A couple of weeks ago, the water pipe that supplies my building, the school next door and a number of small businesses, burst.

A local handyman examined the problem and did all he could. But on this occasion his solution was very “artisanal”. He lifted the drain and tied up a shitload of old shirts in the spot where the water was leaking.

Let’s say the leak became less obvious but still very much unsolved. It reminded me of one time when a pipe burst in my house and I temporarily fixed it with cork from a bottle cap. Only in this case there were hundreds of people affected.

It was obvious that a proper solution needed, as a minimum, to break the pavement and replace the pipe altogether. In other words, something to be done by the proper authorities.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/columns/tales-of-resistance-public-services-and-market-logic/

Dozens of feminist organizations staged a rally to demand free, legal and safe abortion and to denounce the influence of religious anti-rights groups inside the government.

Despite the heavy rain, feminist activists and allied LGBTQI+ groups gathered on Thursday outside the National Assembly (AN) in Caracas to bring attention to the lack of legislation regarding sexual and reproductive rights while abortion continues to be criminalized in the country’s penal code.

The activity was called “Green Gathering” and it was held to commemorate International Safe Abortion Day. The event was organized by the “Ruta Verde” [Green Route] platform, which brings together feminist collectives from across Venezuela in the struggle for women’s rights, especially abortion.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/multimedia/venezuela-feminist-collectives-demand-abortion-rights-state-church-separation/

Multinational corporation ConocoPhillips is seeking to join a court-mandated sale of CITGO shares to collect on a US $8.5 billion international arbitration award.

The company seeks to have a writ of attachment approved by a Delaware District Court so that the upcoming auction process can fulfill the compensation granted by the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in 2019 for the nationalization of oil assets by the former Hugo Chávez government in Venezuela.

Though its award is still undergoing an appeal at the ICSID, ConocoPhillips secured a default ruling to enforce the award from a Washington, D.C. court in late 2021. The decision followed a repeated failure by lawyers representing the US-backed “interim government” to show up in court.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/venezuela-conocophillips-targets-citgo-as-opposition-authorities-try-to-stall-auction/

Hugo Chávez talked a great deal about seeds, both figuratively and literally. For him, the commune was a seed of socialism. More literally, however, socialism implied sovereignty with regard to both seeds and food production. In this section, PROINPA associates explain their efforts to produce seeds and thereby contribute to food sovereignty in Venezuela.

"Potatoes, along with rice, sugar, meat, and dairy products, are among the main foodstuffs in the world. In Venezuela, we have sovereignty in the potato production sector, though not in seed production. Although PROINPA has significantly contributed to Venezuela’s potato sovereignty, there’s still a lot of work to be done.

As [20th-century intellectual] Uslar Pietri wisely pointed out, “We need to sow petroleum.” More investment is essential to fully consolidate our sovereignty in terms of seed potato production," explains potato producer Gerardo (Lalo) Rivas Gil.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/open-science-proinpa-breaks-with-seed-dependency-part-ii/

Venezuelan Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez commended the “bravery” of the Puebla Group for its efforts to confront aggressions and unilateral sanctions against her country by the US and allied right-wing governments in the region.

The Puebla Group, founded in 2019 as a space to unite progressive parties and leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean, held its 9th Gathering in its namesake city in Mexico on Saturday and Sunday. The official slogan was “Moving forward in unity.”

More than 200 representatives from 18 countries, including numerous former presidents such as Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, discussed multilateralism, the climate change crisis, and regional unity in the face of an emerging multipolar global order.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/venezuelan-vp-celebrates-puebla-group-bravery-at-progressive-blocs-9th-gathering-in-mexico/

The Venezuelan opposition has confirmed the use of manual voting for the primary election scheduled for October 22, rejecting the automated process offered by the National Electoral Council (CNE).

In a communique released on Monday, the opposition’s National Primary Commission (CNP) argued that on June 5 they requested a meeting with the country’s electoral authorities to define the technical assistance for the primary race but ten days later several CNE board members resigned their posts and the talks never continued. As a result, the commission carried on with self-organizing the vote.

Following the resignation of the electoral authorities on June 15, Venezuela’s National Assembly (AN) began the long process of drawing selections from a list of 104 candidates. The new CNE board was finally announced on August 24 charged with the task to oversee the 2024 presidential election.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/venezuelan-opposition-insists-on-manual-voting-for-primary-election/

In Part III of our "Campesino Resistance" series, we delve into PROINPA’s educational initiatives and the impact of US sanctions on production and life.

"Sovereignty is about a country being able to determine its future without foreign intervention. US Imperialism is determined to destroy our revolution because Chávez tried to make Venezuela both independent and socialist.

In this beautiful highland, we are determined to make sure that Chávez’s dream doesn’t disappear. Our contribution here is working hard so that we are sovereign in terms of seeds. In doing so, we are also showing that sovereignty is not a chimera: sovereignty is what we are building now at PROINPA!"

https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/education-science-and-sovereignty-proinpa-vs-the-us-blockade-part-iii/

Venezuelan social movements organized under the banner of the Palestine Solidarity Platform defended the Palestinian people’s right to resist colonialism and occupation following an offensive action Saturday carried out against Israel by Hamas and other armed elements of the Palestinian resistance movement.

“From the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the members of different social organizations, that are joined together in the Palestine Solidarity Platform, raise our voice in support of the resistance of its brave, noble, and native people who today, as always, fight for their liberation,” read a statement by the umbrella organization.

Naming Israel an “Apartheid regime which subjugates the Palestinian people in a much more cruel way than what was experienced in South Africa,” the communique pinned the blame for the outbreak of further violence on Israel’s flaunting of international law and the political, legal, and economic support of the United States toward Tel Aviv.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/venezuelan-social-movements-back-palestinians-right-to-resist/

In his weekly TV program, President Nicolás Maduro condemned the genocide committed by Israel against Palestine, especially the bombing and blockade of the Gaza Strip. He called for peace and pledged to send humanitarian help to the Palestinian people.

📢 Our book on sanctions is available now!

"A War Without Bombs" aims to provide the tools to understand (and collectively revert) the devastating impact of the blockade on the people of Venezuela.

You can download it as a PDF here: https://venezuelanalysis.com/opinion/a-war-without-bombs/

Chris Gilbert is a Marxist scholar committed to the revolutionary process in Venezuela, who teaches at the Bolivarian University in Caracas. His new book, Commune or Nothing! Venezuela’s Communal Movement and Its Socialist Project, just released by Monthly Review Press, is an engaging account of the country’s old-yet-new experiment in building a free, diverse, and humanly-rich society that is not bound by capitalist exchange-value production.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/the-commune-is-a-comprehensive-reworking-of-social-relations-a-conversation-with-chris-gilbert/

Washington’s sanctions relief has been exclusively directed at helping US and European companies to recoup unpaid debt from Caracas while the blockade against the Caribbean nation remains intact.

However, Bloomberg reported that Washington and Caracas have been engaged in talks since last year in Doha, Qatar, and the US government might be willing to lift some oil and banking sanctions against Venezuela. This could allegedly allow the Venezuelan government to reengage with financial institutions and recover around $3 billion frozen in accounts in Europe.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/venezuela-oil-output-recedes-as-caracas-renews-us-sanctions-relief-talks/

On October 4th, Venezuela’s Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, announced a warrant for the arrest of Juan Guaidó on charges including treason, false representation and corruption stemming from his time as head of the US-appointed “interim government” of Venezuela. Guaidó is alleged to have exploited state resources to fund his parallel administration, resulting in the potential loss of a staggering $19 billion in public assets.

Taking to social media from the safety of his Miami home, he claimed in response that “this is how the dictatorship’s machine for promoting lies works”. Unfortunately for him, the US’ own court documents prove that this charge was factually based. Guaidó, in fact, did preside over the loss of at least $19 billion in state holdings through his management of Citgo, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA. How did this happen? How did a man, powerless within his own country, lose its largest overseas asset?

“All that was privatised”, said then-president Hugo Chávez of the telecommunications giant CANTV, “let it be nationalised”. Thus began the 2007 nationalisation wave that took control of mining, oil, and agricultural operations for the people of Venezuela. This move represented an important step in the Bolivarian Revolution’s promise of wealth redistribution and of changing Latin America’s peripheral role as raw material supplier to companies in the Global North.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/opinion/guaido-citgo-and-the-19b-hole/

🔴#BreakingNews | The Nicolás Maduro government and the US-backed Venezuelan opposition signed an agreement laying out conditions for upcoming presidential elections.

With mediation from Norway, the two parties met in Barbados on Tuesday, resuming talks that had been suspended for nearly a year.

The signed agreement saw the two parties agree to hold the presidential vote in the latter half of 2024. Other electoral conditions set out include the update of the electoral registry, the implementation of presently existing audits and the invitation of international observation missions from organizations including the African Union, the European Union and the Carter Center.

Furthermore, the two sides pledged to recognize the results, and that all actors should have full electoral guarantees. They also agreed that each party should be free to choose its candidate. However, the wording did not state that politicians currently barred from political office would have their bans lifted.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/venezuelan-government-opposition-dialogue/