Don’t fall for Trump’s lies about Venezuela
By Walter Smolarek
Feb 22, 2019
People...are being hit with an avalanche of
propaganda about Venezuela and the government of President Nicolás Maduro. This
happens in the run up to every U.S. war. The tactic is to psychologically
prepare people to accept the coming aggression by connecting it to a noble
cause. The information war always precedes the real war.
The ANSWER Coalition has issued an anti-war call to action —
based on opposition to the U.S.-backed coup, sanctions and war — which allows
people with varying opinions of the Venezuelan government to find the necessary
points of unity to take action together. The PSL agrees that this is the
correct approach for building the movement. With that said, we think it is
critical to challenge the mass media’s depiction of the Venezuelan government.
That demonization is constant — led by Donald Trump, Mike Pence,
John Bolton and Marco Rubio and then echoed by the “opposition” like Nancy
Pelosi, Joe Biden, CNN and the New York Times. It is repeated so often that it
has an impact even on progressive people who are against a new war. In opposing
a coup or intervention, many will quickly add “of course I don’t support
Maduro” who is “dictatorial,” “corrupt,” and “undemocratic” or “has mismanaged
the economy.” But is this really true, or is it just propaganda of the
war-makers themselves?
President Nicolás Maduro at a rally in support of the Bolivarian Revolution on Feb. 2, 2019. Photo: Prensa Presidencial
Is Maduro a
‘dictator’?
If President Maduro is a dictator, why has he allowed large
demonstrations to take place on a regular basis calling for his ouster,
promoted by huge private media corporations? Does a dictatorship allow 11
opposition partiesto take part in elections, as happened in the most recent
vote the country held last December?
Even the U.S.-backed coup leader Juan Guaidó, who pronounced
himself president and every day calls for the military to mutiny and for a
hostile foreign power to intervene, is free to travel around the capital city
giving speeches and holding meetings as part of his campaign to overthrow the
government.
Is the
electoral system fraudulent?
Venezuela has had 24 elections since Chavez was first elected in
1998. International observer missions have long verified the electoral system
as free, fair and top-notch. The right-wing opposition even won some of these
elections and didn’t claim fraud then! The system is unchanged since then. The
claim of electoral fraud has not been backed by evidence; it has been made
precisely because the opposition could not find a way to dislodge the governing
socialist party and President Maduro.
What about the
images of violence on the streets?
Opposition protests large and small take place all the time in
Venezuela without incident. Following Maduro’s first election in 2013,
right-wing forces initiated a series of riots called “guarimbas” in 2014 that
claimed 43 lives. The majority of the 43 people killed were bystanders or
others who were targeted by the rioters, including nine members of the police
or national guard. They set up barricades and barbed wire to close off
intersections and whole neighborhoods, and commit horrific violence against
those who stood in their way.
Elvis Rafael Durán was one of their victims. His father Luis
recalled two years after his death, “On [my son’s] way home he crashed into a
barbed wire that was hanging across the boulevard and he was decapitated. … If
these people hadn’t called for these violent acts, none of this would have
happened. My son would not have lost his life.” In 2014, an opposition
demonstration marched on a government agency that provides free housing to the
poor and attempted to burn down the building, which included a nursery filled
with children!
The opposition revived these tactics in 2017 with renewed
brutality and with their extreme white supremacy on full display. One of their
victims was a young Afro-Venezuelan named Orlando Figuera, who was stabbed
multiple times, then doused with gasoline and burned alive.
The riots were aimed at escalating the conflict with Venezuela’s
government to give the image of instability or provoke the sort of repression
which could usher in an international intervention. Any government would punish
the perpetrators of such violence. One opposition “freedom fighter” celebrated
by U.S. politicians like Marco Rubio was Oscar Perez, who was killed in a
shootout while being arrested. His crime? He had hijacked a helicopter and
dropped grenades on the Venezuelan Supreme Court.
Despite all this, the government has cracked down on police excesses. After violent anti-government protests in late 2016, for example, seven police officers were arrested and charged with “violations of fundamental rights.” In 2014, a police officer was charged with the murder of an opposition protester despite the fact that he was surrounded and being pelted with rocks. Maduro’s interior minister defended the officer’s arrest, saying, “We will be relentless in the application of justice and the law.”
Are opposition
leaders being arrested?
The right-wing leaders who were arrested and jailed, like
Leopoldo Lopez, Freddy Guevara and David Smolansky, were those who organized
and encouraged this violent movement. They were not arrested because of their
beliefs. This is who the U.S. considers “political prisoners.” Opposition
parties and leaders, drawing on huge sums from the country’s upper class and
U.S. agencies, continue to organize and agitate openly. One such opposition
leader Henri Falcon ran in the 2018 presidential election and received 2
million votes (just under 20 percent). He accepted his defeat to Maduro.
What about the removal of opposition parties?
Some of the opposition parties that boycotted the last few
elections have been de-listed by the government. That is true, but hardly a
scandal. In most states in the United States too, a third party is only on the
ballot if it reaches a certain threshold in votes in the last election, and if
it fails to do so it has to start from scratch.
Did Maduro
‘ruin the economy’?
The country is in the midst of a serious economic crisis. But
laying the blame on Maduro ignores both the causes of the crisis and the
government’s response.
The main reason for the economic problems is the historic
collapse of the price of oil that began in 2014. For the last 100 years,
Venezuela has depended on oil almost exclusively to fund its national budget
and acquire foreign currency earnings. The Bolivarian Revolution has led to
enormous social progress since Hugo Chavez’s election in 1998, but it has not
yet been able to overcome this legacy of foreign domination, a difficult task
that few countries have been able to accomplish.
The price of oil reached a peak of more than $105 per barrel in
June 2014 and then fell dramatically to under $35 in February 2016.
This has been greatly exacerbated by U.S. sanctions against the
industry that has now turned into a full-blown blockade, which Trump’s National
Security Adviser John Bolton estimates will cost Venezuela about $30 million a
day. At the urging of the United States in late 2017, Belgian financial
services firm Euroclear froze $1.65 billion of Venezuelan public funds —
including $450 million of cash! — that the government was attempting to use to
purchase food and medicine.
In January, the Bank of England essentially
plundered $1.2 billion worth of Venezuelan gold that the government had
deposited with them, announcing that they would only allow the coup leader
Guaidó to access the assets. This is pure colonial looting.
Is the economic
crisis because of socialism?
While the Bolivarian Revolution and Venezuelan government have
declared that their project is to build socialism and have made major strides
in that direction, the vast majority of the economy is still in the hands of
capitalists. The private sector controls 50 percent of production and
distribution of food, 80 percent of personal hygiene items, 70 percent of
pharmaceutical items, and 80 percent of clothes and shoes.
Venezuela exists in a global order dominated by hostile capitalist classes, to whom it has to sell its exports, such as oil, and from whom it has to import goods as wide-ranging as food to technology and spare parts. Even the state-owned and nationalized enterprises have to operate by the rules of those foreign corporations, banks and creditors. All this creates a large toolkit for the forces of capitalism — not socialism — to sabotage, extort and undermine Venezuela’s economic development.
What about the
inflation?
In 2003, Hugo Chávez instituted currency exchange controls to
keep the Venezuelan elite from taking their money out of the country and its
banks, exchanging it for dollars, which would leave the country broke and
collapse its currency. Only certain amounts of currency could be exchanged for
dollars and it had to go through government approved institutions.
This led to an underground exchange of currency that widened
over time. When oil prices collapsed, the government could have done what the
governments of the rich do: cut off all social programs, sell off government
assets to private investors, and let the poor fend for themselves and starve.
Instead, the government continued to finance these programs and import food and
medicine with its dwindling foreign currency reserves. The government tried to
issue debt to investors to stabilize its finances, like so many others do, but
U.S. sanctions and a pullout by international capital limited this. In
response, the Maduro government printed more money to import needed food and
technology (for the people). This increased inflationary pressures, however.
There is also considerable evidence that suggests the U.S. Federal Reserve devalued Venezuelan currency at various moments for political reasons. Meanwhile, privately run websites like DolarToday, publishes wildly inflated estimates of the “true” value of the Venezuelan currency relative to the U.S. dollar. DolarToday is run by Gustavo Díaz, a former Venezuelan military officer who participated in the failed 2002 coup. This constitutes a form of psychological warfare constantly throwing workers and businesses into doubt about the real value of their wages and products. With each exchange rate spike, stores increased their prices, but, fearing future instability, did not then lower prices in equal measure when the exchange rate declined. This too accelerated inflation.
Meanwhile, private distributors and importers hoarded goods to
inflate their costs and deepen the social crisis. State-subsidized and
price-controlled goods (such as gasoline) have been pilfered into the
underground market and resold at huge profits at the Colombian border. For
instance, one raid conducted by security forces in 2015 uncovered a stockpile of
176,000 liters of gasoline, 1,260 liters of vehicle oil, 2,000 cases of beer,
two tons of sugar, three tons of rice, a half ton of cooking oil and nearly 15
tons of other essential food goods.
Altogether these factors created a crisis of confidence in the
currency as a whole. Mistakes and mismanagement are of course part of the
problem — as the government has always declared — but at its core Venezuela has
been punished by international capitalism for continuing to prioritize the
needs of the poor throughout this economic downturn and against the sanctions.
Is the
government letting people starve?
No. Six million families now benefit from a new initiative
called Local Committees for Supply and Production that directly distributes
packages of essential food and other consumer goods on a regular basis to those
who are most affected by inflation.
The Venezuelan government has repeatedly raised the minimum wage
to try and make up for inflationary pressures. Other steps include making the
metro transportation system of Caracas, although already affordable, completely
free so people can go to work and school unimpeded by finances.
Are all the
country’s resources being stolen by the Venezuelan leadership, as the U.S.
government claims?
There is of course bureaucratic corruption in Venezuela, as the
government readily admits, and as there is in many countries. But in the face
of this crisis, the Venezuelan government has focused on defending the living
standards of poor and working people. In 2016, during the collapse of oil
prices, the Venezuelan government allocated 73 percent of its budget to social
programs.
In 2017, Maduro announced a new program aimed at guaranteeing
jobs to young people called Chamba Juvenil. Nearly 200,000 youths enrolled in
the program. Venezuelan youth, especially those historically excluded from
higher education because of poverty, now enjoy free education and real
opportunity, thanks to 45 public universities and colleges that have been
created in 20 years of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Perhaps the Maduro government’s most impressive social program
is the Grand Housing Mission Venezuela, an initiative to give free or nearly
free homes to every Venezuelan who is in need of dignified housing. At the
beginning of this year, the Housing Mission reached a new milestone: 2.5
million new homes constructed and distributed to the people. Taking an average
family size of four, this means one-third of Venezuela’s 30 million people
benefiting from the program. Imagine the U.S. government — which is far richer
— providing homes to 100 million poor people!
What about the
medical shortages?
Venezuela’s constitution guarantees the right to medical care,
and more than 20,000 Cuban doctors and nurses provide free care to the
population. With Cuban-Venezuelan cooperation, thousands of Venezuelans have
been trained to become the new generation of doctors.
But these health gains have been threatened by U.S. sanctions
and even right-wing violence targeting these facilities and doctors. In 2018,
Venezuela’s purchase order of five major medical shipments was blocked by U.S.
banks under government order. The year’s vaccination program for children was
delayed for five months, and the country’s 60,000-plus diabetics were denied
insulin, again because of U.S. sanctions.
Why is the
Maduro government blocking ‘humanitarian aid’?
The United Nations and Red Cross have both declared that the
“aid” at the Colombian border does not meet the definition of humanitarian,
which has to be neutral, apolitical and requested by the receiving country. Why
would Venezuela allow the very countries that have looted its resources and
treasury to now pretend to be for “humanitarian aid”? It rightly views this as
political theater to try and humiliate the government in the media and provoke
it into a military conflict.
Venezuela has not rejected aid from its international friends.
Venezuelan Health Minister Carlos Alvarado announced last week the arrival of
933 tons of medicines and medical supplies from China, Cuba, and the Pan
American Health Organization. Earlier this week, President Maduro announced
that 300 tons of Russian aid is scheduled to arrive soon. This is more than 10
times the amount being “offered” by USAID, whose director has been giving
militant speeches calling for regime change in Venezuela.
Conclusion
There is no need to bow before the lies about Venezuela from Trump, Bolton or Senator Marco Rubio. There is a reason that the Maduro government continues to enjoy its widest support among the country’s poor and working class, even though they have been hit hardest by the economic crisis. Millions see that the government and United Socialist Party has consistently tried to make society more just, equal, participatory and independent — and that is precisely why U.S. imperialism and the country’s oligarchy are trying to strangle it.
The United States Destroys Venezuela’s Economy
By Margaret Kimberley:
“…Sanctions are war by other means, invisible to most eyes…Let the whole world sanction the United States for its continuing aggressions that devastate so many people.”
“…Venezuela’s problems were created by the United States government, first during the Obama administration and now continuing under Trump’s. It is sanctions against the Venezuelan government and its people that have created hyperinflation, hunger, and a devastated health care system that was once the envy of that region…
Anyone who claims to be anti-war must also oppose the ongoing horrors visited upon the Venezuelan people. They are suffering and dying because of decisions made by the bipartisan war party. If the left were consistent in its analysis and actions no president would dare to attack Venezuela or any other country in this manner...”
Read more:
On March 16, the people of the United States will come together to say:
- U.S. hands off Venezuela!
- NO to the coup — the U.S. does not have the right to select other country’s leaders!
- NO to the sanctions, oil embargo and economic war on Venezuela that aims to cause suffering for ordinary people in the country.
- NO to intervention and war from the U.S. and their proxies in the region
Signers:
- ANSWER Coalition
- CodePink
- Black Alliance for Peace
- Alliance for Global Justice
- San Francisco Central Labor Council
- Popular Resistance
- Cuba and Venezuela Solidarity Committee
- Haïti Liberté
- International Support Haiti Network
- Popular Education Project
- Abby Martin, journalist, The Empire Files
- Dr. Jill Stein, 2016 Green Party presidential candidate
- Dr. Jared Ball, Prof. of Communication Studies, Morgan State Univ., imixwhatilike
- Medea Benjamin, activist and author, CodePink
- Cindy Sheehan, activist and author, Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
- Berthony Dupont, Director, Haïti Liberté
- Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, constitutional rights attorney
- Max Blumenthal, journalist
- Ajamu Baraka, National Organizer, Black Alliance for Peace
- Mike Prysner, Iraq War veteran, producer, The Empire files
- Dr. George Ciccariello-Maher, author
- Dr. Anthony Monteiro, Saturday Free School
- Dr. Jodi Dean, author, Prof. of Political Science, Hobart & William Smith Colleges
- Gloria La Riva, National Coordinator, Cuba and Venezuela Solidarity Committee
- Kim Ives, journalist
- Anoa Changa, host, The Way With Anoa
- Dan Cohen, journalist and filmmaker
- Chuck Kaufman, National Co-Coordinator, Alliance for Global Justice
- Eugene Puryear, Stop Police Terror Project
- Jeanette Charles, International Solidarity Liaison, Venezuela Analysis
- Lucas Koerner, Editor and Analyst, Venezuela Analysis
- Margaret Flowers, Co-Coordinator, Popular Resistance
- Kevin Zeese, Co-Coordinator, Popular Resistance
- Dan Kovalik, author and human rights lawyer
- Mahdi Bray, National Director, American Muslim Alliance (AMA)
- Brian Becker, National Director, ANSWER Coalition
- 615 U.S. West Coast Committee
- Arab Americans for Syria
- Baltimore Peace Action
- BAYAN Pacific Northwest
- Canadian Peace Congress
- Centro Autónomo de Albany Park, Chicago
- Chicago ALBA Solidarity
- Christian Network for Liberation and Equality
- Clínica Martín-Baró (San Francisco, CA)
- D19: FNRP/LIBRE, USA-Canada
- Democratic Socialists of DePauw
- Eastern Masschusetts Pride at Work, AFL-CIO
- Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice - Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (Canada)
- Friends of the Congo
- Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition
- Global Women's Strike
- Green Party of New Jersey
- Green Party US Peace Action Committee
- GW Progressive Student Union
- Int'l Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity
- International Action Center
- Internationalist Students' Front at GW
- Jamaica Patriotic Movement
- Juan Jose Gutierrez, director of the Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition
- Korean Peace Alliance
- Labor Fightback Network
- Malcolm X Center
- Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO) - Vancouver, Canada
- Monmouth County Green Party
- Movimiento 26 de Abril-Puerto Rico
- National Lawyers Guild/L.A.
- New Mexico Raging Grannies
- Office of the Americas
- Peace Action of San Mateo County
- People United Against Oppression
- Pittsburgh Anti-Imperialist League
- Pride at Work, Massachusetts AFL-CIO
- Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
- Roofers Local 36
- RootsAction.org
- Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
- San José Peace and Justice Center
- Seattle Anti War Coalition
- Seed the Commons
- Socialist Coalition of North Georgia
- Socialist Rifle Association
- Sri Lanka Peace & Solidarity Council
- St. Pete for Peace
- Stop the War Machine
- Task Force on Americas
- Tennessee Activist Coalition
- The Peace House, OKC
- Unidad Latina en Accion
- Veterans For Peace
- Veterans For Peace Chapter 099
- Veterans For Peace Chapter 89 Nashville
- Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality
- Washtenaw Reds
- Wilder Utopia
- WNC 4 Peace
- Women In Black Lancaster
- Women of Color in the Global Women's Strike
- Coleen Rowley (Apple Valley, Minnesota)
- Dominic Moulden (Washington, DC)
- Dr. Henry Clark (Richmond, Ca)
- Elaine Kinch (Racine, WI)
- Walter Lippmann (Los Angeles, CA)
- Alan Minsky, Progressive Democrats of America*
- Ann Wright, Retired US Army Colonel and former US diplomat*
- Arnold Matlin, Rochester Committee on Latin America*
- Carolyn/Tom Horvath/Leonhardt, Hope House of Prayer*
- Corry Hughes, For the People, By the People Indivisible North Country NH*
- Danilo Udovicki, University of Texas at Austin, associate professor School of Architecture*
- Dr Eulalia Reyes, Australia - Venezuela Solidarity Network*
- Gar Smith, Environmentalists Against War*
- Gayle McLaughlin, California Progressive Alliance*
- Gerry Condon, President, Veterans For Peace*
- Jim Lafferty, Executive Director Emeritus of the National Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles*
- John Beacham, Crashing the System Podcast*
- Johnny Achi, Co-Founder Arab Americans for Syria*
- Jon Flanders, Troy Area Labor Council, AFL-CIO*
- Juan José Gutiérrez, Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition*
- Lucy Pagoada, D19: FNRP/LIBRE, USA-Canada*
- Madelyn Hoffman, New Jersey Peace Council *
- Susanna Cooper, Jemez Action Group*
- Valerie Robinson, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor*
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