On Fri, Jan 30, 2026 at 04:08 PM, Chris Slee wrote: > > Today, Acting President Delcy Rodriguez is in a difficult position. > Venezuela is under a naval blockade that prevents it from exporting oil > without US permission. It is also threatened with renewed bombing if > Rodriguez defies Trump's demands. > > Under these circumstances, any agreement reached between Venezuela and the > US will be extremely unfair. > >
The issue Chris ignores here is that far from arguing that the new situation is the result of an unfair agreement imposed by force, the Rodriguez government is opening claiming responsibility for the unfolding changes, saying that in fact it is what it wanted to do all along. For example, Jorge Rodriguez, head of the National Assembly said of the reform adopted by parliament to overturn Chavez's oil law: “This law reflects President Nicolás Maduro's vision for the future. Some people think we passed this law suddenly, but the reality is that we had already studied its reform in detail together with the President.” https://venezuela-news.com/delcy-rodriguez-orientaciones-maduro-ante-aprobacion-reforma-ley-hidrocarburos/ Why would a progressive government seek to claim ownership of an unfair law imposed by US imperialism that will mean oil transnationals now pay less tax in "anti-imperialist" Venezuela than in imperialist Canada or Mexico? This is the reality that the pro-Maduro left cant find answers to. Instead they say we must simply oppose the blockade - even though everyone does. But should we oppose US imperialism's capture of Venezuela's oil sovereignty, which the Venezuelan government presents as a step forward for the people? Here they tell us "such a condemnation would be pointless." So, from prioritising imperialism, we end up having to not talk about imperialism's theft of Venezuela's sovereignty. Rather than looking back to the Treaty of Brest-Livotsky, I think everyone would do much better by trying to understand the reality of Venezuela today - not the one that existed 20 years ago or the one presented in pro-imperialist or pro-government media outlets. A good starting point is this interview: https://links.org.au/us-imperialism-maduroismo-without-maduro-and-venezuelan-sovereignty-after-january-3 *What can the left do internationally to support the struggle of the Venezuelan people?* The first thing the left should understand is that its solidarity must be with the people of Venezuela, not with the Maduro government as it was before, or with the Madurismo without Maduro now. What we in Venezuela are asking for is a political ethic that stands with the Venezuelan people, with those who have truly endured this crisis and will continue to endure it for a long time. This government ceased representing the deepest and most profound interests of the Venezuelan people a long time ago. Not only does it fail to represent their interests, but, as we see, it has no qualms siding with those who seek to undermine the interests of the peoples of the world. Nicolás Maduro's son had no qualms stating that Venezuela should establish relations with Israel ( https://venezuelanvoices.org/2026/01/19/nicolas-maduro-jr-calls-for-restablishing-diplomatic-relations-with-the-us-and-israel/ ) , while Maduro’s actions toward the global left closely resembled those of Machado with the Venezuelan diaspora: emotional exploitation and nothing more. The Maduro government was a moral and strategic debacle for the left, not only in Latin America but globally. When I say strategic, I mean that Maduro was a champion of defeats who weakened the nation and annihilated the ethical and political strength of the movement he inherited. He reduced it to dust. And when he had to put that movement in historic danger to defend his own power, he did so. This attack by US imperialism does not prove that Maduro was right, that imperialism was plotting against him, and that imperialism was the cause of all this. Rather, it proves that Maduro was utterly incompetent — I repeat, incompetent — when it came to defending the Venezuelan nation against imperialism. What Maduro did was precisely help imperialism do what it wanted to the nation: weaken it militarily, economically, culturally, and institutionally, and above all, weaken its popular forces, the popular sovereignty upon which the nation and its social transformation rests. What we must ask ourselves is: why did an attack like this, obviously against international law, obviously against international rights, give hope to the majority of the Venezuelan people, both inside and outside the country? Furthermore, Trump found the perfect scapegoat to leverage his interventionist policy toward Latin America. A policy that, as we see, goes against President Petro in Colombia, against President Sheinbaum in Mexico, but above all, against the national sovereignty of those sister Latin American nations. What made this possible? It was the patrimonialist government of Maduro, which a certain section of the international left, which does not consider Venezuelans to be subjects of anything, so loves to defend. For much of the left, Venezuelans are incapable of even “domestic tyranny,” to use a phrase coined by [Venezuelan liberator] Simón Bolívar. This left absolves the Maduro government of any agency, even that of despotism; the only actor for them in this whole story is imperialism. The problem with much of the global left, especially in the Global North, is that they do not consider Venezuelans — neither the elite nor the people — to be subjects in this story, actors in their own story. They do not consider the Maduro government to be a subject, one capable of carrying out its own domestic tyranny, which is precisely what it ended up doing. Because for them, we are merely objects of a history determined by imperialism. The history of imperialism against Venezuela is a convenient narrative for leveraging an “anti-imperialist” domestic policy in their respective countries. The complexities of reality matter little to them. Even though it seems that we lack the capacity to decide our own destiny right now, I assure you that the Venezuelan nation will be reborn in some way, sooner rather than later, and we will take the reins of our future and our destiny. To rephrase the [Colombian writer and] poet [Gabriel García Márquez]: The peoples condemned to one hundred years of solitude will have a second chance on this earth. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#40451): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40451 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/117554663/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
