Venezuela

[blindpig]

HOW THEY DIVIDED THE LOOT FROM CITGO INTO PRIVATE HANDS IN 2019 AND 2020
May 24, 2023 , 3:52 p.m.


Since the illegal takeover of the company, Guaidó's board of directors has directed the company's profits not only to obtaining new debt, but also to the delivery of "dividends" and pharaonic "humanitarian aid programs" (Photo: Archive )

Since the illegal takeover of the company, Guaidó's board of directors has oriented Citgo's profits not only to obtaining new debt ("refinancing") but also to delivering "dividends" and pharaonic "humanitarian aid programs" in the form of of subsidies and donations, while playing at worsening the gasoline shortage and preventing Venezuela from using Citgo's resources to face the pandemic.

The Simón Bolívar Foundation (FSB, hereinafter) is a private non-profit organization founded by Citgo Petroleum in 2006 to provide medical assistance to a varied panorama of cases in Venezuela, and also in the United States.

Prior to the kidnapping of the subsidiary by the White House as part of the "Guaidó operation" in 2019, it had stood out as a source of support for the medical care of children with cancer, who were covered for treatment doctor, in addition to transportation and maintenance, in the United States.

After the illegal change of directive, this purpose was cancelled. The FSB has become a source of revenue transfer to a galaxy of interests of various sizes.

In March 2020, the illegal board of directors appointed by Juan Guaidó appointed Mariela Poleo as president of the FSB. His profile on the Citgo website highlights that "Poleo worked for more than 20 years at Equinor Asa —formerly Statoil— where he held various global positions, including Head of Finance and Control —controller— for North American exploration and development offshore projects. In various roles, Poleo has overseen multi-billion dollar budgets and has managed strategic planning, risk and financial analysis for large projects in North America, South America, Norway and Africa."

During the first days of August 2020, the FSB announced a grant of 1 million dollars to three international charities: AID FOR AIDS International, Food Fr The Poor Inc. and the Pan-American Development Foundation (Fupad).

According to the consulted report , Aid For Aids International would use the resources to provide "nutritional supplements" to 6,000 children in Venezuela, Food For The Poor inc. It would allocate its share to care for 36,000 Venezuelan migrants in Cúcuta, while the Pan-American Development Foundation would provide 1.4 metric tons of medicines for 7,000 Venezuelans.

The grant given by the FSB seems too high for the requirements put forth by the selected charities:

The organization Ais For Aids was founded in 1996 and, according to its official website, its objective is to provide medicines and retrovirals to people with HIV/AIDS. For this reason, it is curious that the grant obtained is based on the distribution of nutritional supplements, even though it is not the declared objective of the charity.

Adriana Cisneros de Griffin, president of the Cisneros Foundation and vice president of the Venezuelan business organization, is among the founding members of Aid For Aids. According to Poderopedia, María Eugenia Maury Arria, current wife of former diplomat Diego Arria , is the president of Aid For Aids, although Laura Messina is currently recognized in the position on the organization's official page .

At organization events, however, María Eugenia Maury can be seen sharing with Diego Arria and Laura Messina, which reveals her managerial position in the organization chart.

On the other hand, Fupad was created in 1962 as an affiliated organization of the Organization of American States. It receives financing from the US government , as it publicly declares. The center of its activity is located in Colombia, where it shows off its cooperation with US institutions such as the anti-narcotics bureau and security agencies such as the Colombian Police.

Although the Fupad presents itself as an organization with humanitarian purposes, data and investigations involve it in activities closer to the external interference propagated by Washington. According to a 2010 investigation by lawyer Eva Golinger, "one of the Fupad programs, for which it received $699,996 from the State Department in 2007, was dedicated to the development of independent media in Venezuela" and journalism. via "innovative technologies".

This orientation towards media initiatives can be seen precisely in the record of public activities of that organization. He launched a school for youtubers in Colombia and the tasks of "humanitarian aid" have only been reduced to the delivery of hygiene supplies to Colombian migrants returned from Venezuela.

There are no records that the delivery of "humanitarian aid" to the 36,000 Venezuelan migrants, which is why he obtained the FSB grant, is taking place.

Food For The Poor Inc. It is one of the largest humanitarian organizations in the United States and has a strong Christian profile. The "humanitarian support" to Venezuela has been more than anything declarative and in its press records no systematic activity stands out, which raises wide doubts about the underlying reasons for receiving the FSB subsidy.

The organization acknowledges that it has worked for years with the United States Southern Command in the deployment of its "humanitarian" operations. Specifically, during the month of October 2018, it collaborated with supplies and personnel in the deployment of the USNS Comfort throughout Latin America in the framework of pre-war pressures against Venezuela.

https://misionverdad.com/como-repartier ... 019-y-2020

CITGO LOOT (INVESTIGATION)

william serafino
Aug 31, 2020 , 8:11 a.m.

Since Juan Guiadó's self-proclamation in January 2019, the Citgo Petroleum company has been at the center of an extended political, legal and narrative battle for control of its operations.

SOME BACKGROUND
This subsidiary of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in the United States is made up of three huge refineries with a processing capacity of 769,000 barrels per day and more than 4,000 gasoline distribution stations spread over 30 states of the Union. Such magnitudes give Citgo Petroleum a market value of more than 8 billion dollars, which has made it, for years, a highly coveted asset.

Even before Guaidó's leap into the void, Citgo was already in the crosshairs of the US government. On May 21, 24 hours after the victory of Nicolás Maduro in the presidential elections, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13835 with the objective of prohibiting the sale, transfer or use as collateral of any entity in the United States where the government Venezuelan had a participation greater than 50%.

Logically, the restriction measure was aimed at Citgo, but it was also aimed at blocking the external financing capacity of the Venezuelan state, stifling its income in foreign currency, as analyzed by a foribundous opposition economist at the time.

At the time, the move was interpreted as the first step in an official embargo on the company, a vision that ended up being confirmed some time later.

In August 2018, the legal offensive of the Crystallex corporation (where the lawyer José Ignacio Hernández, future "prosecutor" of Guaidó, was part of his legal team) conquered a position of strength in the Delaware Court under Judge Leonard Stark . The argument that PDVSA's shareholding control over Citgo made it an alter ego of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, favored the claim of the Canadian mining company to collect an old dispute with the assets of Citgo Petroleum.

In 2018, the US government not only advanced in wresting control of the company from the Venezuelan state; Now there was a serious threat of definitive dispossession, which has become increasingly dangerous in recent months given the actions of Guaidó's fake attorney , who put Citgo on a silver platter from the same corporations with which he had worked years before. .

A few days after Guaidó jumped into the void, during the first half of February , his supporters in the National Assembly appointed a new board of directors for Citgo and PDVSA Holding, going beyond the entire existing legal framework, headed by Luisa Palacios and Carlos Jordá, both linked to the US financial and oil sector.

The decision was taken as a practical step in the "asset protection" campaign, aimed at covering up the looting of national assets under the guise of the fight against corruption by the government of Nicolás Maduro.

Carlos Vecchio, named as Guaidó's emissary in the United States, moved forcefully and quickly. In March he made a “protocol” visit to Citgo to stress that the parallel government was in effective control of the company.

Vecchio argued that, with the illegal change of directive, "we are not only protecting our assets, we are also preventing further destruction and losing the company."

To hide the seriousness of the Citgo kidnapping, Vecchio resorted to demagogy to distract public opinion. The idea was to promise that Venezuelans would ultimately benefit: “All that money has to be used for more opportunities for economic and social development, to create jobs and bring the minimum wage, not to 5 dollars as it is right now, but to raise it much more to increase purchasing power”.

A spokesman for the US Department of the Treasury consulted by Voice Of America indicated, referring to the 7B license, that these measures on Citgo were aimed at prohibiting "any profit from returning to the illegitimate Maduro regime." From that moment on, and as a complement to Executive Order 13835 of the previous year, Venezuela would not have access to the earnings reported by Citgo, nor to fuel, spare parts and other supplies demanded by PDVSA.

REARRANGEMENT OF SANCTIONS
On January 28, 2019, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and then National Security Advisor John Bolton announced the inclusion of PDVSA on the List of Specially Designated Citizens and Blocked Persons (SDN, for its acronym in Spanish). in English), pursuant to Executive Order 13850, issued in November 2018.

The measure implied the definitive embargo of PDVSA and its subsidiaries, blocking any transaction with US companies and opening the way for fearsome secondary sanctions. Instantly, at least 9 general licenses were issued that allowed some operations blocked by the designation of PDVSA, such as the extension of Chevron's operations in Venezuela, certain transactions with certain bonds and other Citgo marketing activities.

Of all these licenses, 7B stands out, which allows Citgo to operate in the US market. With this instrument, which has been renewed without interruption from 2019 to the present, Washington prevents the company's dividends from going to Caracas and, at the same time, "authorizes" the Guaidó team to maintain effective control of the subsidiary.

In other words, while maintaining the embargo situation, it favors a supervised administration of the coup plotters through the 7B license and others with similar characteristics .

ENERGY AND FINANCIAL BOYCOTT
As of today, the company is in a situation of extreme vulnerability, especially after Judge Leonard Stark determined, at the end of May of this year, that Crystallex can collect its historic claim with the sale, under auction conditions, from Citgo refineries.

The legal setback was a catastrophic blow to the management of Guaidó's "asset protection" and especially to his fake attorney , José Ignacio Hernández, who weakened the defense of Venezuela's national interests by replacing the Attorney General's Office. before US courts.

These events have generated endless reactions that have dismantled the little credibility Guaidó had left. In parallel, the US government has intervened by modifying and extending some of the licenses from last year to prevent Citgo from being auctioned off as ordered by Judge Stark of the Delaware court.

Meanwhile, Citgo's illegal management tries to pretend normality. In February of this year, as an "anniversary" for the kidnapping of the board of directors, the new management issued a "performance report" highlighting the change in the company's strategic orientation and how it is framed within the energy (and financial) boycott ) against Venezuela.

“We also took critical steps to improve the resiliency of our operations by quickly and efficiently optimizing our crude pipeline, replacing Venezuelan crude with inexpensive crudes from Colombia, Mexico and Ecuador while simultaneously increasing our U.S. light crude runs. Low-priced light US crude now accounts for 48% of CITGO's total crude supply and 64% of total US Gulf Coast crude,” the report stated.

This change and substitution of supply routes has benefited oil companies both in the United States and in countries in the region that are commercial rivals of PDVSA and that have cleverly taken advantage of US sanctions as an instrument of unfair competition and war. commercial.

The report also states that “These efforts have not only helped us better serve the US market, but have also allowed us to become a major exporter of refined products; in fact, exports now represent 25% of CITGO's total production”.

In this way, the new Guaidó leadership has laundered the destructive US sanctions in the name of an operational realignment of Citgo. So, while on the one hand Washington blocks and threatens ships, insurers and shipping companies involved in the gasoline trade with Venezuela, on the other hand Citgo increases its fuel exports at the expense of the shortage produced by the sanctions in Venezuela.

A New York Times report in 2018 indicated that Citgo was sending Venezuela "around 29,000 barrels a day of refined fuels, such as gasoline." In addition, adds the US outlet, "Citgo (...) imports 175,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude every day?—? almost one of every five barrels that the country exports to the world?—?, which provides the leftist government with dollars it needs desperately".

In this sense, the substitution of purchases of Venezuelan crude not only hits Venezuelan finances and those of PDVSA hard, but the 29,000 barrels per day that were sent to Venezuela in 2018 are now very surely exported and the profits they generate do not return to the country. A perfect model of looting and corruption.

In turn, by having Citgo controlled, Washington sharpens the blockade on fuels and the drought of foreign exchange, the two main vectors of the economic war.

A recent report published in Reuters points out that the gasoline shortage is due to the fracture of the natural relations between Citgo and PDVSA, its parent company, due to US sanctions:

“But these so-called exchanges with its main partner, Citgo, which is its refining subsidiary in the United States, were interrupted when the administration of President Donald Trump sanctioned PDVSA in January 2019 as part of its campaign to oust President Nicolás from office. Maduro," says journalist Luc Cohen.

FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE HOLDERS
In that report, the Venezuelan Luisa Palacios, who right now serves as president of the Citgo board of directors by appointment of Guaidó, was consulted. According to La Tabla , Palacios is part of an oligarchic family from Caracas and has worked for US financial institutions for a long time.

Palacios told the New York Times in 2018 that

"Citgo's integrity as a company is at risk (...) I don't see how PDVSA can keep Citgo, because all of Citgo is compromised on one side or the other with different types of lenders, and disgruntled creditors are managing to affect its stability."

Palacios' marked interest in Citgo's lenders has been printed in the performance reports of the new board.

“When we assumed our role as board members last February, our first task was to place CITGO on solid financial footing. During 2019, we successfully refinanced 70% of the aggregate debt of CITGO and CITGO Holding, managing to reduce CITGO Holding's debt costs by $220 million in 5 years”, the mentioned report reports .

In another more recent report it is stated that the

"July 6, 2020, CITGO's Board of Directors approved the recommended dividend payment of approximately $63 million to its immediate parent, CITGO Holding, Inc., which was paid on July 29, 2020." A few days later, “CITGO successfully refinanced its 2021 Term B Loan with the proceeds of a private offering of 7.00% senior secured notes due 2025. The offering of notes was oversubscribed, allowing CITGO to increase the offering to $1.125 billion and provide additional liquidity.”

These reports establish a whole line of financial priorities for the new board of directors with respect to the final destination of the profits generated by the company.

Among the new priorities are indebtedness, payment to debt holders and the maximization of dividends that, paradoxically, are received by a "parent company" that is also controlled by Guaidó.

Carlos Vecchio's premise of using Citgo money to generate "more opportunities for economic and social development in Venezuela" has proven to be a farce. Luisa Palacios and Carlos Jordá, both at the top of the illegal management of Citgo, have aligned themselves against the interests of Venezuela.

HELICOPTER MONEY
An important organization within that gigantic network that is Citgo is the Simón Bolívar Foundation (FSB, hereinafter), a private non-profit foundation established in 2006 to provide medical assistance to a varied panorama of cases in Venezuela and also In U.S.A.

The organization, prior to the kidnapping of Guaidó, had stood out as a source of support for the medical care of boys and girls suffering from cancer, who were covered for medical treatment, as well as transportation and maintenance, in the United States.

After the illegal change of directive, this purpose has turned 180 degrees. The FSB has become a source of revenue transfer to a galaxy of interests of various sizes.

In March of this year, the illegal board of directors appointed by Guaidó appointed Mariela Poleo as president of Citgo's Simón Bolívar Foundation.

His profile on the Citgo website highlights that

“Poleo worked for more than 20 years at EQUINOR ASA (formerly Statoil) where he held various global positions, including Head of Finance and Control (controller) for North American exploration and development of offshore projects. In the various roles he has held, Poleo has overseen multi-billion dollar budgets, managing strategic planning, risk, and financial analysis for large projects in North America, South America, Norway, and Africa."

In the first days of August this year, the FSB announced a $1 million grant to three international charities: AID FOR AIDS International, FOOD FOR THE POOR INC. and the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF).

According to the consulted report , AID FOR AIDS International would use the resources to provide "nutritional supplements" to 6,000 children in Venezuela, FOOD FOR THE POOR INC. It would allocate its share to care for 36,000 Venezuelan migrants in Cúcuta, while the Pan-American Development Foundation would provide 1.4 metric tons of medicines for 7,000 Venezuelans.

The grant given by the FSB seems too high for the requirements put forth by the selected charities:

The organization AID FOR AIDS was founded in 1996 and, according to its official website, its objective is to provide medicines and retrovirals to people with HIV/AIDS. For this reason, it is curious that the grant obtained is based on the distribution of nutritional supplements, even though it is not the declared objective of the charity.

Adriana Cisneros de Griffin, president of the Cisneros Foundation and vice president of the Venezuelan business organization, is among the founding members of AID FOR AIDS. According to Poderopedia, María Eugenia Maury Arria, current wife of former diplomat Diego Arria , is the president of AID FOR AIDS, although Laura Messina is currently recognized in the position on the organization's official website .

At organization events, however, María Eugenia Maury can be seen sharing with Diego Arria and Laura Messina, revealing her managerial position in the organization chart.

On the other hand, the Pan-American Development Foundation (PADF) was created in 1962 as an affiliated organization of the Organization of American States. It receives funding from the United States government and publicly declares so. The center of its activity is located in Colombia, where it shows off its cooperation with US institutions such as the anti-narcotics bureau and security agencies such as the Colombian Police.

Although PADF presents itself as an organization with humanitarian purposes, data and investigations involve it in activities that are closer to the external interference propagated by Washington. According to a 2010 investigation by lawyer Eva Gollinger, "one of PADF's programs, for which it received $699,996 from the State Department in 2007, was dedicated to the development of independent media in Venezuela" and journalism. via “innovative technologies”.

And it is precisely in PADF's record of public activities that this orientation towards media initiatives can be seen. It has recently launched a school for youtubers in Colombia and the tasks of "humanitarian aid" have only been reduced to the delivery of hygiene supplies to Colombian migrants returned from Venezuela.

There are no records that the delivery of "humanitarian aid" to the 36,000 Venezuelan migrants, which is why he obtained the FSB grant, is taking place.

FOOD FOR THE POOR INC. It is one of the largest humanitarian organizations in the United States and has a strong Christian profile. The "humanitarian support" to Venezuela has been more than anything declarative and in its press records no systematic activity stands out, which raises wide doubts about the underlying reasons for receiving the FSB subsidy.

The organization acknowledges that it has worked for years with the United States Southern Command in the deployment of its "humanitarian" operations. Specifically, during the month of October 2018, it collaborated with supplies and personnel in the deployment of the USNS Comfort throughout Latin America in the framework of pre-war pressures against Venezuela.

On the other hand, the FSB has also announced the selection of 15 projects with a humanitarian profile that will receive a total of 475,343 dollars in donations. Let's review some of them:

The Engagement Foundation Group organization declares receiving donations and financing from individuals interested in providing supplies, food and medical materials in Venezuela. Although he claims to have 500 volunteers with whom he has deployed "humanitarian aid" to migrants and refugees from various countries, including Venezuela. However, its activity log is rather small. The organization's board of directors is in the hands of Valeria Viera (executive director), Constanza Viera (assistant executive) and Marta Viera-Blanco, relatives of the illegally appointed ambassador to Canada, Orlando Viera-Blanco.

There is also the NGO Chamos, founded in 2007 in the United Kingdom and dedicated to raising "funds to support and improve local programs dedicated to improving the lives of vulnerable children in Venezuela." The president of the organization is the Venezuelan Mariana Siblesz-Álvarez, who in July of this year participated in the seminar "Social development of Venezuela: beyond its borders", sponsored by the British-Venezuelan Society and Chamber of Commerce.

The event was attended by Lala Lovera, executive director of “Comparte por una Vida” (Colombia); Roberto Patiño, director of “Alimenta La Solidaridad”, and Felipe Muñoz, adviser to the Presidency of the Republic of Colombia. He was moderated by Peter West, president of the society.

In April 2019, Mariana Siblesz-Álvarez participated in a United Kingdom All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) event on Venezuela, where she shared with Guaidó's fake ambassador, Vanessa Neumann.

In a Facebook post by Chamos, he recorded the moment: “We are delighted to accompany Dr. Vanessa Neumann, Official Representative of President Juan Guaidó in the United Kingdom. We also want to express our gratitude to Britain's Department for International Development for sharing their contributions to help the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela."

The NGO Convite, for its part, is dedicated to caring for the elderly and carries out a series of training programs aimed at developing public policies. The NGO is Venezuelan and was founded in 2006. Its director is Luis Francisco Cabezas, who in 2008 took a right to speak before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in order to question the adult care policy elders of the Venezuelan state. For Francisco Cabezas, Convite focuses its activities on "making visible the tragedy of the humanitarian crisis" in Venezuela.

The NGO Friends of the Children of Venezuela is a non-profit organization focused on the delivery of medicines and hospital supplies in Venezuela. The NGO is directed by Andrés Caldera Radonski, who due to the similarity in the last names, could be connected with the opposition politician Henrique Capriles Radonski. In February of last year, Andrés Caldera Radonski published a photo of Henrique Capriles with Juan Guaidó on his Twitter account , showing his support for the ongoing coup agenda.

SOME CONCLUSIONS
Since the illegal takeover of the company, Guaidó's board of directors has directed the company's profits not only to obtaining new debt ("refinancing"), but also to the delivery of "dividends" and pharaonic "humanitarian aid programs ” in the form of grants and donations, while playing to exacerbate the gasoline shortage and prevent Venezuela from using Citgo resources to face the pandemic.

The delivery of the subsidies and donations by the FSB is part of a discretionary and partial use of the money of the Venezuelan company, where most of the NGOs and foundations benefited are directly or indirectly related to the family network of political figures. Venezuelans (Diego Arria, Orlando Viera-Blanco, Henrique Capriles Radonski, Vanessa Neumann, etc.) who have supported the regime change campaign against the Venezuelan government.

Is it a way to silence the criticism of a Diego Arria or to keep a Henrique Capriles in line?

The premise of the partisan use of Citgo's money acquires greater force given that most of the NGOs and foundations that benefit from FSB donations do not have a systematic activity of delivering humanitarian goods in Venezuelan territory that justifies their selection to receive grants. Its base of operations, managers and volunteers are outside the national territory.

Precisely, most of these foundations are based in the United States and Colombia, and are especially linked to institutions that support the coup against Venezuela, such as the OAS and the United States Southern Command.

In this sense, the subsidies do not end in the effective help of Venezuelans in a situation of difficulty, but rather end up liquefying in countries clearly aligned on the confrontational agenda against Venezuela.

This turn towards the politicization of subsidies has fractured the efficient program of expensive medical treatments that had been operating, and benefiting hundreds of Venezuelans, before Guaidó's illegal takeover.

Most of the selected organizations do not only carry out humanitarian activities. Even the ones that stand out the most are those dedicated to “making the crisis visible”, collecting donations and raising information about the “humanitarian crisis”. In short, these are organizations dedicated to politics.

The current administration of Citgo reveals a scheme of "crony capitalism" , where family and personal connections represent an effective vehicle to achieve a privileged position in terms of obtaining resources and business facilities.

Under these inbred parameters and influence peddling, the Venezuelan bourgeoisie was born in the shadow of oil income in the first part of the 20th century. And with the takeover of Citgo, he has returned to his comfort zone while the country struggles daily to stay on its feet.

https://misionverdad.com/investigacione ... estigacion

Google Translator

[blindpig]

Venezuela: The Fight Between PSUV and PCV is Unnecessary, Untimely, and Alien
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 29, 2023
Clodovaldo Hernández



Life turns on a dime: The Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) had never had as much public attention as it does these days. It has even become a trending topic on social media platforms despite the fact that many of their leaders do not use those platforms because they are weapons (although not necessarily dented) of imperialism.

I have the slight impression that this was not the purpose of those who, hailing from the government and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), wanted to knock out their former ally. These are, apparently, shots that have backfired.

I also believe that for the majority of party members and sympathizers of the revolutionary process, this is an unnecessary, untimely, and alien fight.

I speak for myself, although I think I represent many others, when I say that I am sorry to admit that such a coarse ploy like that of the Teatro Principal has been carried out to question the current leadership of the PCV. It seems to me that even for political maneuvers, you should use your head a little more, especially if the issue is regarding a government that has had to fight so much against the self-proclaimed people and interim presidents.

I also affirm that it is even laughable to see that large media outlets of the most rancid status quo, national and global, all of them rabidly anti-communist, have devoted their space and time to defending the PCV. And it’s even funnier to see the PCV echoing these questionable supports.

We are standing here before the divorce of a toxic couple who have put up with each other during a long marriage. Suddenly, each one brings up acidic criticism that has gone stale regarding the other. Watching the fight from the sidelines, you inevitably come to the conclusion that they never loved each other. They married for convenience and stayed together “for the kids.”

As usually happens in these traumatic ruptures, many truths are told, but serious infamy is also incurred. Since they are mixed, enmeshed, intertwined, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish one from the other.

PCV’s ​​position

The PCV, from its position as a party of cadres and with its habitual attitude of being the owner of the absolute truth in matters of orthodox Marxism, is accusing the government and the PSUV of developing a neoliberal and anti-worker policy (note: this last word cannot be missing in the speech of a self-respecting radical communist). Not included in these allegations is the fact that the government of Nicolás Maduro has had to make major concessions in this field, without which he very likely would not have been able to remain in power, and this would have put Venezuela today in the hands of the most recalcitrant of the pro-imperialist right-wing, with all the internal and geopolitical consequences that this would entail.

By the way, this reality must be understood by anyone who—as is the norm among communists—studies in depth the political reality, including its economic, political, and cultural contexts, both national and global. It seems to me that many understand it, but pretend not to.

For pecevistas (PCV party members), it is very difficult to admit that if Maduro had been guided by the economic lines emanating from the PCV Central Committee, the country would be, in the best of cases, in a situation similar to that of 2014-2017, with shortages, lines, hyperinflation, and the violent right in the streets, launching puputovs (similar to a molotov cocktail but filled with human feces). And, in the worst case scenario, the Chavista government would already be history, and only what Miguel Ángel Pérez Pirela calls “poets who are experts in composing odes to mourn failed revolutions” would remain.

The position of the government and the PSUV

The government and the PSUV should understand that this line of confrontation with the leaders of the PCV does not add anything to the revolutionary cause and, instead, subtracts much more than the austere pecevista electoral quota.

It would be pertinent for them to evaluate with a cool head whether it is true or false that ousting the current directors and adopting a PCV leadership aligned with the government would equate to more support and more votes.

Nobody is asking me, but in my opinion, no. In the first place, because, objectively, that support has always been modest, even in the best moments of romance between Chavismo and the PCV; and secondly, because the fact that a leadership other than the one headed by deputy Oscar Figuera does not automatically imply that the bases of the party will reconcile with the government of President Maduro.

In these bases there are many long-standing communists, deeply ideologized, formed in the culture of debate and questioning, contradiction and dialectic. Those people are not going to change because another base of operations has been installed. There are also many fanatics who repeat Marxist-Leninist catechisms and believe those are the only interpretations, to the point that they never fully trusted Hugo Chávez, whom they considered an upstart in those fields. And there is also a labor union component, located on the front lines of battle of a working class that has been either abandoned or betrayed (opinions differ) by the PSUV labor leaders.

Divisionism: older than the red rooster

The PSUV-PCV controversy is typically political. In it, the two contestants demonize the other and paint themselves as the “good guys.” Obviously, everything has its elements of truth and its elements of deceit.

For example, the PCV presents itself as an extremely democratic organization, compared to the “authoritarian” and “clique-run” PSUV. But it is enough to review who they are today and who the best-known figures of the PCV 20 or more years ago were to conclude that in this aspect of renewal, the communists do not have much moral authority to criticize other parties.

Óscar Figuera’s image of an honest and austere man works in his favor, which is saying a lot at this time. But he is also the eternal general secretary of the PCV. He has been in office for 27 years and is beginning to approach the record holder, Jesús Faría (his father), who accumulated 35 years in office.

The attempt at a “rebel” congress at the Teatro Principal was deplorable. However, if the history of the PCV is reviewed, it will be revealed that this is not the first time the suitcases have been placed at the front door. Put more seriously, it is not a proper example of sustained monolithic unity either. On the contrary, there have been quite a few painful and traumatic breakups.

In fact, the First Congress (in 1946) was a confrontation between currents that had different interpretations of communism. There was a group they called the PCV-Bobito, led by Juan Bautista Fuenmayor. They were “browderistas,” since they agreed with the ideas of US communist Earl Browder, an early promoter of a third way between communism and capitalism. Another group was made up of Gustavo Machado, Rodolfo Quintero, and Luis Miquilena (jokingly called PCV Macha-Miqui), and a third, who advocated unity, was made up of Eduardo Gallegos Mancera, Pedro Ortega Díaz, and Miguel Otero Silva. The leader, Jesús Faría, headed a current that supported the browderistas, although he himself was not. From that position, he managed to win the general secretariat.

[By the way, the namesake son of this historical leader is one of the apples of contention between the PCV and the PSUV, since he is among the main promoters of the current economic policy, the same one that the communists consider anti-workers … But that is a separate topic].

There was so much rivalry in the approaches the two newspapers within the party embodied: the mythical Aquí está (Here it is) and another called Unidad (Unity). Then they were replaced by the still current (and surviving) Popular Tribune.

Among the biggest divisions are those that were caused by the dilemma surrounding the armed struggle; either to remain within it in the 60s, versus abandoning it at the end of that decade and the beginning of the next. A part of the pecevistas followed the example of Cuba and launched the guerrilla adventure, while another part remained in their posts of peaceful political struggle. The red rooster gave birth to the military arm, the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), but from the underlying cracks emerged the Party of the Venezuelan Revolution (PRV, led by Douglas Bravo, after being expelled from the PCV), the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS), and La Causa R and Vanguardia Unitaria Comunista that later developed into Nueva Alternativa.

In all these splits, and in other minor ones that occurred later, some accused the others of being petty-bourgeois and anti-worker, and then accused the others of not understanding the ebb and contradictions of the struggles of the masses.

In 1993, PCV unity was faced with another challenge, proposals to support the presidential aspiration of the Social Christian Rafael Caldera emerged, a thesis that was approved with the classic “handkerchief on the nose.” It was then said that the support was based on the fact that Caldera offered to break the neoliberal subordination to the International Monetary Fund (established by Carlos Andrés Pérez in his second unfinished term) and release the commanders of February 4 and November 27, 1992.

Caldera, the veteran leader of Social Christian Party (COPEI), at the time having already left the party, complied with the latter and stayed away from the IMF until the end of 1995, when he announced a new adjustment plan, the Agenda Venezuela. Then, in the PCV, the proposal to abandon that “neo-neoliberal” government arose.

It was at this point that the group of leaders led by Figuera gained internal power. Legend has it that the majority of the Central Committee or the Plenary (memory is diffuse on this statutory point, excuse me) was in favor of leaving the famous chiripero [coalition of leftist parties supporting Caldera] (because “the government had assumed an anti-worker policy,” goodness me), but the secretary general at the time, Trino Meleán, proposed giving Caldera more time and remaining in the coalition for a while longer. The problem was that Meleán was very ill and could not attend the meetings in Caracas in which this momentous decision would be made. The promoters of the thesis of leaving the Calderista government devised a way out: they hired buses to transport the members of the Central Committee (or the Plenary, I reiterate the doubt) and meet them at the Meleán residence to formalize the withdrawal. That is, they defeated the secretary general on his deathbed. This shows that the Teatro Principal is far from being the first bizarre and grotesque episode in the history of the ancient PCV.

It was at that time, early 1996, when Figuera took over from the ill-fated (and defeated) Meleán. Since then it has already been ratified on several occasions, according to the party’s internal regulations.

There is no reason to doubt that Figuera has been re-elected in a fair fight. However, after more than a quarter of a century, it is not unusual that in the PCV there may be individuals and even currents that want to change his leadership. What’s more, with what happened during the strange episode of the Teatro Principal, it has become clear that this party has expelled a few leaders and militants in recent years, and we are not yet sure if it was for just reasons or for mere petty disputes. Go figure.

According to some Gallologos (PCV connoisseurs), this discontent could well lead to new splits, without the need for the government or the PSUV to start pushing for it or for the state media to assume the issue as if it were a rupture in the Communist Party of China. Well, everyone has their own axe to grind.

Hegemonic vocation

Why does the PSUV insist on keeping the PCV in a satellite orbit? In order to answer this question, we must go back to 2006-2007, when Commander Chávez proposed that the new PSUV, a substitute for the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), should be—said without sugar-coating—the sole party of the Revolution.

Important leaders of the PCV complied with the call and left decades or years of militancy to join the PSUV, including María León, Roberto Hernández Wohnsiedler, and Jesús Faría Jr. Other communist notables preferred to remain in their old party with an almost irrefutable allegation: the PCV is, ontologically, an organization of the proletariat and the peasantry, while the PSUV has the vocation of a typical multi-class party.

Chávez did not like that decision at all, and he came to assume quite unsympathetic attitudes towards the insubordinate communists, reminding them of their Calderista past and accusing them (unfairly, in truth) of having supported the toxic reform of the Organic Labor Law of 1997. Despite these invectives issued by Commander Chávez, the PCV always supported his candidacies and were part of the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP), the coalition formed by PSUV and its allied parties. “They are communists, not assholes,” said a godfather I had, who was a leader of the PCV and was expelled in the 90s.

The initial fissure has been widening since the death of Chávez and reached a breaking point in 2020, when the PCV withdrew its support for Nicolás Maduro. As of January 2021, the animosity became evident due to the constant friction between Figuera and the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, regarding the right to speak and the votes against or abstentions in Parliament. What often looked like a quarrelsome dog-catcher at school ended up contributing to the separation of the two allies.

In 2022, the pecevista leadership, especially that of the union field, had already entered into permanent confrontation with the government due to the salary situation. The epithet “anti-worker” was repeated over and over again.

So far this year, this conflict has only escalated, which how we have arrived at the current scenario in which disgruntled PCV leaders and party members have shown their faces, questioning the Central Committee and accusing it of being at the service of the right-wing strategies against the Bolivarian Revolution.

To add more discord, PSUV agents have repeated the unfair practice of trying to pin their fallen figures on other parties and individuals, with Rafael Ramírez occupying a very special place on this list. The former minister is presented by these PSUV leaders as a supporter of the PCV, when the criminal acts and betrayals of which that man is accused date from the time when he was an inhabitant of the highest floor of the PSUV. It would be beneficial for all if everyone would assume their own position on this issue, as President Nicolás Maduro and the vice president of the party, Diosdado Cabello, have already done.

Colophon

The renowned political philosopher Rigoberto Lanz stated in the prologue of a book by Louis Althusser, significantly called, The Unbearable in the Communist Party, (but, disclosure, in reference to the French party) that “every Marxist church invents its discussion in order not to discuss.”

He also points out that debate within a process of change must be ideological and go to the bottom. “If this causes scandal and fuss, there is nothing to worry about. The revolution goes through the demolition of the old myths” and alerts against the opportunism implicit in the “revolutionary verbalization without substance.”

That book was published almost by hand in 1979, after being translated from French by Iván Padilla Bravo and other political prisoners at the San Carlos Barracks. As one of the great Venezuelan visionaries that he was, Lanz in this text seemed to be predicting our situation four decades later. Could it be possible?

Translation by Orinoco Tribune

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... and-alien/

[blindpig]

COWS OR PEOPLE THINKING

The Cayapo

May 31, 2023 , 12:35 p.m.


The war we are witnessing today is for the definitive control of the planet's resources (Photo: El Cayapo)

" To fertilize this mine and found the country, we need to think with the wildness and vigor of youth and work with the experience and patience of the old"

We are in May, inlet of waters, of the bachaco culón, the flying termites; month of removing the earth and making the furrows to sow the healthy seed, without poisons. Month of thoughts to create a country with a roof, shelter, food, shoes, clothing and, above all, a country that is not anyone's mine.

May, the month to think about getting rid of 500 years of slavery and its ideological stickiness. With this May we remember that 24 years ago we were born amid the overwhelming enthusiasm of the vast majority. Yes, it was in January 1999 that we decided to say, or rather vomit, the tragedy that we had been, but it was not until May 3 of that year that the newspaper El Cayapoit came to light. For the first time we felt that we could speak, that we had a leader like us, but we also realized that beyond the vomiting, the crying, the complaints, the begging, we did not have fresh thoughts, everything in the brain was pamphlets, reflexes ideological of the foreign, of power, which made us shout the same slogans asking for equality, freedom, progress, education, justice, material goods and all those honeys that were already owned, made, created by human owners and that are not possible without our slavery. Then, finding that we had nothing to say, we decided to shut up, stop throwing up, and think while acting.

Since then we have accompanied each act, each gesture, each action, each mistake and each success of this political-military leadership with loyalty, not to men or women who can arouse admiration and respect from afar, but who can also, in the heat of the fight, having financial weaknesses or weaknesses, as has already been seen throughout the process, leading them to become traitors to themselves, reflecting what they said they were fighting, ending up in the dustbins of history. Nor have we sworn allegiance to propaganda or ideological pamphlets, nor to the dazzle of power, or to gratitude for the circumstantial improvement of misery. No, it is a loyalty in the certainty that nothing they have done is against us,

Against this government have conspired not only the internal elite at the service of foreign interests but also all the governments of America dragged by the ears by the transnationals, with some exceptions. The European lackey governments have also allied en masse, all the institutions that claim to defend freedom and democracy, the UN, OAS, and all the others that you remember, the NGOs at the service of Bill Gates, USAID and the ineffable financial speculator George Soros who finances all the unions that divide us throughout the world, be it Afro-descendants, Indians, the sick, crooked, children, abortion, women, the elderly, Greenpeace, and the list is longer than this writing. Everyone as a sheep fountain against the government,

In these difficult days we experience that nothing is left to chance, that coincidences as consequences are the product of causes even when we do not know it, that there are no pre-established destinies, that everything obeys the interests of the powerful, who plan for things to happen. facts, and that only when other people make plans do things change.

We learned that whining, condemning, accusing, or pulling balls, we get out of the condition of slavery in which we live, that this condition has been imposed on us and the only ones who can and should be interested in replacing it are us, because the comfortable ones will not do it. and while we wait, they keep using us against ourselves. Only on difficult days do you see frightened people en masse believing in their true enemies, conspiring against themselves.

We have assimilated that 1989 was a move by the corporations to finish disrupting a State-mine, because since 1970 they had been working on a plan that consisted of eliminating the State-nation, privatizing state companies, dividing the nation into small countries where resources are accumulated to create wealth and privatize them for the better benefit of foreign corporations, all in complicity with the business, political, academic, and professional elites, who have always prospered in the State and have sold themselves to the highest foreign bidder without a shred of of affection for the territory and the people who work.


In this well-laid plan, the left is discredited as a political option, the defectors are bought, the radicals are assassinated, and from then on the entire political establishment that supports the State begins to be disrupted, whether they are adecos, copeyanos, or any other ideology. . Now without the political threat, the attack begins on the large state companies managed by Venezuelan managers, who at the service of the big oil, mining, metallurgical, and communication companies, lend themselves to destroy state companies until they turn them into ballasts and thus justify privatization. .

They put us in the collective imagination that governments were useless, that politicians were useless, that businessmen are very good people, hard-working, who love the country, do not steal, know how to manage, are efficient, that being their slave was a wonder, that saying "my company" should fill us with pride and that pulling the ball to managers or bosses is a sign of distinction and category.

1989 had the objective of discrediting us as a people and they sullied us through looting, they vilified the army as a murderer of the people, they infamed the majesty of the Presidency of the Republic. Carlos Andrés Pérez comes out like a rat, a vulgar choro, they replace him with an intellectual who ends up giving a pardon to a small-time drug trafficker, and that was what the transnationals needed to destroy the entire State.

We learned that the military insurrection of February 4, 1992 was not in the plans of any national or foreign elite; No one in public circles knew Chávez, he was not a politician, he was not a "prestige" soldier among the hunters for positions and money, and that upsets the plans of the transnationals.

We assimilate that the bourgeoisie does not forgive and does not care how much time passes, it always wants to collect it and it always does so with viciousness, premeditation and treachery. The bourgeoisie tries to buy Chávez with women, rials, brandy and offers of assistance to elite circles. Since that didn't work out for them, they launched it with a blow and violence took over the country.

We also learned that in politics you have to have a plan and Chávez taught us that he had it, and not only did he have it, but he also made it public. He graduated as president and at once signed a decree calling for a Constituent Assembly, keeping his word, he introduced an enabling law in Congress with 49 laws to govern, affecting the interests of the owners.

We learned with pain that the owners were not willing to let go of their dictatorship and that is when they carried out the coup d'état. We also learned that the bourgeoisie lied, lies and will continue to lie until the end of their days, that it is not possible to believe a single word of it, they lie to each other, but they lie to us more than we are not their partners, but their slaves. We now know that they have no intention of negotiating with us for absolutely anything, other than unconditional surrender, absolute humiliation. The elections, the dialogues, are only to gain time, to tire us out, to divide us, because they have never given up their intentions to take power by force. And when we talk about the bourgeoisieWe are not talking about the internal clowns, but about the circus owners who rule from abroad.

We also learned with the body that being a force is not enough, that we need to know that we exist. After the coup, we learned that it is not enough to have a favorable government, that it is necessary to defend it, and in less than 48 hours we recovered Chávez.

We assimilated that we were not independent or sovereign, because we realized that the coup was directed and sponsored by transnational corporations, with the complicity of the kneeling elites of the continent and the treacherous internal elites that worship foreigners who still maintain the same unalterable status today. Plan like Pinky and the Brain.

We have also realized that we have only been a mine plundered by transnational corporations, that the national bourgeoisie does not exist, nor national capitalism, that they have never built a machine, nor an irrigation system, nor a train or ship, nor an agriculture of national invoice, they have not created industry or factories, nor have they processed any resources with their own capital, because from cocoa, indigo, coffee, gold, oil, everything, absolutely everything has been from foreign capital and here there are only franchises. Still today, during our government, there has not been a businessman who wants to invest to change the conditions of obtaining profits, everyone is content to live off the State and the crumbs that the transnationals throw at them, are satisfied with their status as pickpockets at the bus stop. But not only in production but also in art, academia, science, politics, manners, uses and customs, everything has been copied or imposed from abroad; school, high school, university, social democracy, social christianity, socialism, communism, anarchism, corny and outdated nationalism, of a flower, a tree, a dance, a song, a suit, a hat, a A single music, a single painting and a single national poem, which has been imposed on us from the ignorance and bad taste of smugglers and looters, imitators of fashions beyond seas and borders.

This government forged since February 4, 1992 is the only authentic thing that has happened to us in 500 years, and that is why elites of all kinds hate it with cowardly rage, with all the prejudices accumulated from the first invader to the last US ambassador. . Yes, and we can say it with great joy, finally, since February 4, 1992, someone affectionately named us, gave us a real existence, and above all taught us that we could think with our own brains and not with those imposed from the academy, university and foreign science. That is why the parasites will infinitely hate us as they will do with Hugo Chávez Frías.

Since then, we have understood that civil war is convenient for the power of corporations. We certainly know that from Chávez until now, the government has avoided civil war, but the foreign bourgeoisie has not ceased; since then oil strike, guarimbas, sabotage of state industries and the country's infrastructure, public services, electricity, water, telephony, health, education, among others; ignorance of the institutionality, of the laws, blockades, sanctions, theft of assets and financial resources, recruitment of executive personnel in the leading bodies, to show corruption and theft; destruction of the main industries and state companies, psychological campaigns to destroy support for their leaders in the collective imagination, assassinations, invasions, Financing of criminals and thieves who call themselves "the opposition", but both the opposition of whatever sign it is and the foreign bourgeoisie know and share that this is the fastest way to reach civil war. In this we are not wrong and for this reason, more than ever, we are loyal to the policy of the board of directors.

As a parenthesis: if Chávez had a life of little squares until he was assassinated, Maduro has not been left a single day in peace since the guarimbas, assassinations, invasions, sanctions, blockade, sabotage, all the marramuncias of the war have been lost. applied to the government. Fortunately there is a plan to exchange this mine for a country and this keeps us afloat.

Now, both internally and externally we observe that saints and platforms have collapsed in all senses, political parties, unions, unions, NGOs, ideologies of all signs and colors have been blurred, today totally discredited. They are sold for three per loach and one per ñapa. The churches have shown their hidden miseries, the academies and schools repeat themselves in pamphleteering; arts and artists of all kinds, from academic classics to rappers, are just a recycle being sold to the highest bidder like trinket peddlers on street corners; the professions become impoverished and the professionals are debased in the hopelessness of not being able to fulfill the illusion of being rich, while capitalism walks with its buttocks out showing its pestilences while it gobbles up life.

But this is not a coincidence. After the Second World War, organized, fully planned by capitalism in its imperialist stage, where corporations drive the car, because from now on wars are no longer because this country invaded the other's border, because it offended it, or because he disrespected the king, the president or the dictator. Wars are no longer justified, now with self-confidence they say it: we are going for the obtaining, the defense and usufruct of the loot. Any justification is valid: terrorism, lack of democracy, excess, the freedoms of blacks, Indians, women, genders, human rights, the environment and looting wars are called spring, colored , proxy , fourth generation, hybrid.

For the first time, the war is global, there is no corner of the inhabited planet where it is not being fought; on all fronts, be it artistic, economic, military, political, diplomatic, the twisting of the neck in all the countries-mine and the vassals does not play carts, and those who do not get it or do not want to get it right away, they unleash against them the sanctions, the blockades, the invasions and all their propaganda apparatus called the information media that they control all over the world, repeating the same old pamphlets: freedom, equality, democracy, progress, civilization, justice, and now, as if that were not enough, human rights, blacks, women, Indians, children, the elderly, peasants, workers, water, trees, the environment, where we all divide ourselves To infinity,

Capitalism is a world fact. Capitalism is no longer a problem of Europe, of the imperial powers, or of a conjunction of nations disputing the world, that is over. Now capital has its own life, its own power, its own plan. Outside of countries, nations or powers, corporations decide what happens and does not happen in each territory of their interest.

The war that we are witnessing today is for the definitive control of the planet's resources, and when we speak of resources we refer to what is physically built, and to the existing natural resources in the territories, such as water and minerals; And fundamentally we are also talking about the planning of the use of people, of the slaves themselves. That is what is happening. Example: the Ukraine-Russia context. It is not that Putin is bad and Biden is good, that Zelenski is a clown or an idiot, that if Xi Jinping is Chinese and Maduro is from Caracas, none of that: people are not important in what is happening, it is big capital moving their pawns on the chessboard called Earth. Within that board there is no one or any territory that does not depend on the decisions of the corporations,


Capitalist imperialism has been urged to seize, since World War II itself, the territories of China and Russia, and with them the entire Asian continent, as well as absolute control of Africa and America. Anyone can argue that this is already happening on the planet, yes, but not in the dimensions necessary for the exercise of absolute power sought by large corporations.

In other articles we have already mentioned the need for capitalism to eliminate nation-states and replace them, from the national army to pet sitters, with NGOs or private companies that fulfill the functions of the State, but for the benefit of private business. The problem that the existence of the powerful Chinese and Russian states poses for capitalist imperialism is that they cannot be destroyed so easily. The Chinese have not only a great material natural resource, but also a population of approximately 1.5 billion, a powerful army, high-quality technology, first-class weapons factories, a political party in control of state policy. at all levels; they have resources, important territory and people.

On the other hand, in relation to the Russians, we are talking about the ninth part of the planet as a territory controlled by a single nation-state, of which Russia comprises approximately 20 Venezuelas, it is a territory that before and after capitalism has been coveted, It is like the lid of the jar, the jewel in the crown, not only because it is the largest territory in the hands of a single State, but also because it is the territory with the most fresh water on the planet, with the greatest amount of gas, oil, minerals, It is a territory with a large number of favorable conditions to generate surplus value, but there is even more, as the propaganda says: it is the country with the most developed military technology on the planet, and with unsurpassed experience in battlefields to date.

The war that is being waged promoted by speculative financial capital against the nation-states, breaking all the laws and agreements that they themselves generated, seeks to create great planetary chaos in order to easily dominate and impose the rules, which every day benefits without hindrance to large corporations.

This sector of capitalism understands that it has reached a maximum degree of development and that there is nothing more to do than defend itself as capitalism, that is, it no longer has anything to do as a culture, it no longer has a painting to produce, it no longer has a poetry, a narrative, a music; what is going on is recycling and recycling because everything is now business, everything has entered the great business pyre, everything revolves around buying and selling, what is being produced are not artists but merchants, and the painter, from the naiveeven the studied, sells paint to decorate apartments, buildings, squares; It is no longer because it is a language, it is no longer because it wants to express itself or because it is saying something. The same happens with music, which says nothing, and any trace of incipient art is captured by the art industry and turned into merchandise, just like philosophy, which is in the mouths of charlatans sold to the best dealer.

Capitalism, that machinery that generated a culture of fiction and the consumption of the non-existent and imaginable, that apparent chaos where the professions that appear to be independent are nothing more than gears of the same idea-machine, which behaves to all of us as a culture , where the industry with the most developed technology is that of weapons, which also includes information media, all that apparatus that goes towards controlling people's minds and imposing on people what suits capital, because it needs to sell , produce and sell. That is what capitalism on the planet is reduced to today: producing at all costs and having the buyer zombified, assuming with their actions the defense of the interests of small mafia groups that are not interested in countries, but in their own money. Politics, health, education,

We have understood all this in these 24 years. Awake, today we are sure that no elite on this continent has been able to produce their own thinking, because their thinking has a source in Europe, and this includes the so-called left. Chávez taught us that we must separate ourselves from them in order to find ourselves together and found the future, and not continue to believe in pregnant birds.

The truth is that we are not in trouble because Chávez was black, because he had warts, because we are poor, no, we are not in trouble for that. We are in trouble because this country has a leadership that decided to have a plan, for better or worse, and that annoys the owners of the planet. "How come a guy gets out of my aegis? How come I don't govern a country? How come he makes decisions alone?" It is a bad example, and especially when it has resources and could go further by stirring up other peoples of the world, much more so with its links with China, with Russia, with Iran. That is why they try to drown us with sanctions and blockades. The government bites the bullet in order to solve problems, so that people eat, study and work.

In this balance, we come to the conclusion that they will not leave us alone, that they will squeeze until they try to hang us, but return us to the hands of the owners for the manipulation of the opposition that they will make us millionaires as soon as they win elections because they will make us earn 500 greens a week , it is nothing more than a sale of miracles because the real truth is that they come for what they believe is theirs.

For 24 years we have been outside the casting net; bad business would be wanting to return to it. From our point of view, thinking about how to continue outside the corral is our solution, no miracle seller will lead us to build ourselves as a country, it will only keep us in the fold like a herd of cows ready for milking or slaughter. Let's decide: cows or people thinking.

There is a lot of experience accumulated in these years and here we are intact in the intention. This is an attempt to balance, not of what we do, but of why we are doing what we are doing and with whom our loyalties are, without a doubt, at this stage of the game.

https://misionverdad.com/chavismo/vacas ... e-pensando

Google Translator

[blindpig]

Venezuela: Authorities Working on Comprehensive Response Plan to Meet Yukpa Indigenous People’s Demands
JUNE 17, 2023


Venezuelan Minister for Interior and Justice Remigio Ceballos speaking with the Yukpa community in Zulia state, June 12, 2023. Photo: Twitter/@MijpVzla.

Caracas, June 5, 2023 (OrinocoTribune.com)—The Venezuelan government is preparing a “comprehensive response” plan to address the demands of the Yukpa indigenous people of Zulia state. The Yukpa community has protested in recent days, demanding that they be allowed to sell their handicrafts in Caracas, among other demands, according to the Venezuelan Ministry of Interior and Justice.

In a statement on Thursday, June 15, the Ministry reported that Interior Minister Remigio Ceballos has met with leaders of Yukpa and other indigenous communities living in Zulia, to listen to their demands and “guaranteeing the deployment of public policies of the Bolivarian government to attend to the indigenous communities in the region.”

The meeting was attended by leaders of these indigenous groups and national and regional authorities, to achieve “the collective construction of the plan of action to be applied in the territory for a comprehensive approach to meet the demands of the indigenous peoples” of Zulia state, bordering Colombia.


Minister Ceballos stated that the meeting aimed to “reestablish a direct and constant link” not only with the Yukpa people but also with the other indigenous groups of the region. He added that the authorities of the indigenous areas, as well as those of public infrastructure, housing, culture, food, health, and education are participating in the comprehensive response team.

On Monday, June 12, around 100 Yukpa people blocked the bridge over Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela’s largest lake, for 12 hours, demanding that they be allowed to market their products in Caracas, but this was not allowed by law enforcement agents. They also asked for dialogue with government officials to discuss other issues, such as road problems affecting their main economic activity, agriculture. Yukpas are facing shortages of medicines in the Sierra de Perijá region, something very common in Venezuela after the US and the European Union imposed illegal sanctions affecting the lives of millions of Venezuelans.

Historic struggle
Yukpas have suffered severe aggression since the time of the Spanish Conquest, and later by the pro-US governments of Venezuela before the arrival of the Hugo Chávez government. The Chavista constitution of 1999 granted the Venezuelan indigenous peoples the right to land demarcation, but it has not been properly achieved in all cases, among which is the case of the Yukpa people.

The Yukpa community has been trying for more than a decade to reclaim their ancestral lands that are now occupied by latifundistas [large land-holders]. This led to violent responses from the latifundistas. On March 3, 2013, one of the foremost indigenous leaders in Venezuela in recent years, Sabino Romero, was assassinated. The masterminds behind this crime were never apprehended. The latifundistas have committed more acts of assassination targeting the Yukpa people.


Stencil with the face of Cacique Sabino Romero and a caption reading “Resistencia Yukpa.”

Sabino’s struggle has been continued by his son Sabinito, and by widows of assassinated leaders, such as Lucía Martínez, Romero’s wife. However, in recent times, an agreement was reached whereby the Venezuela government would buy from the Yukpa their handicrafts, one of the few items they can still produce in their reduced territories. However, the government, suffering from the revenue crisis created by illegal US blockade, has not been able to fulfill its promise, which led to the recent Yukpa protests. The Yukpa people were prevented from traveling to Caracas to claim their rights; and they were not allowed to go even to Maracaibo. They ended up carrying out demonstrations in the terminal of Machiques and the main road of that municipality.

Lusbi Portillo from Homo et Natura
The funds that the Yukpas need, as explained by the anthropologist Lusbi Portillo to Versión Final, involves resolving a series of key issues for their own productive development. It includes the government not fulfilling the payment of $90,000 to buy their handicrafts as an alternative income solution, given the serious land-related limitations to their agriculture activities.

“They need a comprehensive plan to carry out agricultural activity,” Portillo explained. “They need tractors and equipment; real support: gasoline, oil and diesel tanks; and accompaniment of a staff that can be a technician, or the driver of the machine who is a special staff, and those who handle the oil, the rest can be Yukpas, but no, it is not possible.”

According to the expert who has been highlighting the hardship suffered by Yukpas for decades, “if the road had been fixed, they would not have been forced to make a living solely from handicrafts, because it is a secondary activity. But then all the bananas have turned yellow; they can no longer take them out to sell, because they have to be sold when they are green. Now they cannot carry them to sell because they would have to go kilometers up and down the hill until they reach the road that connects Machiques with El Tokuko, which is the last community of the Barí territory.”

https://orinocotribune.com/venezuela-au ... s-demands/

Far-Right Opposition Primary Commission Opts for Elections Without Venezuela’s National Electoral Council
JUNE 17, 2023


José María Casal, president of the Venezuelan opposition's National Primaries Commission, announcing the decision of organizing the primary elections without National Electoral Council assistance and without fingerprint scanners. Photo: Twitter/@RCR750.

Caracas, June 16, 2023 (OrinocoTribune.com)—Venezuelan far-right opposition’s National Primary Commission (CNP) announced that the opposition primaries voting process scheduled for October 24 will be manual and will be carried out without any technical assistance from the National Electoral Council (CNE) despite having announced the contrary less than two weeks ago.

At a Friday, June 16 press conference, José María Casal, president of the CNP, announced the decision, and placed the blame on the resignation of the CNE board on Thursday, May 15, despite the fact that some of the outgoing CNE rectors might be re-elected and that the current rectors will remain in their post until a new board is appointed.

“Today we ratify to the country that our commitment to hold the primary to elect a united candidacy remains intact,” Casal said. “The CNP will continue to promote the successful celebration of the election that will lead to the democratization of Venezuela.”

He further noted that “the primary election has been an initiative that has involved and motivated a large number of political and social actors.”

Many opposition pre-candidates have expressed their opposition to holding primary elections without CNE’s technical assistance, firstly because the robustness and reliability of its platform, and secondly because CNE is the institution responsible of holding the 2024 presidential elections.

“The facts speak for themselves, the decision has been made to organize a self-managed election, this requires all of our time to guarantee success,” Casal stated, adding that the schedule will not be affected.

Casal also announced that there will be a public fundraiser for conducting the primaries. He specified that the collection will be done through online raffles and other methods, in which university students and Venezuelans abroad will participate.

The voting abroad issue is very controversial because the lack of diplomatic relation in some countries, like the United States, will make it impossible for the Venezuelans living there to vote in the presidential elections, making their influence on the outcome of the primaries irrelevant in the presidential race.

Casal’s alternate resigns
On Friday morning, Rafael Arráiz Lucca, alternate for José María Casal in the CNP, resigned from his post, stating that without the National Electoral Council (CNE) and the polling stations, it will be impossible to carry out a “comprehensive election.”


However, during the press conference on Friday, CNP president Casal claimed that Arráiz has not officially submitted his resignation. “Professor Arráiz has not submitted his resignation,” he said. “We respect him very much as a person and we regret his decision, because of his valuable work in the Commission, but we would respect his personal decisions.”

Pre-candidates react
As expected, María Corina Machado, extreme right leader of Vente Venezuela party, rejoiced at the change of decision by the CNP. In a campaign rally in Lara state, Machado announced the decision, followed by a “Sí se puede” [Yes we can] chant from her supporters.


Machado has been in an open clash with the CNP for its previous announcement of accepting CNE technical assistance for the opposition primaries. Therefore, the latest decision of the CNP is being considered a victory by the extreme right groups that support Machado.

Henrique Capriles, pre-candidate of Justice First party, posted on his social media accounts a pre-recorded statement supporting the CNP decision. “Our support for the National Primary Commission. Now more than ever we are called to be united and organized for Venezuela,” he wrote.


In the video, Capriles expressed his support for the CNP, affirming that its decisions are supported by him and his party. He called for “maximum unity” and “maximum commitment” of all pre-candidates, asking them to rise above personal interests, and highlighted the importance of “carefully reading the historic moment that Venezuela is living.”

The right-wing politician also announced that on Monday, Justice First will deliver a letter with its proposal to have “the most inclusive primary election,” as if anticipating that in the coming days the unity of the hard right sector of the Venezuelan opposition will be at stake.

Political analysts specializing in Venezuelan issues have been skeptical of the success of the opposition primaries, mainly because of the exclusion of opposition sectors wanting to participate in it. Now that the CNP has reversed its decision of coordinating with the CNE, the legitimacy and reliability of the results will become another obstacle against an acceptable outcome.

https://orinocotribune.com/far-right-op ... l-council/

**********

THE VENEZUELAN NETWORK OF ACCOMPLICES OF "MAXIMUM PRESSURE"
Jun 15, 2023 , 1:57 p.m.


The explicit support of the Venezuelan opposition for the plans of the Trump administration in Venezuela has become an uncomfortable issue for that sector (Photo: EFE)

Donald Trump's foreign policy towards Venezuela during his presidency of the United States is once again the subject of debate due to the statements in which he stated his intention to appropriate the country's oil.

His unfiltered exposure also unmasks the Venezuelan opposition, now divided into various factions, which played a key role in the implementation of strategies designed by the White House to achieve the objective of the then president.

Despite the fact that the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) tried to distance itself from the ex-president's comments with a statement , the evidence is clear: the Venezuelan opposition actively collaborated in support of the interventionist policies of the United States, including economic sanctions and the theft of assets. Venezuelans, and became a comparsa in the fabrication of a fictitious government led by Juan Guaidó.

We compile the data that demonstrates the complicity of the Venezuelan opposition with the destructive US foreign policy, which does not go unnoticed in the midst of the controversy that Trump has caused.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SUPPORT DONALD TRUMP?
The tycoon and politician sums this up concisely : "When I left, Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have kept all that oil for ourselves." However, it is crucial to highlight the details.

During the time that Donald Trump led US policy, the mechanisms of economic, financial and commercial suffocation against Venezuela intensified, seriously affecting the most vulnerable sectors of society. Between 2017 and 2018, approximately 40,000 Venezuelans lost their lives as a result of the economic sanctions imposed by the current US government.

In addition, the military option was always on the table, seeking to increase the escalation of the conflict and endanger the Venezuelan institutions and even the life of President Nicolás Maduro. There were threats and also attempts via mercenaries to carry out this option.

It was not just a question of seizing resources, but of avoiding strengthening ties with emerging players of the new multipolar order, such as China, Russia and Iran, which also experienced an increase in US pressure.

The plan that encompassed all these elements (unilateral coercive measures, appropriation of resources, threats of intervention and multidimensional war) was based on the recognition of Juan Guaidó as "interim president". Although it was erratic and did not achieve political results in its objective, it is important to highlight this event because the simple recognition of this fabricated structure implies accepting the attacks that the Trump administration carried out against Venezuela through it.

However, the Unitary Platform (formerly known as G4, and previously as the Democratic Unity Roundtable -MUD-) did more than simply recognize Guaidó.

In 2019, the National Assembly, controlled by opposition parties, approved a Transitional Statute that endorsed the US strategy of establishing a parallel government in Venezuela. This statute proposed three areas to undermine the Venezuelan State, foment a generalized conflict and amplify the economic siege that affected the country. In addition, the document contemplated the creation of a "National Council for the Democratic Transition" with the objective of displacing the national political high command.

THE UNCONCEALABLE: PORTRAITS FOR POSTERITY
To refute the idea that the Venezuelan opposition was not involved in the foreign policy of the Donald Trump administration towards Venezuela, it is first necessary to highlight the multiple meetings that took place between political actors from the opposition and the White House. Although most of the opposition representatives in these meetings belonged to Voluntad Popular, which took the lead in the formation of a fictitious government, it should be noted that these meetings were held on behalf of the entire bloc of political actors allied to defeat President Maduro. .

In February 2017, Trump met with Lilian Tintori, wife of Leopoldo López, who was in prison at the time, and Senator Marco Rubio, as well as Vice President Mike Pence, in a prelude to the insurrectionary street movements that took place that year.


Venezuela should allow Leopoldo Lopez, a political prisoner & husband of @liliantintori (just met w/ @marcorubio ) out of prison immediately. pic.twitter.com/bt8Xhdo7al

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2017

In May 2017, with street violence already underway, Julio Borges met at the White House with former Vice President Mike Pence and the National Security Adviser, General HR McMaster, and raised the "serious situation in Venezuela due to the breaking of the thread constitutional law and the violation of human rights".

In January 2019 , Republican Senator Ted Cruz met with representatives of the newly formed "Guaidó interim presidency," including Carlos Vecchio, Gustavo Tarre, and Julio Borges, along with other senators including James Risch, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott and Ben Cardin. The following month, Mike Pence met Juan Guaidó in Bogotá, Colombia, after the failed attempt to force their way into Venezuela under the guise of delivering "humanitarian aid."

In March 2019, Pence met Fabiana Rosales, wife of Juan Guaidó, at the White House, and she was later received by Trump.


The President of the United States, Donald Trump, received Fabiana Rosales, wife of Juan Guaidó, at the White House: https://t.co/mURdJy4xr0
– CNN in Spanish (@CNNEE) March 28, 2019

In September, Trump met with the presidents of Latin America, who represented the Lima Group, to address the situation in Venezuela, with the presence of Julio Borges and Carlos Vecchio, in a meeting that took place in parallel to the General Assembly of The United Nations.


President Trump on Venezuela: Socialism has destroyed what was once among the most prosperous countries in the world. pic.twitter.com/SxkE1xhA9N
— USA in Spanish (@USAenEspanol) September 25, 2019

That same day, USAID Administrator Mark Green delivered $52 million in aid to the Guaidó-led Venezuelan opposition in its "quest to re-establish a democratic government accountable to the citizens of their country." During the event, a photo was taken with Vecchio to commemorate the delivery of the resources destined to support programs to "the National Assembly of Venezuela, the independent press, civil society and the restoration of the health sector", under the assumption that would serve as "humanitarian aid".

In October 2019, Borges and Vecchio held bipartisan meetings with representatives of the US Congress, to formulate more illegal sanctions against the Venezuelan government.

In January 2020, Juan Guaidó met in Bogotá with Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State, and other leaders of the region, while in February Trump received Guaidó for the first and only time at the White House for a closed-door meeting. in which Julio Borges was also present. Guaidó was also invited to Congress to be present at the former president's State of the Union address.


Donald Trump receives Juan Guaidó at the White House, February 5, 2020 (Photo: AP)

"YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THE PATH OF TRUMP" AND OTHER COMPROMISING STATEMENTS

In terms of statements, the Venezuelan opposition issued one when it was grouped in
the MUD that contradicts the recent statement where it claims to have nothing to do with Trump's policies.

In August 2017, the MUD published a document saying it supports the sanctions imposed by the United States on the government of President Maduro and requests global diplomatic support to "restore the constitutional and democratic order in Venezuela." In addition, it calls on the international community to warn its citizens and companies to refrain from doing business with the Maduro government, threatening the power vested in it by the National Assembly.

#RELEASE : Democratic Unity Roundtable sets position on US sanctions against the Maduro regime. pic.twitter.com/024FJOHicK

– Unit Venezuela (@unidadvenezuela) August 27, 2017

It is important to mention that this announcement came weeks after the national government managed to dismantle, through the National Constituent Assembly and national mobilizations, an attempt at a color revolution that had been present for months in the main cities of the country and that resulted in in numerous hate crimes, such as assaults on public facilities, murders, paralysis of economic activities, etc.

Henrique Capriles, leader of Primero Justicia, was one of the first to condemn Donald Trump's recent statements. Although he has taken it upon himself to appear critical of the decisions made by officials of the previous US administration and the Guaidó group, their differences are actually methodological and not because they stop sharing the same objectives.

For example, Francisco Monaldi, adviser to the former governor of Miranda state, recommended that Donald Trump financially block PDVSA in 2017.

In statements made on August 7, 2019, Capriles was advising the self-proclaimed Guaidó on strategic options to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro. There he expressed that the "sanctions" were a mechanism to put pressure on the Venezuelan government and that they were not related to the country's economic crisis. In addition, he assured that Guaidó had the support of the opposition political forces, including himself.

Elliott Abrams, who held the position of "special emissary" of the Trump Administration for Venezuela, mentioned Capriles' differences with the rest of the members of the "Guaidó operation" and pointed out the apparent moment of the break. According to Abrams, the Venezuelan opposition remained "completely united" against Washington's guidelines throughout 2019 and part of 2020, until Capriles broke with that unity.

Despite these divergences, the leader of Primero Justicia showed enthusiasm on social networks for the events that took place on April 30, 2019.

#30Apr To the countries that support the restitution of democracy in our Venezuela: it is time to support the cause of Venezuelans at this crucial hour. To our people: it's time to stay mobilized! #VamosVenezuela #OperaciónLibertad is in our hands!

— Henrique Capriles R. (@hcapriles) April 30, 2019

That day, Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo López tried to carry out a military coup in Venezuela with a small group of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) and little firepower, focusing more on communication and symbolic operations, the "Operation Libertad" concocted by senior US officials. However, the action was dismantled by the Venezuelan State and did not obtain popular or military support. From this event, other paramilitary and mercenary operations arose, but the figure of Guaidó was losing relevance and in the end it only served to justify the looting of resources abroad.

Stalin González, at that time a member of Un Nuevo Tiempo and representative of the National Assembly in 2015, which at that time was in contempt, also expressed himself in favor of "Operation Freedom" through his Twitter account. In his message, he declared: "The final phase of Operation Freedom has arrived. We have prepared ourselves, we have organized ourselves and we are ready to conquer the freedom of Venezuela."


All of Venezuela, from end to end to the streets. The day we have been waiting for so long has arrived. We will be supporting the patriotic soldiers who today have sided with the constitution #TodaVenezuelaALaCalle

— Stalin González (@stalin_gonzalez) April 30, 2019

González now calls Donald Trump "matraca e' loco" for his candor about Venezuela.

María Corina Machado, who currently heads the Vente Venezuela party, also spoke that day, attaching a photo with Guaidó during the concentration that took place in the development of events.

Venezuela was born to BE FREE!



Citizens are united and determined to save our country!



Throughout Venezuela today the people on the street rested with the President @jguaido pic.twitter.com/UO2K6BTxpz

— María Corina Machado (@MariaCorinaYA) April 30, 2019

From this platform we report on María Corina Machado's plan to present herself as an outsider candidate , within the framework of the opposition primaries. Just as she cannot hide her historical extremism, she could not hide that she was one of those who showed the most signs of support for the Trump Administration, and in many cases she demanded even more radical measures from Guaidó and Washington.

In this sense, on May 3, 2019, María Corina Machado gave a statement to Voice of America evaluating what had happened on April 30, 2019. Machado said that the Venezuelan government was not going to give in if there was no credible threat, which is the use of international force, in a supposed "humanitarian coalition". She also said that Venezuela represented a real threat to the United States government and described as a political error by the National Assembly (the already non-existent one from 2015) not to demand and coordinate the principle of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P ) .

Machado praised the Trump administration for its firm stance against the Venezuelan regime and its commitment to confront it. In September 2020, he stressed that no other US administration had done so much to demonstrate the criminal nature of the regime, and in November 2020 he expressed his support for Trump's re-election, stating that his administration had understood the threat posed by Venezuela and the region, and that the path marked out by Trump should be continued to achieve the desired objectives.

A few hours before the #USA elections, this is @mariacorinaya's message about that event.



"This task is not ready, it must be completed (...) The path to follow is very clear, and it is the path that the Trump administration has set." @GuayoyoNewsVzla



#31Oct pic.twitter.com/7tCYsI6T14

— Vente Venezuela (@VenteVenezuela) October 31, 2020

Along with Diego Arria and Antonio Ledezma, he sent a public letter to Juan Guaidó and Donald Trump on August 8, 2019 . There they appreciate the decisions made by the US government to "protect Venezuela's assets" and block financial and commercial support for the Maduro government. The letter also calls for the activation of the TIAR and the demand for the activation of R2P for the international community.

In addition, he has close ties to Republican congressmen from Florida , such as Marco Rubio, key in the development and implementation of the Trump administration's strategies against Venezuela.

ACTIONS AND COMMENTS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

What former Trump Administration officials did and commented is another element to consider when establishing the political commitment of the Venezuelan opposition to foreign forces.

Leopoldo López was not the only one who received support from high-ranking US officials to strengthen the false narrative of political persecution by the Venezuelan government.

On April 11, 2017, Rex Tillerson, who at the time headed the US State Department, urged the government of Nicolás Maduro to reconsider the disqualification of Henrique Capriles and to call "free and fair" elections. In addition, the State Department urged the government to respect the right to peaceful protest and to opponents who exercise it. These declarations occurred while the implementation of violent street actions, coordinated and deployed in the main cities of the country, began.

On May 10, 2019, the State Department once again, this time under the leadership of Mike Pompeo, demanded the immediate release of former congressman Edgar Zambrano , a member of Acción Democrática (AD), and threatened consequences if the Maduro government did not complied with his request. Trump joined the claim. Zambrano was arrested on May 8, 2019 accused of treason after the activation of the events of 30A.

Pompeo revealed at an event organized by the American Enterprises Institute, a neoconservative think tank, that the CIA had collaborated in the execution of economic sanctions against Venezuela. This statement made it clear that the US administration and Congress were adopting a position of transnational intervention and force to address the situation in Venezuela, considering the elections and the incumbent government as obstacles. The creation of the opposition block "I am Venezuela", led by Antonio Ledezma and María Corina Machado, who advocated "humanitarian intervention", was in line with this strategy .

On the other hand, John Bolton, former national security adviser to the Trump Administration, exposed in his book In the room where the close coordination and mutual support between the Venezuelan opposition and the United States government took place. The book highlights several episodes that show this relationship, such as the attempt to "enter humanitarian aid" on February 23, 2019, where the Pentagon and USAID played a key role. Direct US support for Guaidó's " ad hoc board " on Citgo was also mentioned.

NOT MINOR DATA OF CORRUPTION AND COMPLICITY
Although what has been stated so far may seem like a clear sign of the support that there was for the Trump administration, there are other ways to establish this relationship that should not be overlooked, such as fraudulent deals and agreements made under the covers.

Until August 24, 2020, Ricardo Villasmil held the presidency of the ad hoc board of directors appointed by Guaidó, which appropriated the representation of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) at key moments for the country. During his tenure, a legal battle was underway to determine control of the gold held by the Bank of England. Villasmil had previously been head of the public policy team of Henrique Capriles , in addition to serving as a senior economist at the MUD since 2006.

Ricardo Ramos D'Agostino, son of AD leader Henry Ramos Allup, was involved in a corruption scheme that benefited 27 international oil companies by providing them with confidential PDVSA inside information. José Ignacio Hernández, known for his participation in fraudulent acts related to the looting of CITGO and for acting as a "procurator" for Guaidó, had previously defended those same companies in a lawsuit filed by PDVSA. Later, from his usurped position, Hernández tried to annul the demands presented by the Venezuelan state company.

Ramos Allup would have agreed with José Ignacio Hernández, Leopoldo López and Juan Guaidó to prevent his son from being investigated for his participation in the corruption plot, according to statements by Vice President Delcy Rodríguez .
Another case is that of the Caribbean Recovery Assets Consortium (CRA) , made up of the companies LockinCapital and Global Risk Management. This company was created with the purpose of pursuing Venezuelan assets in the Caribbean, focusing especially on PDV Caribe's participation in companies in the region related to the Petrocaribe goods and services platform.

During a meeting in Miami, the representatives of the consortium, Jorge Reyes and Pedro Aznar, presented their proposal to Carlos Prosperi (currently a candidate for the primary candidate for the AD party), Javier Troconis and Magin Blasi-Blanchard, the latter representing his brother Fernando Blasi-Blanchard, a close collaborator of Carlos Vecchio. The Blasi-Blanchard brothers demanded a commission of $750,000 and recognition of 50% of the consortium's fees as partners, under threat of canceling the contract. Fernando and Magin Blasi-Blanchard claim to represent the interests of Manuel Rosales and the G4 , and have a history of monopoly supplying hospitals during the Rosales government in Zulia.

Pacts like these, with both political and economic implications, denounce other ways of supporting the Trump administration without having to declare it publicly. The rest is evidence, as well as when the relief of evidence is declared before a court after a confession of parties.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/la-r ... ma-presion

THE BAD BATHS ARE NOT OPPOSITION

The Cayapo

Jun 20, 2023 , 2:06 p.m.


It has lit the fuse for the independence of collective action, of thought, of the possibility of being others in another culture (Photo: El Cayapo)

This writing is not against anyone even if it seems so, it is not against the elites, nor the opposition, nor capitalism, nor imperialism, nor the war, nor the left, communism or Chavismo. It's just the result of inquiries from people who don't settle for what they tell us. People who think that this species that we are can live in a different way.

Since Chávez won the elections in 1998, a barrage of insults has been unleashed that has escalated against Maduro. These are issued from a wealthy, studied, academic, artistic, professional, scientific elite, all belonging to civil society and good people, very civilized. It is clarified that not only our exclusive and exquisite elite has spoken ill of our government, but also the high elites of the world have used their insulting verb to refer to the leaders of the government, without managing to break a single bone.

This bourgeois class and its followers, with infinite hatred, do not pay attention to denigrating epithets against the Chavista leaders and their followers. They not only insult but also practice violence, because their grievances do not come alone, they are accompanied by actions that go beyond insults, they not only want to burn people alive but they have done so, they have torn them to pieces, they have planted bombs, they have invaded, They have requested invasions, blockades, sanctions, they have carried out assassinations, they have carried out coups, oil strikes and everything that they have not been able to carry out because they have been disrupted by the effective action of the government security forces, which has prevented in time.

Out of habit, this social class and its actions have been called "the opposition" and "acts of the opposition", but are they really "the opposition"? What is traditionally called "the opposition"? To the group of parties or unions that, organized in the name of their interests as sectors of power, dispute the honey that derives from the State.

From the French Revolution onwards, the bourgeoisie agreed on rules for the administration of the State, but not before cutting off the king's head, so that a bloodbath would separate them forever. The absolutist State, which represented the old monarchical regime, disappeared due to the violent action that was unleashed in the contradiction of the powerful elites to remain in power and thus give birth to a new class, the bourgeoisie, which with the old and new methods of violence learned in the revolution established his new order, legalizing the right to exercise and usufruct the loot. Since then, the different bourgeois mafias organize and finance parties to defend their interests and from time to time they take turns in the administration of the bourgeois State, devoting their time to the negotiations of laws or agreements, whether with the executive, parliament and/or the judiciary. In short, what is known as "the opposition" is the alligators of the same well that exercise power from the State's talanqueras, while another faction is in exercise.

But none of them, even if they say it, they shout it to the public, wants to put an end to the corrupt State, the white-collar thieves, corruption, and all the bullshit that demagoguery fancies, much less solve health problems, education , food, housing. These are only topics for the exercise of demagoguery every five or four or six years, while the shift is taking place. This is what happens in the framework of capitalism. This is how state policy works, while the bourgeoisie rules the world from their corporations.

In Venezuela, the oil companies established and developed a State in their image and likeness, a supervised dictatorial State, which allowed them to put an end to caudillismo and then establish their industry that allowed them to obtain the cheapest oil on the planet. Over time, this State was adapted to the needs of the industry and its growth.

Around the 1960s, with a democratic label and appearance, the oil dictatorship, after the so-called New York Pact, established the government of democratic alternation, but not before killing, imprisoning, torturing, and exiling all those who opposed it. This dirty task was carried out by the AD and COPEI parties that, acting as political stewards, rendered great services to the oil companies, not only in the administration of the territory and in the care of their interests, but also in the control of the large majorities and the elimination of the opponents who shouted "no to imperialism and capitalism" but who later became meek lambs and today are also at the service of the oil companies. We are talking about the Communist Party and its derivatives known as the groups or parties of the left. In this alternation,

If February 4, 1992 did not happen, we would still be in the soursop alternation or, failing that, in a great civil war bleeding us dry, while the big oil companies continued to plunder oil, but only at cost, without having to pay taxes and royalties for taking the oil.

When did "the opposition" disappear? That political figure for the exercise of demagogy and the deception of the great majorities, at the very moment that Chávez won the 1998 elections, in fact, the same day a military coup was launched, but before order was established agree to disrupt the parties and oppose Chávez's candidacy as a bloc.

It is there when "the opposition" disappears and the conspiracy plans of all the world power against Chávez, and now against Maduro, begin. It ceases to be an opposition when there is a confrontation between two visions of life and immediately the sectors of power enter into contradictions, and what demagogy cannot hide comes to light: the true face of the capitalist dictatorship, and from the the most extreme right, even the so-called sectors of the left, allied themselves to defend what they believe to be natural and what legally belongs to them. The masks fall off, the slow talk of power turns into the thunder of war, henceforth, against the new government, which does not fit into the traditional plans of the bourgeoisie. Lightning, thunder and sparks of world power are unleashed,

They will scream, they will experience pain, suffering, blood, sweat and tears. As that British assassin Winston Churchill said: "And we'll steal their gold," and the Wall Street thugs joined in the chorus: "And we'll take CITGO." And the Portuguese pirates and looters remembered their adventures during the invasion of this continent and at once they assaulted the ship of the dammed dollars, and even the shit suckers of the Argentine elite were moved by the great temple of balls that they gave to the gringos helping them to take away our plane, but the elites of the continent did not corner themselves or invoke "the defense of the attacked brother", but immediately united as one in favor of their Western masters, and the rancid Colombian narco-oligarchy to stand out in their Piracy took us from Monomeros,

So, continuing to call those who try to defend what they had stolen "opposition" is a mistake, because they do not share the plans of the new estate that is trying to be built, because they are convinced that the way they have lived is the way it should be. live, and not in any new way or manner or concept. They only understand that it is natural to command and have slaves, and they have even convinced an enslaved social sector that it is good to be a slave and they use them for their defense. This is what direct violence explains to us, that whatever happens we cannot neglect ourselves, because they will continue practicing it for as long as it takes. It is always good to remember and keep it in mind. This confrontation is not with the crumb pickers of the so-called "opposition", but with the elites that own the world. Take the example,

MATURE BUS DRIVER
Mabruto, chaburro, maburro: with these expressions we are sold the idea that the President of the Republic is rude, ignorant, clumsy, little read, without culture, and all, according to these gentlemen, because he is a bus driver, according to the assumption from the bourgeoisie that every worker at the wheel is, for the imaginary of the "opposition", what they wildly shout against the president. It is logical that these respectable high-class ladies and gelled gentlemen (for centuries in the brain) consider the workers behind the wheel as the last thing that misery has given birth to and, therefore, they are brainless, unable to direct or lead a country, even if they are drivers and direct a flyer in the streets of Caracas, Venezuela and the world.

But, outside of the joke, we are also convinced that 99% of the steering wheel workers as individuals are not qualified to lead the country badly or well, but we also know that 99% of the aforementioned elite in their professions, trades or idleness either They are qualified to lead us, but we recognize that 99% of Venezuelans are not qualified as individuals for such highly responsible action.

This is so true that the elite that rails against the president is the same one that has governed us for more than 500 years, and the only thing it has served for is to be a lackey and bootlicker for foreign owners, handing over the territory and all existing resources. .

Since the Chavista government began, the empire has tried to overthrow it with conspiratorial, seditious and interventionist plans, under the leadership of its presidents, the two Bushes, father and son, Clinton, Obama, Trump, and now Mr. Biden, along with the lackeys of the European Union who, together with almost the entire world elite, have conspired to bring it down.

They do not realize that neither Chávez nor Maduro came to government because they were military, small-town, black, Indian, or a bus driver, but for the simple reason of being politicians, with a plan different from that of the world elites. Therein lies the fact that, after 22 years of blockade, coups, guarimbas, oil strike, robbery, looting, murders, invasion, frustrated assassination, sanctions, this government exists.

So, here comes the question of the 40,000 lochas: if Chávez and Maduro are so brutish, how is it that the exquisite elite has not managed to overthrow the government with all their intelligence, beauty, grace, academy, art, entertainment, science, money, propaganda media and world resources? We do know why: they have not knocked him down because, while they in their arrogance make plans like those of Pinky and the Brain to knock down a bus driver stranded on the streets of Venezuela, Maduro and his collective leadership thwart them like skilful politicians, intelligence, plans, organization, discipline, that do not act for pedestrian interests, but have a vision of the country radically different from the one that these primitive elites have, permissive to looting by three lochas.

Maduro, on the contrary, is a politician trained in years of struggle and in recent years hardened in the great battles under the leadership of that great international master of politics such as Hugo Chávez, facing the business and political elite that he currently leads. the war in the world and not facing these poorly bathed bastards, who no longer direct even the driver of their houses, because everyone knows that they are neither chicha nor lemon, but a band of aspiring owners without credentials or talents to be.

These conceited, pawns on the board of the war that today is imposed on the world by speculative financial capital with all its machinery, still do not realize that politics could be defined as the continuity of war by other means, or vice versa. Politics, that word that is so exalted and kicked around, is the way in which power is obtained, sustained and maintained. Everything else is fiction, ideology and propaganda for the slaves.

Politics, in other more hackneyed terms, is the way in which the instruments or tools are used to conquer, use and maintain the loot, and that has been the case since the powerful elites understood that war was the most suitable means to achieve it. Throughout history, the elites have traveled on the backs of slaves, from war to politics, using diplomacy or the word of lies as a vehicle, as someone once defined it very well. In all complex cultures or civilizations, whether in the West, the East, or any other place where cultural complexity or so-called civilization has emerged: this is the constant.

The true story, which up to now has happened in the life of this species throughout the passing of time, is the story of the powerful elites, who have constantly faced each other for power, for control of what exists. Despite the fact that there may be thousands of warlords, as civilizational complexity advances, only a few lords dispute the great booty, the rest ally themselves with one side or another. If not, they disappear, swallowed up or destroyed by the great ones, while we slaves have always carried the bundle, whoever is in charge, enjoys, loses or wins power. Unfortunately for us that has been the case.

This mogote of thugs that today we call "the opposition", descendants of great-grandparents, thugs, murderers and looters, who more than 500 years ago arrived in these territories with the dream of returning to their lands of origin and kicking their equals, like their masters did with them. Frustrated, they ended up staying in these lands of Indians, blacks and stilt walkers, always obeying their masters from beyond the seas and infinitely hating this territory, its people and of course the stilt walkers. In order to overcome the trauma, they had to invent a country in the image and likeness of their origins, which only works in their brains, but in reality hating everything around them, And that vision has been transmitted to their great-great-great grandchildren who ended up believing the story that they descended from princes and marquises and that they should rule by divine power, but the circumstance today is that they are just a party of badly bathed thugs and chewing gum. Asshole the believer who creates the story and joins his speeches.

For the moment, we are convinced that this crazy cart will continue like Pinky and the Brain trying to overthrow the government by force and until the end, because their hatred, their fear, their infinite hunger is immense. Their ignorance, vast as the oceans, does not allow them to understand that today, in people's brains, the fuse for the independence of collective action, of thought, of the possibility of being others in another culture where the task is already It is not saving the poor or living and producing the poor, but living together as beings of a species that recognizes itself by deciding the future and destiny in substance, essence and collective form.

https://misionverdad.com/chavismo/los-m ... -oposicion

Google Translator

Nice, especially considering machine translation.

[blindpig]

HOPE AND UTOPIA: GENUINE DRUG AGAINST THE PEOPLE

The Cayapo

Jul 5, 2023 , 8:42 a.m.


Yes, gentlemen, everything comes from the war, every thought, every act, every ideological feeling (Photo: El Cayapo)

Pretending that the reflection in the mirror is reality is a delusion that leads to keeping the tragedy in real life.

"There are men who fight one day and are good. There are others who fight for a year and are better. There are those who fight for many years and are very good. But there are those who fight all their lives: those are the essentials": Bertolt Brecht

In this time of deterioration and under the Caribbean winter, we will shoot Mr. Brecht writing his words in this way: There are those who think one day and they are necessary. There are others who think a year and are vital. There are those who think for many years and are essential. But there are those who think all their lives: those are the essential ones , for the simple reason that nothing that exists deserves a single drop of sweat from us slaves, nothing that is founded even when we have designed, experimented and built it ourselves. its salvation is worth a little effort. No fight will get us out of the tragedy, only the thought about the harsh reality will make another cultural possibility viable; the rest is pure and simple hypocrisy.

Today the left and the right, hands transmuted from monarchical absolutism to the capitalist body, collude, just like religion and atheism, agnostics and cynics, just like interested ignorant people. Everyone shouts with one lung: "Let's save capitalism, reduce the greenhouse effect, stop economic growth, go towards zero growth, live ecologically, develop clean energy, save the planet!" the last individual has to infinity what the rich have in order to live well. All agreeing to hide capitalism with its honey and its sores, by not telling us how, when or where that longed for happy world will occur.

The union leaders, or partisans of all signs, colors and sizes, hoarsely asking capitalism for more cars, houses, rights, education, health and work for the slaves, while hypocritically living off their own union members without telling them the truth that in the capitalism it is impossible to solve the problems that it generates, that slaves have no rights, because we are merchandise. That like any other, capitalism will always seek to buy it cheap, sell it expensive, and for this reason it will do everything possible to permanently maintain the business.

No struggle to enjoy the sweetness of capitalism will make it possible for us to overcome our condition as slaves. Neither salary increases, nor trusts, nor social benefits, nor social security, nor education, nor health, nor reduction of hours, nor change of governments, nor strengthening of the unions, which have always lied in the name of the interests that pay them their wages to keep us divided haphazardly, like a perennially drifting herd.

Everyone, absolutely everyone, works in a complicated framework for the interests of big capital, whether they are ecological, save the environment, protect trees, animals, children, women, blacks, Indians, old women, dogs, cats. Each right or demand that we believe is valid and necessary for our existence, rivets our shackles, and each fight for each one of these carrots is answered with a massacre, and each massacre is answered with a day of commemoration: Labor Day, the day of the heroic guerrilla, the day of the fucked up, the day of the subjugated, the day of the workers, the peasant women, those who abort, those who give birth, LGBTQI+ pride, the tree, the grandmother and the gay and non-gay grandfather, of phenylketonuria, of cumaco and bagpipes, of piercing, of ceviche, of the dog, of the pyre, of the fan,

The only thing missing is to declare and celebrate World War Day as the most important contribution to the progress of humanity; They dare not say it, but it is absolutely true.

Nothing of what we are today has been possible without war: the wave, the use of fire, the wheel, the arrow, the spear, the catapult, gunpowder, religion and other legal and illegal drugs, penicillin, books, the typewriter, the gun, the printing press, literacy, the telephone, the internet, commercial art, cities, empires, modes of production, philosophy, politics, science, diplomacy in all its variants, bombs, missiles, rockets, cannons, statistics, administration, accounting, chemistry, physics, engineering, sports, as well as the truth, the lie, the ideology of any sign, ecology, corruption, theft, crime, invasion, massacre, unions, NGOs, parties, unions, social movements, civil society,people of good and bad living, social classes, machines, footwear, clothing, architecture, dreams, corniness, imagination, utopia and all constructions, health, food, education, and anything else, incredible as it may seem, has been a necessity or a product of the war.

And, also, what you are thinking about is the product of war or necessity, and even the ways, manners, customs and time of shooting are at the service of war. But there is still more: with artificial intelligence, the brain will not be necessary, because the bourgeoisie will make it easier for us to think.

The bourgeoisie stopped believing in God and built all this tragedy that we call humanism. The bourgeoisie decided to be it and also resolved that we would forever be its slaves. The bourgeoisie stopped believing more than 500 years ago, they use religion as a mechanism of submission, but they do not repent of any of their sins, not even the benign ones, much less the capital ones, which are theirs and with them they subdue the species. and the planet in general. The bourgeoisie sent God to hell long and turned their churches into companies that disciplinedly extract surplus value from fear, hunger and ignorance. The bourgeoisie lives very well, keeping us as their slaves, let no one doubt it.

The bourgeoisie does not see itself in the future as the creator of another world, but as eternally reigning on the crest of the wave. There are no people in the establishment thinking about tomorrow, they are only dedicated to convincing others that the way they live is that they have to live. More than a century ago, humanism stopped thinking, now it is dedicated to keeping tanks of thought playing at war and defending the capitalist regime, a world dictatorship that does not accept any other way of thinking. For them, democracy is to rule with everyone obeying the designs and perpetuity needs of the capitalist machine, of what really moves the world: the mode of production and its relationships, a tax culture where the controlling elites believe that it is so how one should live, and that everything else represents a serious danger to their existence.

To maintain their dominance, they drug us with false news confused with the truth, and already unplugged from the brain, they convince us that God exists, that the waters of the Red Sea parted in two, that the Earth was flat, that we were the center of the universe; that Europe was old and also a continent; that the Aztecs, Incas and Mayas were very rich empires; that the cultures of the world are barbaric, savage and practice cannibalism except the European one; that we should call ourselves indigenous; that September 11 was a terrorist act perpetrated from abroad by an Arab group, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that the Tripoli plaza was in Kuwait, that Guaidó had the power to become president of his own free will, that the Chinese and the Russians were orcs from another dimension that had come to destroy the earthly paradise built by humanism in the West; that if the United States had gotten its hands on Venezuela we would sell the oil at an excellent price and we would have our immaculate freedom; that we owe thanks to the Europeans because they plundered our imagination and preserved it in their countries and did not leave it here in these mines, because otherwise someone would have stolen it; that thanks to the war we have progressed, we have developed, we have become civilized, we live better than before, we have more art, more technology, more food, more health, more sports, more entertainment, more antivirus and antibiotics; and the poor are richer; that if we had been colonized by England, Germany or the Belgians, surely today we would not be underdeveloped; that business representatives meet to negotiate with us because they love us; that the garbage is produced by us; that if we walk we erode the Earth; that if we recycle, the Earth will be clean; that you can always contribute a grain of sand to the environment... until the desert appears; that green, proactive energy is cleaner than any other; that oil is a fossil energy; that the world will one day be cleansed of all impurity, where we will live happily ever after; that the deficiencies in the economy, health, housing, education, art, entertainment are about a lack of resources and mismanagement by governments; that capitalism does not exist, an invention of the communists, although the capitalists pay us our wages every day; that all countries live well and the only one that is not the country where we live, because our government is shit; that foreigners should invade us and solve problems no matter what country they come from, whatever it is.

The bourgeoisie is doing everything in its power to maintain the forms, manners, uses and customs in which it has prevailed in power. He has no other choice, that's where his life goes.

Now, what we are saying is not so that they believe in what we are saying, but so that we investigate and not get stuck in what the disinformation media repeat to us daily, which are also an invention of war. Yes, gentlemen, everything comes to us from the war. Every thought, every act, every feeling ideologized. In this trap we are 8 billion beings, just like the white rat spinning all day on the wheel, excited about the possibility of eternal happiness, until we die and we are replaced by another without changing anything, generation after generation . The question for us, that at that table of the daily distribution we are only the morsel, is: will we remain bricked or will we force ourselves to generate another thought that definitively separates us from that dynamic that has been going on for more than 15 thousand years?

To do this we must be clear, no illusion or chimera will get us out of this quagmire, because the true drugs of the people are hope and utopia, two ideological gobs that religion produced to keep the species stupefied in the belief that someone has us. will save, that beyond the horizon there is a possible world and that the horizon, as long as we keep walking towards it, will keep the chimeras alive, but the indisputable truth is that none of this exists except as an ideology, as a drug. But, if we are not willing to use our brains to think about another possibility of living, then we definitely pray this beautiful prayer in unison:

Oh, my bourgeois lord! Almighty, truly free, equal and fraternal, creator of selfishness and owner of bad faith, invader and conqueror of empires. You, the exceptional hegemonic, unique among the unique, meddling, capitalist and intolerant neoliberal, dogma of dogmas, who has created the beginning from the beginning of time and goes all the way to the end with your Maricori.

You, who give light to the sun, shine to the moon, water to the rain and courage to cowards. You, the owner of the exterminating angels, who in your name can usurp any mine or heretic or pagan territory that dares to oppose you in the entire great universe. You, the creator of the universal order based on your insurmountable rules. You, sublime individual of individuals, sublime supporter of the free market economy. You, whom no one can disable, dictator of destinations, intimidating and overwhelming sovereign, the only and main voice that invented the words dictatorship and democracy and you foist them on whoever you want. You, the inventor of presidents and spring color revolutions, the remover and remover governments, we love you.

Because you, master, are our shepherd, to whom we give our energy and dedicate ourselves to exemplary work, a worthy manner of loyalty to our master of war and drugs. We are your disciplined sheep, who believe in your cultural empire, in your civilized lifestyle and in the universality of your values ​​and ideals, because you are the life, the truth and the way, and supporting you will save us. We will blindly revere you forever and ever, in every factory and every war, in every library and university, in every museum and square erected in your name. Oh my bourgeois owner! If it weren't for you, we wouldn't be the happy subjects we are today.

With you as our guide we need no brain, no thought, no will, no decision, no experiment, no other way of life or creed. Drug us, sir, with your created artificial intelligence, terrorize us and take us to your public and private battlefields as your hallucinated armies, keep us firm in your belief, teach us that nothing has happened before you nor will happen after you, do not let me faint our loyalty and belief in your sacred holy system, and if that were the case, send us to the redemption of your prisons, mental hospitals, cemeteries and misery cordons of this world.

Drug us, sir, as only you know how to do it and get the best out of us, as well in life as in sickness and death. We are your eager addicts, ready to defend you, we are your excited hosts, your penitent captives, your willing to give up your life when you ask for it, because the will of our existence is yours.

Point out, owner, who to follow to sustain your domains in these mines of unredeemed sinners and we will follow without hesitation, whether to the left or to the right, anarchists or utopians, ecological or green, unionists or NGOs , no matter how stupid they are, because we are your submissive deer that graze with pleasure in the meadows of your beautiful shopping centers. Ask us, from your happy watchtowers, to applaud Zelenski's great actor, and we will do so until our hands bleed, because his intellectual magnificence, his political and warrior genius was awakened and converted by the work and grace of your divine light into a political expert. that led him to be president and commander-in-chief of one of the most important armies in Europe, that in your name and guided by your supreme wisdom, It will be the maiden of New Orleans that will destroy the hosts of demons and Slavic orcs. Ask us to love the senile Biden and all the oil will be his as a divine gift. To him we will gladly deliver the diarrhea of ​​the demon that sleeps in these soils.

Tell us to fanatically believe and obey the opposition and without joking we will make a monument of all of them, dividing themselves to infinity, while drooling, they look in ecstasy towards the West, as a sign of adoration to their only true god, the great capital. Command us to light candles in idolatry to presidents, your most faithful servants in the universe, and it will all be a single Christmas tree purchased from Amazon.

How arrejo you are, our lord! Lord of gentlemen, you are of us the model that we all want to be. How nice it is to adore you when you don't have a brain and are drugged all day, believing in your promises, illusions, hopes and chimeras. May all praise be with you, may all songs and choruses exalt your magnanimity, lord of patrons, master and owner of the universe and of the little ball of the world, amen. Your prostrate flock only wants to live for your enjoyment. Link for us all religions: fentanyl, opium, marijuana, cocaine, sugar, flour, salt, disinformation media, internet, television, telephone. Make a single bun with a beautiful advertising presentation and thus we will remain in an eternal overdose, counting birds in the air, hopeful and utopianized, believing in the reflection of the mirror forever and ever,

https://misionverdad.com/chavismo/esper ... a-la-gente

Google Translator

********

Nearly 2,000 Illegal Miners Evicted from Venezuela’s Amazonas State
JULY 4, 2023


Venezuelan soldiers deployed in the south of the country to combat illegal mining. Photo: Twitter/@Redi-andes/file photo.

Approximately two thousand illegal miners have been evicted from Yapacana National Park, located in the state of Amazonas, as part of the National Bolivarian Armed Force’s (FANB) Operation Autana 2023 aimed at protecting the Amazon rainforest.

“The FANB, as a whole, acts in the defense of the Amazon, of the national parks,” said Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro during the broadcast of his Con Maduro + program this week. “Do you know how many illegal miners there are in that area? More than ten thousand. We have already evicted almost two thousand.”

President Maduro explained that the illegal miners “established a district and have destroyed the entire area,” generating significant damage to the ecosystem.


“Our Bolivarian National Armed Force is making [its] presence [felt] in the territory, liberating the Venezuelan Amazon, liberating the national parks of southern Venezuela and establishing order,” said the president.

Previously, through his Twitter account @dhernandezlarez, the strategic operational commander of the FANB, General Domingo Hernández Lárez, stated that “a safe route of human evacuation is guaranteed for the immediate and voluntary eviction of all illegal inhabitants of Yapacana National Park, with due respect for human rights, due to the respect we owe to nature and the environment, and in accordance with our constitutional mandate and territorial integrity.”

In mid-June, the Venezuelan president ordered the Strategic Operational Command of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (CEOFANB) to intensify efforts to eradicate illegal mining in national parks and the Amazon rain-forest.

“We are fighting a battle for the defense of the deep Amazon, for the defense of the national parks,” said President Maduro. “The Bolivarian National Armed Force is fighting a battle. Thousands of soldiers and officers of our Bolivarian National Armed Force are dedicating entire days and nights.”

https://orinocotribune.com/nearly-2000- ... nas-state/

[blindpig]

IS A NEW CONFLICT COMING IN VENEZUELA?
Jul 6, 2023 , 5:51 p.m.


Opponents show a shotgun that they seized from the police during a demonstration in Caracas, on May 3, 2017 (Photo: Carlos García Rawlins / Reuters)

With the beginning of 2023, the warning also came that the country could plunge into an escalation of demonstrations with the potential to evolve into a scenario of pressure and conflict over the Bolivarian Government, via union agendas.

This situation was announced by the Wilson Center report analyzed in depth by this forum, when in January protest points began to form by sectors of the national teacher due to the salary issue and the economic conditions of the country in general, together with other groups and "civil society" actors, including NGOs, trade unions and related organizations.

In what it describes as a road map to rearm the US strategy on Venezuela, the Wilson Center admits that there must be a combination of "pressure and concessions", with the understanding that the latter implies sitting down with the Venezuelan government to negotiate conditions for a "transition", a favorite political adage of a certain opposition sector identified with the actions and rhetoric for a "regime change".

The pressure, in this case, and according to the record of recent years, is associated with street mobilization under a programmed violent aegis —as in 2014 and 2017— accompanied by foreign measures in the economic, financial, and commercial fields. It is already a classic move in the American hybrid warfare playbook.

Although the events of January and part of February did not escalate to a national destabilizing situation, pressure mechanisms did gradually come into play that, with non-manifest objectives and purposes, and although in an incipient manner and still somewhat disintegrated in the street, cannot be discarded as elements in matters of conflict.

A similar scenario was announced by President Nicolás Maduro on consecutive days, in which he has warned of "a plan" again "to lead us to violence, at a time of intolerance, confrontation, useless conflict, division between Venezuelans and we are not going to allow it", through his program Con Maduro+ on Monday, July 3, and in an act of promotion of generals, admirals, and military personnel of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) on Tuesday, July 4.


While it is true that the three main think tanks (Atlantic Council, Center for Strategic and International Studies and Wilson Center) that are dedicated to Venezuela and have influence in the decision-making of the White House admit the failure of the campaign of "maximum pressure" launched during the government of Donald Trump, everyone agrees that a line of pressure should be maintained on the Venezuelan government, perhaps in order to refloat US interests whenever they are violated when the political situation reaches Deadpoint. As it happens at the moment, and for months.

Taking into consideration the recommendations of the aforementioned think tanks, the scenario denounced by the President could be directed, once again, by the United States.

"CIVIL SOCIETY" AS AN OPPORTUNITY
In September 2022, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) presented a report detailing its plan for "support for the democratic transition" in Venezuela.

It refers to "three areas to promote opposition unity and pressure to improve electoral conditions." He also assured support for the "interim government" —which he gave up last January— but also stated that he would support the initiative for primary elections for the subsequent participation of the opposition in the 2024 presidential elections.

In this way, the USAID openly admitted that it would support the formation of an anti-Chavismo candidate to run in an election that it describes as "not free" and expressed its intention to finance the media and NGOs, on behalf of the " civil society".

But non-governmental organizations also serve as vehicles for the manufacture and formulation of a critical mass possibly for the conflictive scenarios that have been insinuating since last January. All this under the assumption that the classic political parties lost ascendancy over the population and do not function as assets of convocation and shock before the state institutions.

Since last year the NGO movement has been growing in call and diffusion. Both the US government and the European Union have been directly involved in street actions, festive days and cultural manifestations directed by NGOs, in a sort of collusion and coexistence of interests crossed by trade union agendas.

With the NGOs, any conflict agenda has a support that translates into the support of operators on the ground, the media accompaniment of the perpetrators and the constant feeding of the criminalizing file against the State. Its "non-governmental" nature puts it in opposition to official institutions, but it is also distinctive as a recipient of foreign funding.

In fact, at the beginning of this year, Misión Verdad reported and analyzed the fact that the United States approved the largest amount of financial funds for NGOs in Venezuela, which reveals that it uses these entities as a screen behind which its interventionism operates.

In short, "civil society" as a political and investment opportunity.

BREEDING GROUND
The Venezuelan economy once again reports ups and downs in the first half of 2023 , a scenario that could be used politically to manage social discontent. The material bases for a new conflict scenario would be served.

The blockade continues to be the conditioning axis of the current state of the economy, with difficulties in receiving financing from foreign capital and making fundamental imports into the national industrial park. The United States continues to have the upper hand in this sector, which is why the dialogue and negotiation table in Mexico was of the utmost importance in order to increase the volume of cash for social and purely economic purposes.

The White House, thus, reinforces the malaise and discontent with the decision not to have complied with the second partial agreement signed at the end of 2022 between the government and the Democratic Unitary Platform, and uses it to consolidate the challenging conditions in the economic section .

Infrastructure problems in public services, in terms of wages and around the supply of gasoline and diesel throughout the country are closely associated with the breach of the agreements negotiated at the end of last year, which after all is related to the application (and overcompliance) of the coercive measures emanating from the US capital.

There are 3 thousand 200 million that were planned to be spent in different areas of national life, when the priority is to attend to the most decisive social and economic impacts on the Venezuelan population as a consequence of the expansive and generalized use of illegal "sanctions": limitations economic and wages, difficulties in access to food, reduced availability of vaccines and other inputs in public health centers, as well as failures in educational, hospital and electrical infrastructures.

The president of the National Assembly and head of the government delegation for dialogue in Mexico, Deputy Jorge Rodríguez, commented last June that more than one billion dollars would have been allocated to the National Electric System, in addition to other projects related to the list of consequences listed in the previous paragraph.

The United States does not let go of the rein of the blockade and the opposition that represents it is subservient to the needs and interests of the foreigner, including continuing to feed the unrest in Venezuela. The scenario denounced by President Maduro has a direct link with the conditions imposed, a breeding ground for a possible escalation.

THE INTERNATIONAL FIELD
With the deployment of tours, trips and agreements signed by President Nicolás Maduro and the main Venezuelan officials in Eurasia, Africa and Latin America, a new moment of relevance is confirmed for our country in the international arena .

Venezuela's role in world dynamics is elevated by its crucial role in the energy equation, as an OPEC member and an important player in the Western Hemisphere. The issuance of licenses by the Treasury Department to the Venezuelan oil industry has a direct impact on the Venezuelan position in order to stabilize the oil market on this side of the world.

But, at the same time, the measures of the Euro-Atlantic axis as a reaction to the war in Ukraine to limit the scope of Russian energy in Western markets have resulted in a revival of the international role of Venezuela, which President Maduro has known take advantage of, which gave rise to raise the stake and thus contribute to said market stabilization without the need for a framework for dialogue and negotiation between the parties and to swell the state coffers, in the absence of compliance with the agreements signed in Mexico.

The fact that the profile of President Maduro, and of Venezuela in general, grows in the international arena should not be an element that particularly pleases the political decision-makers of the White House, so a new conflict agenda would be ideal for the country to enter in a dynamic of destabilization that would put a stop to the Venezuelan ancestry abroad.

An escalation of pressures and conflicts on the ground would undoubtedly lead to focusing on the internal situation, at a graceful moment for the government due to its exposure in forums, meetings, summits and high-level meetings in different latitudes of the world.

Although President Maduro's actions on the global stage were determined in order to overcome the difficulties of the blockade, a sector of the US establishment is looking for ways to reinforce the "sanctions" mandate and revive the "maximum pressure" campaign carried out carried out by the administration of Donald Trump.

A group of senators from the Republican Party introduced a bill last March, led by the representative of Idaho, Jim Risch, called the Venezuelan Democracy Act , with which it is intended to condition the parameters to manage the architecture of "sanctions" towards a context of greater pressure and imposition of an unfavorable situation for the country, contrary to the current dynamics of the White House regarding the issuance of licenses in the energy field.

An escalation towards a conflict in the streets of Venezuela could be explained by all these variables that restrict the possibility of a national scenario of stability and development. The game remains locked with the United States and the opposition, and a channel is opened for another possible picture of political violence, denounced consecutively by the president.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/se-v ... -venezuela

THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS
FREDDY SUPERLANO AND THE "MAXIMUM PRESSURE" THAT HE DOES NOT REMEMBER
Jul 5, 2023 , 5:58 pm .


Leopoldo López's new human resource refuses to remember that he supported "sanctions" and called for military intervention against Venezuela (Photo: The Financial Times)

The recent statements by Freddy Superlano, candidate of the Voluntad Popular (VP) party, to journalist Luis Olavarriaeta are a portrait of his political career in recent years. When asked if during 2019 he dedicated himself to an interventionist policy against Venezuela, he replied that he does not remember it and that his party has always been very "electoral".


The former deputy was approved for a merit trial by the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) in May 2019 after he participated in the failed coup on April 30 of that year. Together with the then deputies Sergio Vergara and Juan Andrés Mejía, the Public Ministry accused them of flagrant commission of the crimes of "Treason against the Fatherland, conspiracy, incitement to insurrection, civil rebellion, conspiracy to commit a crime, usurpation of functions, instigation public disobedience to the laws and continued hatred, provided for and sanctioned in articles 128, 132, 143, 145, 163, 213, 285, all of the Penal Code, respectively and association, provided for and sanctioned in article 37 of the Organic Law Against Organized Crime and Financing of Terrorism".

Superlano's "very electoral" was blurred when he told NTN24 that the option of applying numeral 11 of article 187 of the National Constitution was not excluded, which empowers the National Assembly (AN) to "Authorize the use of Venezuelan military missions abroad or foreigners in the country", which was discussed weeks after Guaidó's self-proclamation and which wanted to materialize on February 23, 2019.

This year Leopoldo López decided that Superlano would replace Guaidó as presidential candidate, after the flight that the latter undertook from Venezuela constituted the culmination of the opposition failure against the government of President Maduro. The Barinese engineer was on the front line throughout the interim, supporting the confessed plans to steal Venezuelan oil from former US President Donald Trump.

THE MASSACRE THAT WAS NOT
Little has changed in its credibility, but a lot has happened since 2017 when Superlano fabricated an alleged massacre in the city of Socopó, Barinas state, perpetrated by security forces controlling a violent opposition demonstration. Since April of that year, the opposition carried out an aggressive escalation of looting of commercial establishments and attacks on the security forces, among other actions, with the supposed purpose of forcing the presidential elections to be brought forward. The national government maintained that the elections would be held in 2018, as they eventually did.


The false information from Superlano was replicated by media such as El Nacional and sought to increase anxiety among the population, however they were denied by the then commander of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), Major General Antonio Benavides Torres, who posted on Twitter a message in which he asserted that the information was completely false and showed evidence that the photo that Superlano claimed belonged to the "Socopó massacre" had actually been taken in Mexico in 2010.


The shame was already extreme when both VP and its leader, Leopoldo López, tried to excuse their deputy by inventing that the Twitter account where all these reports were made had been hacked. Superlano had nothing to do with it, according to his party...


During those days of May 2017, the capital of the Antonio José de Sucre municipality was submerged in chaos, groups financed by the extinct Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) attacked facilities built during the Bolivarian Revolution. Superlano participated in the design and supervision of events such as the seizure of the bridge in Socopó to block the arrival of reinforcements from the Security Forces that sought to protect the population. For more than 60 hours, the operators of violence financed by the opposition burned, looted and destroyed two police headquarters, the Seniat, the Gran Misión Barrio Nuevo Barrio Tricolor and left the city without shops, classes or public transportation.


Superlano sought to escalate the violence with his tweets, as he failed to do so, he excused himself saying that he had been hacked (Photo: Alba Ciudad)

Before a massacre, there was a confrontation between the GNB and criminals who, apparently, had nothing to do with the demonstrations. A subject who had just been released from prison was killed and three others were injured, their weapons were withheld and they were placed under the orders of the corresponding courts.

THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS
Superlano's actions in 2019 included the shady episode at the Penélope de Cúcuta motel, but the context of what happened should not be forgotten. Sectors of the G4-affiliated opposition were promoting the intervention of foreign governments on the Venezuelan border, part of a non-electoral plan.

Since 2018, the then VP deputy had been elected by the opposition majority AN as president of the Permanent Comptrollership Commission, but he resigned from the position in November 2019. The reason was the flurry of accusations of irregularities in the "cucutazo", a network of crimes executed at the beginning of that year with money from "humanitarian aid" that had been disbursed by various US agencies, businessmen, and governments affiliated with the extinct Lima Group.

Between drinks, excesses and prepayments, he entered the night of February 22, 2019, prior to the Venezuela Aid Live concert and the operation to enter the trucks with "help" at the border. His cousin and his assistant, Carlos Salinas, died of intoxication while Superlano was found critical. The later explanation was that he had suffered an attempted poisoning, but this was denied by the Colombian police. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, mentor of the opposition in Florida and manager of much of the aggression against Venezuela, supported the victimizing story.


In addition, journalistic reports and complaints made by the opposition itself revealed that members of that legislative body ordered and signed official letters exonerating businessmen with open investigations since 2016. None of them were prosecuted or investigated for these accusations at the time when Freddy Guevara, Juan Guaidó and Freddy Superlano —all from VP— were in charge of the Comptrollership Commission.

Together with other opposition politicians, he dedicated himself to damaging the integrity of national sovereignty by seizing Venezuelan assets such as the Monomeros de Venezuela petrochemical company, and invoking the country's military intervention under the mechanism of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR). Until a little over a year ago, he supported "sanctions" as a way to advance the anti-Chavez political agenda.


The candidate, who, like María Corina Machado, has no experience in leadership positions, is yet another token at the service of regime change in Venezuela, a task in which his party has entered to the point of consuming itself between contradictions and divisions. It can be said that she has abused the excuse as a bargaining chip in that political sector, it is common for many of them to appeal to the resource of saying that they were not there or that it was the adversary that forced them to resort to crime or political inconsistency.

He is a rather famous political specimen, he was hacked, intoxicated and, furthermore, he does not remember having supported the "maximum pressure" strategy undertaken by Trump against Venezuela, the same one that had military intervention as an option on the table. It seems that he was never there.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/fred ... o-recuerda

MARÍA CORINA MACHADO FORGED HER PATH TO POLITICAL EXCLUSION
Jul 6, 2023 , 10:46 a.m.


In 2013 María Corina Machado began her long journey into political ostracism (Photo: Reuters)

It is not difficult to list the reasons why the participation of María Corina Machado in the political life of Venezuela represents a serious threat to national interests.

First, Machado has publicly advocated for the foreign invasion of the country by invoking the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR) and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), despite the fact that Venezuela is not part of that OAS treaty. In addition, he promoted and supported the strategy of a false government, and with it the looting and confiscation of the country's resources.

These elements have accumulated over time, especially during the "maximum pressure" of the Trump Administration. However, Machado's involvement in actions that disturb the stability of the republic dates back several years, one of them notable because she caused him to lose, on his own merit, her position as a deputy to the National Assembly (AN). .

As a consequence of the chaotic disorganization that reigned in the Venezuelan opposition after the electoral defeat of December 2013, added to the bitter internal conflicts that surfaced between their representatives, Leopoldo López, Antonio Ledezma and María Corina Machado imposed the strategy called "La Salida" in 2014. Without hesitation they shamelessly bet on the overthrow of the government of President Nicolás Maduro through an escalation of violence in the streets.

During this period there were riots and public order disturbances, led by members of Voluntad Popular, but also by María Corina Machado. The United States government expressed its support for that move, leading to the expulsion of three US diplomats accused of organizing and financing the riots. These events resulted in the death of 43 people and numerous injuries.

While Leopoldo López was taken to prison to be tried for his responsibility in "La Salida", specifically for the damage to the Venezuelan prosecutor's office building, María Corina advanced towards the search for international support and tried to use the platform of the Organization of States Americans (OAS) to obtain a regional consensus against Venezuela.

On March 18, 2014, the government of Ricardo Martinelli, Panama, announced that it would assign an alternate representation of the Isthmus nation in the Organization of American States (OAS) to the Venezuelan deputy María Corina Machado so that she could present, before the ambassadors of the region, his testimony on the "political and human rights crisis" in Venezuela.

The Panamanian ambassador to the organization, Arturo Vallarino, made it clear that they would abide by this measure in the event that an attempt was made to block Machado's request for participation. The United States and Canada expressed their support for the Panama initiative.

"We have presented this proposal but we feel that there is a lot of resistance for deputy Machado to speak. In the event that this request from Panama is denied, then Panama has stated that it is willing to give up her chair to the deputy so that she can address and give a brief message to the OAS Permanent Council," Vallarino said.


The OAS Permanent Council, through the mediation of Panama, had scheduled a meeting to discuss the situation in Venezuela. Caracas took the measure of breaking political, diplomatic and economic relations with Panama for said interference, and for the promotion of "sanctions" against it by the OAS.

The next day, March 19, 2014, María Corina Machado announced her departure from Venezuela to go to the OAS in response to Panama's invitation to take her seat. Through social networks, Machado thanked the "brave and supportive opportunity" that the government of Panama offered him.

Before his departure, the Chavismo bench in the AN presented videos and documents that demonstrated Machado's involvement in coup attempts and calls for foreign intervention. He was accused of crimes such as violence, incitement, terrorism, treason and violation of the Venezuelan Constitution. The Venezuelan parliament, with a majority of votes in favor, approved a motion to present the evidence before the Venezuelan Attorney General's Office and open an investigation and a merit trial process against the opposition deputy.

On March 21, 2014, the OAS Permanent Council approved by majority to hold the regular session behind closed doors, in which the intervention of María Corina Machado was expected.

The proposal to make the meeting private was presented by Nicaragua and received the support of the majority of the OAS members. Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Canada opposed the measure and asked to open a debate on it.

On that occasion, the cohesion of the Caribbean countries was decisive in achieving majority support for the Venezuelan initiative. Later on, the Caribbean bloc would continue to be decisive for other episodes of interference that arose in the OAS and in other forums.

The Peruvian ambassador, Juan Jiménez Mayor, requested that the reasons behind the decision to hold the meeting behind closed doors be known. The Venezuelan representation argued that the OAS regulations allowed a vote on the nature of the meeting without the need for a prior debate.

After the vote, the representative of Brazil at that time, Breno Dias da Costa, stated that closing the session was not intended to prevent dialogue but to avoid a "show" for an external audience.

The item dedicated to the situation in Venezuela was also removed from the agenda.

Machado arrived at the OAS building that morning accompanied by Arturo Vallarino. The opponent was waiting in the San Martín Room for the resolution of the debate that the organization had, surrounded by journalists. There she demanded that the OAS apply the Inter-American Democratic Charter against Venezuela.

vallarino.jpg

María Corina Machado and the former ambassador of Panama to the OAS, Arturo Vallarino (Photo: EFE)
Machado's intervention as alternate representative of Panama in plenary session ended up being reduced to two minutes, in which he had time to "say goodbye and thank the Council," according to the US ambassador Carmen Lomellín. He could not show anything that he had prepared to advertise, so he had no other option than to share that content through his social networks.

The former Venezuelan ambassador to the OAS, Roy Chaderton, would later recall a situation related to Vallarino, and the intervention of María Corina Machado. Chaderton affirmed that at some point the Panamanian diplomat practically assured that Machado would not talk about Venezuela. However, Panama then requested the floor and, in an unexpected twist, Machado began to speak. As soon as she uttered the word "Venezuela", a motion of order was raised due to the irregularity. In the words of Chaderton, that was the end of the intervention of the Venezuelan opposition in the OAS.

After these events, it was not necessary to continue with the pre-trial process that the AN had requested to revoke its parliamentary immunity. Article 191 of the Venezuelan Constitution establishes that "deputies to the National Assembly may not accept or exercise public office without losing their investiture, except in teaching, academic, accidental or welfare activities, provided they do not involve exclusive dedication". While article 149 says that "public officials and public officials may not accept positions, honors or rewards from foreign governments without the authorization of the National Assembly." María Corina violated both of them by exercising functions as alternate representative of Panama, and also with this she lost her position as deputy.

What was appropriate now, according to the Constitution, was for his place to be taken by the substitute deputy, Ricardo Sánchez, who at that time belonged to the opposition bench, but had broken ties with the MUD and had participated in the national dialogue process. convened by President Maduro in February of that year, as a measure to de-escalate violence in the streets.

Finally, on April 1, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) of Venezuela issued an endorsement that confirmed the dismissal of María Corina Machado, based on the OAS episode. According to the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ, Machado's representation in the OAS was incompatible with her legislative function and was in contradiction with her duties as a Venezuelan citizen and deputy.

https://misionverdad.com/memoria/maria- ... n-politica

Google Translator

*********

María Corina Machado and High Treason Against the Homeland
JULY 9, 2023


Former US President George W. Bush shakes hands with María Corina Machado (left), then Executive Director of Sumate, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, May 31, 2005. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images/File photo.

By Atilio A. Boron – Jul 9, 2023

Imagine a scenario where US House of Representatives congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had become fed up with Joe Biden’s irresponsible bluster (calling Xi Jinping a dictator, for example, after Blinken’s trip to “improve” relations with China) and had asked for help from a foreign power—let’s say, for example, Russia and China—to send a military expedition to the United States or to apply sanctions to the country with the purpose of conducting a “regime change” opetation, i.e. the de facto removal of Biden. What would have happened to her?

Let’s imagine something else: if the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 had successfully culminated in the appointment of a new president—say Bob Menendez, to use the name of some American political scapegoat—and the most distinguished members of the establishment, including Ocasio-Cortez, had participated in the swearing-in, and they had all signed a book validating the legitimacy of the new president; what would have been the response of the US justice system?

Undoubtedly, her legal predicament would deteriorate considerably. It was not just about requesting foreign intervention against her country in order to—returning to the case of Venezuela and the case of María Corina Machado—overthrow a legitimate government such as that of Hugo Chávez; but she also took an active part in the legitimization of a usurper. Let’s say, hypothetically, Menendez was not able to stay in office because an immense popular mobilization reinstated Biden, and Ocasio-Cortez from that moment began to travel frequently to Moscow or Beijing to ask the Russian or Chinese authorities to collaborate with the violent protests that she and her colleagues were organizing (like the violent Venezuelan “guarimbas” of 2014 and 2017) that would leave a couple of hundred dead and wounded. And, let’s say she also asked those foreign leaders, firstly, to instate a complete blockade against any economic activities of the United States so that nothing could be exported or imported, and secondly, also to appoint a “president” in charge of the United States—let’s say the worthless Marco Rubio—and had decided upon, at Alexandria’s request, the expropriation of the assets of two gigantic companies such as CITGO and PDVSA. What do you think would have happened to her? Answer: she would have been immediately apprehended and imprisoned, and almost certainly punished by the US courts of with capital punishment or life imprisonment.

Let’s go back to Venezuela. María Corina went even further: on May 31, 2005, she met with then-President George W. Bush requesting support to end the “regime” of Hugo Chávez Frías. In 2014, she appeared before an OAS Assembly with the fictitious position of “alternate ambassador of Panama” to demand that the discredited institution harden its opposition to the Venezuelan government. In recent years, successive US governments financially supported various political formations that Machado created, as well as several NGOs with which she is linked or directs behind the scenes while requesting more aggressive action from Washington to attack Venezuela and put an end to Maduro.

Consistent with Machado and the anti-Chavista lobby’s intense activism, on March 8, 2015, Barack Obama issued an executive order declaring a “national emergency in the face of the unusual and extraordinary threat” that the Venezuelan government represented for the United States, laying the legal foundations for the imposition of harsh punitive measures against the South American country. This infamous decision was extended by Joe Biden, and since then, the US and other countries have applied a total of 929 “unilateral coercive measures” against Venezuela.

The economic cost of these sanctions is chilling: $7 billion frozen in banks; $5 billion detained in the International Monetary Fund; $2 billion in the form of 31 tons of gold deposited in the Bank of England and confiscated by the British government; $10 billion of CITGO Oil Corporation’s value confiscated by the US, plus the looting of PDVSA. The impact of these sanctions on exports was devastating. In 2012, the country’s exports amounted to a staggering 75,762.8 million Euros, but by 2021, it had plummeted to a mere 3,005 million Euros. Furthermore, a study conducted by Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs indicates that the human cost during the first two years of the Trump administration alone reached 40,000 lives.

The actions of María Corina Machado (and those of Leopoldo López, Julio Borges, and Juan Guaidó) in requesting that the US government implement these policies against Venezuela clearly falls under the legal category of “treason.” The US Criminal Code establishes in Title 18, section 2381 that: “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”

Therefore, what Corina Machado and her cronies did would have been punishable in the United States with the death penalty or, at least, with life imprisonment and disqualification from holding public office. Argentina’s Penal Code punishes this conduct with sentences ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment, with absolute disqualification for life to hold any public office. The Penal Code of Uruguay, which President Lacalle Pou should probably read, punishes conduct such as Machado’s with “10 to 30 years of penitentiary, and from two to 10 years of absolute disqualification.” In contrast, Venezuela’s justice system (not the president) issued a comparatively lenient punishment: only a 15- year disqualification for committing flagrant acts of treason. In the United States, Machado would already be on death row in a maximum security prison. Meanwhile, the dominant Latin American media continues to focus on the exclusion from the electoral contest of an individual who in any other country would have already been incarcerated.

https://orinocotribune.com/maria-corina ... -homeland/

[blindpig]

Venezuela’s Communist Party Controversies Reach New Level
MAY 23, 2023


The main panel at the PCV grassroots congress organized this Sunday, May 21, in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo: Twitter/@PCV_Patriotico.

This Sunday, a dissident faction of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) held a grassroots congress in Caracas, creating controversy within the PCV. While formal leaders stated that this congress intended to assault the political party, others opposed the position of party leaders.

The leadership of the PCV, represented by the general secretary of the Central Committee, Oscar Figuera, claimed that the Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) wants to “assault” the PCV to “subordinate it to the interests of the government of Nicolás Maduro.”

“The PSUV leadership wants to usurp the legal personality of the Communist Party of Venezuela. They want to put their hand on the PCV’s capacity for action and neutralize its role in the country’s social struggles,” Figuera said in an interview. He did not clarify that the PCV’s role in social movements in Venezuela is marginal and has been strongly affected by the party’s leadership taking an opposition stance.


Given the PCV’s opposition position, participants in the controversial congress organized by PCV alternative groups stated they reject the party leadership, which opposes the Venezuelan government’s policies.

“We want to rescue the party’s acronym from the leadership that divorced itself from its base, from the revolutionary line of the left and repositioned the party to the right,” said congress leader Darío Fermín during the event.

Likewise, he confirmed his support for the revolutionary government led by President Nicolás Maduro and rejected the PCV’s current political bureau.

Who are the dissident leaders?
Seven people presided over the PCV Extraordinary Congress of Grassroots. One by one, they were accused by the PCV leadership of being Venezuelan state officials and PSUV militants. Below we include the PCV Central Committee description of the movement’s most visible leaders along with available online information:

Griseldis Herrera: National Electoral Council (CNE) official on secondment to the Monagas governorate, providing services as a legal consultant. According to PCV Central Committee, she is also a PSUV militant. She is a militant of the Gustavo Machado cell of the PCV and the Clara Zetkin Women’s Front, as well as a member of the Monagas delegation and the National Patriotic PCV Movement.

Johan Coraspe: PSUV militant and official at the Ministry of Communes. According to the PCV, he also works for the CNE as coordinator of the electoral center in the Altos de los Godos Parish, Maturín, Monagas state. Coraspe was identified as a PCV member on April 26 in La Nación’s announcement of the organization of the now-controversial congress.

Robinson García: Member and councilor of the Somos Venezuela political movement, affiliated with PSUV, in the Obispos municipality of Barinas state. Past Instagram and Twitter posts show Garcia as a PCV candidate for the Obispo municipality in 2017. A news piece by PCV Tribuna Popular from October 2018 describes him as a peasant leader and PCV member.

Carlos Figueroa: Popular Political Unity 89 (UPP89) party candidate in the 2021 regional elections. Criticism against the Venezuelan government and the UPP89 can be seen on his Instagram account. On right-wing outlet Infobae, Figueroa is mentioned in February, labeling himself as a PCV coordinator in Miranda state. However, the statement was rejected by PCV leadership.

Zoilo Arosteguí: He belonged to the team of Raúl Brazón, former PSUV mayor of Ezequiel Zamora Municipality, Monagas state. Argentinian website Que Paso specifically names Arosteguí as Raúl Brazón’s chauffeur and a PSUV militant. He is a political coordinator of the PSUV regional organization in Monagas. In February, the Monagas state governorship published a news piece about PCV bases supporting Nicolás Maduro’s government, naming Zoilo Arosteguí. His name appears in Supreme Court documentation as an individual suing the Nation Institute for Lands (INTI) in 2008. Que Paso indicates that Arosteguí may have been rejected by the PCV due to alleged misogynistic behavior against a regional PCV leader.

Henry Parra: Expelled from the PCV in 2021 after publicly supporting PSUV member Freddy Bernal’s candidacy for governor of Táchira state, which was outside of the electoral alliance policy approved by PCV’s Congress. On Freddy Bernal’s official website, a post from 2021 can be found with Henry Parra’s coherent position in support of Bernal’s candidacy.

Sixto Rodríguez: He left the PCV over a decade ago./ A 2010 post by Mi Parroquia Full Blog reports that, as PCV regional legislator, Rodríguez worked with PSUV regional legislators in a proceeding to form the Carabobo state parliament board.

What is happening in the PCV?
Amid the controversy, sociologist and analyst Franco Vielma explained that the PCV’s internal division began three years ago when the leadership went over to the “opposition, practically without consultation.” Vielma added that the PCV leadership bureau does not consult its base on each decision.

“It is not true that what is said below emerges at the top. If that were the case, there would be the mobility of cadres to the leadership… Therein lies the fault of origin of what is happening in the PCV,” Vielma wrote on social media.

He also stated that the PCV leadership in Caracas is one thing, and the militants in the regions and interior of Venezuela are another, alleging that they have different realities.


Vielma explained that many PCV members in the regions have felt resentful for the last three years, seeing that the PCV became the “red opposition.” This caused “the mutilation of their aspirations and conditions for their political work.”

“Although these leaders and party members had discomfort and criticisms of the national government, criticism was one thing and being in the opposition was another. As that implied changes in their working conditions and even in certain daily life conditions,” Vielma added.

According to the report, the PCV Central Committee’s new stand generated frustration “because a feeling that there is no future for PCV was imposed.” In addition, the “Figuera line” hardened, exacerbating the “immobility” in the regional and municipal leaderships.

For many Venezuelan communists, not all of them being PCV members, the PCV Central Committee’s position does not represent Marxist-Leninist positions, tending to favor imperialist narratives against the Bolivarian Revolution from an ultra-left perspective similar to those alleged to Leon Trotsky.

Despite the differences of opinion among communists regarding the positions taken by the PCV Central Committee, many see this move as an anti-democratic and unnecessary step to replicate initiatives previously used by other opposition parties such as Homeland for All (PPT), Democratic Action (AD) and Justice First (PJ), among other actions that have factionalized differences within those parties with results that fail to elevate Venezuela’s political debate.

Violation of PCV charter
In an interview with Radio del Sur, Griseldis Herrera explained that “the decision corresponds to the fact that on November 22, 2022, the questioned leadership convened in an irritating manner and systematically violated the statutes and guiding principles of the PCV… leaving the bases outside the vote and preventing the participation of the bases and the majorities in the election of its authorities.”

“In that illegitimate Congress, the same political bureau was ratified for the 27th time, reelected with the participation of only 89 delegates who do not represent the bases of the PCV qualitatively nor quantitatively,” she stated.

“We are here today,” said Herrera, “ignoring the political line decided in that 27th Congress in November, which proposes the dissociation of the PCV and the cessation of accompaniment to the Venezuelan revolution,” so that now, the bureau is seen flirting with the imperialist right.

“We are even ignoring the convening of that Congress, and therefore, all the decisions that were made there and the election of authorities that today hold the party’s leadership,” she stated.

https://orinocotribune.com/venezuelas-c ... new-level/

Venezuela’s Communist Party Members Request Supreme Court to Appoint Special Board for Party Restructuring


Members of the Communist Party of Venezuela demonstrate outside the Supreme Court of Justice in Caracas, July 10, 2023. Photo: Miguel Gutiérrez/EFE.

A group of Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) members requested the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) to appoint a special board for restructuring the party.

The group’s spokesperson, Victor Parra, spoke to the media outside the court. He explained that they went to the court to “ask for justice regarding the administration of the party.”

Parra reported that the group filed an appeal before the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ asking for a special board because they consider the current PCV leadership illegitimate and illegal for having been elected in a party congress where “more than 80% of the party members did not participate.”

Parra added that many PCV members are opposed to the current political line of the party because it aligns with the extreme-right sectors of the Venezuelan political scene that have promoted the US-imposed unilateral sanctions on Venezuela and called for US military intervention in the country.

PCV infighting has been in the open for months, even threatening to split the party. According to Venezuelan political analyst Franco Vielma, the PCV’s internal division began three years ago when the leadership went over to the “opposition, practically without consultation” with the party base. He also pointed out that a significant portion of the PCV membership, especially from the rural regions, have felt resentful over the last three years, seeing the PCV become the “red opposition” to the Chavista government amid the US-led economic blockade and hybrid war against Venezuela.

For many Venezuelan communists, not all of them being PCV members, the PCV Central Committee’s position and actions do not reflect Marxist-Leninist analysis, instead favoring imperialist narratives against the Bolivarian Revolution from a Trotskyist perspective.

https://orinocotribune.com/venezuelas-c ... ructuring/

[blindpig]

"IF THERE ARE NO OWNERS, WHO WILL GIVE US WORK?"

The Cayapo

Jul 18, 2023 , 5:05 p.m.


We need to get ready to found a country without foreign fuss, a country to which we can belong and feel part of (Photo: El Cayapo)

A brutal phrase from the slave who, in his ignorance, is judged and sentenced forever: "We must conform, that is destiny and no one can beat it."

The collective body of this country has been consumed unbridled for more than 500 years in the individual competition for the honey of capitalism. This desvivir has only left us tiredness and sick ignorance that does not allow us to see the reality of who we can be if we are ready to think outside of the tragedy.

This destroying us as a result of the plan and foreign interests in this territory blinds us to the events that are taking place, leaving us in the pigsty of the daily battle for the miserable plate of food, cursing and blaming each other, perverting our brains and feelings until we are diluted. in nothingness, waiting for foreigners to give him his life in the name of unnecessary salvation.

When can we think of separating ourselves from capitalism and together planting ourselves in this territory? No one would like us better in other lands, no matter how kind diplomacy is professed to us in the best of cases. Because the harsh truth is that, in order to smile at ourselves, we must first give him our entire body.

Today, in the midst of the rearrangement of capitalism, opportunity smiles at us with all its being, so that the new generations do not accuse us of being incapable for not having understood what is happening to us. We have fought the battle of the last 23 years collectively and we have accomplished the feat of defeating the most powerful enemy on the planet and his acolytes, because according to former CIA analyst Larry C. Johnson, an army is defeated when, intent on advancing against the enemy lines, is stopped and fails to push them back; or when an army, proposing a defense, cannot contain the enemy advance and is forced to withdraw.

If we apply this logic, we have defeated the foreign enemy, better known as the owners of capital in the world, with their assistants Borrell, Guterres, Almagro and the opposition sell-outs. Each trap, ambush, blockade, sanction, assassination, guarimba, invasion, terrorist attack, blackout, damage to water services, has been faced with courage, intelligence and patience.

But we cannot live from battle to battle until we finally lose the war in the productive cultural field. We are not talking about assumptions but about realities that occurred. Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Cuba, all stuck or trying to get stuck in capitalist culture in order to survive. They all demonstrated that capitalism could be defeated on the battlefields and they did, but until now no people have painfully thought about how capitalism can be replaced as a productive culture, and that has cost us too many lives.

Because we can produce more with greater efficiency, distributing more with greater efficiency, but always within the framework of capitalism itself. Some even rack their brains trying to produce more than capitalism, as if that were the problem and not the production system and the culture it generates, which in the case of capitalism must be replaced by one that does not produce masters and slaves.

It is possible, and it has already happened, that the peoples intimidated by capitalism can win a war against it, as has already happened in various latitudes; the unfortunate thing is that culturally we continue to be capitalists and wanting the honey of capitalism in all colors, languages ​​and territories.

We can all shout in unison: "Communism is the solution!" But who has thought of it? Beyond the happy worlds of workers living in anti-capitalist watchtowers spewing out pamphlets, there is nothing concrete to tell us that communism is a real solution, a different way of living, apart from the mass madness it represents in the everyday life capitalism

We can also be answered with wisdom: "And if it is not communism, then why is capitalism afraid of it and has fought it so much, murdering millions of peasants and workers, men and women who decided under the banner of communism to get rid of capitalism and this with determination and forcefulness massacred them and every time the possibility of their execution appears in any town, even if it is reforms to capitalism, the capitalists and their propaganda military apparatus attack this phantom with all their might?

The answer is simple: it is very possible that the workers do not know about communism, but the capitalists do know about capitalism and do not understand any other way of living that is not competing for power, constantly seeking the loot and, therefore, any idea whatever is presented, even if it is chimerical, is dangerous and worthy of study. But in the case of communism, this idea offers a different way of living here on Earth, and if they manage to organize themselves to think of a communist culture that means a production model other than competition and the search for loot, then that it is extremely delicate.


Today the capitalists know that, as the communist pamphlet stands, it only serves them like the bogeyman or the wolf: to align middle-class aspirants in their policies. The capitalists are clear about what communism means if the poor of the world come to think about it with their own brains in the current reality.

The world is convulsing, and it is not because Maduro is president or Chávez messed it up, as the feverish fans say, who in their deep fear follow the advice of the owners, blaming those who really try to solve the problems.

But there is close data on this continent that tells us that what is stuck is not a government, nor a continent, nor the world, but a system that in its rearrangement process affects the entire planet in search of its solutions, that is to say , to continue looting the entire planet to infinity without anyone opposing it and accepting its openly criminal rules.

In order not to go too far, let's look for any country or government that is not sanctioned, blocked, with an imposed war, and we will see that they are in worse conditions than us. All their economies are dollarized, in permanent inflation, drowned by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and any other financial entity that, like vultures, do not release their prey. In each one, unemployment, the looting of their resources, the fragility of governments, low wages, organized crime, the inability to organize production independently and all the other problems that are blamed on Venezuela are also our bread. of each day of these countries. The elites are unable to wriggle out of these problems, even though everyone shouts: "Let's unite or anarchy will devour us!".

What we write here does not seek to be against anyone, we only understand that it is not possible to defeat capitalism looking for the same perks that this system has already produced. We the poor, who are the majority of the species, can only untie ourselves from capitalism by thinking of another model of production.

What we are going to propose does not include the so-called opposition, because over and over again they have shown that they hate the territory where they were born and they hate us to the unspeakable. Let's read these trills that portray his character:

*"I would not give oil to those Muslim motherfuckers, to those Arab motherfuckers, to those Cuban motherfuckers, to those Iranian motherfuckers, to those Russian motherfuckers, to those Chinese motherfuckers. If I had to give it away, I would gladly give it to the gringos."

*" Chavismo is a mental degeneration produced by resentment, marginality and Ignorance...".

*" If the right wins, the lazy will lose the bonuses, they will have to work, be clean, educated and neat. The drunkards of the neighborhoods will not be able to play music at the time and at the volume that you want. .

*" That's exactly what Chavismo is, thugs, marginality, dirt, ignorance. They are disgusting."

We place them as they were written, this is the essence of the so-called opposition: beings with a lot of fear who are afraid of losing what they do not have, but they cling to the illusion of having and being able to kick us and erase us from the territory. These trills were written not by percussive Chavistas, but by professionals educated in universities and raised in comfortable homes, from families blameless in their honor, morals and good manners.

The opposition has no plan because it obeys, drools before its owners and does not need to think, just copy, imitate, carry out the designs of its owners and settle for the crumbs that are thrown at them. They have already been accustomed to that for 500 years, no one will force them to be different, not even in these circumstances in which the moorings of capitalism are loose and they could hit the run towards another possibility, but they will not do so today or ever, and in case If one of those people tried it, the same raters would prevent it, they would tear it apart, as they did with Miranda and Bolívar in their time.

To propose this idea of ​​planting a country, we base ourselves on what Chávez told us, but to carry out the task it is necessary to know the 500-year history of the capitalist system having been established in this territory, which turned us into one of its mines. , from which it absorbs benefits.

For this we need people who go out of their way to carry out the task, people with thought, with a plan, people willing to count on other people, people who do not despise any contribution, no matter how insignificant it may seem, who have the office, the house, the patio, the corner like a barracks, a camp of ideas, but that its daily action be the battlefield of reality, the center of the experiment, of the realization of the idea, of the correction of actions.

Every time we plant a plant, raise a chicken, a pig or a person, found a laboratory, start an experiment, let us think not of the immediate future of its fruit, but of the millennium, of the historical significance of its planting, its importance . Every time we found a house, let's think about the collective, together, every time we build a trade workshop, let's see it as a laboratory for the future country to be founded. Let's think not of today, in the for now, but in the future as a permanent plan, in the substance of what we do.

This implies that we do it under a concept, not because someone told us to do it, or because we imitate what was done elsewhere, but because it is what we thought, what we experienced for ourselves, what we have to do because we decided, what we really need. because it roots us and constitutes us as inhabitants of this territory that we name. Because loving the territory is belonging to it, and each act within it must be a continuity, not a spasm like a take-off, that if I don't like it I throw it away or go to another, like all uprooted miners, like slaves without options. What we have to think we must turn flesh and blood into a harmonious body in its diversity.


All the effort we have made in the last 23 years to achieve independence in political decisions about what to do and who to be in this territory should lead us to think that it should not be in vain. Two great politicians and men of action before Chávez showed us the path of belonging to the territory, to be what we want to be. We are talking about Miranda and Bolívar. But we also had another great philosopher by birth, Simón Narciso Rodríguez, who sentenced us to decide between inventing or making mistakes, and up to now, beyond the attempts and sacrifice of people, we have only made mistakes with borrowed ideas, because it is impossible inventing with the ideas of others, to the point that 500 years later the only thing that has been produced is a Moroccan elite that unashamedly declares itself a follower of the invaders,

Why keep thinking, wishing like them? If they did not have and will not have the audacity, the audacity to invent themselves as a country, why should we follow them, what kind of dignity can someone who follows a country seller have? That is important that we analyze it.

We must reverse the teaching of these 500 years, when we were raised to hate the territory, where the entire school system from the beginning to the end is designed so that we hate this territory to its foundations. Nowhere, beyond the nationalist kitsch, is the fervor for the permanent love of the territory and its people seen. On the contrary, all those studied with rare exceptions are dedicated to condemning it, cursing it, slandering it in the world, people born in this territory who even earn money by making propaganda against it.

We need to get ready to found a country without foreign fuss, a country to which we can belong, feel part of. And we're not talking about the corniness of loving him to death or any other stupidity, no. We are talking about a country where people can live with pride of being what they are, with knowledge of the history built together, where grandparents signify importance in the physical and mental constitution of the people who inhabit the territory.

The absence of collective and even individual thought does not allow us to perceive that Europe, Japan, the United States, New Zealand, South Korea, the countries that sell us as models of growth, civilization, development, progress, have become shit, and the worst thing is that they are going to have to destroy them to rebuild the same thing in worse conditions. But, like any seller of miracles, capitalism will sell it to us as new.

What strikes us deeply is that every time we run into these mines, we are actually behind progress, but the more we accelerate, the further behind we are. No matter how much we run, we will always be standing in the same place with immense fatigue and without knowing why. It is the rabbit and the carrot, because in addition progress has arrived where it was going to arrive. The countries we named are detained, but we don't take the opportunity to pass them while they fix their affairs, instead we are standing still waiting for them to continue and from afar yell at us "Come! Let's continue the race, now with these rules, go back a bit while we we are advancing", and what is certain is that we will listen to them, because mentally we are a screw, a nut, a rail, a sleeper of what they call progress,

While we dazzle ourselves like an open mouth looking at robots and wishing that there were robots here too, and the eternal little discourse of the backward and the government that doesn't like progress. All those Venezuelan technocrats, all those Venezuelan intellectuals, go to Paris and are dazzled like Juan José riding a donkey.

So, the problem we have is that we don't understand that we are never going to take off from here. We are uprooted in the territory, because we are uprooted in thought. Our thoughts are in New York, in Europe, in Japan, in China, in Russia. What if "Look at the Russians or French who are such a pod, look at the gringos who are super horny in such and which."

And why are we thinking about all that? Because our thoughts are not here, we do not want to be here, but the reality is that we are stuck here and we will not get out of here, and if we do get out, reality tells us that we are going to be more of a slave out there than in here. It is more than proven. "Yes, but I'm not a slave to the damned Maduro," the feverish haters will reply, as if Maduro truly enslaved us, as if Maduro owned the factories, Polar, Coca-Cola, or capitalism.

https://misionverdad.com/chavismo/si-no ... ra-trabajo

Google Translator

This item could have easily gone to 'Ideology'.

Ain't that the same rant you hear from the bourgeoise here and those who unconsciously parrot them?

The capayo tends to grow on ya...

[blindpig]

Venezuela Begins Using Russia’s MIR Cards on Margarita Island
JULY 20, 2023


Restaurant in Margarita Island displaying its menu translated into Russian. Photo: Nilole Kolster/BBC/File photo.

Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—Margarita Island has begun accepting payments through MIR cards, the payment system developed in Russia, while in Caracas, these cards are undergoing tests, said the Russian ambassador to Venezuela, Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov, on Monday.

The director of the Latin American Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Alexander Schetinin, said that technical issues are being resolved with several countries in the region. Schetinin said that an agreement had been reached with Cuba.

“The start of [MIR card] payments has already begun on Margarita Island, which is ready to host and is accommodating Russian tourists,” the ambassador said. “This is actually in a test mode in Caracas already.”

MIR is a payment system devised in 2014 by Russia, when the Eurasian country first faced a wave of illegal sanctions in connection with the incorporation into Russia of Crimea, following a referendum on the issue.

After US companies Visa and MasterCard restricted operations with Russian banks at the time, The administration of President Vladimir Putin commissioned the development of the National Payment Card System, which became the MIR. According to Wikipedia, the MIR card is currently accepted in Belarus, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Cuba, and Venezuela. In addition, India, Sri Lanka, Iran, and Mongolia have announced joint projects with Russia in this regard.

Since the relaxation of the COVID-19 pandemic and the strengthening of Western illegal sanctions against Russia and Venezuela, both countries have launched initiatives to promote air connection and tourist exchange. Margarita Island has become one of the favorite destinations for a new wave of Russian tourists choosing Venezuela as their vacation destination.

https://orinocotribune.com/venezuela-be ... ta-island/

Russian Insulin Shipment Breaks Blockade: Venezuela Receives 1.1 Million Vials and 40,000 Syringe Pens
JULY 21, 2023


Flight carrying Russian insulin and syringes at the Simón Bolívar International Airport, Venezuela. Photo: Twitter/@EmbajadaRusaVen.

A shipment of 1.1 million vials of rapid- and intermediate-acting recombinant human insulin and more than 40,000 reusable syringes arrived in Venezuela from Russia.

The Russian Embassy in Venezuela reported on Wednesday, July 19, that “a large batch of Russian insulins, including syringes from Geropharm company, has reached Caracas. More than 1.1 million vials of human insulin have arrived, which can cover the needs of diabetic patients nationwide for three months.”


Furthermore, the Russian company also shipped over 40,000 modern reusable insulin syringe pens, which allow the shots to be administered more safely and conveniently.

“With this plane came a supply of 1.1 million units of human insulin, produced by the Geropharm laboratory for the Venezuelan public healthcare system,” Vladimir Prestes, a representative of the Russian pharmaceutical company, said to the Russian state news agency TASS.

He added that the company and the Venezuelan government are currently “at the beginning” of the implementation of a five-year contract.

To date, the Russian drug manufacturer has delivered more than 7 million doses of insulin to Venezuela.

The chargé d’affaires of the Russian Embassy in Caracas, Eduard Sokolov, stated that these medical deliveries have been able to break the blockade imposed on Venezuela by the United States and the European Union.

“These types of agreements are of utmost importance for both countries, because we have broken the blockade with these shipments, especially of medicine, which are essential for patients suffering from diseases,” he said. “It is vitally important for them to have these drugs.”

Once this agreement is concluded, Venezuela will have received around 15 million doses of insulin. Moreover, the agreement secures a vital technological transfer, encompassing not only the provision of medical equipment to Venezuela but also the essential training of Venezuelan medical technicians in Russia.

https://orinocotribune.com/russian-insu ... inge-pens/

Simón Bolívar Statue Unveiled in Moscow
JULY 21, 2023


Inauguration ceremony of the statue of Simón Bolívar in Moscow, Russia. Photo: Alexey Filippov/Sputnik.

A true-to-life replica of the statue of Liberator Simón Bolívar, which stands in Bolívar Square in Caracas and was originally inaugurated in 1874 by Antonio Guzman Blanco, has been unveiled in Moscow, Russia. The grand unveiling ceremony took place on Wednesday, July 19, just a few days prior to the 240th anniversary of the birth of this eminent South American revolutionary.

Simón Bolívar, a revered leader, played a momentous role in emancipating the people of Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru from the yoke of the Spanish Crown.

The monument is located at the intersection of Vernadsky Avenue and Universitetski Avenue in Moscow.

The ceremony was attended by Venezuelan Ambassador to Russia Jesús Salazar; Venezuelan Minister of Petroleum Pedro Rafael Tellechea; the mayor of Caracas, Carmen Meléndez; the deputy prime minister of Russia, Alexander Novak; Russian Ambassador to Venezuela Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov; the director of the Latin American Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Alexander Schetinin; and the director of the International Department of the Moscow government, Sergey Cheremin.


Caracas Mayor Carmen Meléndez speaks at the ceremony. Photo: Prensa Latina.

“The sculpture of our Liberator, unveiled in Moscow, weighs 3,000 kilograms, has a total volume of 4.5 cubic meters, occupancy volume of 39.77 cubic meters, width of 5 meters, and a height of 4.30 meters. This copy of the statue in Bolívar Square of Caracas is the work of Venezuelan sculptor Manuel Suescun,” Caracas Mayor Carmen Mélendez explained.

The mayor further noted that the work was carried out in three phases: modeling, casting, and assembly and installation. “The modeling was done in Mucuchíes, Mérida, with five tons of clay; and then the casting and assembly was also done there,” she said. “Then, with 70% produced by welding, this sculpture and its polishing was completed in Moscow and was placed on its pedestal.”

The monument, skillfully crafted by Venezuelan sculptor Manuel Suescun, required several months of meticulous work before it was delivered to the foundry. As a true connoisseur of Simón Bolívar’s life and history, Suescun shared with Russian media Sputnik that the monument captures “the true face” of the Liberator, achieved through “cutting-edge digital technology.”

Regarding the casting technique employed, foundryman Francisco Hernández explained that the method used—lost wax casting—has been practiced since ancient times. The entire team from Venezuela, responsible for completing and installing the sculpture in Russia, felt completely at home during their stay. “We have received an incredible treatment here, despite not knowing the Russian language—it has been a very warm welcome,” he said.


A group of children, flying the flags of Venezuela and Russia, performed Brazilian singer Roberto Carlos’ song “I only want.” Photo: Prensa Latina.

Russian sculptor Alexandr Gladkikh, who also contributed to the creation of the monument, highlighted the professionalism of his Venezuelan colleagues. “Their bronze casting is of high quality,” he said. “Its thickness is about five millimeters. I would say that we have something to learn from them.”


Cornerstone of the monument, installed in 2010 by then Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Photo: mk.ru.

Architect Adamailyn Gómez, a member of the team, explained that the Simón Bolívar statue installed in Moscow is a “slightly larger” copy of the original located in Caracas. “It is an honor for us to bring our Liberator, such a representative figure for our city and for our country, to Moscow,” she said.


The cornerstone of the monument was installed in 2010 by the then Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez during his official visit to Russia. That ceremony was presided over by the then acting mayor of Moscow, Vladimir Resin.

https://orinocotribune.com/simon-boliva ... in-moscow/

[blindpig]

US Will Continue Its Hostile Blockade Policy Against Venezuela
JULY 22, 2023


US President Joe Biden's advisor on Hemispheric Affairs, Juan González. File photo.

The presidential advisor to Joe Biden on Latin American affairs, Juan González, stated that Washington will continue its hostile policy of financial, economic and commercial blockade against Venezuela, and that the negotiations for the lifting of sanctions may eventually cease.

In an interview with US government-funded media Voice of America, González clarified that the US policy regarding Venezuela remains the same.

“What we are trying to create here are incentives for them [the government of Venezuela] to take a different route, but that window is going to close eventually,” he said.

The Biden administration has repeatedly set several conditions for the lifting of sanctions against Venezuela, among which is holding so-called “free and fair elections.”

Biden’s advisor stated that the US government supports “any dialogue that exists between the Unitary Platform [of the far-right opposition] and the Venezuelan government” for reactivating the Mexico Talks.

#NUEVO: EEUU asegura que “incentivos” a Maduro cesarían “eventualmente". @Cartajuanero dice que "expertos electorales verían que, en cierto punto, va a ser muy difícil tener una elección libre y justa” en #Venezuela. Más en @VozdeAmerica: https://t.co/rN92tH8Yvz pic.twitter.com/v8ExTJw92Y

— Jorge Agobian (@JorgeAgobian) July 20, 2023

However, he did not mention anything about the condition set by the Venezuelan government as a prerequisite to resume the dialogue, which is the release of Venezuelan special envoy to Iran, Alex Saab, from US prison. The Venezuelan government suspended the dialogue after the US kidnapped Saab from Cape Verde in October 2021.

When questioned about the possibility of the US imposing more sanctions against Venezuela, González claimed that its illegal blockade against Venezuela is “one of the most robust in the world,” and that adding more sanctions “will not change the status quo.”

This statement may be considered as a refusal to Juan Guaidó’s recent request for more unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela. After fleeing to the US, he urged the “international community” to request the United States for more sanctions “to protect the opposition primaries.”

According to Guaidó, sanctions are the “tool” that the opposition has to use against the Venezuelan government.

Meanwhile, the international community promoted a dialogue between the Venezuelan government and the opposition during the CELAC-EU Summit in Brussels, where delegates from the two political sectors held a meeting, with the mediation of the presidents of France, Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina.

Regarding this meeting, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced that the government and the opposition both emphasized that unjustified sanctions must be lifted.

“They agreed that the unjustified, immoral, illegal and criminal sanctions against the Venezuelan people should be lifted,” the president said.

https://orinocotribune.com/us-will-cont ... venezuela/

******

ON THE PROJECT OF THE VENEZUELAN DEMOCRACY LAW
THE NEXT AGGRESSION THAT THE US IS PREPARING AGAINST VENEZUELA
Jul 20, 2023 , 6:36 p.m.


Marco Rubio and Jim Risch, Republican senators (Photo: Aaron P. Bernstein / Reuters)

This year, the legislative arm in Washington has introduced three bills in the United States Congress against Venezuela: the Law to Prohibit Operations and Leases with the Illegitimate Authoritarian Regime of Venezuela , the "AFFECT" Law on Human Rights in Venezuela and the Law of Venezuelan Democracy. The projects have a common denominator: further increase the pressure of the blockade and impose a "humanitarian assistance" framework on it.

The focus of this work is the Venezuelan Democracy Law that was introduced in the newly installed US Senate last March. The bill was put together by five Republicans: Jim Risch, Marco Rubio, Bill Hagerty, Rick Scott and John Barrasso, who orbit in the lobby of energy companies and corporations that mobilize large sums of money to rebuild and assist countries "in need."

The law is an aspirational mega project of administrative-interventionist management towards Venezuela that begins with the draft of the road map that they would like to apply in an upcoming coercion scenario, and that through its articles seeks to establish the guidelines so that the entire state structure of the United States engages in the not-so-innovative operation against Venezuela, namely:

"Peaceful" transition.
Resumption of economic growth in Venezuela.
Imposition of "sanctions" on the Venezuelan government and any successor that they consider to be "undemocratic."
Assistance and financing.
This "strategy" does not appear out of nowhere, it is a known and imposed modus operandi in other countries such as Haiti or Syria, and it has also been described in reports such as the one published in December 2022 by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, "Venezuela in 2023 and beyond: charting a different course", which essentially shows what has been developed in this law .

"TRANSITION AND ASSISTANCE"
On the peaceful transition, two sections address this route. One on the "requirements to determine whether a transitional government is in power in Venezuela" and another on the policy towards "a transitional government and a democratically elected government" which, in general lines and beyond the obvious intrusion, show the background of the new steps to change the government of Venezuela: highlight initiatives that seem to have arisen from any group that represents the so-called "civil society" and in which "the self-determination of the people" can be recognized, to encourage them to "empower themselves with a government".

Even, in the terms of that long-awaited move from a transitional government to a government per se , these congressmen dare to add that the democratic government that is elected —democratic according to their criteria and interests— will result from "an expression of the self-determination of the people." The pressure strategy will have the same objective of changing the government, but through more "spontaneous" channels.

In that same section they point out that, faced with a "difficult" transition, the US administration as a whole must be prepared to provide "humanitarian assistance", where they really do business and project their political interests.

In fact, later it is described that the Export-Import Bank of the United States will be part of all the agencies that will be in this assistance. It should be noted that this body finances exports of US products and services to international markets.

Matthew Rooney, a former State Department official and adviser to the George W. Bush Institute think tank , explained in a 2019 article that the US Congress budgets amounts of dollars annually to influence and pressure foreign governments to support and prioritize US interests in that country and in the given region.

The law also refers to the distribution of resources within the framework of this "assistance" explaining that, in order for them to "reach the people", US agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) must be used, a matter on which there is already a precedent: the pot of corruption that was uncovered by the diversion of "humanitarian aid" funds in 2019, courtesy of the Guaidó gang .

Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez exposes, once again, the corruption of the groups that accompany Guaidó's false interim https://t.co/lqq89faW2G

– MV (@Mision_Verdad) June 19, 2020

These irregularities in this modality of distribution of resources are well known in the power groups of the United States. Economist and professor at Stockholm University Jakob Svensson described in his book Foreign Aid and Rent-Seeking that "the inflow of aid negatively affects a developing economy because these resources are diverted from productive activities to rent-seeking activities by people from elite social groups in the economy."

After all, embezzlement goes hand in hand with these far-from-altruistic initiatives: it's a macabre symbiosis of running a big business.

On the other hand, around this scheme of "assistance to the people of Venezuela" these congressmen added a segment dedicated to providing assistance in the preparation of the Venezuelan military forces, once a new government is established.

This paragraph marks the difference with other laws because it goes beyond the commercial and political sphere and enters the field of defense and sovereignty. This US approach is not surprising since they have been promoting the recipe for interference in different countries for some time, whose crucial objective in the international agenda of the White House is to control the armed forces of a country in order to guarantee its interests.

MORE BLOCKADE, MORE "SANCTIONS"
In order to prevent any type of financing to the Venezuelan government, in this law the section on the imposition of "sanctions" states that the United States Secretary of the Treasury will have the power to withhold any payment or loan approved by an international financial institution such as the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, among others.

In addition to this, to expand the range of action of this hanging initiative, it is included that the US government must encourage other governments to restrict any commercial and credit relationship with Venezuela. Likewise, the law stipulates that coercive measures will be imposed on any foreign government that offers aid or assistance to the Venezuelan.

It is obvious that a paragraph would be made to prevent any type of financing to PDVSA, since the license to Chevron is an action that has disturbed these senators; This is what Republican Risch said last year : "We are deeply concerned by the Biden administration's plans to once again ease sanctions."

With a review of this law, it can be verified that its wording intends to establish itself as a Constitution for Venezuela, elaborated courtesy of the United States.

If this bill is enacted, it could potentially nullify any avenues for normalizing bilateral relations with the United States.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/la-p ... -venezuela

THE PRIMARIES AS A PRODUCT OF THE USAID ECOSYSTEM
Jul 21, 2023 , 11:31 a.m.


USAID headquarters building (Photo: File)

The primaries planned by a sector of the Venezuelan opposition are, more than a political event, the trigger for a regime change plan being advanced by Washington and whose operators are the G3+1, today grouped in the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD). In this sense, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has an essential role in the direct coordination and injection of resources for the event, as confessed at the end of last year by the current assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean of the aforementioned agency, Marcela Escobari .

On September 15, 2022, the official offered a testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate in which she evaluated the policy of that agency on Venezuela.

CONFESSIONS THAT ARE GUIDELINES
The USAID is part of the meddling apparatus of the United States through financial support and training programs, with which it has been influencing the internal affairs of Venezuela for several years, with less and less discretion.

Its director is Samantha Power, a promoter of military intervention in Libya and of the belligerent interpretation of the R2P (responsibility to protect) doctrine. Her speech against Venezuela has focused on the media exploitation of the "immigration crisis" as a result of the "violation of human rights," according to the catechism widely disseminated by US spokespersons.


The testimony of Escobari, Power's subordinate, was analyzed in another publication of this platform and describes the actions that USAID would take in 2023 based on two points:

The failure of the "Guaidó operation".
The steps that the government of President Nicolás Maduro has taken to restore political order and achieve a framework for recovery in the economic sector, even with the blockade imposed on the country.
However, the essence of the document is in its exposition of the main characteristics of the USAID plan on Venezuela for 2023. It refers to "three areas to promote opposition unity and pressure to improve electoral conditions." There he says that he will continue to support the "interim government", but the key element consists in promoting the initiative of primaries with a view to subsequent participation in the presidential elections.

Escobari, who used the word "pressure" five times during his speech, indicated that the agency was focused on the "presidential elections in 2024 and the legislative and regional elections in 2025," and that the internal electoral dispute was an opportunity for the opposition to "rebuild unity and regain momentum."

The USAID guideline consisted of openly admitting that it would support the formation of a candidate in anti-Chavismo, so it is clear that each step or decision regarding that event has the endorsement of Washington. The decision to go to primaries and presidential elections belongs to the United States, even though the former abstentionist opposition says that in 2024 it will participate in "non-free elections."


The triumph of a disabled person in the primaries would be the return of the color revolution format that was already applied in 2014 and 2017 (Photo: Telemundo)

Also, it is a prerogative of the White House to decide to rearm the opposition for a possible political conflict, with the electoral events as justification. For this reason, several pre-candidates disqualified from running for public office have registered but, as President Maduro has said, what underlies the matter of the primaries is the return of the color revolution format that was already applied in 2014 and 2017.

The United States plan would consist of forcing scenarios of destabilization, chaos and violence in the country in the event that its interests are not imposed with the agenda of the primaries.

THE CYCLES OF THE USAID ECOSYSTEM
Earlier this year, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Wilson Center), a think tank that is highly influential in decision-making in the United States, published the report " Venezuela in 2023 and Beyond: Charting a Different Course ," where it describes a series of guidelines for concretizing a US strategy on Venezuela following the failure of "maximum pressure." Bringing it up to the primary grounds, the mobilization of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), close to or directly financed by USAID and other sister agencies, would operate as squires during the opposition electoral process, a deployment that would cover different areas of the country as an essential tactic.

The strengthening of the NGOs is outlined as a means to refloat the opposition political base and appears as an option in the face of the deterioration of the public perception of their parties. The slogan "I'll go all the way" used by María Corina Machado is the undeclared continuity of the same actors who exhausted "all forms of struggle" and "all options on the table" until the current wear and tear, installed as a political climate among the population that supported their "regime change" efforts in Venezuela.


Declassified documents show that the NGO Espacio Público is financed by the Pan-American Foundation for Development, which in turn receives funds from USAID and Freedom House.

Is it an objective source to talk about human rights in Venezuela? https://t.co/g14xD3L1uq

– MV (@Mision_Verdad) September 26, 2020

The NGOs could nuclear that part of the opposition population that is not active in the electoral agenda, maintaining the story of the violation of human rights in Venezuela and propped up by the media, another element of the Usaid ecosystem.

In this sense, Escobari maintained that the intention is to finance media corporations that serve as a platform to give more body to the agenda installed as opposition discourse.

It is a repeating cycle. In 2021, a report by the USAID inspector general revealed that the "humanitarian aid" that was attempted to enter Venezuela in February 2019 "was motivated by the US attempt to bring about a regime change rather than by a technical analysis of the needs and the best way to help the Venezuelans who required it," although it was repeated ad nauseam, with media amplifiers, that the aim was altruistic and disinterested.

The same thing, under another political climate, is currently happening. The Wilson Center proposed in its report a replacement of "maximum pressure", implemented during the Donald Trump administration, by a type of hybrid pressure, in the style of smart power usual in Democratic administrations, "combining pressure and concessions, in different ways and at different times", calibrating the use of illegal "sanctions" with the progress of the negotiations.

For this reason, the document indicates that "the democratic opposition should not lose sight of the probable usefulness of organizing street demonstrations [...] to increase the leverage of the opposition", without this, it affirms, contradicting the support for the negotiation scenarios that, at the time of the publication of the report (January 2023), was still in force.

The goal is to get the opposition out of the pit of irrelevance and political disconnection, where it fell after the failure of the "interim."

HOW TO INCREASE CONFLICT
To increase the discomfort and pressure on the streets, the MCUs are on the card of the day. From there derives the resistance of the United States to release the more than 3 billion dollars in funds of the Republic seized in international banks, a measure agreed upon in Mexico as a result of the dialogue and negotiation table. This is a political calculation by the White House, with part of the opposition as an accomplice.

According to the Wilson Center, economic suffocation would intensify the economic malaise of the population, limit the national government's room for maneuver, and prevent the government-managed economic recovery from advancing at the pace required by the country's aspirations and expectations. Therefore, the "opposition success" would be that the year 2023 was marked by social anguish in the economic field. It is the only political capital he has at hand.

The United States pressures economically while accelerating the channeling of resources to the Usaid ecosystem on the Venezuelan ground; in this way, the recommendations of the Wilson Center can find favorable ground to develop.

With the funding and training of openly anti-Chavista NGOs and media outlets, USAID has direct ties to the primaries. But there are also pre-candidates from parties such as Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular linked to the corruption schemes of the "Guaidó project" —partly financed and supported by USAID at the time. It is a vicious circle.

Therefore, it can be considered that the primaries and all their display of negotiations, disputes, insults and buying and selling of loyalties are a means and a route to the escalation of a possible conflict in Venezuela, and not an end in itself.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/las- ... tema-usaid

THE VALUE OF VENEZUELA'S NON-OIL EXPORTS GROWS
Jul 19, 2023 , 12:00 p.m.



According to data from the Venezuelan Association of Exporters (AVEX), non-energy exports from Venezuela are around 3 billion dollars so far in 2023.

The president of AVEX, Ramón Goyo, explained that in 2021 the country exported a total of 1,814 million dollars. In 2022 it grew by around 2.8 billion dollars.

According to Goyo, Venezuela's main markets are the European Union, the United States —whose governments maintain coercive measures against the nation— and Latin American countries, without specifying which ones. The company Oceanika21 affirms : "Among the main export destinations for the private sector are Latin American and European countries. While for the public sector, Asia is the main recipient of cargo from Venezuela."

Venezuela currently exports shrimp, crabs, prawns, fresh fish, wood, coffee and, says Goyo, "this year a significant portion of around 2,000 tons of organic cocoa was exported."

It is also exporting rum, radiators, lead accumulators and PVC pipes for construction.

The Bolivarian Government reported last January that the two main objectives for this year in this area consist of increasing non-traditional exports and promoting favorable conditions for national and foreign investment.

https://misionverdad.com/crece-el-valor ... -venezuela

Google Translator