Venezuela: it’s the oil, stupid (Clinton dixit)

Aram Aharonian

What is at stake in Venezuela is not the electoral verdict but the appropriation by the United States of the immense oil and mineral reserves of the country and to leave under its tutelage -that of its soldiers, ships, submarines, planes- the nations of the Caribbean basin, which for more than 20 years managed to survive, many times, thanks to Venezuelan support.

If Bill Clinton were President of the United States he would have made it clear that “it’s the oil, stupid”. But the United States will not be satisfied with appropriating only 300,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil, because they will also go after the Brazilian Pre-Salt, with its almost 14,000 million barrels. And without a nationalist government in Venezuela, the oil riches of the Essequibo and Guayana will also fall into the hands of the US transnationals, which, in part, finance the presidential candidacies of the Democrats and Republicans. It is oil, stupid.

What does this attitude of not recognizing the Chavista triumph reveal? Simple: the effectiveness of the blackmailing power of the United States, which through an unprecedented media, diplomatic and economic offensive managed to install in the collective imagination the idea that the re-election of Nicolás Maduro was fraudulent.

The media manipulation has been effective. For months before the electoral process, it had been announced, denouncing a fraud in elections that had not even been carried out yet. These fourth and fifth generation wars are the terms used by U.S. analysts and strategists to describe the latest phase of confrontation in the era of information technology and globalized communications, a concept assimilated to that of asymmetric warfare, anti-terrorist warfare and media terrorism. Bullets (or missiles) are replaced by media slogans aimed at destroying reflective thinking.

The hoax (also called “fake” in English) is nothing more than another example of the power of the propaganda produced by the mills of lies that irresponsibly announced a fraud with the same irresponsibility and impunity with which they previously claimed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Unfortunately, Latin American governments seem impotent to neutralize the extortion designed in Washington and executed by hundreds of media outlets and pounded by thousands of linguists who shout in chorus the same tune: there was fraud, show the minutes!

For two decades, Venezuela has deployed an intense oil diplomacy in the Caribbean, which has benefited the peoples of the basin. In spite of historical and cultural differences and the perception of this country as a regional “sub-imperialism”, its presence increased since Hugo Chavez took office. Initiatives such as Petrocaribe and special agreements with some countries, allowed many nations to survive, and -yes- Chávez to gain prominence in the area. Today, these countries seem to be making a mute for the forum.

There is talk of fraud… but when was it proven that the opposition won? A week ago, the right wing had the opportunity to show the minutes proving its triumph before the Electoral Chamber of the Superior Constitutional Tribunal, but its delegates abstained from showing any proof, after acknowledging that they do not have the minutes of the scrutiny of the witnesses at the tables, nor lists of witnesses.

They also assured that they do not know who uploaded the information of the alleged tally sheets in the web page of the organization Sumate, headed by Maria Corina Machado, which granted the victory to Edmundo Gonzalez.

The leaders of the Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) party, Manuel Rosales (front), of the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD), José Luis Cartaya (2-i), and of the Movimiento por Venezuela, Simón Calzadilla (r), leave the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ). (Xinhua/Marcos Salgado)

What does the demand from abroad for the government to show the minutes mean, beyond interference in the internal affairs of another country? It did not occur to Jair Bolsonaro that Lula da Silva should show the minutes of his victory in 2022, nor to Joe Biden to demand them. Well, they would have made a fool of themselves because in Brazil’s electoral system those minutes do not exist and there is only a proof of the result displayed by the voting machines, which no one has doubted that they can be hacked.

The “democrats” who today demand the Venezuelan Electoral Council (CNE) to show the Minutes and votes are those who recognized in 2019 the self-proclaimed Juan Guaido as president of the country in less than 24 hours, without votes, without minutes, without elections, but with the backing of the U.S. government and the complicity of the Europeans. Now they give credit to the opposition embodied by María Corina Machado who asserts that her candidate, Edmundo González, won by a wide majority.

History repeats itself again: before the elections they denounced that there would be fraud -evidence that they knew they were going to lose-, they ignored the result, they generated acts of violence, in the name of what democracy?

It is not a matter of comparing Nicolás Maduro and his mustaches and the figure of Hugo Chávez, The memory buffs remember the formation, in 2002, after the frustrated coup d’état of a Venezuelan-US parliamentary group, called the Boston Group, headed by Democrat John Kerry (Secretary of State until 2017) and Chavista Nicolás Maduro, at that time president of the National Assembly. Half of the Venezuelan members were opposition deputies. The group was financed by the Organization of American States (OAS). The Boston Group disbanded with the withdrawal of opposition deputies from the 2005 parliamentary elections.

Sometimes one is surprised, but they demand in writing to the Venezuelan Armed Forces to carry out a coup d’état against the constitutional government. Besides committing a crime, they make a fool of themselves: they ignore the solidity of the civil-military union model in Venezuela, whose military commanders are loyal followers of Bolivar’s motto “Cursed is the soldier who raises a weapon against his people”.

Crisis

The civilizational crisis has turned values and principles upside down: the world is helplessly witnessing a genocide filmed in real time, and the disappearance of International Law from the face of the earth, it would be impossible to understand why almost all the West is demanding in different tones that a sovereign government proves with supporting documents that it has won the elections, says Alicia Castro, former Argentine Ambassador to Venezuela.

I do not recall any Latin American country pretending to establish conditions to regulate in detail the elections in the German parliament or to elect the government of Spain, but -among others- those countries are arrogating to themselves powers of direct interference in order to supervise the internal issues of Venezuelan politics.

Obviously, it is all about oil. The right-wing opposition, hand in hand with the US, wants to turn the tables and return to the old republic. They want to change the government elected by popular vote, they are willing to intervene militarily and, actually, Venezuelan oil is closer to them than that of the Middle East and they try to appropriate it (via Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez) without the need of a genocide as in Gaza.

They are those who represent the opposition, with a government plan designed for the delivery of the country’s wealth to the big US transnationals (and some European ones, so as not to make them angry), very similar to that of another ultra-right-winger, such as Javier Milei.

The military interventions of the United States are preceded by a series of actions, in this case media lynching, blockades and 900 sanctions to create shortages to foment social discontent; seizure of foreign currency, acts of organized violence; installation of a parallel government. In the midst of the chaos provoked, they justify military intervention: if possible with Venezuelan military.

In this scenario of great fragility, contributing to the erosion of Venezuela is irresponsible. It is the step that favors a coup. María Corina Machado addressed a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu asking for his intervention in Venezuela, based on the “responsibility to protect” Human Rights. This is the argument introduced by the US to justify the invasion of Libya. From Ripley’s: believe it or not…

Venezuela is, once again, under siege. And it is not the first time. Since the coup d’état perpetrated against Hugo Chávez in 2002, more than 22 years ago, there has been no end to coup attempts, attempts (luckily frustrated) of assassination, sabotage, shortages, actions of organized violence, guarimbas, creation of the Lima Group, harassment by the Secretary General of the OAS.

*Uruguayan journalist and communicologist. Master in Integration. Creator and founder of Telesur. President of the Foundation for Latin American Integration (FILA) and director of the Latin American Center for Strategic Analysis (CLAE).