The US government’s January 3 military assault on Venezuela and kidnapping of then President Nicolás Maduro and National Assembly deputy Cilia Flores, sent shockwaves through the region. It has also sparked intense discussions about why and how it was able to occur, what the new Delcy Rodríguez government represents and what it all means for Venezuelan sovereignty.
To discuss these questions and more, Federico Fuentes, from LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal ( https://links.org.au/ ) , spoke to Malfred Gerig, a sociologist from the Universidad Central de Venezuela (Central University of Venezuela) and author of La Larga Depresión venezolana: Economía política del auge y caída del siglo petrolero ( https://cedesve.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/La-Larga-Depresion-venezolana-VERSION-FINAL.pdf ) (Venezuela’s Long Depression: Political economy of the rise and fall of the oil century). *How do you interpret the US military actions that, after deploying warships throughout the Caribbean for several months, culminated in a military assault on Caracas and Maduro and Flores’ kidnapping? Is this simply about gaining control of Venezuela’s oil?* Obviously, the military intervention relates to oil, because everything concerning Venezuela relates to oil. But it is a bit more complex, because two things converged: the Venezuelan crisis and Trump’s foreign policy. Venezuela’s long depression, the political crisis, and the externalisation of national politics by the political class — both the Madurista (Maduro-aligned) ruling elite and the opposition elite — ultimately led to an externalisation of their conflict. The weakening, over so many years, of the sources of national power — economic, political, institutional, military, and cultural — resulted in the most humiliating political and military episode ever in the country’s history as a republic. This weakening of the Venezuelan nation made it appealing for Trump to intervene. First, because he was acting against a government with no social support base, and lacking any rational or legal legitimacy. The US knew the Venezuelan people would not defend Maduro, and this weighed heavily in their decision. They intervened against an unpopular head of state with no democratic legitimacy. Second, because the country’s political institutions were utterly illegitimate in legal terms and severely weakened in their capacity to wield real power — as shown by the reaction to the military operation. And third, because the Maduro government, being weak and having undermined national power over many years to cling to power for its own sake, was an easy target for the US to begin leveraging its entire foreign policy toward Latin America. We can add that the Venezuelan political class doubled down on externalising the conflict, believing Trump would arbitrate in good faith in favour of one of the parties without later demanding a tribute. There we see the moral, ethical and, above all, strategic character of the various factions of the Venezuelan political class. If responsibility must be assigned to the catastrophic outcome of this systemic crisis, it is precisely the Venezuelan political class, both the Maduristas and the opposition, who must be blamed. This weakening of the nation was exploited by the “foreign sentinel," which now seeks to leverage economic and political advantage. They will find a way to make Venezuela pay tribute — because that is the word that best describes the situation, Venezuela is tributing [paying as an acknowledgment of submission]. Venezuela will pay dearly for this weakening of the nation and the errors of its political class. Here, oil is crucial to US plans to profit from its intervention through the payment of imperial tribute. The Venezuelan people will unfortunately pay dearly, in the face of territorialism and Trumpian neo-mercantilism, for our inability to resolve the overall state crisis on our own. We will pay with oil, but also with dependency and a loss of popular and national sovereignty over our immediate future. Continue reading at https://links.org.au/us-imperialism-maduroismo-without-maduro-and-venezuelan-sovereignty-after-january-3 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#40448): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40448 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/117555710/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
