The narrative about the Venezuelan government’s shift towards a neoliberal economic policy has been going on for some time now and has been promoted by the mainstream media. Presented as a bombastic slogan, as a general and extravagant yet blurry statement, this narrative is based on unconnected fragments of reality that lead to an incongruous and unreadable mosaic.
For those who propagate this narrative, the supposed neoliberalism of President Nicolás Maduro is defined by so many things at once that it is difficult to see where the central point that verifies his supposed ideological conversion really lies.
CHAVISTAS TO THE CORE: The 23 de Enero working-class neighbourhood in western Caracas, commemorates on July 28 2022 what would have been Hugo Chavez’s 68th birthday. January 23 1958 was the day dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez was overthrown
IN ITS intensely biased coverage of Venezuela during the hard years of 2014-21 the mainstream media wheeled in every imaginable academic pundit to “demonstrate” that the country’s economic woes were the result of President Nicolas Maduro overseeing Venezuela’s slide “into authoritarianism and economic collapse” (the Guardian, January 24 2019) and not of cruel US sanctions.
In 2019, the Economist for instance, in line with US policy, published a front cover with a clench-fisted Juan Guaido titled “the battle for Venezuela’s future,” positing “the world democracies are right to seek change.” Very rarely, if at all, the mainstream media or the activated pundits gave any significant weight to the well over 500 illegal and criminal unilateral coercive measures (aka sanctions) inflicted on Venezuela and its people by the US and its European and Latin American accomplices.
US economic warfare — the almost total blockade of its economy — led to a shrinking of 99 per cent of its revenues, with Venezuela living on 1 per cent of its pre-sanctions income.Read More »
The victory of Gustavo Petro in Colombia and his inauguration as President of the New Granada nation has set off alarms in the United States, where the possible end of the so-called “Washington influence” in Latin America is seen.
“It is time for a new international convention that accepts that the war on drugs has utterly failed, that it has left a million Latin Americans murdered, most of them Colombians, and that it leaves 70.000 North Americans dead from drug overdoses every year; none produced in Latin America”.
These words spoken by Petro During his inauguration speech this Sunday, he directly questions US policy in the neighboring country with the so-called “Plan Colombia”, which could mean the possibility of ending this agreement that has allowed the US to install no less than nine military bases in Colombian territory and guarantee the free action of officials of the DEA, the CIA and its Army, as well as the implementation of the extraterritoriality of its laws in this nation.
The President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, congratulated the Colombian people and Gustavo Petro after his inauguration as President of Colombia, this Sunday in the city of Bogotá.
Through his Twitter account, the Head of State greeted the Colombian people and their new president.
«I extend my hand to President Gustavo Petro and the Colombian people, to rebuild brotherhood on the basis of respect and love. Let’s take advantage of this second opportunity mentioned by the new President of Colombia, for the sake of happiness and peace. Congratulations!” Maduro posted.
Tiendo mi mano al Presidente Gustavo Petro y al pueblo colombiano, para reconstruir la hermandad sobre la base del respeto y el amor. Aprovechemos esta segunda oportunidad que menciona el nuevo Presidente de Colombia, por el bien de la felicidad y la Paz. ¡ Felicidades! pic.twitter.com/tcC8LUP4uk
Finol affirmed that the brotherhood between Caracas and Bogotá is still valid
By recognizing Nicolás Maduro as the constitutional president of Venezuela, the elected president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, opens a door for a refreshing of bilateral relations, historian Ydelfonso Finol said on Sunday.
“It is interesting that Petro said that the constitutional president of Venezuela is Nicolás Maduro. This allows a refreshing of relations between Venezuela and Colombia, and the normalization of contact between the embassies of our nations », he said during the program Here with Ernesto, broadcast on VTV.
He asserted that the brotherhood between Caracas and Bogotá is still in force, since it was determined by the Liberator Simón Bolívar, who this Sunday celebrates 239 years of his birth.
In a recent interview with CNN, former US National Security Advisor John Bolton affirmed his role in coups abroad. The hardliner was an architect of the invasion of Iraq, and most recently, played a role in the attempted coup against Venezuelan President Maduro.
On July 12, former US National Security advisor John Bolton, admitted on national television that he had helped orchestrate coups in foreign countries. Bolton was speaking to CNN host Jake Tapper amid the hearings in Congress on the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, by supporters of former president Donald Trump.
During the exchange, Bolton stated his disagreement with accusations that the riot was a “coup d’etat aimed at the US constitution”, arguing that it was a “once in a lifetime occurrence”. Tapper then stated “One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup”.
Bolton’s response, in a widely circulated clip, was “I disagree with that. As someone who has helped plan coup d’etats, not here, but you know other places, it takes a lot of work. And that’s not what he [Trump] did.” Citing his expertise “having planned coups”, in Tapper’s words, Bolton declined to go into specifics, only to say “Well I wrote about Venezuela in the book [“The Room Where It Happened”], and it [the coup] turned out not to be successful– not that we had all that much to do with it– but I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overturn an illegally elected president and they failed…”
On April 7, the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro celebrated the delivery of 4 million homes to citizens as part of the Great Housing Mission of Venezuela (GMVV). Photo: Nicolás Maduro/Twitter
On April 7, the socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro celebrated the delivery of a record 4 million homes to its citizens as part of a social housing program called the Great Housing Mission of Venezuela (GMVV). During a joint radio and television broadcast, President Maduro emphasized that the handing over of the 4 million homes was a “historic” event and a “world record.” “Nothing and no one is going to stop us,” he added.
The GMVV’s 4 millionth house was handed over in the “Bicentennial Battle of Bomboná” urban development, located in the Sotillo municipality in Anzoátegui state by Governor Luis Marcano. During the telecast, Governor Marcano proudly reported that “those who today inhabit these 200 homes were working on its construction.”
Venezuelan far-right politician and fugitive from justice Leopoldo López has expressed his repudiation of the recent rapprochement between the Joe Biden administration and the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro.
López, who escaped to Spain to evade criminal responsibility for his crimes in Venezuela and remains under protection in Spain also denounced the fact that White House sent a delegation to Miraflores Palace to meet with President Maduro.
López also repeated his stance on imposing so-called “free elections” in Venezuela, entirely disregarding the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic.
The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) is celebrating as, with almost all votes counted, they appear to have won 20 out of the country’s 23 states in Sunday’s regional “mega elections.” More than 70,000 candidates stood for one of 3,082 public positions, including local mayorships, councillors, regional legislators and state governors — the vast majority of candidates affiliated with opposition parties.
The landslide victory was watched over by international observers from 55 countries, including a delegation from the European Union, who praised the organizational capacity of the National Electoral Council, effectively endorsing the proceedings.
While much is made about the alleged lack of support for President Maduro (the millions of votes his party got will never be acknowledged by the U.S.), it’s less known that the opposition is deeply unpopular.
For the first time in four years, every major opposition party in Venezuela participated in elections. For the fifth time in four years, the left won in a landslide. Voters elected 23 governors, 335 mayors, 253 state legislators, and 2,471 municipal councilors. The governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won at least 19 of 23 governorships (one race remains too close to call) and the Caracas mayoralty in the November 21 “mega-elections.” Of the 335 mayoral races, the vote count has been completed in 322 of them, with PSUV and its coalition taking 205, opposition coalitions 96, and other parties 21. Over 70,000 candidates ran for these 3,082 offices, and 90% of the vote was counted and verified within hours of polls closing. Turnout was 42.2%, eleven points higher than last year’s parliamentary elections.
Here’s why chavismo, the movement behind Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, won:
Journal of People 