#Opinion | VA columnist Reinaldo Iturriza sets the record straight on some mischaracterizations of the Chávez years in Venezuela.

"It is true that, in general terms, Chávez's time in power coincided with a new, albeit brief, phase of the material expansion of the cycle of capital accumulation in Venezuela, but it was not a simple and fortunate coincidence, in spite of those who try to explain that period using the hackneyed cliché of the abundance of “petrodollars”.

There was fortune, but also virtue, as the Brazilian André Singer has written concerning Lula da Silva, in his extraordinary analysis of Lulismo. Virtue and fortune. Among the virtues of Hugo Chávez in the Presidency, two of them should be highlighted: on the one hand, the democratization of the distribution of [oil] rent to begin paying off the enormous social debt, which fundamentally implies a [deliberate] decision to substantially modify redistributive policies and not because of an abundant availability of resources, a fact contrary to what is frequently claimed; and on the other hand, the decision to introduce structural changes in the economy, gradually creating the conditions to move from a rent-seeking economy to a productive type."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/politics-commons/15701

🧵Whenever we read a corporate media piece about Venezuela, the 1st instinct is to go crazy at all the disingenuous reporting and biased narratives. Not great for your health. But after we’ve gathered ourselves, it’s useful to break down the propaganda. Bear w/ us here!

Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/venanalysis/status/1623558586046488577

#News | President Nicolás Maduro blasted Washington’s “global dictatorship” imposed through sanctions waivers that condition how countries and companies do business with Venezuela.

"They [the US] tell a country it has permission to negotiate with Venezuela, but it cannot pay in dollars or any form of cash. It must pay with food or products. That is colonialism," President Maduro said in a broadcast on February 2.

Maduro specifically criticized the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for issuing licenses that allow foreign companies to resume production and trade with Venezuelan state oil company (PDVSA) under very restrictive conditions, such as limited timeframes and no cash payments to Caracas.

The Venezuelan leader likewise accused the US of establishing a “global dictatorship” and stressed that the OFAC licenses are “an insult to sovereignty.” Maduro called for Latin American and Caribbean countries and governments to “denounce this colonial model.”

President Maduro’s strong rebuke against the OFAC licenses came after the US Treasury issued a two-year sanctions waiver for Trinidad and Tobago to import natural gas from Venezuela’s large offshore Dragon reserves but barring “any cash payments from this project,” according to an anonymous senior US official cited by Reuters.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15702

#Interview | Venezuelan economist and National Assembly member Tony Boza contrasts the nature of the Venezuelan economy when Chávez came into power and the changes he promoted by channeling oil profits toward working-class needs.

"It is important to say, however, that Chávez didn’t come to power with a socialist economic plan. In fact, he ran for president on a discourse inspired by Anthony Giddens’s “Third Way.” However, class struggle, as it expressed itself in the first years of his presidency, led him to question the viability of combining capitalism with social justice.

Around that time, Chávez also discovered that the key issue in Venezuela’s unequal distribution was the oil rent. That is when he began the process of re-nationalizing the oil industry, which had been partly privatized and decentralized in the 1990s. Neoliberal technocrats had promoted privatization on the grounds that [state oil company] “PDVSA wasn’t viable.” Mind you, we are talking about one of the largest oil companies in the world and the one that sits on top of the largest oil reserves on the planet!

That is what Chávez faced in 1998: an enterprise that was managed piecemeal and by private interests. Little by little, Chávez was able to regain control over the oil industry. He did so through the Oil Law [2001]; the expulsion of the so-called “PDVSA meritocracy,” which was serving the interests of capital; and the recomposition of OPEC. In brief, Chávez retook control of a formerly bankrupt enterprise and put it at the nation’s service."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/15699

The Venezuelanalysis Podcast Episode 13: Solidarity vs. Sanctions

Sanctions, also known as unilateral coercive measures, should primarily be understood as a tool of neocolonialism. After failing with outright coup attempts, Washington has turned to economic sanctions as the weapon of choice to try and trigger regime change in Venezuela.

In this podcast episode, host José Luis Granados Ceja is joined by fellow VA staffer Ricardo Vaz to discuss how there have been little to no changes to these deadly policies, and how the Venezuelan economy, despite a recent recovery, remains in a "straight-jacket."

Also featured is Michelle Ellner, a Latin America campaign coordinator at Code Pink, who discussed ongoing efforts from US-based solidarity collectives to challenge US foreign policy and hold representatives accountable.

Subscribe now to listen 👇

https://www.patreon.com/posts/venezuelanalysis-78600610

#Opinion | Recent US foreign policy precedents should show Venezuela what (not) to expect in the ongoing dialogue with the opposition, Sergio Rodríguez argues.

"Washington is using the most retrograde, violent, and anti-democratic sector of the Venezuelan opposition in Mexico while it deploys all the resources and instruments it has in its arsenal, including the "interim government," which is both anti-constitutional and non-existent in real terms. While the “interim government” has transitioned into an ”interim parliament,” the aggression continues. Interestingly, the decision did not ruffle too many feathers in the majority of the terrorist opposition sector because Guaidó did not carry out an efficient and equitable distribution of the resources obtained from theft.

Nevertheless, Washington continues to demand that its surrogates remain in the Mexico dialogue. However, without an embassy in Caracas, the US finds itself blind, deaf, and mute, so it clings to the only thing that it has to "maintain" its political influence in Venezuela.

Opening up the perspective, the Mexico dialogues are happening as the coercive measures adopted against Russia trigger economic disaster for the US and its allies, but it is still hard to explain to public opinion why OFAC gave the green light so that a US oil company [Chevron] reactivates its operations in Venezuela."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/around-world-60-days/15703

#News | Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro expressed his condolences to President Bashar al-Assad in a phone call Monday with his Syrian counterpart after more than 36,000 people were killed and thousands injured when a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Syria and Turkey last week.

Venezuela quickly dispatched humanitarian aid and a team of rescue workers to the earthquake-stricken region. The Simon Bolivar Humanitarian Task Force has focused its efforts in Latakia, in northwestern Syria, which had received little assistance.

Analysts have attributed the lack of sufficient aid to affected areas in Syria to the sanctions imposed on the al-Assad government following years of war between the state and Western-backed rebel forces.

According to a communique from the Venezuelan government, Maduro expressed his faith that the Syrian people would be able to overcome the consequences of the earthquake as they have with the “terrorist war driven by imperialism”.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15704

New podcast episode!

Sanctions, also known as unilateral coercive measures, should primarily be understood as a tool of neocolonialism. After failing with outright coup attempts, Washington has turned to economic sanctions as the weapon of choice to try and trigger regime change in Venezuela.

In this podcast episode, host José Luis Granados Ceja is joined by fellow VA staffer Ricardo Vaz to discuss how there have been little to no changes to these deadly policies, and how the Venezuelan economy, despite a recent recovery, remains in a "straight-jacket."

Also featured is Michelle Ellner, a Latin America campaign coordinator at Code Pink, who discussed ongoing efforts from US-based solidarity collectives to challenge US foreign policy and hold representatives accountable.

Listen here: https://venezuelanalysis.com/audio/15705

#News | Venezuela’s crude output continues last year’s path while exports dropped to their lowest level in seven months as Venezuelan state oil company (PDVSA) tightens sale contracts.

The Caribbean country pumped 686,000 barrels per day (bpd) in January, according to secondary sources from the latest Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) report, 20,000 bpd more than the previous month. For its part, PDVSA reported a higher figure of 732,000 barrels, above December’s 669,000 bpd.

International analysts have predicted that crude production this year will not vary from the 690,000 bpd averaged in 2022 as long as Washington’s blockade against the country’s oil industry remains largely unaltered.

Recent licenses issued by the US Treasury Department to US company Chevron, Spain’s Repsol and Italy’s Eni only allow taking Venezuelan crude to offset PDVSA debt while severely limiting any cash payments.

Despite the renewed Chevron cargoes, the South American country saw its export numbers plunge with 558,419 barrels per day of crude and refined products shipped in January, a 19 percent dropped compared to December.

The decline reportedly responds to PDVSA’s new president Pedro Rafael Tellechea ordering a freeze of crude and fuel exports in early January to address payment defaults from buyers, forcing vessels to wait near Venezuelan ports for authorization to load.

According to internal documents seen by Reuters, PDVSA has now set tougher rules for exports, including full payment in cash before customers receive oil.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15707

#Interview | Tony Boza is a Venezuelan economist, a National Assembly member for the Socialist Party (PSUV), and a well-known television personality. In Part II of this interview, he evaluates the economic policies currently being applied in Venezuela.

"If you go to any university’s economy department or if you listen to the spokespeople from a think tank, you will hear that the most important issue is to keep inflation down. In other words, inequality or poverty are not the main problems. In their terms, the main objective is “economic stability.”

Now, you may wonder, why is it so important to have low inflation? Is it because these “enlightened” professors and researchers feel the pain that the poor feel when inflation goes up? No, the point is that inflation actually does hurt banking and financial interests: the most consolidated economic powers in the world.

Joseph Stiglitz, who is by no means a leftist, says that inflationary problems should not become the be-all and end-all of a country’s economic policy, and that fixating on inflation will generate other larger problems.

In a capitalist world, market ideas are, as we know, hegemonic, and they affect those designing Venezuela’s economic policy. Fortunately, there is a debate about this, and our hope is that the government, which is no doubt in a very difficult situation due to external attacks, will soon correct its economic policies."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/15706

#News | Venezuelan opposition parties have laid out a road map to hold a primary contest to choose a presidential candidate.

A “National Primary Commission” (CNP) appointed by the “Unitary Platform” that brings together a number of anti-government forces announced a schedule leading up to the primary vote on October 22.

“The die is cast. We will move forward with determination toward our target alongside all citizens who want a political change,” CNP President Jesús María Casal said during a press conference in Caracas on Wednesday. Casal is an attorney, academic and former Supreme Court justice.

According to a publicly released calendar, the candidate list will be completed in June, the electoral registry will be published in July and there will be nearly two months of campaigning ahead of the October 22 vote.

Presidential elections should be held in 2024 according to the Venezuelan Constitution. However, electoral authorities have yet to announce a definitive date. In recent months, both government and opposition spokespeople brought up the possibility of the presidential elections being brought forward.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15708

🧵🗞The level of dishonesty of Reuters' Venezuela coverage is just staggering. Here's a piece on trade agreements between Venezuela and Colombia (https://reut.rs/3k7FcJZ). It has 8 bland paragraphs, very little context, and then boom! Propaganda on steroids

Read the twitter thread: https://twitter.com/venanalysis/status/1627202489278689287

Colombia and Venezuela – together with Ecuador and Panamá – are part of what Simón Bolívar called “Great Colombia.” They share a history, a culture, and the same project of emancipation. That is why a substantive peace in Colombia is of huge importance not only for the Colombian people, but also for Venezuela and the region.

In this exclusive VA interview, Commander Pablo Beltrán – a member of the ELN’s [Colombia’s National Liberation Army] Central Command and the head of the ELN Dialogue Delegation – talks about the Peace Dialogues that began in Caracas last November and are currently being held in México. Venezuela is a “guarantor country” in the negotiations now underway.

Pablo Beltrán: "We insist that, while the consequences of the armed conflict in Colombia must be dealt with, its causes must also be addressed. We have also said that these dialogues won’t make a “revolution by decree,” nor can they be expected to lead to a demobilization of the rebellions by decree.

We understand deactivating the conflict’s original causes as a process that entails eradicating poverty and social exclusion and ends the looting of national resources, their ruthless depredation. It must also bring an end to the old regime’s Security Doctrine of persecution and political genocide, systemic corruption must be done away with, and the country’s policies must not be dictated by Washington."

Continue reading 👇

https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/15709

#News | Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro met Thursday in the Venezuelan border-state of Táchira to sign an updated bilateral trade agreement.

“This is one more step for the integration of both countries, a process that should never have been suspended," said Petro during the signing ceremony on the Atanasio Girardot International Bridge that connects the two nations.

The meeting between Maduro and Petro is the latest step in the effort by both countries to advance the normalization of relations, which comes after previous meetings in Caracas, last year in November as well as in early January.

“Our relations have been taking on a new dynamic: one of political dialogue; diplomatic dialogue; a new economic, commercial, and population dynamic,” said Maduro during the televised summit.

The agreement concerns trade regulations, tariffs and investment conditions for both countries following the official reopening of the border in September.

“New winds are blowing,” Maduro added.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15710

For more than five years, the US has levied a raft of sanctions against Venezuela’s oil industry in an effort to strangle the country’s main source of income.

In this infographic, we present a chronology of the measures. (Spoiler: the Biden administration has barely touched the Trump-era sanctions)

https://venezuelanalysis.com/images/15301

#News | The Venezuelan government ratified its sovereignty over the disputed Essequibo region and denounced the territory’s exploitation by transnational corporations.

On Friday, Venezuela’s Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a communique celebrating the 57th anniversary of the UN-brokered Geneva Agreement signed by all parties on February 17, 1966, and reaffirmed the country’s adherence to the accord as the only binding international framework “to solve the territorial controversy in an amicable way.”

The statement recalled that the Geneva Agreement overruled the controversial 1899 arbitral award granted to then-British colonized Guyana in a five-jurist tribunal that denied the presence of Venezuelan negotiators. The 1966 deal called for a negotiated solution between the two countries following Guyana’s independence in May of that year. However, no understanding has ever been reached.

The diplomatic quarrel over the 160,000-square-kilometer territory had been mostly uneventful for several decades but it awakened in 2015 following the discovery of massive oil reserves in the Essequibo’s maritime waters totaling an estimated 11 billion barrels. US multinational Exxon Mobil has been carrying out drilling operations after receiving Guyana’s authorization to explore the disputed area.

Caracas has repeatedly denounced Guyana’s violation of the 1966 accords by allowing the continuous resource exploitation of the Essequibo Strip, first by gold transnational companies since the late 1880s and more recently by oil corporations.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15711

#News | Venezuelan campesinos staged a protest on Thursday in Portuguesa state.

Over 50 sugar cane growers rallied outside the local headquarters of the Agriculture Ministry in the town of Acarigua. They demanded the Venezuelan government address a number of issues currently hurting production in the countryside.

“We find ourselves in a state of emergency right now,” spokeswoman Blondy Sangronis told Venezuelanalysis. Sangronis currently serves as the national coordinator of the Confederation of Bolivarian Sugar Cane Producers (CONCABOVEN).

The campesinos presented a document proposing a number of solutions which was received by Agriculture Ministry director Gustavo Rojas. They expressed their desire to “collaborate” with authorities but did not rule out further demonstrations, including in Caracas, should there be no response.

The main concern brought up was access to subsidized diesel.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15712

"The trial against the Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab is likely to become one of the most emblematic cases that will determine the future of the relationships between countries in the years to come," writes filmmaker and activist Carolina Graterol.

"On 23rd December 2022 Florida Federal judge Robert Scola denied the Venezuelan Special Envoy’s motion to dismiss the indictment against him. According to the judge, Saab cannot be recognized as a representative of Nicolas Maduro’s government since the United States does not recognize Maduro’s legitimacy, according to a court filing.

Scola’s decision marks the conclusion of a shambolic case for the US government, where its witnesses were disqualified by the same judge and one had to be withdrawn to avoid further embarrassment. Scola gave US prosecutors a stroke of luck in a case they were about to lose by ignoring the strong evidence presented by the Venezuelan government related to Saab’s diplomatic credentials and overlooking the issue during the evidentiary hearing.

This case sends a clear message to the international community that nothing is out of bounds, not even the rights and protection normally assigned to diplomats, something even the US has consistently defended in recent history until now."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15713

A few days ago I was telling a friend that I feel bad for not knowing what to think. This is me, someone who always had clear-cut views about just about anything. And now, when it comes to certain topics of our current political reality, I can’t really settle on an opinion.

I reached this (awful!) conclusion because of a new and shiny baseball stadium: the Simón Bolívar Caracas Monumental, with a 38,000-seat capacity and which cost some 70 million dollars.

It is a beautiful, modern venue. At first sight it is easy to think: “damn, it looks awesome.” In fact, during the opening of the recent baseball Caribbean series, I recall that journalists were asking fans about their impressions of the newly unveiled structure. A young man, with humble looks, proudly answered: “I worked here!”

I’m a sucker for these things, so his look and smile were enough to make my eyes tear up. It was a reminder that the workers of the world, then and now, are the protagonists of all the major works, regardless of what professional opinion makers may try to spin.

But in this case, the issues are different and there is no avoiding them once we place this major project in the country’s present context.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/tales-resistance/15714

#News | The Venezuelan government stepped up its criticism of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a statement issued Tuesday that charged the court with engaging in “judicial colonialism” as a result of the ongoing probe of alleged human rights abuses.

ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan announced in November 2022 that he would resume a formal investigation into alleged human rights violations committed by Venezuelan state security forces in its response to violent anti-government protests in 2017.

The statement from the Venezuelan government strongly criticized the manner in which that investigation has been since carried out. In a document submitted to the court, the government alleged that “various irregularities and violations of due process” had transpired, creating a climate of “defenselessness” for the Venezuelan state.

Specifically, the statement criticized the “proven links” of the ICC Prosecutor's Office with biased NGOs. The government maintains that the “impartiality and objectivity” of the court is undermined.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15715

🧵The neverending love affair between the corporate media and fascism. For all the talk (or b.s. really) about being gatekeepers of civilization, establishment outlets have yet to meet a Global South politician they deem to be too far right. Let's look at another example...

Read the twitter thread: https://twitter.com/venanalysis/status/1630714697593831426