by Roger D. Harris \/ May 2nd, 2021<\/p>\n
Venezuela was once one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America. The popular classes enjoyed major advances<\/a> from the Bolivarian Revolution initiated by Hugo Ch\u00e1vez. Today Venezuela is experiencing an unprecedented economic crisis with severe humanitarian consequences.<\/p>\n The US government blames the crisis on the mismanagement and corruption of the Venezuelan government headed by Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. The Venezuelan government faults the US and its allies for imposing sanctions, unilateral coercive measures<\/a> illegal under international law.<\/p>\n An official US Congressional Research Service report<\/a> issued April 28, \u201cVenezuela: Background and US Relations,\u201d suggests the Venezuelan government has valid arguments that it is being strangulated<\/a> by US sanctions. According to the report:<\/p>\n It is difficult to attribute precisely the extent of Venezuela\u2019s economic collapse that is due to US sanctions versus broad economic mismanagement. A February 2021 Government Accountability Office report asserted that \u201csanctions, particularly on the state oil company in 2019, likely contributed to the steeper decline of the Venezuelan economy.\u201d The Maduro government has defaulted on all its bonds, and US sanctions prohibit debt restructuring with creditors.<\/p>\n US regime-change activities<\/strong><\/p>\n The Congressional Research Service report provides a brief revision of history to fit an imperialist narrative to justify the hybrid war<\/a> to achieve regime change in Venezuela. Hence the US-backed coup in 2002, when the US government welcomed a \u201creturn to democracy,\u201d is euphemistically referred to as President Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s \u201cbrief ouster from power.\u201d The subsequent employers\u2019 lockout in 2002-2003, designed to economically cripple the government and cause its fall, is called an \u201coil workers\u2019 strike.\u201d The lethally violent guarimbas<\/em><\/a> calculated to overthrow the elected Maduro government are called \u201cstudent-led\u201d protests.<\/p>\n While in all the above instances, the US role in events is rendered invisible, the report describes how \u201cCongress has provided funding to support democratic civil society in Venezuela,\u201d which is Washington\u2019s duplicitous shorthand for regime change programs.<\/p>\n The report continues: \u201cFor more almost [sic] two decades, the US has provided democracy-related assistance to Venezuelan civil society through the US Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy,\u201d the former through its appropriately named Office of Transition Initiatives. \u201cFor FY2021, the Administration requested\u2026$200 million to support transition in Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n In January 2019 the US and its allies ceased to recognize Maduro as Venezuela\u2019s legitimate president after then National Assembly leader Juan Guaid\u00f3<\/a>, who had never run for national office, \u201cannounced he was willing to serve as interim president.\u201d Guaid\u00f3\u2019s coup attempts<\/a> are euphemistically described as \u201chigh-profile but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to encourage security forces to abandon Maduro.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the US allies that have recognized Guaid\u00f3, \u201coppose military intervention in Venezuela and have expressed concerns about the humanitarian effects of broad sanctions,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n The report laments that: \u201cThe Venezuelan government has made it difficult for Venezuelans to obtain a valid passport and therefore legal status outside the country.\u201d The difficulty, conveniently omitted from the report, is that when a foreign state expels the legitimate Maduro representatives and installs Guaid\u00f3\u2019s, Caracas has no means of conducting normal embassy activities.<\/p>\n Economic crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n Key in the US hybrid war to achieve regime change in Venezuela are the economic sanctions. The report forthrightly describes:<\/p>\n [the] multiyear economic crisis, one of the worst economic crises in the world since World War II: Its economy has contracted by more than 75% since 2014, estimated as the single largest economic collapse outside of war in at least 45 years and more than twice the magnitude of the Great Depression in the US. Imports\u2014which Venezuela relies on for most consumer goods\u2014have fallen by almost 95% since 2013. The country faces shortages of critical food and medicine.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Contrary to the official US narrative that Venezuela\u2019s Bolivarian Revolution is root cause of all problems, the report admits: \u201cThe trigger for Venezuela\u2019s economic crisis was the crash in world oil prices in 2014.\u201d<\/p>\n The report explains how US sanctions<\/a> confounded the Venezuelan government\u2019s efforts to address this crisis:<\/p>\n Piecemeal efforts to address the crisis, including price controls and the creation of a new digital currency, the petro, were ineffective [because they were blocked by the US government]. Some initiatives, such as restructuring debt or bringing the government budget into balance, were pledged and then abandoned [again prevented by the US government sanctions].<\/p>\n Subsequent rounds of US sanctions targeting the government, central bank, and gold sectors, as well as limiting Venezuela\u2019s access to the US financial system, likely exacerbated economic pressures in Venezuela. With private creditors unwilling and unable (due to sanctions) to purchase new Venezuelan debt, the Maduro government routinely turned to its main international financial backers\u2014China, Russia, and more recently, Iran\u2014but China and Russia are increasingly reluctant to extend further assistance [due to secondary sanctions<\/a>].<\/p>\n The sanctions are not just against Venezuela but affect other countries amounting to a blockade:<\/p>\n The sanctions framework also prohibited non-US entities from transacting with PdVSA [Venezuelan state-owned oil company] in US dollars and made non-US entities subject to having their US property blocked, should it be determined that they materially assisted PdVSA\u2026.<\/p>\n Under the sanctions framework, Treasury also has sanctioned numerous individuals, vessels, and companies involved in trading and shipping Venezuelan oil. This progressive application of sanctions\u2014designed to prevent export and sale of oil produced in Venezuela\u2014has made it more difficult, though not impossible, for PdVSA to complete petroleum sales and export transactions.<\/p>\n Venezuela\u2019s dilemma: patria o muerte<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n The US government imposes the choice on Venezuela \u2013 in the words of the Latin American revolutionary slogan \u2013 of patria o muerte<\/em> (homeland or death). In the period 2017-2018 alone, some 40,000 deaths were attributed<\/a> to the sanctions. And that was pre-COVID and before the most devastating sanctions fully took effect.<\/p>\n In a weaponization of the pandemic, the US took advantage of the health vulnerability to make conditions even worse, according to the report:<\/p>\n The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated the economic challenges facing the Venezuelan government\u2026. Fuel shortages, exacerbated by the end of US-licensed oil for diesel swaps in the fall of 2020, reportedly have made food distribution and humanitarian aid delivery more challenging.<\/p>\n Noting that \u201cit is unclear how Venezuela\u2019s economy can rebuild in the absence of a significant reorientation of economic policies,\u201d the report calls for the abandonment of the Bolivarian social project and adoption of an IMF structural adjustment program, which would remove price controls on vital necessities, privatize banks, and fully open the economy to the dictates of international finance.<\/p>\n \u201cThe economic crisis, now exacerbated by the pandemic,\u201d the report coldly explains, \u201chas been devastating for its citizens, with no clear or quick resolution on the horizon in the absence of a resolution to the concurrent political crisis.\u201d The \u201cpolitical crisis\u201d is the US regime change program designed to subjugate Venezuela.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough sanctions do not seem to be physical warfare weapons,\u201d the Lancet<\/em> (3\/18\/20 as quoted by FAIR<\/em>) noted, \u201cthey are just as deadly, if not more so. Jeopardizing the health of populations for political ends is not only illegal but also barbaric.\u201d<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n The findings in the congressional report are a recommended counterpoint to those of the corporate media such as CNN<\/a> that anguish over the dire conditions in Venezuela but obscure the major perpetrator. Ditto for leftish analysts such as Chris Gilbert<\/a> who writes: \u201cThe silent event that shook Venezuela in 2015-16 involved an abrupt return to capitalist normality. At about that time Maduro\u2019s government decided to step back from interventions in the economy.\u201d Left out of his picture is the fact that US sanctions were imposed on Venezuela at precisely that time.<\/p>\n If the US government\u2019s propaganda is correct that the current crisis is due to Maduro\u2019s mismanagement and corruption, then illegal and inhumane sanctions would not be needed to dislodge the \u201cregime.\u201d Conversely, given that the sanctions and accompanying blockade are so overwhelming<\/a>, the impacts of mismanagement and corruption would be difficult to parse out. In fact, the report says, \u201cdata suggest that production declines accelerated following sanctions targeting Venezuela\u2019s oil sector.\u201d<\/p>\n The one conclusion for sure is that the US is punishing the Venezuelans for the good things (such as poverty reduction, documented in the report) and not the bad. Otherwise, demonstrable narco-states like Colombia<\/a> and Honduras<\/a> that are guilty of manifest human rights violations would be treated like Venezuela, and Venezuela would be the largest recipient of US aid.<\/p>\n The Congressional Research Service report concludes:<\/p>\n The failure to dislodge Maduro from power demonstrated the limits of US and other international efforts to prompt political change in Venezuela. Unilateral US policies, such as oil sanctions, arguably worsened the humanitarian crisis in the country and caused divisions within the international coalition that once backed Guaid\u00f3.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In other words, despite inhumane sanctions by the US and its allies, the Bolivarian Revolution has endured because of its popular support.<\/p>\n\n
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