‘Cortez, what a killer’ – Neil Young
It has been a while since the US forced a coup d’état in Latin America, I suppose Bolivia is the latest attempt. In Venezuela a successful coup has immediate reward: access to the worlds largest reserves of oil. It is important to put this in context. The US can hardly point the finger at Venezuela given the frailties of its own democracy.
Hybrid War
The concept of hybrid wars was originally proposed by the Russian journalist Andrew Korybko. In his book Hybrid Wars, the author looked into strategies employed by the United States to influence the ousting, in 2014, of the Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. The US fights hybrid wars by imposing sanctions and stopping money supplies and goods from entering a country, generating social discontent and regime change. This is what has been happening since Chavez when a military coup failed. The Chavez government had nationalized the oil, and that led to big oil companies like Exxon departing Venezuela. So then it became a struggle for control of the oil, which is very plentiful in Venezuela. There are parallels here with Libya, Iraq, Iran and Syria, all have quite a lot of oil.
US-backed coup attempt in Venezuela
In 2024 the US administration aims to topple Nicolás Maduro who has been in power in Venezuela since Chavez died. This was triggered when the Venezuelan government moved to an alternative currency (Chinese Yen) for its oil trades.
Monroe Doctrine
But the current moves date back to the Monroe Doctrine that has influenced US foreign policy towards Latin America since the 19th century, including sanctions on Venezuela imposed by three different US administrations (Obama, Trump and Biden). The doctrine dictates that the United States can intervene the internal affairs of any country in Latin America. In his song Cortez the killer Neil Young speaks of past civilization prior to colonisation where people worked together and built something beautiful, despite facing challenges and loss. Now Venezuela’s economic struggles are linked to lack of diversification and dependence on oil. There is a lack of investment in new infrastructure. In a world where fossil energy resources have become inaccessible because of wars (Ukraine, Middle East, Africa) Venezuelan oil is looking like a good gamble.
On January 23, 2019, when Venezuelan opposition leader, Juan Guaido, unilaterally declared himself “interim president” of Venezuela, the U.S. administration immediately recognised his illegal claim. Now the Biden administration recognises opposition candidate Edmundo González as winner despite lack of election data to support their claim. Last week’s election results are yet to be published.
Curiously US administrations always introduce a moral aspect to the struggle claiming human rights abuses, which is pretty rich coming from one of the worst human rights of abusers on the planet, a society that worships money, even at the cost of genocide.
The last attempt at a coup in 2019
Interview with Diego Sequera from Mision Verdad in Caracas
Ian Curr, 3 Aug 2024
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