million free houses for low-income families before 2019. The goal was to create a social banking system that contributed to the development of society rather than simply siphoning off its wealth. Boothroyd wrote:

… Venezuelans are in the fortunate position of having a national government which prioritizes their life quality, wellbeing and development over the health of bankers’ and lobbyists’ pay checks. If the 2009 financial crisis demonstrated anything, it was that capitalism is quite simply incapable of regulating itself, and that is precisely where progressive governments and progressive government legislation needs to step in.

That is also where, in the U.S., the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is stepping in—and why Ocasio-Cortez’s proposals evoke howls in the media of the sort seen in Venezuela.

Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution gives Congress the power to create the nation’s money supply. Congress needs to exercise that power. The key to restoring our economic sovereignty is to reclaim the power to issue money from a commercial banking system that acknowledges no public responsibility beyond maximizing profits for its shareholders. Bank-created money is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States, including federal deposit insurance, access to the Fed’s lending window, and government bailouts when things go wrong. If we the people are backing the currency, it should be issued by the people through their representative government.

Today’s government, however, does not adequately represent the people, which is why we first need to take our government back. Thankfully, that is exactly what Ocasio-Cortez and her congressional allies are attempting to do.

1973 saw many oil producing countries become independent and nationalise their oil. Some succeeded and others, like Australia, were brought to heal. Ever since 1973, the US and Europe have been trying to reverse these nationalisations. Venezuela is a case in point.

In a gesture befitting Lewis Carol's Queen of Hearts, the United States has suddenly abandoned all pretences of lawful procedure and common sense by officially declaring that opposition leader, Juan Guaidó is the real president of Venezuela, not Nicolás Maduro Moros, who was actually elected President by Venezuelans.

To put things in perspective: Getting rid of President Maduro because the 2015 parliamentary election placed his own party in the minority would be like making President Trump step down because the Democrats are now in the majority in Congress - to paraphrase Venezuela's diplomat to Russia.[Article by Sheila Newman with James Sinnamon]

It is also baffling to see French President Macron call for Maduro to step down when his own country is convulsing with Gilets jaunes (Yellow Vest) protests, who all call for Macron to step down. Don't politicians have any sense of irony?

Interesting also to see Turkish President Erdogan stick up for Maduro by saying nothing can be resolved democratically without an election.

Meanwhile South America: Columbia, Brazil, Chile, are also baying for Maduro to step down, as you would expect of US lackies.

Why should Maduro step down?

Why should Maduro step down? Why is no-one talking about how US trade sanctions have impoverished Venezuela? The reason for these sanctions is that the US wants control over Venezuelan oil, which means that it must destroy the socialist government that nationalised oil. Will they go so far as to invade and bomb Venezuela like the did other oil-producers whose leaders they condemned, like Iraq, Libya, and Syria?

With the help of much money poured into Venezuela by the US Government agencies the United States government have succeeded in doing to Venezuela what they did to Ukraine in 2014 when Victoria Nuland promised the Maidan protesters face-to-face $5 billion to assist in "building democracy".

A propos of the US interference on Russia’s doorstep in Ukraine (and Georgia and the Middle East), there is symmetrical justice in Russia's plans to build a military base in Venezuela, although these may also have caused a panic in the US leading to this overt coup-attempt.

In Latin America, only Cuba, Bolivia and Mexico have defended Maduro. Mexican president, Lopez Obrador, said that Mexico has returned to the non-intervention policy Mexico practiced from the 1960s — when it resisted U.S. pressure to condemn or isolate Cuba — until 2000, when the conservative National Action Party began to adopt a more activist, U.S.-allied stance in foreign affairs. Russia, China, India and South Africa buy oil from Venezuela and are generally sympathetic or have a policy of non-interventionism.

The EU has called for new elections, but without condemning the United States meddling in Venezuela. This further reinforces the narrative or the claim that the democratically elected President Maduro is illegitimate. If new elections were called, in the current geopolitical circumstances, this would result in the ousting of President Maduro in an election rigged with many millions of United States dollars and with thousands of clandestine US intelligence agency operatives. The elections would also be conducted under the guns of the US Navy, Army, Air Force and Marine Corps in the Central American Carribean and neighboring countries on the South American continent.

This has all happened before ...

This has all happened before, but unofficially and more covertly: In 2002, a group marched on the Presidential palace demanding Hugo Chávez’s resignation, which the President refused. He was arrested and imprisoned. Pedro Carmona, President of the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, which receives funding from the US National Endowment for Democracy (a right-wing regime-change NGO that calls economic liberalism 'democracy'), was installed as Venezuelan President on the 11th of April 2002. On the 12th of April, the US President’s spokesman, Ari Fleischer, endorsed the Carmona government. But, on the 13th of April the Presidential guard and the army arrested Carmona. Next the opposition collected signatures from 20 per cent of the electorate required under Chávez’s constitution to initiate a referendum to sack the president, but Chávez won the referendum.

... and with the same excuses

The oil countershock of 1979 culminated in currency devaluation by one third and a change to a the Social Christians (SC) government, which remained in power until 1983, when Democratic Action (DA) or Acción Democrática, (AD) in Spanish, was returned under Jaime Lusinchi. Despite promises to diversify the economy and deliver on housing, public health and education, the situation continued to deteriorate. That is, the kind of government that the US wants to install, one that will privatise Venezuelan oil, failed to develop and diversify the economy, leaving it almost exclusively oil-dependent, with most of its population in poverty.

Hugo Chavez and Maduro were later both accused of causing this same problem of lack of economic diversification.In 2019, President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were using it again as an excuse to rattle sabres and unilaterally denounce President Maduro and, bizarrely, recognise Juan Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela.

Back to our history: Under Jaime Lusinchi and Acción Democrática, (AD), the Venezuelan economy was simply being mined by foreign interests, with no consideration for the self-determination of its population. In 1988 another DA president, Carlos Andrés Pérez, introduced an austerity regime, removing subsidies on gasoline as well as on a number of important consumables, culminating in hunger riots in Caracas, with a death toll of thousands.

Two attempted military coups took place against a background of continued repression in 1992 and Hugo Chávez led one of them. President Pérez later went to prison for 28 months with the government limping along under another recycled leader, Caldera, whose foreign policy was very USA friendly. In 1995, 103 per cent inflation hit the Venezuelan middle class. In 1997 doctors, university professors, and national telephone company workers went on strike. In December 1998 Hugo Chávez won the Presidency.

Hugo Chávez, the 45th President of Venezuela, died on 5 March 2013 at the age of 58. His death triggered a presidential election which was constitutionally required to be called within 30 days. Nicolás Maduro served as interim president following Chávez's death until 14 April, because the Vice President did not want to take charge of the country as Chávez had nominated Nicolas Maduro as a successor.

Juan Guaidó's Popular Will Party (Voluntad Popular)

The Popular Will party came out of the Popular Will Movement, which was formed in 2009 by the usual suspects, including Democratic Action, the right-wing US business-backed party that had privatised oil.

The Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) is a coalition of parties, notably Democratic Action, which formed in 2010 in opposition to Hugo Chavez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Popular Will is supporting Juan Guaidó's Presidential Coup attempt.

Venezuela is situated at the very north of the South American continent on the southern shore of the Caribbean Sea. Venezuela is less than 2,000 kilometres south of the southern most tip of the United States, from which, since 1945, many wars against humanity have been launched since 1945. The sum total of deaths from these wars is in the millions.
Throughout Central America, the Carribbean and the South American continent are scattered a large number of United States' military bases from which further wars against Venezuela and other sovereign Latin American countries can be launched. Clearly any national government which wishes to govern in the interests of its people and not according to the dictates of the Unite States' elites, risks attracting US intervention to transform it into a client state, with a liberal economic economy, entailing debt and privatisations.

Venezuela, Chavez, Maduro & Latin-American oil on the world stage

This part of the article is adapted from Sheila Newman, “Venezuela, Chavez & Latin-American oil on the world stage”, Chapter 10 in Sheila Newman (Ed.) The Final Energy Crisis, Second Edition, Pluto Press,2008.[1]

“In 1998, or 168 years after independence, a tiny wealthy elite was separated by a vast chasm from the rest of the people, of whom one quarter were unemployed. This seems disgusting when you realize that Venezuela was then the second biggest [oil] exporter in the world and had received around 300 billion dollars in oil sales – or the equivalent of 20 Marshall Plans - over the preceding 25 years. It was in this context that Hugo Chávez and his social plan won the elections of 6 December 1998 with 56.24% of the votes.” [2] (Nicolas Lehoucq, Paris Institute for International Studies).

President Hugo Chávez, was a social revolutionary with a giant budget. In 2006 the EIA ranked Venezuela ninth in World Oil producers and sixth in World Oil Exporters. [3] For many of his countrymen, Chávez was seen as a towering figure of hope for rescue from a nightmare which began in 1498. But his Anglo critics portrayed him as an ogre treading clumsily over political alliances and destroying Venezuela’s oil-assets.[4]

Clearly Venezuela was pursuing a different political paradigm from that of the North American-led Anglophone countries. The Chávez government endorsed a Christian socialist philosophy directly opposite to the Protestant capitalist one of a wealthy elite divinely elected on earth. In the Chávez philosophy, Christ was the first socialist, sharing wealth among the poor; a rich man might only enter heaven by giving away his possessions to the poor; a good leader should give everything to his country.[5]

One political explanation for this difference is that Latin America ‘missed out’ on the progress model which dominates North America because, colonized by medieval Catholics, it was isolated from the development of Protestantism.[6]

Sociologist, Max Weber, theorized in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1906) that Calvinism was the midwife of capitalism, delivering to the world the concepts of the ‘work ethic’ and of election to earthly prosperity as a reflection of God’s grace.

The work of Australian engineer and social analyst, Sharon Beder, supports a contrary view that the work ethic plus the progress model are driving the world over a cliff[7] and this is pretty much Chávez’s expressed view. Chávez also apparently shares a similar perspective to Al Gore’s on global warming, but that is where the similarities end.

From the 15th C the indigenous long-term stable clan and tribal populations of Chávez’s people were ravaged by invasion, immigration, disease, dispossession and slavery. The original peoples nearly died out, then, completely disorganized, ballooned in circumstances where child labour was the only source of additional income for low-wage landless people.[8] What is now called Venezuela contained a stable population estimated at around 400,000 Amerindians in 1498.[9] (In 2018 the population was over 28 million.) In the early 16th C King Charles Martel V granted Welsers German banking firm rights to exploit the people and resources of Venezuela in payment of a debt. The colony returned to the Spanish Crown within 20 years and hereditary land grants were made to conquistadores for a time, but later declared illegal. Meanwhile the Amerindians fought back until smallpox overwhelmed most of them in 1580.[10] Not until 1821 did Simón Bolívar win the long indigenous struggle for independence.[11]

In 1921 the discovery of oil permitted agricultural and industrial development. At the start of the Second World War Venezuela’s oil production was only exceeded by that of the United States. Much of the oil concession development involved attracted US, British, and Dutch companies. There was a period of dictatorship from 1948-1958, when Venezuela again became a democracy. It founded OPEC in 1960.[12]

The historic inequities of colonial land distribution[13] guaranteed a large population of impoverished rural labourers. As oil prices waxed and waned, productive agricultural holdings were neglected and waves of poor people left the country regions to look for work in the city, creating the slum of Caracas. Between 1959 and 1964 the government redistributed rural land to 150,000 families but many resold the land to speculators, it is said, because they had little education about farming and no ready market for their product.[14] Other wealth redistribution and educative policies were carried out but these programs failed to establish themselves against a background of depressed commodity prices and political schism. Although the Democratic Action Party (DA) had played an important role in Venezuela’s first democratic period (1945-1948), in the early 1960s it was aligned with the USA, although many Venezuelans were sympathetic to the Castro regime in Cuba, which was charged with supplying arms to guerrillas in 1963.[15] The DA government became increasingly repressive in the context of continued political unrest. In 1968 the Social Christians (SC) won government and remained in power until 1973.[16]

In the wave of nationalizations following the first oil-shock, despite its US sympathies, the DA Government created the State-run oil and natural gas company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PdVSA) in 1975-1976. PdVSA is Venezuela’s largest employer and provides 80 per cent of export earnings but, reflecting later trends to privatization, government revenue declined from 70.6 per cent in 1981 to 38 per cent in 2000.[17]

The oil countershock of 1979 culminated in currency devaluation by one third and a change to an SC government, which remained in power until 1983, when AD was returned under Jaime Lusinchi. Despite promises to diversify the economy and deliver on housing, public health and education, the situation continued to deteriorate.

Hugo Chavez and Maduro were later both accused of causing this same problem of lack of economic diversification. In 2019, President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were using it again as an excuse to rattle sabres and unilaterally denounce President Maduro and, bizarrely, recognise Juan Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela.

In 1988 another AD president, Carlos Andrés Pérez, introduced an austerity regime, removing subsidies on gasoline as well as on a number of important consumables, culminating in hunger riots in Caracas, with a death toll of thousands.

Two attempted military coups took place against a background of continued repression in 1992 and Hugo Chávez led one of them. President Pérez later went to prison for 28 months with the government limping along under another recycled leader, Caldera, whose foreign policy was very USA friendly. In 1995, 103 per cent inflation hit the Venezuelan middle class. In 1997 doctors, university professors, and national telephone company workers went on strike. In December 1998 Hugo Chávez won the Presidency.

On 30 December 1999 Venezuela’s 26th constitution was approved by 71 per cent of votes. The Senate was replaced by a single chamber National Assembly, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela came into being, named after the National hero. Presidential terms increased from five to six years and limitations on presidents serving a second consecutive term were lifted, but it became possible for the public to sack a president through a publicly initiated referendum. Privatisation of the oil industry, social security, health care and other major state-owned sectors was outlawed.[18]

According to the EIA, “Nearly one-half of PdVSA’s employees walked off the job on December 2, 2002 in protest against the rule of President Chávez.”[19] But another report says that they were prevented from working in a ‘bosses lock-out’ where “a small group of managers, directors, supervisors and technicians organised the sabotage of production and brought the industry almost to a halt,” and Georgetown politics Professor commented that “The opposition (…) has also been extremely irresponsible in trying to demand [Chávez’s] resignation rather than trying to seek an electoral solution.”[20] If we assume that PdVSA management was responsible for the declining returns to the State by PdVSA over the decades, then the view that this was a ‘lock-out’ to preserve an undemocratic status-quo by discrediting the Chávez Government, seems persuasive. Chávez had provoked US insecurity about oil supply by criticizing the Free Trade of the Americas Act (FTAA) and US foreign policy. The Chávez government had sacked some directors of PdVSA who were in political disagreement with the Venezuelan executive. These people then led calls for a general strike along with a variety of opposition parties and the Fedcamaras (Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce), who are supported by the US National Endowment for Democracy. A group marched on the Presidential palace demanding Chávez’s resignation, which the President refused. He was arrested and imprisoned. Pedro Carmona, President of the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, which receives funding from the US National Endowment for Democracy, was installed as Venezuelan President on the 11th of April. On the 12th of April, the US President’s spokesman, Ari Fleischer, endorsed the Carmona government. But, on the 13th of April the Presidential guard and the army arrested Carmona. Next the opposition collected signatures from 20 per cent of the electorate required under Chávez’s constitution to initiate a referendum to sack the president, but Chávez won the referendum.[21]

The distribution of PdVSA income had been increasingly diverted to private concerns, with returns to the State falling from 70.6 per cent in 1981 to 38.6 per cent in 2000. Despite permanent damage to production from sabotage in the industrial disputes of December 2002, Chávez’s intervention had raised PdVSA returns to the state from 38.6 per cent to 50 per cent by 2004.[22]
Venezuela had for some time been a food importer, due to the country’s very poor system of land management, which Chávez tried to rectify in a major scheme. He seemed to be seeking regional self-sufficiency, with protection for local production. He was opposed to overconsumption, openly warning about oil depletion. He was highly critical of US human rights abuses, at home and abroad, and opposed free-marketism.

Obviously Chávez’s regime threatened many established interests in a seething international struggle for resource hegemony. The economy was still in recession and maintenance and consolidation of the section of the population which supported Chávez would require that he carry out his promises. Chávez’s friendship with Castro was a source of survival skills. So was his policy of strengthening regional Hispanic alliances.

There were a number of likely candidates, including Mexico, which had begun to import food from the US under the American ‘free trade’ agreement. Brazil, however, sensibly seeking independence from petroleum, was apparently counselled to drop its independence policies in exchange for leniency on international debt.[23]

Chávez actively sought more diversification in petroleum trading, initiating a ‘South-South diplomacy’ with sidelined and emerging polities in controversial and political oil-trade accords with Cuba, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Spain, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, India, China and Russia.[24] An agreement in October 2004 meant that Russian oil sales to the US were actually honoured by Venezuelan oil and Venezuelan sales to Europe were supplied by Russian oil. The Chávez government paid off $538m of Argentinian debt and agreed to provide contracts worth $500 m to Argentina.

In a fascinating avoidance of petrodollars, Chávez supplied 80,000 barrels of oil to Cuba a day, at a friendly price, with 20 per cent of payment in the form of the supply of 150,000 Cuban doctors to Venezuelan health.[25]

Most importantly, Chávez hoped to create a Latin American petroleum company, “Petrosur”, which would unite the public companies of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Equator and Venezuela.
Mostly anglo-analysts intimated that anglo-oil companies would not touch Venezuela because of Chávez, and that the bitumus deposits of the Orinoco would not get developed, through lack of experts. But this began to look like sour grapes as plenty of the non-anglo oil companies – Russian LUKoil, China’s CNPC, Indian ONGC and Brazil’s Petrobas – did not seem to be put off.
Chávez did not neglect regional diplomacy among the underworld of arms trade and revolutionary militia.[27] And, after an attempted putsch in 2002, Chávez relied on Cuban Intelligence for personal protection. Not surprisingly the US Government disapproved.

On December 4, 2006, Chávez won his third six year term as president. In 2007 a referendum to make Chávez president for life was democratically defeated by 51 per cent.[28]
In the light of Venezuelan social and economic performance in the decades preceding Chávez it would have been hard for him to do worse than his predecessors and he seemed to be doing considerably better. Land redistribution is the basis of revolution and of social equity.[29] Venezuela signed an accord to give effective rights to its indigenous peoples.[30] Chávez allocated public and then private land to the landless in a program accompanied by massive agricultural education. [31] This was bound to upset the small elite of land-owners and speculators.

The Chávez government had better green credentials than any other petroleum producer. With an active commitment to mitigate the impacts of climate change and peak oil, it initiated new public transport, instituted organic farming as an important part of secondary school education, and facilitated a huge organic farm in the centre of Caracas. It also planned massive reforestation with the collection of 30 tonnes of seeds, and the planting of 100 million plants. [32]

The overwhelming positive signs of Chávez's example seemed to be what we needed for the 21st century.

In about 2010, the United States added to its traditional political harassment economic sanctions against Venezuela. The 2016 low oil-price agreement between Saudi Arabia and the United States then caused a huge reduction in Venezuela’s oil income. This massively depressed GDP and made it very hard for people to buy food and necessities.
In March 2013 Hugo Chavez died of cancer. He had nominated his successor as Maduro. Maduro ran for election and was elected President.

Unfortunately the United States stepped up its sanctions, making it even harder for Venezuela to operate. In the name of fighting communism and pretending it was motivated by humanitarian concerns, President Trump and Vice-President Pence spoke of regime-change overtly for the first time. Bizarrely, they ‘recognised’ the opposition leader as the true president, despite massive protests from Venezuelans.

NOTES

[1] Various documents named beneath, many of which have also referred to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s speech at the 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, on 15 September 2005.
[2] Lehoucq. (Translated here by S.M. Newman.)
[3] (All hydrocarbon liquids) http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/topworldtables1_2.htm
[4] For instance, the Economist unreasonably ignores the poverty of Venezuelan people under the old management of oil in a one-sided interpretation of events in “Oil's Dark Secret,” Aug 11 2006, Economist Intelligence Unit - Executive Briefing, http://www.economist.com/business/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=7270301
[5] Lehoucq.
[6] In The Pan-American Dream, US conservative writer, Lawrence Harrison, attempts to explain the differences in economy, government, human rights and standard of living in American Hispanic societies according to Weberian theory.
[7] Articles by Sharon Beder on the Work Ethic. http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/home.html#work.
[8] UNICEF estimated that 9.9 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Venezuela were working in the year 2000. Government of Venezuela, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS): Standard Tables for Venezuela and Annex I: Indicators for Monitoring Progress at End-Decade, UNICEF, 2000, www.childinfo.org/MICS2/newreports/venezuela/venezuela.htm and http://www.childinfo.org/MICS2/EDind/exdanx1.pdf.
Doepke hypothesised that fertility falls where policies, such as education subsidies and restrictions on child labour affect the opportunity cost of education. The populations of South Korea and Brazil had begun to grow rapidly around the same time, but South Korea had an effective public education system, and strongly enforced child-labour restrictions, whereas Brazil had a weak public education system and poorly enforced anti-child-labour laws. Doepke, M., Growth and Fertility in the Long Run, Mimeo, University of Chicago, 2000. available in reduced form in Doepke, M. "Accounting for Fertility Decline During the Transition to Growth", Journal of Economic Growth, 9(3), 347-383, September 2004.
[9] http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Venezuela-HISTORY.html
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid
[12] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2549589.stm
[13] www.forestpeoples.org/documents/conservation/Ven10c_jan04_ch6_eng.pdf
[14] Seth DeLong, “Venezuela's Agrarian Land Reform: More like Lincoln than Lenin”, COHA, February 25th 2005, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/963
[15] http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Venezuela-HISTORY.html
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid and Lehoucq, Nicolas, “La redéfinition du rôle géopolitique Vénézuelien,” Institut d'étude des Relations Internationales Paris, www.memoireonline.com/11/06/287/m_redefinition-role-geopolitique-venezuelien0.html (accessed 21/9/2007) and Doizy, Arnaud, “La politique étrangère des Etats-Unis au Venezuela, la période Chavez (1999- 2007)” Université Panthéon-Assas paris II, http://www.memoireonline.com/06/07/491/m_politique-etrangere-etats-unis-venezuela-periode-chavez2.html (Accessed 22/9/07)
[18] www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Venezuela-HISTORY.html
[19] “Nearly one-half of PdVSA’s employees walked off the job on December 2, 2002 in protest against the rule of President Chavez.” EIA Reports : www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Venezuela/Oil.html Some other anti-Chávez sources: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/09/13/venezuelan_oil_expats_resurfacing/ Some comments on US stance:
Professor of Politics, Georgetown University, Arturo Valenzuela commented on the PBS Jim Lehrer Newshour, “Troubled Nation”, December 17, 2002, “…Unfortunately, the radicals on both sides are maintaining this conflict. The opposition, for example, in my view, has also been extremely irresponsible in trying to demand his resignation rather than trying to seek an electoral solution. In fact, the constitution as I said earlier does make it possible for to Chávez be submitted to a referendum in August of next year. It seems unreasonable not to focus on that. Chávez has said he would accept that as a possible outcome. The problem is that the opposition wants him out now. Chávez says I don't want to leave and the situation is getting worse day by day.” http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/latin_america/july-dec02/venezuela_12-17.htm
[20] Martin, Jorge, “Venezuela: Opposition "strike" or bosses lock out? An eyewitness account,” www.marxist.com/Latinam/venezuela_eyewitness0103.html. Some other sources: www.thirdworldtraveler.com/South_America/Venez_Coup_Countercoup.html
[21] Doizy, Arnaud, « La politique étrangère des Etats-Unis au Venezuela, la période Chavez (1999- 2007)» Université Panthéon-Assas paris II, www.memoireonline.com/06/07/491/m_politique-etrangere-etats-unis-venezuela-periode-chavez2.html
[22] Lehoucq, op.cit.
[23] It relies on uncompressed gas but also, unfortunately, on bio-fuels which will lead to tragic soil and forest destruction. Nicolas Lehoucq writes that Brasil had achieved a ‘quasi-independence from petroleum’ in the 1990s and has even developed cars which the driver can select to function by a simple switch from gasoline to non-liquefied gas to ethanol. “But this innovatory system was threatened by the World Bank. President Lula was attempting to obtain a partial cancellation of Brazil’s debt and the World Bank attempted to negotiate a deal whereby Brazil would cease its petroleum indendence program.” Lehoucq remarks that the World Bank is US dominated and wonders if the US uses petroleum as a means of control of third world countries. Lehoucq, op.cit.
[24] Lehoucq, op.cit.
[25] Lehoucq, op.cit.
[26] Cohen, D., “Venezuela -- Aló Presidente!”, ASPO USA publication, 29 August 2007 http://www.aspo-usa.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=202&Itemid=91]
[27] Lehoucq, op.cit.
[28] “Hugo Chavez's annus horribilis,” M&C, Americas news, Dec 14, 2007.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/americas/news/article_1380925.php/YEARENDER_Hugo_Chavezs_annus_horribilis
[29] A fact strangely overlooked in many studies of the French Revolution, where analysis of methods undertaken for the redistribution of land, affords a remarkable perspective.
[30] As with Australia’s terra nullius, no treaty had ever been undertaken with the indigenous people. Source: The Forest Peoples’ Program, “Protecting and encouraging customary use of biological resources: The Upper Caura, Venezuela,” www.forestpeoples.org/documents/conservation/Ven10c_jan04_ch6_eng.pdf
[31] Seth DeLong, “Venezuela's Agrarian Land Reform: More like Lincoln than Lenin,”
February 25th 2005, COHA, https://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/963
[32] Derek Wall, “Viva Venezuela verde!” http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/derek_wall/2007/04/viva_verde_venezuela.html and Eva Golinger, “Venezuela’s Green Agenda: Chavez Should Be Named The ‘Environmental President’”, February 27th 2007, Venezuelanalysis.com venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2244 (Accessed 22 Sept 2007)

Republished from TelsurTV (18/4/15). See also: Global Research | "US Human Rights Abusers Not Welcome in Venezuela." President Maduro Calls for "Global Rebellion Against US Imperialism" (2/2/15) and other related articles. Julian Assange has joined a range of other prominent Australians in condemning the sanctions on Venezuela.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has added his name to a growing list of Australian journalists, academics, politicians, trade unionists and solidarity activists calling on U.S. president Barack Obama to revoke his executive order against Venezuela.

On March 9, Obama issued the order which imposed sanctions on a number of Venezuelan state officials and deemed Venezuela to be an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States." In response, the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (Melbourne), with the support of the Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network, initiated an open letter to Obama.

The letter has over 70 signatories, including Assange, renowned journalists John Pilger and Antony Loewenstein, Greens senator Lee Rhiannon, two socialist local councillors, officials from four different trade unions, academics from ten universities, and representatives from a range of political parties and solidarity organisations.

The letter urges the U.S. president to revoke the executive order and "stop interfering in Venezuela's domestic affairs and cease making reckless public statements regarding Venezuela's democratic processes."

It also encourages Obama to "demonstrate to Latin America that the U.S. is capable of establishing relations based on the principles of peace and with respect for their sovereignty."

Obama's recent actions have seen relations continue to sour between the U.S. and the rest of the Americas. At the recent Summit of the Americas, held in Panama April 10-11, numerous regional heads of states expressed their support for Venezuela and called on Obama to revoke the executive order.

Related articles

Australia – Venezuela Solidarity Network TelesurTV | ALBA Adds to Condemnations of US Threats on Venezuela (10/3/15), Syrian Arab News Agency | Forum held in Damascus University in solidarity with Venezuela against US plots (Apr 2015), RT | ?5 million Venezuelans sign petition against US aggression and interference (Mar 2015), Maduro: US trying to 'defeat' Venezuela govt with sanctions, we'll fight back (Mar 15), Syrian Free Press | Venezuelan Parliament passes law to confront US aggression (Mar 15), , Global Research | Letter to the People of the United States: "Venezuela Is Not a Threat". Nicolas Maduro (Mar 2015), US Pilot Detained in Venezuela; Accused of Recruiting Citizens for Coup (Mar 15), "US Human Rights Abusers Not Welcome in Venezuela." President Maduro Calls for "Global Rebellion Against US Imperialism" (Mar 15)

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas in marches for and against President Nicolás Maduro's government Saturday, as the nation's massive divide became ever more evident. Maduro succeeded late leftist icon Hugo Chavez last year, with the country's economic problems at the heart of often violent marches that have left 10 people dead and scores injured.

US-backed Venezuelan opposition trying to use Ukraine-style protests to take power

Maduro said remarks by US Secretary of State Kerry hours earlier on the unrest gave violent groups a "green light" to carry out attacks, slamming the top American diplomat's words as "arrogant" and "insolent."

When President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela arrived in Havana for a regional summit meeting last month, Latin American and Caribbean solidarity seemed triumphant. The United States was not invited, and in speech after speech, the region's leaders expressed confidence in a shared, unified future.
Mr. Maduro emphasized that Latin America would continue on its own path of peace separate from the "imperial interests" of the United States.

Mr. Maduro expelled three American diplomats from Venezuela this week, accusing them of recruiting students for violent demonstrations. He ordered three American Embassy officials to leave the country, saying they had been recruiting students to take part in violent antigovernment protests. Mr. Maduro has repeatedly accused the United States of supporting opponents who he says are plotting a coup.

Chavez's election in 1998 was a huge blow to Washington and the powerful interests in the United States that wanted control over Venezuela's oil reserves – the largest on the planet.

"Let's prepare ourselves to liberate ourselves from you," Maduro said, proposing a fight against the popular microblog together with Mercosur (the ‘Common Market of the South'), Unasur (Union of South American Nations) and ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas), a group of leftist allies of Venezuela.

According to a Thursday statement from the president, Maduro's Twitter account was attacked to spark unrest and suspend the upcoming December 8 elections.

Communications Minister Delsy Rodriguez stated that nearly 6,600 of the leader's Twitter followers disappeared from the president's account within 10 minutes. No details were provided regarding the time of the attack. As of Friday, Maduro had 1.4 million followers.

The opposition has been criticizing the president for obsessing over social media and not paying enough attention to the country's economic problems.

Since his election as Venezuelan president in April, Maduro has spoken about a number of alleged plots against his government - including five attempts on his life.

Vale Hugo Chavez died Tuesday, March 7, 2013, aged 58. Inside there is a stirring song on video about Chavez, his life and work.