Targeting Venezuela

The reelection and proclamation of Nicolas Maduro as president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has been challenged by the US-backed opposition through the self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaido who comes from the National Assembly. In effect, this is an attempted coup through mass mobilization.

We should take a broader perspective regarding the political turmoil in Caracas. For a few years now, the crisis has been simmering, especially when the US intensified its economic blockage and financial interventions that resulted in severe shortages in consumer goods and hyperinflation.

This political and economic destabilization is nothing new though. The US previously engineered hostile measures against Hugo Chavez, especially after the latter nationalized the petroleum industry that hurt US and other multinational corporations. An opposition movement was organized to stage mass actions and other forms of destabilization measure that turned out to be funded by US politicians.

The US has smarted from the nationalization by Chavez that even made US corporations pay back for the dirt-cheap oil it had been drilling. Behind its designs to oust the Maduro government is the dire need of the US for the oil of Venezuela, the largest proven reserve in the world at 300,878 million barrels according to the US Energy Information Agency. This is much more than that of Saudi Arabia, Russia or Iraq.

Ever since Hugo Chavez ascended to the presidency of Venezuela, the US has targeted the country as the locus of opposition to Yankee imperialism in Latin America. Under Chavez, the Bolivarian alliance of progressive governments and people’s movements was developed and became a strong alternative for independent development away from US domination.

At its height, there were around 10 governments and a broad swath of people’s movements in all of Latin America. The Bolivarian movement developed alternative institutions for development cooperation and finance among countries. Simon Bolivar was the inspiration as having led the most successful struggle for independence by several Andean countries against Spain more than a century ago.

The US has since targeted the Bolivarian movement and engineered the electoral victory of right-wing regimes in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador and Colombia. It has created a new initiative to make inroads into Cuba.

But Venezuela has proved to be a tough nut to crack for Yankee imperialism because charisma has been consolidated among the people, its government and army.

America probably thought that with Chavez’s untimely death its problem that is Venezuela’s Bolivarian government would be over. But President Maduro has ably replaced Chavez despite the US interventionist offensives, including manipulating oil prices that backfired on US offshore and fracking drilling. It also stepped up its economic and financial blockade, resulting in severe economic hardship on the population. It has tried to use drones in a botched assassination attempt on Maduro and also engineered a small mutiny in the military that was easily quashed.

The US has now initiated a diplomatic offensive to isolate the Venezuelan government using the “parliamentary coup” with Juan Guaido of the National Assembly asserting a counter government. This is not as easy for the US to isolate the Maduro government to prepare the ground for a military attack, whether through its lackeys in Colombia or Brazil or through its Special Forces. There are more governments like Russia and China and the Latin American governments that still support Maduro, except for the lackeys of the US.

The political crisis in Venezuela are internal to its government and its people. But the Trump government cannot countenance the nationalization of oil resources, so that it continues to employ sanctions and intervene through internal and external actions on Venezuela. The US has lost its global hegemony — political, economic and militarily — although it remains one of the strongest militaries in the globe. In a multipolar world, the US now has to contend with Russia and China and has to deal with emerging sub-powers like India, Brazil and Iran, as well as upstarts like North Korea.

Twenty years ago, the US government could have easily declared Maduro another Saddam or Gaddafi and invaded it like Iraq or Libya before. Is the US gearing for another Afghanistan or Panama? Will the Bolivarian government and its people stand idly by?