At the end of June, dozens of popular power collectives gathered at the El Panal Commune in western Caracas to participate in the “Reflections on Communal Democracy” summit. It was a space to reflect and debate on the progress and challenges for the construction of socialism in Venezuela.

In this podcast episode, José Luis was joined by Dahís Suárez and Iván Tamariz, from the Panal 2021 Commune which hosted the event. He likewise chatted with fellow VA member Cira Pascual Marquina on the debates that took place and the bigger picture of grassroots struggles in Venezuela.

Become a patron for early access: https://www.patreon.com/posts/86552243

"In 2009, the same year that he launched the communal project in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez attended the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen. He spoke brilliantly there, joking that if the climate were a bank, it would have been rescued already. Riffing on Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Chávez argued that there was a “specter” haunting the conference and it was “capitalism.” He also mentioned that one of the best slogans he had heard in the street protests taking place around the event was “Don’t change the climate, change the system!” In his talk, which was well received by activists around the world, Chávez never mentioned the new project of building socialism with the commune as “its basic cell” that he had kickstarted that summer, but the fact is that the project of communal socialism that was emerging in Venezuela at that time is precisely the kind of system change that could save the climate and the Earth System more generally."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15813

🧵🧵Worse than a broken clock... Even when it wants to state the obvious, in this case that sanctions are a terrible and wrong policy, the New York Times remains fully draped in US exceptionalism. The corporate media are an active front of the US empire.

Read the thread: https://twitter.com/venanalysis/status/1683727073628631043

Venezuelan Oil Minister Pedro Tellechea announced Friday that the country is in advanced negotiations with foreign firms to develop its natural gas reserves. The announcement comes as Venezuela seeks to increase its productive capacity after years of under-investment as a result of US sanctions.

"Our goal is to explore, produce, refine and export every product we can," said Tellechea during an address at a business chamber expo.

The Venezuelan oil minister added that he expects the country to finally hit the 1 million barrel per day benchmark this year, a goal that has eluded the state-owned oil company PDVSA in the recent term. Officials reported that the country was producing approximately 735,000 barrels per day (bpd) in June, the highest registered since early 2020. Tellechea claimed Friday that figure had increased to 831,000 bpd.

Upon taking office, Tellechea quickly ordered the temporary suspension of all oil export contracts following corruption allegations involving PDVSA that led to a string of arrests and the resignations of senior officials, including his predecessor, Tareck El Aissami. Tellechea claimed that the country presently no longer has any suspended contracts.

Under severe US sanctions, the Caribbean nation’s oil industry has been plagued by unreliable intermediaries that have seen the new leadership overhaul contracts and demand upfront payments. PDVSA has nonetheless maintained its productive operations, with Tellechea stating Friday that the oil company would continue to press forward despite the ongoing anti-corruption drive.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15814

🎙🇻🇪 The latest delivery of the Venezuelanalysis podcast reports on a recent summit dedicated to "communal democracy" and the efforts to build socialism in Venezuela.

Listen to the full episode here: https://venezuelanalysis.com/audio/15815

Last June saw eastern Venezuela suffer terrible rains. They wreaked havoc in the most impoverished areas of Anzoátegui state.

My mind instantly traveled to November 2010. At that time, I was in the midst of my 360 hours of mandatory internship (part of journalism studies) in a Venezuelan media outlet. Even getting to work was a challenge, it looked like the sky fell on us every morning.

The days went on and the rains showed no sign of stopping. On December 1st, 2010, Chávez came out on a broadcast to declare a “state of national emergency” and immediately took to the streets to witness the scene first-hand.

That day was the first time I went to Antímano, a sector full of barrios and shacks in western Caracas that I knew nothing about. In fact, all I had heard was that close by, and in a very contrasting fashion, lay the famous and fancy-looking Andrés Bello Catholic University.

That day I also saw Chávez up close and personal. He arrived in a military jeep, picked up a baby named Samuel, asked about his dad, and was outraged to find out that the father had abandoned his child. He drove up and up and up into the barrio, got down from his car and continued on foot alongside the people in every sector. He asked questions, he listened, all while his bodyguards and ministers struggled to keep up.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/tales-resistance/15817

Hugo Chávez was born on July 28, 1954. A brilliant politician and a social justice warrior, he became the leader of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, inspiring people from around the world to fight for love and equality.

On this day, we want to remember some of his lessons: https://twitter.com/venanalysis/status/1684916334193156096

A coalition of LGBTQI+ and human rights organizations have rejected the criminalization of 33 men arrested during a raid on a private sauna located in Valencia, Carabobo state.

The arrests took place on Sunday, July 23, after the Bolivarian National Police (PNB) raided the Avalon Man Club, a bar sauna frequently visited by the LGBTQI+ community, where the 30 men, two masseurs and the owner were present. According to the local press, the police came after receiving a call from neighbors complaining of disturbances.

However, a family member of one detainee told the press that the sauna is not surrounded by houses but by other businesses that only open in the morning.

The police reportedly tried to blackmail the establishment owner by denouncing that an orgy was being filmed inside the place after finding condoms, private sexual videos on some phones, and five clients in towels using the sauna area. According to local sources, the Avalon Man Club receives contraceptive donations from LGBTQI+ collectives to give away to visitors.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15818

The International People’s Tribunal on US Imperialism held a session in Caracas on Friday dedicated to unilateral coercive measures and their consequences on Venezuela.

The tribunal, which focuses on “sanctions, blockades and economic coercive measures,” brought a 14-person delegation to the Caribbean country. The team featured academics, lawyers and activists, including representatives from the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL).

Former Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia, who currently serves as secretary-general of the ALBA alliance, offered the event’s opening words and recalled the Hugo Chávez-led regional integration efforts.

“Today, in spite of the difficult conditions, we remain committed to solidarity, integration and regional unity,” he told those present.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15819

The history of the Communes is the history of the organization of the working class. But not the working class in an abstract sense, but that of the really existing one in a specific historical moment.

Both the available documentary record and the testimony of organizers allow us to conclude that Hugo Chávez, and certainly the most astute members of the Bolivarian movement, fully understood the need, to unite and organize, to interpellate and be interpellated by what Chávez then referred to as the "marginal classes," that is, the poorest among the poor, that fraction of the working class that was excluded thrice over: from the formal labor market, from citizenship, and from the market economy, and which, by the mid-1990s, constituted the majority of the workforce in Venezuela.

Much has been said about the immense effort by the Bolivarian government during the first decade of this century to address the historically accumulated "social debt." However, before then, during the preceding decade, Chávez and the Bolivarian movement set out to address a more pressing debt: the political one.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/politics-commons/15820

A joint offshore gas project between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago has stalled as a result of the Nicolás Maduro government's rejection of stringent terms that flow from US sanctions on the country.

“The Venezuelans have not accepted the terms laid down by the Americans. That is the long and short of it,” said Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley during an interview Thursday in local media.

Caracas is currently engaged in negotiations with Port of Spain to export natural gas from the offshore Dragon field, which has 4.2 trillion cubic feet (tcf) worth of deposits. The operations would be run by Dutch multinational corporation Shell.

Any deal is subject to US approval via the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as a result of US sanctions on Venezuela that effectively constitute a blockade of the country's hydrocarbon industry.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15821

A lot of people have told me that as a leftist woman, I shouldn’t write or even care about these things. Many think that gender is an imperialist construct, an ideology being imposed on the Global South as if we were idiots. What is actually being imposed is the fascist anti-rights movement that is also against women’s sexual and reproductive rights. Truth is, the LGBTQI+ community has always existed and will continue to exist and the fight for its rights in Venezuela began decades ago. It precedes any “gender ideology” fiction.

Another common complaint is, “Why focus on this? It doesn’t have any impact on the world and its problems.” Except it does. Everybody benefits from a society that is more accepting and less discriminating. When we affirm the rights of a minority, such as the LGBTQI+ community, we open the path for every other minority group. When women and black people earned political and economic rights, everybody won because we became more democratic, even if there’s still a lot to do regarding racism and gender inequality.

You can think about LGBTQI+ inclusion the same way as a building that has access for people with different disabilities. It won’t affect you or make you disabled, but it will positively affect a bunch of other people. Everyone gets to enter the building with their humanity intact.

More importantly, legislating for queer people to have the same rights as everybody else would reduce homophobia and violence against this community, which is a huge problem right now. According to the Venezuelan Observatory of LGBTIQ+ Violence, last year there were 97 cases of violence, including 11 murders. The aggressors were mostly heterosexual men, civilians, but also state security officers. The crimes happened everywhere: public parks, workplaces, restaurants, radio stations… anywhere where everyday life occurs.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15822

The Venezuelan government has put in motion an emergency plan to clean and reduce oil spills in Maracaibo Lake, western Zulia state, following alarming reports from the scientific community.

On July 24, President Nicolás Maduro announced the approval of resources to rescue the largest lake in South America, which in recent years has been affected by increasing crude spills from corroded pipelines as well as the proliferation of microalgae called verdigris that release toxins and bad odors as a result of waste, untreated sewage and industrial waters dumped into the lake.

“I have received reports about oil spills in Lake Maracaibo and how they have impacted the fishing community and the general [environmental] habitat. With the support of scientists, technicians and ministers, I have created a special plan of attention and recovery,” said Maduro during a speech for the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Lake Maracaibo.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15823

"After independence, when colonial regimes were defeated, the imperial system continued operating the same way, but it developed new methods of domination. The first approach was to control the elites in the newly independent states. This generally worked, but if the new elites were anti-imperialist, they would be overthrown through coups, wars spurred by the CIA, or outright invasions.

Second, the metropolitan centers implanted Westernized universities in the periphery to colonize minds and promote neocolonial policies. Universities and other mechanisms for cultural domination are key to the neocolonial project.

Then, there is the implementation of economic sanctions. If a country such as Cuba or Venezuela goes off the path, a blockade will descend upon its people. And mind you, the mechanism of sanctions goes way back. With the Haitian Revolution, a brutal blockade was applied to the island after its independence."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/15816

"The U.S. has used its influence to steal another country’s oil revenues. Venezuela is in the crosshairs because it dares to be socialist in the hemisphere the U.S. claims as its “backyard.”

It was always about the oil. United States assertions that the government of elected president Nicolas Maduro was illegitimate were always a ruse needed to get U.S. corporate hands on Venezuela’s oil company, CITGO.

All the years of demonization, choosing an “interim president” who addressed congress and met with U.S. allies around the world, and collusion with the corporate media to spread war propaganda, were all part of a bipartisan heist that would make a gangster blush.

Actually, the plot is the work of gangsters. Barack Obama began the process with the first tranche of sanctions against Venezuela. He then handed over the project to Donald Trump, a man allegedly anathema to the Democratic Party, who openly bragged about wanting to take Venezuela’s oil. He got his wish but his successor Joe Biden gets the hoodlum ring leader bragging rights."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15825

Venezuelan Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez called for countries that are home to the Amazon River basin to declare a regional emergency in order to advance the conservation of the rainforest in the face of growing exploitation of the region’s rich resources.

Rodríguez, heading the Venezuelan delegation at the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) summit in the northern Brazilian city of Belem, warned of the threat posed by transnational pharmaceutical, energy and industrial companies to the biodiversity of the world’s largest rainforest.

“The path forward is not to reduce the role of states, the path is to strengthen the capacities and functions of the state, not handing these functions over to non-governmental organizations that are ultimately instrumentalized by the large pharmaceutical, food, and energy emporiums, to seize the great biodiversity of the Amazon Basin,” said Rodríguez.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15826

Venezuelan opposition politicians have endorsed the extension of the validity of defaulted debt instruments issued by the Venezuelan government and state oil company PDVSA.

The defunct 2015 National Assembly announced its decision over a Zoom call on Tuesday.

The accord, which still requires approval from the US Treasury Department, suspends an upcoming statute of limitations on Venezuelan bonds, thus deterring legal claims and leaving open the possibility of debt renegotiations.

Hans Humes, chairman of the Greylock Capital Management group that owns more than $10 billion in Venezuelan debt, praised the move amidst a “legal quagmire” caused by Washington’s Venezuela policies.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15827

"There is one sector that wants to subordinate the Bolivarian Revolution to neoliberal policies in the vain hope of appeasing US imperialism. In other words, they aim to maintain control over the state, but the economic policies that they promote are the empire’s. This is a reactionary response to the attack, and it’s also naive. The imperialists are overtly opposed to the revolution, and if you make economic concessions to them, they aren’t going to give in but just the opposite. To illustrate this, let’s look at Gaddafi in Libya. He thought that by making concessions and turning some oil wells over to Western corporations, the siege would end. But what happened to Libya? An outright invasion destroyed the country.

Imperialism isn’t just an economic system; it’s also a geopolitical civilizational system. The imperialists aren’t about to give up just because a country like Libya (or Venezuela for that matter) makes economic concessions to their interests. The imperialist elites want total control: it’s not enough for them if the Bolivarian elites turn neoliberal and are willing to liberalize the oil market. If they can, they will go all the way and destroy everything touched by the Bolivarian Revolution. This includes the Bolivarian elites who are willing to make concessions at the level of the economy in order to survive."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/15824

The Venezuelan government has won a legal battle to recover approximately 1.35 billion Euros (some 1.5 billion US dollars) frozen since 2019 by Portugal’s Novo Banco.

On Wednesday, Information Minister Freddy Ñañez published the ruling by the Central Civil Court of Lisbon, dated July 31, ordering the private bank to transfer the funds to accounts held by nine Venezuelan entities, including state oil company PDVSA, joint oil ventures, and the Venezuelan Economic and Social Development Bank (BANDES).

In a communique, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry celebrated the court’s order to release the retained funds.

“This constitutes a clear victory of the Venezuelan people against the strategy promoted by foreign powers and local politicians to appropriate the country’s resources and cause suffering to the population,” the statement read.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15828

The Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) firmly rejected a recent ruling by the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) that appointed a new ad-hoc board to lead the party.

In a video message posted Monday, PCV Secretary General Oscar Figuera shared the declaration issued by the V Plenum of the Central Committee of the party in light of the court’s decision, arguing that it constitutes an “illegal” intervention in the internal affairs of the organization.

“This sentence by the Constitutional Chamber is an illegal and incorrect sentence,” said Figuera.

In its statement, the Central Committee maintains that the seven people appointed to the board of directors are not PCV members and therefore cannot occupy leadership posts in the party, making their appointment by the court an “usurpation” of the collective’s credentials.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15829

Venezuela’s oil production and exports have experienced important growth in recent months amidst efforts to secure more investment and circumvent US sanctions.

The latest OPEC monthly report placed the Caribbean nation’s July crude output at 772,000 barrels per day (bpd), as measured by secondary sources. The figure rose from 734,000 bpd in June. For its part, state oil company PDVSA reported a higher number of 810,000 bpd, up from 796,000 bpd the prior month.

The current output is the highest registered since early 2020 when Washington imposed secondary sanctions against foreign actors dealing with Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA. Previously, the industry had been hit with financial sanctions in 2017, an export embargo in 2019 and a host of other measures.

According to Venezuela’s Oil Minister and PDVSA president, Rafael Tellechea, crude output has slowly recovered thanks to workers’ efforts and a sustained governmental strategy. “[We are] demonstrating that it is possible to face the [US] blockade with efficiency and trusting our own capabilities,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15830