The Caribbean’s Rapprochement with Venezuela Tests U.S. Hegemony

The Caribbean’s economic difficulties and the ongoing energy crisis have pushed these countries closer to autocratic Venezuela’s sphere of influence

Leonardo Di Bonaventura-Altuve

National Interest | July 23, 2022

On July 5, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which comprises twelve Anglophone Caribbean states plus Haiti and Suriname, held its forty-third Heads of Government Meeting, the community’s principal political organ. The meeting’s agenda focused on the recurring energy and food crises faced by these small states due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Specifically on the energy front, a unified CARICOM collectively asked for help from authoritarian Venezuela through PetroCaribe, a geo-economic tool created in 2005 by the late President Hugo Chávez to buy CARICOM’s loyalty by financing participants’ oil imports and increasing intra-bloc trade and investment. In exchange, the highly democratic CARICOM ignored Venezuela’s descent into authoritarianism and shielded the regime from condemnation in multilateral organizations like the Organization of American States (OAS).

After the 2014 global oil price slump, chronic fiscal mismanagement, and U.S. sanctions, the ability of President Nicolás Maduro to buy CARICOM’s support virtually disappeared. However, given CARICOM’s current urgency for cheap oil and leveling off in Venezuela’s oil production, PetroCaribe is likely to return from the dead. The re-marriage of CARICOM and Venezuela will likely hurt democracy prospects in the South American nation and, critically, continue to show the United States’ hegemonic decline in the hemisphere.

Diego Sequera Discusses the Underpinnings of Venezuelan Election and Huge Maduro/Socialist Victory

Lowkey

MintPress News | November 30, 2021

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.

Five Reasons the Left Won in Venezuela

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.

Leonardo Flores

MintPress News | November 23, 2021

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:

Venezuelan President Calls for a World Free from Economic Domination of an Empire

RESUMEN | September 22, 2021

photo: @CancilleriaVE

The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro expressed today that it is urgent for the world to consolidate the construction of a new order of peace, cooperation, dialogue, political, religious, as well as cultural diversity, multilateral and pluricentric, during the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

“We have to achieve a world without hegemonic empires, freed from the attempt of economic, financial, military and geopolitical domination of any empire, those which for centuries exploited the world with the old colonialism”, added the Venezuelan president.

New Drone Assassination Attempt on President Maduro—Former Deputy Freddy Guevara Detained

Daniela Jimenez 

Orinoco Tribune | July 12, 2021

This Monday, July 12, a sector of the Venezuelan right-wing leadership denounced the alleged persecution by the Bolivarian government of Juan Guaidó and Freddy Guevara. However, the performance ended quickly—in less than an hour—after the truth of the events in question was revealed.

Fabiana Rosales, Guaidó’s wife, had posted on her Twitter account that the authorities were “detaining deputy Freddy Guevara.” From Guevara’s account, a post apparently confirmed that “the Maduro dictatorship intended to arrest the deputy Freddy Guevara on the Francisco Fajardo highway.”

President Maduro Denounces Assassination Plans Devised by the White House Coming From Colombia and Brazil

Orinoco Tribune | July 04, 2021

On Friday, July 2, in a ceremony for the promotion of the personnel of the Honor Guard and the General Directorate of Military Counter Intelligence (DGCIM), president and commander-in-chief of the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB), Nicolás Maduro, decried that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Southern Command of the US Army (SOUTHCOM) would try to commit assassinations again to achieve their long-dreamt of ”regime change” in Venezuela. Here we reproduce the highlights of his criticisms.

President Maduro: Certain Groups Intend to Steal Military Weapons from Venezuelan Army

IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION AGAINST VENEZUELA 

orinocotribune | March 10, 2021

On Tuesday, March 9, President Nicolás Maduro warned that groups responsible for acts of destabilization in Venezuela also have plans of sabotage and conspiracy to steal weapons from the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB). The President made this remark during the closing ceremony of the military drills “Supreme Commander Hugo Chávez Frías 2021,” in Caracas.

‘We know of your plans to steal weapons,” warned the president, referring to the groups involved in activities of sabotage. “We have heard it in the entire structure of the Venezuelan weapons system, they want to sabotage and steal a good part of the weapons system, create chaos in the system of defense…that we have today and know how to use,” said the Head of State in his speech broadcast by state TV station VTV.

President Maduro: “Maradona Helped in Secret Operations to Bring Food to Venezuela” (US Sanctions)

REMEMBERING DIEGO MARADONA

Orinoco Tribune | November 25, 2020

Wednesday, November 25— This afternoon, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro lamented the death of Diego Armando Maradona, a great friend and ally of the Bolivarian Revolution, and recalled some of the last conversations they held.

“We have received a great blow to our feelings, a great one has left… The eternal Diego… We spoke days after his birthday and he felt very sad about the pandemic. ‘This pandemic cannot go on anymore,’ he told me,” said Maduro, recalling one of the most recent conversations he had with the Argentine star, and how confinement had affected him.

Assassination Attempt on President Maduro No Longer ‘Alleged’ for CNN

teleSUR | March 15, 2019

President Nicolas Maduro attends a gathering in support of his government in Caracas, Venezuela, Feb. 7, 2019. | Photo: Reuters

The assassination attempt crew trained its drone flying maneuvres at a farm in Colombia.

Six months after the failed assassination attempt against Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, CNN revealed Thursday unpublished images of how such attack was prepared on a Colombian farm, information which was provided by one of whom were involved in the attempted attack, a report that agrees with the government’s assertaions about the attack.

ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN—The Holes in Jorge Ramos’ Story About His Clash with Nicolas Maduro

by Alexander Rubinstein

Ramos is no small fish and hardly wet behind the ears: he has been with Univision since 1984. Today, Univision is the largest Spanish-language media company in the United States and is estimated to reach nearly 60 percent of all U.S. households. On the board of directors is Israeli-American media mega-financier Haim Saban, who also serves as Univision’s director of communications. In 2007, Saban organized a network of financiers to bail out the debt-ridden network.