Venezuela

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blindpig
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Thu Aug 05, 2021 12:07 pm

(Continued from previous post)

THE CONSTRUCTION OF A FOOD CRISIS IN VENEZUELA (II)
Clara Sanchez

4 Aug 2021 , 2:44 pm .

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here are powerful States that use the UN multilateral organizations as instruments to validate humanitarian crises (Photo: @FAO_Venezuela / Twitter)

HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION

In the first part of " The construction of a food crisis in Venezuela"it was outlined how military options began to be used by the UN to deliver food to Somalia and Ethiopia in the early 1990s, evolving to the formal use of force to justify interventions for supposedly humanitarian reasons, as in Libya in 2011, until the manipulation of the Venezuelan food situation in the midst of the imposition of coercive measures unilaterally imposed by the United States, protected by the European Union, the OAS, the Lima Group, USAID, large businessmen, and internally by the National Assembly 2016-2020, to insert into the world imagination the urgent need for a military intervention under the "responsibility to protect" (R2P).

This second part will show the use of UN multilateral organizations as instruments to validate humanitarian crises, promoted by the states of greater power, moved by their own interests and on behalf of the international community, through non-state actors such as agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), the so-called civil society, private actors and even large companies, warning and admitting in turn the possibility of military interventions in which external interference such as that of the United States against Venezuela is not considered, and where only The results of certain situations are revealed by isolating or hiding the cause, which is generally hidden behind conventional, unconventional or diffuse wars, and methods such as the blockade and the generalized siege of Venezuela since 2014.

FOOD AS A HUMAN RIGHT
In this case, the right to food is dragged into this framework of manipulation of human rights, which are part of the securitization process that was carried out with the concept of human security, formally used between 1993-1994 and finally promoted at the Millennium Summit of the year 2000, where any deterioration of the general categories of this in the economic, food, health, environment, community, political, personal and other environments that over time have been incorporated, come to provide preventive content by monitoring indicators, considering among its doctrine of prevention and humanitarian interventions, also, the collaboration of large transnational corporations in the resolution of conflicts.

In this sense, the second part of "The construction of a food crisis in Venezuela" is based on the analysis of four types of indicators from different organizations, where high-level multilateral discussions on world food are carried out, and the reports and specialized publications of the raw records that, as affirmed by members of official delegations from some countries, and later only reproduced by academics, politicians and journalists as first-hand data, whose topics and positions can change radically from one year to another. another, seeking to go unnoticed, clarifying in advance, without the intention of devaluing the situation of increased food insecurity in Venezuela,in the midst of the siege that the country has suffered since 2014 where the population has been targeted to violate national power.

Among the indicators, the Prevalence of Undernourishment Index (IPS) was taken as well as the Prevalence of Food Insecurity, which is measured through the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), both from the United Nations Organization for the Food and Agriculture (FAO); the CARI or ECRI survey of the World Food Program (WFP); and the Integrated Food Safety Classification System (CIF or IPC) of the Food Safety Information Network (SFIN), to which FAO, WFP and 14 other organizations, agencies, NGOs, civil society and individuals belong.

For this, it is necessary to differentiate that, when speaking of IPS or PoU, FAO's Prevalence of Undernourishment Index , refers to national estimates of food availability and consumption, as well as caloric needs, which considers insufficient consumption of dietary energy in a population, being chronic when not enough calories are consumed, in this case becoming undernourishment related to hunger and which, in the world today, according to the latest report (2021) of the FAO, reaches 768 million people, 9.9% of the world's population. Its scale: <5% is very low; 5% to 14.9% is moderately low; 15% to 24.9% is moderately high; 25% to 34.9% is high; and 35% or more is very high.

In addition to the IPS, FAO has applied the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) since 2014 , in which, through face-to-face interviews based on the experiences of individuals and households, highlights the difficulties in accessing food due to lack of availability or due to lack of financial resources to obtain them. From which three levels emerge: mild, moderate food insecurity (skipped a meal or ran out of food occasionally) and severe (go without food for several days, several times a year). The latter is the end of the scale, where the so-called "hungry" or hungry population are found, which complements the IPS or PoU.

While WFP applies the survey of the Consolidated Approach to Report Food Security Indicators ( CARI or ECRI ), through a mathematical tabulation of data collected in households on consumption, deficit, poverty level, proportion of food expenditures and strategies applied to survive, finally building a console whose results also based on experience are four levels of food insecurity that analyzes and reports on a population: safe, marginal, moderate and severe.

And finally, the IPC or CIF, Integrated Classification of Food Security in Phases , which was originally developed in 2004 to be used in Somalia by the Food and Nutrition Security Analysis Unit of FAO, measures together with the Cadre Harmonisé indicator ( CH) 'acute' food insecurity , having five phases ranging from adequate and stable access to food or Phase 1 and Phase 2 of stress, to phases based on the parameters of extreme hunger or Phase 3 (Crisis); 4 (Emergency); and 5 (Famine or Catastrophe).

Phase 3 or CPI / CH Crisis or higher (Phase 4 and Phase 5) is characterized by a critical and accentuated lack of access to food, high levels of malnutrition, and accelerated depletion of livelihood assets. If it is prolonged in time, it leads to a humanitarian emergency due to excess mortality.

With the CIF or IPC, the creation of technical consensus of multiple actors and agencies is used to determine the severity of food insecurity, according to experts from different disciplines who debate 'reliable' evidence through the use of secondary data, therefore, it has been considered an accessory of the existing information systems, whose purpose is to identify the humanitarian phase that allows emergency responses, a tool to analyze situations and implications of future interventions, according to the severity of the food situation, as well as the financing possibilities among the donors.

In summary, with this indicator, through consensus, the need for humanitarian intervention is identified, endorsed by multiple actors, classifying food insecurity 'acute' and chronic, and since 2019 the 'probable famine' or acute malnutrition in a country.

Since 2017, the CIF or IPC is related to the creation of the Food Safety Information Network ( FSIN), as an initiative of the so-called Global Network against Food Crises made up of 16 UN agencies, NGOs, civil society, donors and even individuals grouped in the USAID Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Standing Interstate Committee for the Fight against Drought in the Sahel (CILSS), the Food Safety Group (FSC), the Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC), the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) in the Horn of Africa, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) of the Consortium of Research Centers (CGIAR), the Integrated Food Safety Phase Classification (CIF or IPC) ,the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Central American Integration System (SICA), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Program (WFP), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Commission, to publish an annual report on Food Crises in the world.the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Commission, to publish an annual report on Food Crises in the world.the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Commission, to publish an annual report on Food Crises in the world.

In addition, it participates through the IPC Global Platform: UK Aid (Direct Aid from the United Kingdom) of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office as a funding agency, CARE, Save the Children and OXFAM (19 NGOs).

Global Reports on Food Crises that are possible thanks to the 'generous' funding of the European Commission and USAID, as recognized in each publication of these, apart from being constituted as financing agencies of the IPC or CIF together with UK Aid.

ABOUT THE GLOBAL REPORT OF FOOD CRISIS IN THE WORLD AND THE CASE OF VENEZUELA
In 2015, the Joint Research Center of the European Commission prepared a report on food crises at the global level and invited FAO and WFP to contribute additional data, and from 2016 they began to incorporate more partners with the aim of producing a consensus-based report, promoted by FAO, WFP and IFPRI.

Since the first report published in 2017 , an attempt was made to incorporate Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia as countries in food crisis, however "the lack of evidence and insufficient data prevented the team from estimating populations in situations of food insecurity."

In 2018, again in the report, it was possible to read that there were "countries of interest" where "food security was also a matter of concern, such as Korea and Venezuela, (also Cuba), but no estimate could be made of the number of people in food insecurity in these , due to lack of data ".

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Venezuela considered as a country of interest by the Global Network against Food Crisis in the GRCF 2018 (Photo: FSIN - GRFC 2018)
However, it was anticipated that in Venezuela the food crisis could be inferred by "political instability aggravated by economic crisis", and there were also "6.7 million people depending on the government food distribution program, and according to Venezuelan reports, more of a million people had left the country due to the shortage of basic products ". In this case, it was recommended to "invest in data collection and evaluations, to ensure they will not be overlooked."

Over time, this Network is still not concerned that in Argentina there are 11 million people eating in soup kitchens, that is, depending on government programs.

One of the most interesting details of the 2018 report on Venezuela is the statement regarding "difficulties in paying the debt, which could lead to stricter economic sanctions for non-compliance, which would cause the collapse of the economy." and in this case, "the government had limited capacity to provide basic services." In other words, the "sanctions" were not unilateral coercive measures by the United States against Venezuela, not endorsed by the UN, but were justified for failing to pay the debt.

In 2019, Venezuela was re-incorporated, stating that it was among the undeclared countries with a food crisis in the report, due to lack of validated data, therefore, the need to campaign in favor of investments was again underlined in food safety measurement system at national and regional level.

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Venezuela considered as a country of interest by the Global Network against Food Crisis in the GRCF 2019 (Photo: FSIN - GRFC 2019)

However, in this, Venezuela was identified as one of the countries in the world with "the highest number and proportion of the population in a situation of food insecurity in 2018" in Phase 3 of the CPI / CH Crisis or higher by three populations of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia , Ecuador and Peru that reached "0.4 million in South America", that is, 400 thousand people (0.3 in Colombia, 0.02 in Ecuador and 0.04 in Peru according to the database).

In particular, the 'economic shock', a category used for the first time in 2018 to define the driver of food insecurity in Burundi, was considered, among other things, by "trade restrictions imposed by neighboring countries, the United States and the EU with implications for all Burundians ", was precisely the one selected to consider the main driver of food insecurity in Phase 3 (CPI / CH crisis or higher) in Venezuela, although without mentioning the imposition of unilateral coercive measures or" sanctions "against the country as a driver of the economic shock, and justified because the migrants in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru "had exhausted their means to buy food."

In addition, based on the local organizations that carried out surveys in the country, mainly ENCOVI, they pointed to an increasingly serious humanitarian situation, however it was reaffirmed that "the number of people who needed urgent humanitarian assistance, were not clear due to the absence of reliable data until that moment ", although it was insisted that the deepening of the crisis was evident due to the increase in migration to other countries, mainly to Colombia."

And finally, they summarized that the drivers and risks of the number of people in Crisis or worse (CPI / CH Phase 3 or higher) in Venezuela were an 'economic shock' and another 'climate', related to the displacement of people with high probabilities that it would continue. worsening in the following 14 months, crowned by "the political stalemate" generated amid the declaration of Juan Guaidó as "interim leader" recognized by several countries, who "increased the pressure to support the self-proclaimed president."

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Graphic representation of the drivers of 'acute' food insecurity in Venezuela according to the Global Network against Food Crises at GRCF 2019 (Photo: FSIN - GRFC 2019)

EVIDENCE FROM ONE YEAR TO THE NEXT: THE FOURTH MOST SERIOUS FOOD CRISIS IN THE WORLD

In April 2020, and as usual, Venezuela was again incorporated into the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), finding evidence from one year to the next and finally placing the country "as the fourth largest food crisis in the world. world with 9.3 million people in an 'acute' situation of food insecurity ", this would be with 32% of the population in Crisis or worse (Phase 3 of CPI / CH or higher), in a report with inconsistencies because, in On the other hand, you can read that there are 9.4 million. And it is that even for the construction of these publications it costs to agree, or rather it costs the consensus.

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Venezuela considered as the world's food crisis by the Global Network against Food Crisis at GRCF 2020 (Photo: FSIN - GRFC 2020)

In this 2020 report , with data collected from July to September 2019, it is stated that "around 9.3 million people suffered from 'acute' food insecurity", and I transcribe verbatim: "of these, 2.4 million were considered in a situation of severe food insecurity and 7 million in moderate food insecurity ". Figures that when added do not yield the total reported data.

This number, the result of the CARI survey carried out by the WFP, published in February 2020, where it estimated "that 7.9% of the population of Venezuela (2.3 million) was in 'serious' food insecurity and 24 , An additional 4% (7 million) in moderate food insecurity ". A total of 32.3% of the population "in need of help".

And although 'acute' and chronic food insecurity is the one that is verified through the consensus of the Global Network to classify food crises, in this case Venezuela was taken from the total population identified in the survey, both in moderate insecurity and severe (acute) for Crisis or worse (IPC / CH Phase 3 or higher), and thus automatically making it one of the world's food crises and, at the same time, one of the worst; both for the first and only time.

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Venezuela considered the fourth worst food crisis in the world by the Global Network against Food Crisis at GRCF 2020 (Photo: FSIN - GRFC 2020)

In addition, 1.2 million Venezuelan migrants were added between Colombia and Ecuador, being in the same situation in these countries. Indeed, it can be interpreted in the non-improvement of the quality of life of people who emigrate from the country and, therefore, as it is indeed happening, there is a reverse migration, since the beginning of the global pandemic by covid-19.

However, the story about the food crisis in Venezuela has been imposing itself politically, diplomatically and in the media, as outlined in " The construction of a food crisis in Venezuela (I) ", since 2015 and without verifiable data, until finally reaching multilateral organizations, especially the UN, where they seek to validate humanitarian interventions, and in this particular case under the R2P and hiding the geopolitical interests at stake.

In addition, in the Global Food Crisis Report (GRFC) 2020 it is constructed that in Venezuela there are an additional 17 million people, which would represent 60% of the population, in marginal food insecurity (CPI / CH Phase 2), imposing in total the 92% of the Venezuelan population within the country with food insufficiency. This would be only 8% not reached by this situation, around 2 million, according to their "calculations", where they assume that Venezuela has 28.5 million people.

Highlighted as an extraordinary event because it depicts a Venezuela, and this is reflected in their "calculations", with the highest percentage of the population in food insecurity in the world, even surpassing the extremely vulnerable populations of South Sudan (89 %), Yemen (83%), Afghanistan (68%), Haiti (66%), Syrian Arab Republic (50%) or Sudan (42%), positioning the country in a proportion that suggested the highest on the planet.

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According to the World Network against Food Crises, in Venezuela, in 2019, 92% of the population suffered food insecurity, a proportion that suggested the highest on the planet (Photo: Alimentos y Poder)

All to justify the location of Venezuela as the "fourth largest food crisis", generated nothing more and nothing less than by an "economic shock" coincidentally, in the tone of Elliott Abrams, "caused by man." And only in a footnote you can read: "the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela further limited export earnings and access to external financing."

However, in the general picture of malnutrition "in terms of Prevalence of Undernourishment were seven countries: South Sudan, Yemen, Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Syrian Arab Republic and Haiti, the main food crises in the world, each with more 35% of its population analyzed in Crisis or worse (IPC / CH Phase 3 or higher) ".

And if it does not seem an exaggeration to affirm that 92% of the Venezuelan population suffers from food insecurity, above other nations really affected by hunger, and in extreme conditions of conventional armed and open conflicts and natural disasters for decades, this Global Network Against Food Crisis "hopes that the economic difficulties will intensify on the Venezuelans who remain in the country," and with the pandemic in 2020, hunger will spread to 100% of the population.

The ultimate goal of this 2020 report is to lay the foundations on Venezuela as one of the worst food crises in the world, where urgent humanitarian assistance is required, inserting into the world imagination the need for "humanitarian" military intervention or R2P.

FROM ONE YEAR TO THE NEXT: NO EVIDENCE

And since the GRFC report is published every year, in 2021 its fifth edition returned with which Venezuela continues to appear as a country of interest of this Global Network against Food Crisis, even when it is explained that "although the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela was among the 10 worst food crises in 2019, there was not enough evidence to include it in 2020. "

But it continues to hint that "although the 'acute' food insecurity estimates for Venezuela are not included in the 2021 GRFC due to insufficient evidence (...) the data suggest that this major food crisis of 2019 'probably' worsened in 2020", still when it can be explicitly read that, "the existence of data gaps / insufficient evidence is reflected to produce estimates of people in Crisis or worse (CPI / CH Phase 3 or higher)". And not only in Venezuela: the evidence in the migrant population of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru disappeared from one year to the next.

In other words, they do not have, perhaps because they do not exist, the evidence to suggest that in Venezuela there was the fourth most serious food crisis in the world in 2019, and that from one year to the next it ceased to be so. An extraordinary luck that other countries have not had, as will be shown later.

And although it is reported in the 2021 GRFC that Venezuela was included only once from 2017 to 2021 as a world food crisis, and also considered one of the worst in the world, a position supposedly shared for the 'only time' with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Sierra Leone, the reality is that neither was shown as one of the worst food crises (even estimating the first 10.1 million people and the second 3.3 million in acute food insecurity, in the same 2020 report), as it did happen with Venezuela after having been selected regularly and year after year for inclusion.

However, the fact that there are "data gaps" and "lack of evidence" to continue promoting Venezuela as one of the worst food crises in the world does not prevent insisting that the "economic collapse, restrictions due to covid-19, insecurity and the climatic extremes fueled an already severe humanitarian crisis ", this being the ultimate goal: the construction of a story that facilitates military intervention as the last means to achieve the regime change proposed by the United States, endorsed by the European Union and the United Kingdom, Whatever her name is, and try dressing her up in different outfits.

And of course, the 2021 report cannot fail to refer to USAID's perspective regarding Venezuela and the worsening fuel shortages, in addition to the covid-19 that will "probably" limit the distribution of food and the access to markets, as well as expressing concern about the large influx of migrants returning to the alleged humanitarian crisis during the pandemic which, in any case, means less needy to justify donors interested in providing humanitarian aid for them abroad .

Agency of the United States that, apart from financing the reports of food crises year after year together with the European Union, donated 507 million dollars to attend the "humanitarian crisis" in Venezuela from 2017 to 2019, and as it has reported "aligned its award and decisions aimed at reinforcing the credibility of the provisional government of Juan Guaidó, "minimizing the delivery of funds to UN agencies with infrastructure in the country to deliver humanitarian products, because the" interim "was concerned about the support of the United Nations. United to the government of Nicolás Maduro.

Coming to finance only requests from Venezuelan NGOs that supported the interests of the foreign policy of the United States government in Venezuela, leading to the manipulation and use of humanitarian aid for political purposes, of whose donations only 2 million dollars were used to purchase and transport 368 million tons of humanitarian products, of which only 8 metric tons were delivered to the country as of August 2019.

WHY VENEZUELA AND NOT OTHER COUNTRIES IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN?

In 2021, " Hunger Hot Spots. FAO-WFP Early Alerts on Acute Food Insecurity. Outlook for March to July 2021 " was also published, stating that "the food security situation in Venezuela is likely to deteriorate even more as a result of hyperinflation, "that is, due to the economic shock, and for the first time the" tightening of international sanctions "is considered, although they do not refer to their unilateral coercive form, mainly by the United States.

In addition, in accordance with USAID's concern, they add "the impact of restrictions related to covid-19 and the shortage of fuel, affecting logistics and agricultural activities" that, although presented as independent variables, in Venezuela its impact is closely related to the imposition of the economic, financial and commercial blockade against the country, especially with regard to essential supplies such as energy.

And in this sense, Venezuela is again reflected, along with Syria, among the 23 countries with the highest number of people in a situation of 'acute' food insecurity in the world, even when the population is not considered in Crisis or worse (IPC / CH Phase 3 or higher), supported by the same CARI survey applied by WFP in 2019, with which the country was considered, a year earlier, as the fourth worst food crisis in the world.

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Number of population in acute food insecurity in the world according to FAO and WFP (2021) where Venezuela appears, although no people are identified in CPI / CH Crisis Phase 3 or higher (Photo: FAO)

WFP that in 2021, in agreement with the national government , will focus attention on preschool and initial education schools to serve 185 thousand boys and girls in 2021, estimating to reach a total of 1.5 million schoolchildren by 2023, and among others invest in rehabilitation of canteens and training of personnel in food safety practices, adding this to the 18 food programs developed by the Bolivarian Revolution, and particularly through the School Food Program (PAE), which serves 5 million in schools 930 thousand students.

Therefore, apart from the analysis of the Global Food Crisis Reports from 2017 to 2021, due to their deep interest in warning of a possible famine in Venezuela, it is also necessary to point out the lack of it and of alarm for populations of other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean such as Argentina, Brazil or Mexico, which will be used only as an example because they are considered the main economies of the region and with larger populations, taking into account that smaller nations, although they have a high percentage of people in 'acute' food insecurity , by the proportion they will never be taken as the worst food crises, as long as it is measured by the number of people.

To do this, we use the Food Insecurity Prevalence of the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) applied by FAO since 2014 and, in a certain way, the CIF or IPC that determines food crises also benefits from this.

In 2021, FAO updated " The state of food security and nutrition in the world " that allows comparing some data that attracts powerfully attention, in terms of alerting possible food crises that are not monitored in terms of the number of people, since 2016, as is the case with Venezuela.

The first case is Argentina, which although it has an Undernourishment Prevalence Index (IPS) of 3.9%, the prevalence of moderate and severe food insecurity (FIES) reaches 35% of its population or 16 million people, being 5 , 7 million in serious conditions.

Even Brazil, whose IPS remains at less than 2.5%, according to the FIES, had in 2020 23.5% of its population in moderate and severe food insecurity, which is 49.6 million people; of these, 7.5 million in serious conditions. Both populations, of the two largest food producers in the world that, at the same time, cannot feed their entire population due to lack of availability and economic resources, that is, due to restricted access to food.

Mexico serves us as a third example, with an IPS by 2020 of 7.2%, indicating 9.2 million people in undernourishment or hunger, but if we review the prevalence of moderate and severe food insecurity from the FIES, it reaches 26.2 % or 33.2 million people; of these, 7.4 million in serious conditions.

So, if for Venezuela, according to the WFP (2019) there were 9.3 million people in moderate and severe food insecurity, of which 7 million were considered in moderate insecurity and 2.3 million in severe insecurity, it served as evidence when taking to the population identified in the survey for Crisis or worse (CPI / CH Phase 3 or higher) by the Global Food Crisis Network, and thus qualify the country as the fourth worst food crisis in the world, we would have to ask ourselves:

Why are 16 million people in Argentina, or 49.6 million in Brazil and 33.2 million in Mexico, do not generate alarm flashes or are they considered countries of interest, nor is food insecurity a cause for concern?
And we propose this simply because when Venezuela began to register an increase in IPS, reaching 3.1 million hungry people in 2017, according to FAO records, it was already considered a country of interest and cause for concern by the Network World Food Crisis.

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Venezuela considered as a country of interest by the Global Network against Food Crises in the first edition of GRCF 2017 (Photo: FSIN - GRFC 2017)

WAS VENEZUELA THE FOURTH MOST SERIOUS FOOD CRISIS IN THE WORLD OR NOT?

In 2020, the FAO Food and Nutrition Security Outlook estimated the Prevalence of Undernourishment Index (IPS) for Venezuela at 31.4% in the 2017-2019 triennium, that is, 9.1 million hungry people by 2019, 300 thousand less than those considered in 'acute' food insecurity in the Global Report on Food Crisis, with which the country was declared the fourth worst food crisis in the world.

Likewise, the report made a projection for 2030 of 61.7% of the Venezuelan population with hunger, that is, 20.1 million people according to the IPS, which would imply the total population in catastrophic conditions of famine taking in consideration that the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity would also increase. And all for an economic shock.

On the other hand, the FAO in "The state of food security and nutrition in the world" (2021), in the following triennium 2018-2020 estimated an IPS of 27.4%, that is, that 7.8 million people are those who are undernourished in Venezuela, referring to a decrease in hunger by 1.3 million people by 2020 compared to 2019.

However, when we refer to the online publication of FAOSTAT (2021) , the IPS in the 2017-2019 triennium does not reach 31.4% of the population but 23.4%, that is, 6.8 million of people and not 9.1 million in 2019, nothing more and nothing less than 2.3 million fewer people, which also validated Venezuela as the fourth worst food crisis in the world.

And when reviewing the 2018-2020 triennium in the same portal, the IPS rises to 27.4% or 7.8 million people in undernourishment, and although the FAO constantly updates its data, what this latest publication refers to is that in Venezuela In 2019, it was classified as having a 'high' prevalence of undernourishment when it did not yet exist; It can even be added that the IPS in Venezuela did not reach 9.1 million people.

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Prevalence Index of Undernourishment in Venezuela (2000-2020), according to FAOSTAT (2021) (Photo: Alimentos y Poder)

This raises an alert for the risk of manipulation of world food indicators, mainly by non-state actors, added to pressure from interested donors such as USAID, European Commission, Foreign & Commonwealth Office and others on multilateral organizations that require funding. .

Measurements that, even coming from 'reliable' sources, can serve as the table to validate "humanitarian interventions" or the R2P with hidden geopolitical interests, or even more so, when foreign interference is evident, particularly from the United States, supported by the European Union and the United Kingdom, to drown the Venezuelan economy and generate suffering in the population that contributed to achieving a change of regime or government under the umbrella and the discourse of the defense of human rights.

Alleged humanitarian interventions, of which there are many references in the world, that over time generally do not resolve humanitarian situations and the intervened territories are kept in worse or equal conditions than those found. To cite an example: Haiti, but it can be almost all countries considered the worst food crisis in the world from 2017 to 2021.

Therefore, although the increase in food insecurity in Venezuela is evident, whose growth has been proportional to the amount of "sanctions" and actions imposed by the United States, on the other hand it is logical to question the existence of the worst fourth food crisis in the world in the country during 2019, without evidence before or after; an extraordinary “luck” that, for example, entire countries or territories in armed conflicts or climatic shocks such as Yemen, Afghanistan, North or Northeast of Nigeria, Syrian Arab Republic, South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Malawi, have not counted on. Zimbabwe, Haiti, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia or Kenya, in which every year enough evidence is found to verify populations in 'acute' food insecurity

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Countries considered the worst food crises in the world, at least once, and the estimate of the number of population verified in food insecurity in Crisis Phase 3 or higher of the CPI by the RGC from 2017-2021 (Photo: Food and Power)

Furthermore, if we use the Food Security Phase Integrated Classification Mapping Tool of the IPC Global Platform 2019-2021 on 'acute' food insecurity in the world, as well as the 2016-2021 series on the chronic food insecurity, the absence of Venezuela can be seen in the following maps.

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Map of acute food insecurity in the world 2019-2021, according to IPC (Photo: IPC Global Platform (2021))

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Map of chronic food insecurity in the world 2016-2021, according to IPC (Photo: IPC Global Platform (2021))

FINAL THOUGHTS
In 2021, the FAO again identified armed conflicts and climate variability and its extremes, definitely adding to economic slowdowns and recessions, as the main drivers of hunger in the world.

This third driver is the one that has been related in Venezuela, since 2015, to the increase in undernourishment and food insecurity, an 'economic shock' "caused by man", which finally FAO (2021) refers to "slowdowns and recessions regardless of whether they are driven by market swings, trade wars, political unrest or a global pandemic such as the one caused by COVID-19. "

Given this, FAO proposes actions to integrate humanitarian policies, increase climate resilience and those most vulnerable to economic adversity, intervene in supply chains, address poverty and inequalities through favorable interventions and strengthen food environments to improve patterns of consumption, etc.

But, will the FAO one day allow to denounce as an international organization that some actors pressure others to intervene diplomatically, economically, financially, commercially, politically and even in the media, damaging populations in the world that later the multilateral organization includes in its statistics to advocate for them humanely?

In the Venezuelan case, the systemic oil price crisis was evidently a means used by the United States to try to end Venezuela as a nation-state, through the imposition of unilateral coercive measures not endorsed by the UN, which over time They have shown that they violate the human rights of the entire population, through which no one is shot but generate a level of devastation depending on the severity and the application of the same in time and space to achieve the crushing of an economy, such as which war or bombardment with each "sanction" or action imposed.

"Sanctions" that since 2015 would be 352 bombs (only of the OFAC) falling on the Venezuelan territory consecutively. Another alert for the rest of the nations that still believes that an economic shock only occurred in Venezuela, coincidentally and coincidentally since the country was declared an unusual and extraordinary threat against the national security of the United States.

Economic shock driving food insecurity in the country, actually caused by the severity of unilaterally imposed "international sanctions", which can continue to be used disproportionately and as an effective means against any nation, whose damage can be equivalent to war for the destruction of infrastructure, although not instantaneously, causing suffering to the population and violating their rights to food, health, medicine, water, transportation and other services, which due to its systemic nature also violates the right to an alternative development of a country, whose actions to confront it are not only those proposed by FAO, it is not to expand and advocate for more humanitarian aid and resilience: it is to raise the voice so that all unilateral coercive measures are eliminated.

In other words, the blockade.

And since this form of unconventional warfare, protected by the economic, financial and commercial blockade, has been imposed on the Republic of Cuba for 60 years, spreading more and more to other nations and stealthily imposing itself in Venezuela since 2015, and in the face of such a forecast of the FAO for the Venezuelan population in the year 2030, in relation to food there is no other option than to overcome the conditions of vulnerability in this matter.

It means to overcome the configuration of the dependent Venezuelan agri-food system from a peripheral position subordinate to the world hegemonic power, and why not, to become a successful model of economic, political and cultural insubordination. Also of this there are examples counted in the world.

This article was originally published on the Food and Power website on August 4, 2021 .
- WE ARE A GROUP OF INDEPENDENT RESEARCHERS DEDICATED TO ANALYZING THE WAR PROCESS AGAINST VENEZUELA AND ITS GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS. FROM THE BEGINNING OUR CONTENT HAS BEEN FREE TO USE. WE DEPEND ON DONATIONS AND COLLABORATIONS TO SUPPORT THIS PROJECT, IF YOU WANT TO CONTRIBUTE TO MISIÓN VERDAD YOU CAN DO IT HERE < https://misionverdad.com/donate
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri Aug 06, 2021 1:50 pm

CORRUPTION AND DISPOSSESSION: HOW GUAIDÓ FINANCES THE SEQUESTRATION OF VENEZUELAN GOLD
5 Aug 2021 , 7:18 pm .

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The retention of Venezuelan gold and the operations surrounding the legal dispute in the United Kingdom as evidence of the criminal background of the attempted regime change in Venezuela (Photo: Economic Times)

Journalist John McEvoy published in The Canary the details of how Guaidó took funds from the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) in the United States to finance the theft of Venezuelan gold held by the United Kingdom, according to a journalistic investigation.

Below we review the operations of the anti-Chavista sector supported by the United States in order to obtain the same amount of resources from the Bolivarian Republic abroad, reported by the British researcher member of Declassified UK (other works by the same group reviewed by this forum they can be read here ).

THEFT FROM THE BCV

In May 2020, when the Venezuelan government sued the Bank of England for its refusal to release the gold, a legal battle began that broke down in July 2021. The UK Supreme Court held a proceeding related to the approximately 2,000 million dollars of the metal.

The request for access to gold is made to respond to the covid-19 pandemic and buy food amid the difficulties that intensify the unilateral coercive measures that Washington has applied against Venezuela. In February 2021, the independent UN expert on sanctions, Alena Douhan, urged "the governments of the United Kingdom, Portugal and the United States and the corresponding banks to unfreeze the assets of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) to buy medicines, vaccines, food, medical equipment and others. "

Although the highest court initially sided with the "interim" side, the UK Court of Appeal later found in October 2020 that the UK's recognition of Guaidó was "ambiguous, or in any case less than unequivocal". So the legitimate government headed by President Nicolás Maduro won the appeal and the cooperators with the piracy action were ordered to pay 400 thousand pounds to cover the legal expenses of the constitutionally elected government in 2018.

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The UK Supreme Court changed its position on the case of Venezuelan gold held by the British government due to an appeal by the national government (Photo: Chris J Ratcliffe / Getty Images)

In November 2020, the legal team of the former deputy Guaidó "received a warning from the judge of the commercial court, Sara Cockerill, in case of not complying with the payment order imposed by the British justice in relation to the litigation for the gold of Venezuela kept in the Bank of England ".

Then, at the end of that month, former Guaidó representative in the United Kingdom, Vanessa Neumann, told the Financial Times that the US Treasury's office of "sanctions" OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) "had delayed the release so much. of funds frozen to Guaidó's opposition for legal costs that the [UK] court battle risked being lost. "

Ironically, Washington's brutal sanctioning regime against Venezuela seemed to make payment difficult and the former congressman had to request a license from OFAC to be able to pay legal costs weeks late. With those same funds, they are said to have paid up to A & P's (their legal advisor) legal fees and disbursements, estimated by the firm at more than $ 3.8 million in mid-July 2020.

In reality, what happened was that Washington maintains "sanctions" against those who would collect the fine, for which the Guaidó board had to request a license from OFAC to make the payment with money robbed to the BCV in the United States, frozen in North American banks .

WHERE DID THE FUNDS COME FROM?

A witness of the "interim" board of the BCV, that is, of the looting scheme that has Guaidó as its visible head, declared to the United Kingdom courts that "the only funds that are under the control of the Guaidó Board are those that they are in accounts in the name of the BCV at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the United States ".

He added that all the assets of the BCV controlled by the "Guaidó Board" are in BCV accounts located in the United States, these are the funds that the Trump government seized the Venezuelan government and that Biden's allegedly keeps at the disposal of the that Leopoldo López, Carlos Vecchio and Guaidó determine.

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The "Guaidó criminal scheme" is a network of political operators working for elites who maintain a plan to punish the civilian population that has not overthrew the Venezuelan government (Photo: AFP)

As is known, the then Secretary of State of the United States, Mike Pompeo, had allowed the "Guaidó scheme" to receive and control assets of the BCV in the Federal Office in New York, which was denounced by the Venezuelan government as a "vulgar looting ".

In April 2020, the Trump administration transferred $ 342 million of BCV assets from Citibank to an account at the Federal Reserve in New York. The BCV had defaulted on payments to Citibank because it could not access its reserves in the Bank of England and that is how Trump and Guaidó, together with the scavenger oligarchies of the three countries, created a perverse loop to carry out the assault.

The legitimate board of the BCV, appointed by authorities that are not subject to foreign plans, has denounced the use of its funds in the United States under the control of the "Guaidó criminal scheme" to pay the fine of 400 thousand pounds sterling. The representatives of the "interim" allege that they do so because they can and because the law of the United States allows them to dispose of the funds over which "the Board of Maduro has no legitimate right."

A THREATENING SPIRAL OF CORRUPTION AND DISPOSSESSION THAT IS JUST BEGINNING

The use of state assets for such purposes suggests how Guaidó could use the gold reserves of Venezuela in the United Kingdom in case of winning the legal battle, it is about hundreds of millions of dollars of Venezuelan assets looted in the United States that have already been used even to finance the construction of Trump's militarized border wall between Mexico and the United States, while cartelized media networks mount "scenes of pain" of Venezuelan migrants crossing the Rio Grande.

One of the many precedents of the looting operation combined with continued coup attempts, although in a dramatic decline, is the case of Monómeros, the subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA) located in Barranquilla, Colombia, which has been dismantled and destroyed by the directors of this company, in joint activity with Colombian President Iván Duque and Guaidó.

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Monómeros is another example of an assault on Venezuelan assets by anti-Chavez to deepen the coup and expand the neoliberal looting (Photo: File)

Different Venezuelan and Colombian media have disclosed the bustle orchestrated by Alfredo Chirinos, a front man for the leader of the Venezuelan Democratic Action (AD) party, Henry Ramos Allup. The operation consisted of financing Venezuelan anti-Chavista organizations and was managed by the defunct National Assembly with the link of the "Energy and Petroleum Commission" made up of members of those parties.

Colombian and Venezuelan businessmen have probative material such as audios and recordings of meetings where they handed over large sums to AD representatives, after being threatened, verbally abused and demanded a large "vaccine" in dollars, according to what they earned from payroll or contracts.

The makeup reports could not hide the financial unfeasibility of the company, which reported losses of up to 30 million dollars in 2019. Operating with high production costs and with plants out of service, the capital was directed to "extraordinary administration expenses" that they implied large remunerations and benefits to members of its board of directors and executive committee, shooting four times more expenses.

If Guaidó's legal effort in England were to be successful, the threat or act of dis-recognition of institutions could become a lethal weapon in the UK's foreign policy arsenal, setting a precedent and serving as a justification for stripping. of assets to a foreign state and then deliver those assets to individuals allied with the foreign policy interests of the United Kingdom, that is, the United States.

Any analysis would collapse before the fact that a country abrogates the right to withhold goods from another because it does not recognize its government, even when it maintains control of the State, to be handed over to a network of operators that does not have control of any State apparatus. This would have potentially serious and adverse ramifications for London as a safe haven for sovereign assets.

Journalist McEvoy claims that the freezing of Venezuelan assets is clearly part of the hybrid war campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom against Venezuela, a crucial part of which involves the destruction of the country's economy, as he acknowledged in 2018 Boris Johnson, today British Prime Minister.

At that time he recognized that the "sanctions" amount to collective punishment against the civilian population, adding that "in the end things have to get worse before they get better and we may have to tighten the economic screw on Venezuela."

Curiously, the neoliberal plot that has sought to reorder economies in favor of the elites rants about the political and administrative independence of the central banks. The issue of Venezuelan gold deposited in the Bank of England is fundamentally political, and cannot be separated from the effort led by the United States to destabilize and overthrow the country, not only its government but also the national identity that has allowed it to resist and advance in the middle. of the difficulty.

CITGO: THE NEXT BLOW

A Bloomberg note released on Thursday, August 5, states that Citgo Petroleum Corporation, a Venezuelan state-owned energy holding company operating in the United States, is likely to be sold to pay off $ 7 billion in debt. Creditors are mounting legal challenges to seize control of the company, and they appear to be succeeding, as Trump's decree that keeps the company under Guaidó's control expires next October.

The outlet, which refers to the company as an "American gas refiner and distributor with the potential to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to help overthrow President Nicolás Maduro," affirms that the market seems to believe that the company will end up in the wrong hands. Venezuelan women for the first time since the 1980s.

Citgo owns three refineries, six pipelines and 42 terminals in 21 states with 3,400 employees and, as Venezuela's oil production fell, the directive installed by the "interim" had to replace the heavy crude it received from the country by similar degrees of Mexico and Colombia, in addition the entry of Venezuelan crude fell from 29% in 2015 to zero in 2020.

They attribute the collapse of the company to the fact that two refineries in the Gulf of Mexico were affected by hurricanes, a winter storm, the cyberattack on the Colonial pipeline and the fall of the pandemic. Last year it posted a loss of $ 667 million and its bonds are junk-rated, of which they raised $ 1.4 billion last year.

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CITGO refinery in the United States (Photo: Reuters)

It has become the guarantee for how much company or individual the State of Venezuela or PDVSA owes them something, especially when the corrupt actions of Guaidó and his environment have been disseminated, which have been widely discussed from this rostrum.

Two contracts related to PDVSA stand out: the oil company ConocoPhillips, which claims 1.3 billion dollars for a nationalization process, and investors who have 2 billion dollars in unpaid PDVSA bonds, according to PDVSA. These bonds have a collateral interest of 50.1% in the shares of Citgo Holding. Crystallex, a Toronto-based mining company, claims $ 1 billion for an allegedly expropriated gold mine.

The value of Citgo is estimated at $ 7.8 billion and the claims against it at $ 7 billion, so a Delaware judge will decide how the shares will be sold and how the proceeds will be divided, which would raise Crystallex, who is doing the rest in pursuing Venezuelan assets and is waiting for a special teacher to present a sale order to a judge.

Bloomberg says that in the "Guaidó scheme" there is little agreement on how to proceed. While a part of the looting cartel wants to sell a refinery in Illinois and try to reach an agreement with the creditors of Guaidó's "diplomatic chief", Julio Borges wants to transfer Citgo to an independent trust.

The implementation of the looting of assets to expand the looting of resources from Venezuela is, without a doubt, one aspect of the war against Venezuela that best shows what is behind the "Guaidó plan", since it is not an isolated operation against Venezuela but rather a model of intervention in which allies join the corporate framework that controls global capital.

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 07, 2021 1:41 pm

THE ART OF ECONOMIC TERRORISM: A LOOK AT US STRATEGY
6 Aug 2021 , 12:49 pm .

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The Venezuelan people have openly rejected the blockade imposed by Washington on the country (Photo: Leonardo Fernández Viloria / Reuters)

It is known that over time the United States has perfected the machinery of intervention and extortion against those countries that do not submit to its designs. Economic, financial and commercial attacks, but also in other areas, have become an integral part of his behavior.

A work by the Sures Organization entitled A look at the extortion sanctions regime against Venezuela from Richard Nephew states that "during the last decades, coercive measures of an economic, military and political / diplomatic order have become the main instruments of foreign policy from United States".

According to the investigation of the researcher Daymar Martes, the objective would be "to exert pressure on certain actors, with the purpose of achieving a change in conduct or behavior that allows the achievement of the objectives established by their ruling class."

Tuesday refers that it is "little or nothing" what is said of the people who design and supervise the "correct" application of these formulas, whose objectives are to influence the decisions and actions of the adversary. Those in charge of moving the pieces in this sort of board are professionals of high academic level who monitor "the work of military commanders and officials of the administration on duty, responsible for knowing in depth the profile of the adversary to guide the imposition of the strategy of sanctions ".

To delve a little deeper into this logic, the Sures Organization presents the particular case of Richard Nephew , an American academic who, after occupying important positions in the academic field, especially in the area of ​​international and security affairs, was recently appointed by the Biden-Harris administration as Deputy Special Envoy for Iran.

Start his career in the US government with positions in non-proliferation policy in the State and Energy departments (2003-2011) and be director for Iran in the Security General Staff, "where he was responsible for managing a period of intense expansion of US sanctions against Iran ", is a precedent for Nephew to later become Senior Deputy Coordinator for Sanctions Policy in the Department of Statistics (2013-2015) and leading expert on" sanctions "during the Obama era.

"Nephew is the architect of the economic sanctions applied against Iran between 2011 and 2013. He defines himself as a professional in the design and application of sanctions against the Persian country. He is the author of ' The art of sanctions: a look from the ground ' (2017), a work that examines the weaknesses and strengths of the sanctions scheme applied by the United States to Iran between 1996 and 2015, and where it analyzes the variables to be considered by the sanctioning States when imposing these pressure instruments against other States or actors ", the researcher details.

In the first instance, according to the expert - reports Tuesday - the objective of the "sanctions" is to generate suffering so that "the target of these measures changes their behavior." What is sought is to create an environment of discomfort and discomfort that leads to a social implosion.

And to get to provoke these scenarios "requires prior knowledge of the values ​​and vulnerabilities of the target of the sanctions, their levels of resolution to resist the imposed pain and their ability to adapt." Knowing the culture of a country is to detect its weak points.

CUSTOM "SANCTIONS"

The cultural diversity of each country means that the sanctioning regime cannot be the same for all, since those that are produced in series lead to mediocre results, says the academic, while proposing elements to consider when imposing them. Here we summarize some.

*Know the political system and identify its leaders.
*Bear in mind the type of national economy, its level of insertion in the international financial system and the size of its public and private sector.
Identify business partners.
*Study the cultural values ​​and composition of the nation-state.
*"Transcendental events in the recent history of the country, such as armed conflicts, political upheaval, natural disasters, economic recession or, on the contrary, long periods of peace. This panorama 'can help to draw a picture of the type of pain that may be required to shake the leadership of a country and force it to take another path, '"says Nephew.
*Characterize the population and have knowledge about the demographics of the country to be sanctioned.
*Characterize the territory (its border areas and economic engines) to evaluate the feasibility of the measures to be imposed.

Likewise, the extensive and detailed research shows that the operator of the "sanctions" underscores the need to calibrate their effects and the level of resistance to the pain inflicted. Those indicators would be monitored through statements by punished government officials, possible economic fluctuations, internal political events, and survey data on popular sentiment regarding the government.

Nephew's book reviewed by the Sures Organization details "the comprehensive sanctions strategy developed by the United States to subdue Iran on nuclear matters." He also refers that undermining the economic activities of the Persian country, through the impact on oil exports, diplomatic / commercial isolation and reputational damage between financial institutions, was one of the main objectives of the Americans.

Martes points out that the criminal "sanctions" and the direct aggression by State Department officials reflected unaccountable consequences. The drastic limitation of humanitarian import capacities, including vital medicines and medical equipment, was quite apparent, human rights organizations say.

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'The art of sanctions: a look from the ground', by Richard Nephew, studies how to apply "sanctions" tailored to each country (Photo: Archive)

"The sanctions have violated the right to life, health, food and education of the Iranian people. These are not collateral effects: these violations are the result of pain consciously and progressively inflicted by Washington to achieve its objective," he says.

"SANCTIONS" AGAINST VENEZUELA

Last year, the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University published a Nephew article entitled " Evaluation of the Trump Administration's Approach to Sanctions: Venezuela " in which it pays special attention to our country. There he offers a general balance of the Trump administration's policy of "sanctions" against Venezuela based on the premises that he develops in his book The Art of Sanctions: A Look from the Ground .

There he points out that the coercive measures of the 2017-2020 period were "reasonably well organized" and consistent with the main objective: to force the departure of President Nicolás Maduro as president of the country in favor of former deputy Juan Guaidó.

Delegitimizing the Maduro government at the national and international level, discrediting it through association with organized crime and the projection of a contrast between the way of life of the Chavista administration officials and the common citizen has been one of the strategies applied. against Venezuela.

"The implementation of the last administration's campaign was multidisciplinary, as pointed out by Nephew, who acknowledges that said strategy involved: i) diplomacy, ii) the leverage of sanctions, iii) the attraction of other countries to join 'the the cause 'and iv) public messages.' This enhanced not only the potential effectiveness of the sanctions effort, but also its usefulness as part of that broader effort, '"Sures says.

It exposes that, although Trump's actions were aimed at denting Maduro's image, Barack Obama had already introduced the narrative against "the dictatorship" and the fight against corruption. That is to say, after the first Executive Order of the democrat, what the former president tycoon did was to perfect the method of suffocation.

That the Orders are aimed at the main company in Venezuela (PDVSA) and prevent the country from establishing commercial relations "reveals the fulfillment of one of the central elements established by Nephew so that the sanctions strategy 'becomes effective." Nephew talks about developing a strategy to carefully, methodically and efficiently increase pain in those areas that are vulnerable.

The investigation shows that in recent years the "sanctions" have been in sync with some political and social events. An Executive Order that transferred the power of Venezuelan assets abroad to the fictitious "interim presidency", five days after Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself head of state, is proof of this.

It also states that, in the context of the contradictions due to the clash of interests after the embargo of Venezuelan assets abroad,

"Nephew considered that the United States should seek as many alternatives as possible to unblock the situation. This involved a proposal to 'relieve' the sanctions as long as the Venezuelan government 'collaborated' with Washington's conditions. In this reorientation, to Guaidó was assigned a role.In this context, Washington proposed at the end of March 2020 the formation of a 'democratic transition government' made up of Chavistas and opponents, to call presidential elections within a period of six to twelve months. In exchange for this, the Trump administration would lift the economic sanctions. "

BREAK THE STATE FROM WITHIN

As part of the attempt to fracture the government from its own structure, the ideologue in his article also said that between 2018-2020 Washington tried to find one or two "Maduro supporters to defect from the system."

This figure was embodied by General Manuel Cristopher Figuera, who at that time was the "head of the security body, trusted by the president and had been appointed only months ago. He was also aide-de-camp to President Chávez for 12 years and served as deputy director of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) until October 2018 ". The official had all the elements to represent a structural crisis within Chavismo.

"While the additional sanctions may not carry the same weight as those already employed, Venezuela's sustained isolation and sense of pressure may be the best lever available when combined with a clear and attractive set of options to escape its current situation. "Nephew said in his article outlining a new approach to sanctions against Venezuela in the Joe Biden administration.

And it is that, according to the investigation of Tuesday, everything seems to indicate that the economic attacks under the current government will go through a readjustment of the strategy: "It is expected that both the new head of the White House and Congress will design their own regimes. sanctions or reform existing ones ".

The fact that there is an alleged change in strategy does not mean that "sanctions" cease to be a tool at the service of imperialism to promote regime changes. Although during the Trump era they lost the compass, with Biden they would seek to rebuild the image of the United States through a "humanitarian" mantle, but whose imperial purpose is the same.

To further refine choking methods, they will continue to use the work of experts such as Richard Nephew, who are studying how to apply custom "sanctions".

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 17, 2021 1:00 pm

Image

CITGO Lost Profits under Guaidó’s Administration, When it Should Have Earned More Than a Billion Dollars
August 15, 2021

The direct consequence of the confiscation of the assets of CITGO Petroleum, Inc., that administers the Lemont, Lake Charles and Corpus Christi Refineries, is evident in the report presented by the PDVSA Commissioner regarding PDVSA’s US subsidiary. Under the administration of the board appointed by Juan Guaidó and former US President Donald Trump, profits of CITGO Petroleum fell drastically by approximately 66% in 2019, compared to the $850 million that it earned in 2018, when it was still administered by the Venezuelan state oil company.

The PDVSA 2020 Commissioner Report also states that, according to information disclosed to the public by the current CITGO management, the company has suffered losses of more than $667 million in 2020.

The Commissioner Report details that the CITGO board of directors introduced aggravating elements in its public statements that compromised the board’s administrative responsibility, since they announced that the refineries of Lake Charles and Corpus Christi, on the Gulf Coast, and Lemont, in Chicago, increased their production capacity and raised their utilization factor by 94%, with a yield of 825 thousand barrels per day and an increase in exports.

The report delineates that, considering market prices, these indicators, by themselves, signify that the company should have obtained a profit of more than $1 billion per year, in response to potential income and historical costs processes, which, if they had been operated in a business without over-costs, it would have shown higher yields than those disclosed by its current administration.

“However,” stated the Commissioner Report in conclusion, “the concrete facts are the low profit earned during 2019 and the $667 million losses in 2020, which have already been communicated publicly. Therefore, the need is now imperative to thoroughly audit the registered costs and expenses accounted for, and to determine what may have caused the low profit in 2019 and the appreciable losses of 2020.”



Featured image: CITGO suffered losses of more than $667 million in 2020. Photo: Eric Gay / AP

(Misión Verdad)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/citgo-lost-p ... n-dollars/

*****************************************

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Gerardo Blyde, Dag Nylander (Norway) and Jorge Rodríguez sign the memorandum of understanding at the Venezuelan dialogue table (Photo: Reuters)

ABOUT THE MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING

WHAT WAS SIGNED IN MEXICO? WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE CHAVISMO-OPPOSITION DIALOGUE?

Franco Vielma

14 Aug 2021 , 4:03 pm

Since this Friday, August 13, a new stage of dialogue has begun between the government of Venezuela and at least two opposition sectors in the country, which begins on the right foot, through the signing of a memorandum of understanding between these political sectors.

The event has been sponsored by Mexico as the host country, but has the mediation of the Kingdom of Norway, and also with the accompaniment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Russian Federation.

Jorge Rodríguez leads the delegation of the Venezuelan government and Gerardo Blyde leads the two opposition tendencies present (the group of Juan Guaidó and the group of Henrique Capriles).

This new stage of dialogue comes at a crucial moment for Venezuela, as it is a highly anticipated negotiation process. The reasons are evident and lie in the proven facts of failure of the agenda that was articulated to remove the political power of Venezuela through pressure, coercion, interference and economic and diplomatic blockade.

The consistency in the failure of these strategies progressively sedimented the political consensus around the blockade of the country and the support for the fake government of Juan Guaidó, formulated in the same roadmap to dethrone Chavismo. Faced with a stagnation of political circumstances in Venezuela, the option of pressure has been losing its scope and, progressively, both the European Union (EU) and the United States government itself, the main promoters of the siege, have foreseen a "change of strategy ", having to promote and approve respectively the dialogues between these actors.

The first political clue that the dialogues reveal is their own realization. It has been Chavismo that has been proposing them and now the opposition is in that arena, in fact capitulating essential points such as the "cessation of usurpation" and the "transitional government."

The document refers to the parties as "Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela" and "Unitary Platform of Venezuela", to refer to the opposition tendencies present in Mexico.

It is textually and in an internationally observed and endorsed agreement that there is only one government in Venezuela present in Mexico that is represented in Chavismo and that, therefore, the fabricated "interim government" does not exist. In practical and semiological terms, the fake government signed a declaration that classifies it as non-existent.

THE SIGNED MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING
The intention of the dialogue has been established in a macro objective: "Reach an agreement, through intense, comprehensive, incremental and peaceful negotiation, to establish clear rules of political and social coexistence with absolute respect for the national Constitution," he says. the memorandum of understanding that has been signed.

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Rodríguez and Blyde greet each other after the signing (Photo: Presidency of Venezuela)

According to the document, the negotiation will be developed through points set by the actors and have been described in the document as follows:

1.Political rights for all
2.Electoral guarantees for all
3.Lifting of sanctions
4.Respect for the Constitutional State
5.Political and social coexistence
6.Protection of the national economy
7.Guarantees of implementation and monitoring of the agreements

The first thing to consider about the MOU is that it establishes a roadmap, method, and relevant topics. It is not a final agreement.

It is clear that the revealed discussion sheet exposes the primary objectives expressed by each of the parties and is presented without an order of relevance or execution. Although for some of the parties there could be priorities between some of these points. Indeed, these are now the issues to be debated.

A very relevant aspect of the document determines that the agreements reached must be in strict adherence to the national Constitution, as stated at the end of the objective of the negotiations.


This cannot go unnoticed as a detail of form; it is actually a background detail. Negotiations cannot lead to agreements that undermine the national Constitution, no matter how much the intentions and pressures of any of the parties intend to impose it, and no matter how much they consider that violating the Constitution is a possible way to consecrate any of the seven points indicated. .

It is also very relevant that the national Constitution is the document ratified as a navigation chart and as a normative framework to govern these instances of political crisis that have justified the dialogues.

As the objective of the document refers to, an intense, comprehensive and incremental negotiation indicates that the agreements are going to come together in an extended but still undetermined period of time. In such a framework of progressivity, there are no conditions to suppose that these will be of total and instantaneous results.

On the other hand, the document refers exhaustively: "The negotiation will take place under the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."

However, the memorandum states that "the parties may enter into partial agreements if they consider that the issues they deal with have been sufficiently discussed and if their implementation is urgent, necessary or at least verifiable before the end of the negotiation."

It continues by stating that "the early partial plans will be included in the final agreement and will be irreversible from their issuance, without prejudice to the possibility of adjusting them to the circumstances or improving them, taking into account, among others, the principle of progressivity."


This indicates that the mechanism is intended to be efficient and dynamic in the face of a negotiation that will have initial immovable clearings by each of the parties. The document proposes a method that creates conditions so that, in the worst case scenario, the parties do not leave empty-handed, although the principle that nothing will be agreed even if everything is.

The document makes ratifications that should not be understood as decorative, regarding respect for the legal system of the Venezuelan State, the strengthening of inclusive democracy, respect for human rights, as well as the sanction of their violation and the rejection of forms of political violence against the State and institutions.

In other words, these are the details that account for the fake government's death certificate .

The memorandum is signed by both parties "understanding the need for the sanctions against the Venezuelan State to be lifted, claiming independence, freedom, sovereignty, immunity, territorial integrity and national self-determination as inalienable rights of the nation." This point, which is included as an express condition of Chavismo, establishes a commitment by the parties to recognize the blockade against the country as a harmful act of external interference.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM NOW ON?

As we say, the staggered nature of the path to solid agreements will not be an instantaneous process. For this reason, we could suppose that the really difficult thing will be the negotiation to follow, however, it is likely that the most difficult thing has been to reach Mexico, since this is the result of an evolutionary process between the manufacture of agendas and facts in the realm of reality. . What is difficult about this dialogue has been the formation of the conditions that have allowed it, which have been costly, intricate and prolonged.

Let us also consider that the meeting in Mexico is the result of behind-the-scenes negotiations between Chavismo and the opposition. That these actors have reached this point allows us to assume that there are intentions and limitations recognized by both parties, which will translate into the pursuit of objectives and the granting of concessions. The actors already have a certain clarity of what they are going to achieve and what they are going to give up, that is why they are going to dialogue in front of the whole world.

For the opponents, in their current political circumstances, which are very adverse, there are no conditions to propose an "all or nothing". That is to say, the current situation demands an unprecedented pragmatism from them to try to achieve as much as they can, recognizing from now on limits in their aspirations.

For Chavismo, its main demand, which consists of the dismantling of the blockade, this does not fall on the opponents at the table, who in the case of this item are rather messengers. This falls to the discretion of the United States, who are not formally in Mexico. This is a clear factor of disturbance on the dialogues , since some demands on the table are subject to factors of interest outside of Venezuela and the development of its particular agenda.

An inescapable fact is the maximum point at which the calls that opponents have made to the international community for an "active participation" in the affairs of Venezuela end. That is, in the absence of a US military intervention and in the face of the failure of many other pressure mechanisms against Miraflores, the anti-Chavistas themselves are pushed to Mexico by the EU and by the United States at a turning point in the impeachment agenda, since this failure.


These dialogues have great international attention, great expectations and an effective accompaniment. This places a very significant emphasis on the search for results. It is the Venezuelan opponents who are most obliged to reach agreements, otherwise they would be expected to wear out their external front, a decline in support and an ostracism that has already been taking shape and that to a large extent also pushed them into these dialogues.

The "international community" they trust so much would not be able to heed or give in to their requests in perpetuity. This cycle already accumulates years.

In other words, for the same actors of the so-called "international community" the development of a deep and perpetual loop of political crisis in Venezuela, and having to maneuver in the proceedings of the non-existent government of Guaidó and its parallel institutions, is not sustainable. Nor is the political isolationism of the Bolivarian Republic sustainable, which has shown a fracture in the consensus that has sustained it.

Chavismo, on the other hand, far from all expectations in 2017, when the blockade was formally developed, has managed to sustain itself and even consolidate itself in political power despite this. Although the dismantling of the "sanctions" is an urgent factor for the recovery of the national economy, Chavismo continues to hold onto its center of political gravity. Even on its external front, Chavismo has progressively recovered an international presence.

Assuming that opponents have a genuine intention of overcoming their own political wreck in these dialogues, it is clear that circumstances will require them to overcome many pressures from various origins.

For its part, Chavismo thus faces the long arm of US interference that continues to sustain critical knots of economic and political pressure that continue to place, as US Congressman Jim McGovern said, the situation of the Venezuelan population "as currency of change".

The levels of obligation to a "final result" are clearly differentiated between the actors involved, but there are factors of common interest that are extremely clear and several of them are highly viable.

In both sectors there is a coincidence that there is a political impasse to overcome, and that such a point is very costly in the long run. But everything remains to be seen.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/que- ... posiciones

.Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 21, 2021 2:03 pm

Image
Juan Guaidó and Mike Pence, former vice president of the United States (Photo: Diana Sánchez / AFP)

DECLASSIFIED UK REVEALS

GUAIDÓ STEALS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO STRIP VENEZUELA OF ITS ASSETS
20 Aug 2021 , 9:22 pm .

We already knew in advance, thanks to UK Declassified , that the team of former deputy Juan Guaidó had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Venezuelan State, financial resources kidnapped and stolen by the US government, to pay for the legal procedures in the Venezuelan gold litigation at the Bank of England.

According to a new publication by journalist John McEvoy in The Canary , the spending figures by the Guaidó clan have been much higher:

"According to official documents, Guaidó and his designees have donated more than $ 6.5 million to powerful legal firms as part of a campaign to bleed the Venezuelan state of its foreign assets.

"Almost half of this money was sent to a series of payments to Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, the law firm representing Guaidó in the UK.

"The company seems to be very close to the foreign policy apparatus of the United States and in recent years has represented in a number of Latin American officials right".


McEvoy also points out that the documents reviewed suggest that Guaidó himself obtained half a million dollars from said fund.

Let's examine where this money comes from, which certainly does not originate in the private portfolio of the former Venezuelan deputy of Voluntad Popular, and the connections that he draws with operators of US foreign policy and drug trafficking.

OF FINANCIAL PLUNDER

The government of President Nicolás Maduro had denounced last year that, in April 2020, the White House, then led by tycoon Donald Trump, transferred 342 million dollars that were part of the funds of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) to a New York Federal Reserve account.

At the time, this action was described as "vulgar looting" of Venezuelan resources by the US government abroad, taking advantage of its financial hegemony.

So many millions were directed to the ad hoc board of the BCV that the Guaidó clan had imposed as part of the imaginary government sustained by American power and narrative.

According to official figures published by Guaidó's ad hoc board, at least 6 million 552 thousand 512 dollars have been used for "professional services of lawyers in attention of Assets abroad to be protected and licensing procedures before OFAC."

This only means, as the UK Declassified journalist also affirms , that this anti-Chavista group of American clothing spent millions of dollars stolen from the Venezuelan State in order to finance a greater looting of the resources of the Bolivarian Republic. A kind of money laundering through Washington's sanctioning regulations.

Image
(Photo: The Canary)

The documents also show that there is a supposedly secret "Liberation Fund", to which 100 million dollars of the assets looted from the Venezuelan State were allocated. McEvoy recalls that AP had pointed out that the Guaidó clan lawyers used the fund during 2020 to "pay themselves $ 5,000 a month" while claiming to provide only $ 100 a month to doctors and nurses fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the other hand, the documents suggest that Guaidó has pocketed more than half a million dollars since March 2021. The last delivery to the "Presidency" was delivered on July 19, 2021 and amounted to 407,702 dollars.

Image
(Photo: The Canary)

LOBBYING FOR THEFT

Guaidó not only has a privileged relationship with the US establishment, but also moves in the waters of the lobby in the United States, taking advantage of his connections with the US foreign policy apparatus to maintain a dynamic of looting Venezuelan resources.

For this lobbying work, Eli Whitney Debevoise II, senior partner of Arnold & Porter who is leading the Guaidó case in the United Kingdom , has been hired , who has been included in the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act as a lobbyist for the opposition. Venezuelan.

According to an official document , cited by McEvoy, Debevoise has advised Guaidó "on US economic sanctions, corporate banking law, US litigation and international arbitration."

The document continues:

"In support of the primary registrant [Guaidó], the abbreviated registrant may engage in political activities on behalf of the foreign principal, including contacting United States government officials regarding the preservation of Venezuelan assets in the United States, the establishment of a diplomatic presence and economic and humanitarian assistance ".

This is how we glimpse a plot that once again illustrates the cycle of looting of Venezuelan assets by pro-American anti-Chavismo: Arnold & Porter's legal services were paid for with money seized in the United States "as a result of Arnold's lobbying efforts. & Porter, "says UK Declassified .

DISHONORABLE CONNECTIONS

McEvoy portrays Debevoise II, who "seems well positioned to provide lobbying services in the United States."

This operator is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a very influential American think-tank in the political corridors of Washington, DC Let us remember that Elliot Abrams , the official in charge of policy against Venezuela during the last Trump administration, is part of this institution.

Debevoise II has connections with high-level US officials , linked to US foreign policy for Latin America since the time of Henry Kissinger, the same one who was involved in the Condor Plan that imposed far-right dictatorships and anti-popular repression mechanisms throughout the country. region during the second half of the 20th century.

In addition, his father was a senior official in a CIA-funded legal organization, and "Arnold & Porter's alumni include former CIA attorney general Jeffrey H. Smith," UK Declassified clarifies .

But the connections of the firm that represents the Guaidó clan in the United Kingdom go further. McEvoy points out that Arnold & Porter reportedly launched a "campaign of influence" in support of drug trafficker Juan Antonio "Tony" Hernández , brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, very close to the US establishment and representative of the Central American right.

"Tony" Hernández was sentenced to life imprisonment by a New York court on the drug trafficking charge; said court described Honduras as a "narco-state."

Given all the connections from Guaidó's law firm and the corruption scandals that he and his team have been sprayed with, the United States and United Kingdom governments continue to support a criminal for the sole purpose of looting the resources of a country rich in assets abroad, and which has been vexed by a frankly decaying imperial policy.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/guai ... us-activos

Google Translator

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Venezuela: Revolutionary Venezuelan women collectives at forefront
By staff | August 16, 2021

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All women’s food production collective members proudly display their waresIn the mountains of Monte Carmelo, all women’s food production collective members proudly display their wares. (Fight Back! News/staff)

Paez, Venezuela - Groups of mainly women stand with pride in front of Manuelita Saenz Bolivarian School and Community Center. The new center and school provide classes on music, culture, politics, feminism, sports, etc. Children and adults from all over the neighborhood attend to open their minds and improve their education.

“We are a vanguard. We started workshops on politics, religion, feminism, cooking and much more,” says Adelheidh Salcedo, teacher at the Manuelita Saenz Bolivarian School and Center.

In Venezuela, the communes - community organizations - have the power to choose what projects need to be funded for their communities. Over 47,000 commune councils are registered with the Venezuelan government. They write proposals to the Maduro-led government, then the government provides resources and guidance to support them. These projects are seen all over Venezuela, with communes choosing to build new housing, such as the 93 apartment building built in the community of Antimano, Caracas. Others chose to construct community food gardens, schools, playgrounds, or to meet other needs.

The community members of Paez contacted the government about an abandoned building that they wanted to use to start a new school and community center. The government approved the project, and the group, led by over 75% women, hit the ground running to build the Manuelita Saenz Bolivarian School and Center.

“The Paez community organized everything, with rehabbing the building, finding teachers and planning extensive curriculum. The governor also helped us with supplies, painting and rehabilitation. There is a lot of participation from everyone. Women are critical for our revolution here in Venezuela,” says Karla Mogollon Lucena, Paez community organizer.

In the rural mountains of Monte Carmelo, the community chose to develop a center that includes all women’s food production, workshops and community meetings. The food production collective used local farming to make pasta sauce and sweets. All the ingredients were locally harvested by the local garden and sold to nearby regions. They proudly display their jars that contain a symbol of a woman with flowing hair.

“Not only, do we garden and make our own food, but we hold feminist workshops. We invite women from all over to share their expertise and experiences with us. Some are feminist experts at giving women a voice, others share with us how to do mechanic and fix cars, others tell us ways to improving vegetable gardening. We learn a lot from women from all over Venezuela. Women are most of the ones who lead these workshops. Women are warriors and leaders in the revolution,” said Gaudy Garcia, a leader of the Family and Gender Equity Committee of the Monte Carmelo Commune.

The Systemic Commune Laws, which started under the President Chavez’ government, include 77 articles on how the commune councils are elected, how they make decisions, their popular participation in the economics and production in their communities, their function and duties of serving their community, ideas of possible projects, how to promote justice and equal rights for all genders and members, respect social traditions and cultures, and provide workshops on social justice.

“There is a lot of machismo and sexist culture in Latin America. From our feminist classes, I learned how to stand up for myself and tell my husband that he needs to do half the cooking and cleaning. It shouldn’t all fall on the woman. In most of Latin America, women do all of the cooking and cleaning,” said Maria Rodriguez, a community member of the Family and Gender Equity Committee of the Monte Carmelo Commune.

When starting the Systemic Commune Law, Chavez said, “Commune or nothing.”

These communes have been key to political education, building up the communities, increasing the resources and supporting local production. Communes are seen in every part of the country, from the rural areas, small towns to large cities.

“We make a lot of our own materials for our school and use recycled materials too. We work hard and are passionate about improving our community. We are a rural area, but we make sure the kids are educated well. We also teach about sexism in the language and how often society uses male dominant language, we want to change that. Us women are the political leaders here. We celebrate women because we are feminists,” says Maribel, community leader of Monte Carmelo.

The communes have been an effective way to build local leadership, promote collaboration among workers, and improve the economy. Every commune our staff visited tells us about how their commune is helping lead the revolution to improve the lives of the people and promote the people’s democracy.

“We have won national and international awards for our innovation and achievements,” says Gaudy Garcia.

http://www.fightbacknews.org/2021/8/16/ ... -forefront

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CP of Venezuela, The Deal between Elites has been Consolidated in Mexico
8/19/21 1:50 PM
Venezuela, Communist Party of Venezuela En Es South America Communist and workers' parties
The Deal between Elites has been Consolidated in Mexico

The political representatives of the national bourgeoisie's two most important fractions have come to an agreement in Mexico. This agreement looks to set the bases for the rest of the political negotiations which have been brewing for some time and which have resulted in concrete actions benefiting the enemies of the Venezuelan people.

On the one hand, the Nicolas Maduro government and the traitorous leadership of the United Socialist Party (PSUV) who represent the interests of the powerful new rich which has been born out of state contracts. On the other, the rightwing led by Juan Guaido, Henrique Capriles and the social-democratic parties in representation of the traditional national bourgeoisie and the interests of the US and European transnational monopolies.

It is necessary to remember that the opposition fraction acts in open subordination to the interests of US and European imperialism. As such, its strength to force the talks has come from the harmful impact of the coercive, unilateral and illegal sanctions imposed by the imperialist powers against our country.

Given this class composition of the two political forces that met in Mexico, it is clear that the content of the so-called "peace talks” will revolve around their interests. For this reason, when spokespersons talk of negotiations for stability or for national salvation, they refer to the creation of conditions to guarantee their own stability and their own salvation, to the detriment of the country’s interests and of the working people of the city and the countryside.

The memorandum of understanding signed in Mexico is based on previous economic agreements and looks to provide guarantees to private capital. Both the government and the right-wing opposition agree on the current neoliberal economic agenda imposed by price liberalization, de facto dollarization, privatization of public assets, the return of public companies and agricultural lands to private and landowning capital, fiscal flexibility, openness to private capital in the oil sector, the destruction of wages and the deregulation of labor relations. These policies come in addition to important promises of juicy profits to national and foreign private capital with the Special Economic Zones and the expectations of a reform of the Hydrocarbons Law, with which it is intended to privatize the oil industry and reduce the capacity of the State to capture the oil rent.

That is why the working class, the campesinos and the popular sectors cannot be deceived by the bourgeoisie’s dialogue in Mexico. Our interests and needs are not the important issues on the agenda of the political representatives of the rapacious national and transnational bourgeoisie. Quite the contrary: it is the sacrifice of our conquests and rights, and the placing the weight of the crisis and illegal imperialist sanctions on our shoulders that these two bourgeoisie political forces shake hands on and aspire to sign the "pipe of peace” over today.

Another example of this reality is that, while the dialogue offered rapid results in the liberation of right-wing figures implicated in foreign aggressions against the country, many workers continue to be imprisoned as a result of a growing policy of persecution and criminalization of workers', trade union, social, campesino or womens’ struggles.

But the evidence goes further: while the dialogue generates rapid responses to employers’ demands to pay less taxes and free up prices, workers’ demands for a salary equal to the basic food basket and against illegal dismissals are rejected.

The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) rejects and condemns this farce of a dialogue that has been imposed with its back to the demands and real needs of the working people of the city and the countryside.

We denounce before the Venezuelan people that the objective of the Mexican talks is to consolidate the bourgeois pact for the distribution of the country's wealth between national and foreign capitalists, at the same time imposing an anti-popular economic adjustment package. All this, in addition, while guaranteeing grotesque impunity to those who amassed great fortunes and are protected by corruption, as well as those who promoted illegal foreign sanctions against the country and appropriated the nation’s resources.

Today, more than ever, workers must be united to fight against the offensive that the bourgeois pact of Mexico will impose on our rights and the sovereignty of the country.

Yesterday was the Punto Fijo Pact; today it will be the Pact of Mexico. With new and old actors, but always against the interests of the working people and the Homeland.

The working class, the campesinos and the popular forces must build the Popular Revolutionary Alternative in the face of the new pact between elites.

Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV)

Caracas, August 17, 2021

http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Venez ... in-Mexico/

The PCV is theoretically correct and it does seem that US pressure is slowly but surely forcing the Bolivarian government into every more compromised positions. As the screws continue to tighten ?"we might ask, "What have the people got to lose by going whole-hog socialist when all previous gains are being eroded?"
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Thu Sep 09, 2021 1:17 pm

Image

President Maduro Responds to “Leftists” Criticizing Mexico Talks
September 9, 2021

Dialogue, instead of violence, is the only way that will resolve political differences and promote a new stage of economic, political and social well-being of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, said President Nicolás Maduro this Wednesday, September 8, in support of the Mexico Talks.

He expressed this opinion during a working meeting with the economic cabinet, reiterating the willingness of the Bolivarian Revolution to continue with the dialogues between the government and sectors of the opposition, taking place in Mexico. There have already been two rounds of dialogue, and the talks will resume on September 24.

In this regard, the president also referred to some “leftists” who claim to support the Bolivarian Revolution and yet constantly attack the rapprochement with right-wing groups and the insistence of the democratic institutions that the opposition return to the path of democracy.

“There are people who think they are more revolutionary and left-wing than Lenin and Marx, who present themselves as more more Chavistas than Chávez and then they say: Maduro, why are you sitting down with Guaidó to talk?” commented the president.

Efforts for peace

President Maduro also stated that, because of the achievements of the dialogue in Mexico and the signing of two important partial agreements, there is a reaction from a sector of supporters of former deputy Guaidó that wants to derail the dialogue. The Colombian government, led by Iván Duque, as well as sectors of the United States establishment, are trying to do the same.

In his reflections President Maduro reiterated that “even if we have to swallow 10 more toads,” it is necessary to put political and ideological differences aside, in order to work together for peace, production and prosperity in Venezuela.

“They want to blow up the dialogue,” commented the president. “This is not the first time that they have done it. I have told Dr. Jorge Rodríguez to inform me about the warnings, the concerns; to let me know, in private, with concrete data, about where the threats are coming from.”

President Nicolás Maduro took as an example the economic event that the cabinet was holding on Wednesday, to summon all sectors of the country to production. The main objective is to satisfy social needs and consolidate the common good, he highlighted.



Featured image: President Nicolas Maduro with Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and Minister for Agriculture Castro Soteldo at a working meeting of the economic cabinet. Photo: Prensa Presidencial.

(RedRadioVE) by José Manuel Blanco Díaz

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/president-ma ... ico-talks/

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CP of Mexico, Enough of Maduro's attacks against the democratic rights of the Communist Party of Venezuela and the APR
9/7/21 10:48 AM

Enough of Maduro's attacks against the democratic rights of the Communist Party of Venezuela and the APR

Mexico City, September 6, 2021

During the process to elect the National Assembly in 2020, the Communist Party of Venezuela and the Popular Revolutionary Alternative were subjected to censorship, slander, by President Nicolás Maduro, officials of his government and the PSUV. In an ominous way, the government intervened in the internal life of several of the parties that make up the APR, and thus, for example, the membership of the Patria Para Todos Party was stripped of its electoral registration and the letterhead was handed over to a pro-government group; We also witness the political persecution against the Tupamaro Party and the harsh prison conditions of its leader José Pinto; there is persecution against union leaders of organizations related to the APR and the murder of comrades of the PCV in the peasant and popular movement remains unclear.

Despite all the governmental apparatus against it, the PCV and the APR obtained an important qualitative victory by imposing a voice of the working class, the poor peasants, and the working women of the youth in the National Assembly. The communist deputy Óscar Figuera who loyally expresses not only the position of the PCV, but also the diverse range of organizations that are part of the APR. However, the government and PSUV campaign has continued. In these months, the authoritarian conduct of the President of the National Assembly Jorge Rodríguez to prevent the PCV and the APR from speaking, and now threatening to withdraw the right to speak for a month, could be seen. When the communist deputy intervenes in the National Assembly, the parliamentary television channel suspends the transmission. Maduro's is an anti-communist logic,

Now the attacks on democratic rights and freedoms advance when, once again, by government instruction, the registration of Eduardo Samán's candidacy for mayor of Caracas is prevented, supported by the APR and social and popular sectors and registered on the electoral card of the Communist Party of Venezuela. It is an inadmissible fact that we condemn.

As the Communist Party of Venezuela has shown, the Dialogues of Mexico , sponsored by López Obrador, between the Maduro government and the opposition led by Guaidó are aimed at the configuration of a new Puntofijo Pact that had, among other characteristics, that of be an anti-communist mechanism.

We express our full solidarity to the Communist Party of Venezuela, to the Popular Revolutionary Alternative and we demand respect for the right of the working class to present its candidates for this year's elections,

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Mexico

http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Mexic ... -y-la-APR/

I fear the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela is bending and might break. Not just in negotiating with people who would return Venezuela to the 'dark ages' but even also in the acceptance of money from the IMF which appears to be happening. Because the IMF is ultimately commanded by the US and because despite assurances that no pay back is required, well, those vampires don't do nothing for free, there's a payback somewhere...

We all know there's no half-way, no compromising, with the capitalists, they always anticipate the whole ball of wax. And we know that sometimes you must take a step backwards in order to advance later. Many Marxists have bitten their tongues, allowing that given the complexities of the US 'interests'(oil, Monroe) and lacking intimate local knowledge, that we shouldn't be to quick to criticize. But given ongoing events it is getting dicey and one wonders how much more leverage the US could employ if expropriation of the Venezuelan bourgeois were the plan. I doubt invasion is likely, the US has again shown that while it can destroy it cannot control and while mean vindictiveness is the nation's character trait(witness support for Iraq vs Iran in the 80s) images of body bags on TV without any motivation for the public are much to be avoided by any current regime. So what have they got to lose?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:18 pm

THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF THE MONOMERS CASE
9 Sep 2021 , 5:11 pm .

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Libertador Simón Bolívar Petrochemical Complex located in Barranquilla, Colombia (Photo: AFP)

Since the Guaidó clan operators in Colombia seized the assets of Monómeros Colombo-Venezolanos, a subsidiary of Petroquímica de Venezuela, SA (Pequiven), in May 2019 , much contradiction has emerged from their management.

The irregularities around the Venezuelan company based in Barranquilla can hardly be covered by the so-called ad hoc board , which while in charge of Monómeros avoided answering the questions of the former deputies aligned to the defunct "interim" last July about the billing of goods for sale in an unscrupulous manner and mismanagement of the foundation (for social purposes for nine Colombian departments).

Even a senator from the Democratic Center (Uribista party), Carlos Meisel, accused the ad hoc administration of stealing Monómeros, and published through Twitter a statement from the company's union, SintraMonómeros, with which he denounces an agreement approved by the managers and the board of directors that undermines the interests of the company and violates current legal provisions.

Sintramonómeros assures that after an inquiry into "the scope" of the aforementioned agreement, it was concluded that "the regulatory framework (...) is so general that it allows any interpretation" and establishes, among other questionable points, that Monómeros will receive 40% of profits from joint operations, while the "collaborating company" will get 60%.

The "collaborating company" is Lionstreet Ventures, SA, a firm incorporated in Panama.


"There is no financial statement to support the strength required to sign and execute the agreement," Sintramonómeros explains in the statement. And they detail that the agreement was even objected to by the Manager of Legal Consulting, Ángela Sierra Bustillo.

With shady deals involved, and just at the beginning of the dialogue table installed in Mexico, the government of Iván Duque, through the Superintendency of Companies of Colombia, took the assets of the Pequiven subsidiary, a maneuver that the Bolivarian Government describes of "assault in flagrante delicto".

In a statement published via Twitter , the government of President Nicolás Maduro specifies that it rejects this action and classifies it as an attack on the country, by the administration headed by Iván Duque, "in complicity with the mafias led by Juan Guaidó, who have stolen millions of dollars through kidnapping and illegal appropriation of assets from the Republic. "

The takeover of the assets, which consists of the Libertador Simón Bolívar Petrochemical Complex (Barranquilla) and the Antonio Nariño Petrochemical Complex (Buenaventura), meant the icing on the cake since the governments of Colombia and the United States allowed Juan Guaidó to take control of Monómeros , due to the fact that the company has entered a vertical decline in terms of profits and operation.

In just over three years, there have been five de facto CEOs who failed to reverse the situation. The importance of the company in the Colombian domestic market gave rise to the intervention of Venezuelan petrochemical assets, an illegal action clearly within the framework of International Law and which is still an offensive of force by the Duque government, injuring the interests of the Bolivarian Republic in collusion with the extremist anti-Chavez "in exile."

FIGHT AND KIDNAPPING

President Maduro had proposed bringing a document to the dialogue table in Mexico signed by the company's producers "to demand that Monómeros be returned to its owners: Pequiven and PDVSA" so that "all Monómeros products come to Venezuela to contribute. in the integral economic recovery of the country ".

This subsidiary would enter into the Bolivarian Government's plans to "raise the industrial map and the productive chain", as affirmed by the Venezuelan Prime Minister.

Pequiven acquired 100% of the shares of the company in 2006, from then until 2019 it was managed by a group of Colombian public and private companies.

The company produces the fertilizers required by the Venezuelan agricultural sector and has the capacity to produce and sell 1.3 million tons of organic and inorganic substances per year, in order to be used for national agro-purposes, such as granular complex fertilizers, food for animals with concentrated sources of phosphorus, calcium and sodium sulfur, industrial products such as caustic soda, phosphoric acid, ammonia, cyclohexanone ( caprolactam ), sodium sulfate, among others.

But this is not of interest to Colombia's agricultural elites, made up of financiers, landowners, and local and foreign companies, since the Barranquilla-based company produces more than 50% of the fertilizers used in Colombian agriculture, a market that does not it can be devalued from any point of view.

In fact, 94% of the company's production is destined for the domestic market of Colombia.

The president of the Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce, Manuel Fernández, highlighted that Monómeros represents 88% of the fertilizer sector in the department of Atlántico, supplies 50% of the national market and is the 15th company in size and 17th in sales of that region.
The terrible management of the fake managers and the ad hoc board has caused an earthquake within Colombian politics itself. Not only did Meisel speak out against the administration led by the Guaidó clan, voices of other congressmen such as César Lorduy have also joined , who raised the expropriation of the company by the Colombian State, or perhaps it will be sold to private investors with in order to prevent Venezuela from recovering it.


Likewise, the conservative senator Efraín Cepeda assured that "you can pay the Guaidó government the price of the company but you cannot leave the country", constituting this proposal in a financial crime and against the Bolivarian Republic, being the former deputy of Popular Will an illegitimate interlocutor regarding Venezuelan assets abroad. The political plot around the assets of Monómeros, coveted by the agricultural oligarchy in the neighboring country, is notorious.


The truth is that the Pequiven subsidiary, now kidnapped by the Colombian government, has been progressively destroyed by its current de facto managers, inducing through corruption and poor management the lack of maintenance of its complexes that has not allowed its full neglect in the domestic fertilizer market.

But the most serious thing in the Monómeros administration is yet to be revealed: a few months ago, in an interview made by Últimas Noticias with José Brito, who chairs the Special Commission appointed to investigate the Legislative Power corresponding to the period 2016-2021, he revealed that the The company "is being used as a platform for Colombian criminal groups. I do not want to give more details so as not to cloud the investigation."

However, he did give some clues about illegal businesses around the production of Monómeos: "(...) it would be influencing the increase in urea production to the detriment of other fertilizers," Brito told the Caracas newspaper, and expands :

"Most of this urea overproduction would be being acquired by a holding company that manages, directs and plans his brother Roberto Benzecry Izaguirre [relative of an ad hoc director of the Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation]. They have a strong relationship with the lieutenant of Pablo Escobar Gaviria, who is Fabio Ochoa. And this holding company would be selling urea to the Ochoa cartel and the cartel that runs alias Doble Rueda, said to be the one that ran the camps when Operation Gideon. That is, the real business of Monómeros is to supply urea to the Colombian drug cartels. "

As already mentioned in a previous note , urea, due to its versatility, can have several uses in the production of cocaine. One of them is that it can be used to produce ammonia clandestinely, since it is restricted due to its illicit use in the production of narcotic drugs. Urea is also used for the crystallization process of coca paste, in fact it is one of the classic "precursors" for the manufacture of cocaine.

Seen from the outside, it is not surprising that a criminal triad with different interests is combined against Venezuela. On the one hand, the underlying interests on the part of Colombia and the United States as major producers and consumers of cocaine, and, on the other, the theft of a company of great value from the oil country to maintain the drug business and remove a strong enemy of the road.

For this reason, there is a multiple interest by those who govern Colombia in keeping for themselves, in kidnapping and robbery, the subsidiary company of Pequiven. However, Venezuela is entitled to recover its assets for the benefit of domestic economic recovery, and it is a requirement that will be negotiated in Mexico City.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/la ... -monomeros

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HE WHO SOWS HIS CORN
Carola Chavez

8 Sep 2021 , 4:53 pm .

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Ceela participates in the audits of Venezuelan voting machines (Photo: CNE)

So we have elections oooo again. It is that this evil dictatorship forces the people to walk the electoral path. Of the 70,244 candidates registered for 3,082 elected positions, 67,162 are opponents, and only 3,082 are Chavistas. The normal thing in every fierce dictatorship that is respected.

The period for the registration of candidates was extended by the CNE, I don't know how many times to give the opposition candidates a chance to agree ... Now it goes, it goes, no pushing, Ocariz, no stabbing in the back, we signed a written agreement on a napkin in a bar, which I won according to the same pollster who said in 2012 that Capriles beat Chávez more than enough, the same one that told Ramos Allup in 2018 that 23 states would win, I won, not that I won, tweet, tweet, that I accuse you on Vladimir's show. Accuse me that nobody sees that pod. Rabble, rabble, prfffff!

Tens of thousands of opposition candidates who intend to ask the vote of the people who have batuqueados from delirium to despondency, one, and another, and again, until how much the jug goes to the river ... (Speaking of rivers, they even made Guaire launch to get to Miraflores and overthrow the communist dictatorship that had been taking their children from them for years and had not finished taking them away)

And they would continue to throw themselves every two and a half to the Guaire and to the street, street and more street of no return, as they had been doing until 2019, but this time the opposition leadership went too far and broke something that already cannot be repaired. . It is one thing to call the devil and another is to see him come.

The devil began to breathe his fetid breath close to us in 2015, when the opposition won the majority in the National Assembly and turned the Legislative Branch into an appendage of the State Department, opening wide the doors to the greatest aggression they have launched. the United States and its European dogs against our country.

Those opposition deputies used the vote of their people to attack the country by managing the blockade and looting that they said would only affect the government. The opposition marchers, with their hair still smelling of Guaire waters, celebrated such timely sanctions, "so that the Chavistas know what is good."

As we travel in the same boat, although they deny, the hell that they celebrated for us was coming to them in drops. The sanctions that complicated the lives of the poorest, finally reached the middle class, mostly opposition, who now received the blows that they themselves had invoked. And as one thing leads to another, then they fell round in the psychological campaign of "the diaspora", and their children left, this time yes, they went far to look for what they had taken from us here. Insatiable, the opposition deputies began to beg for the horror of a gringo military invasion to fall on the country, which Maduro did not blame. And, while managing the pain and suffering of all, these criminals did not even try to disguise the festival of corruption that they mounted with Guaidó, their last clay leader.

Demoralized, that opposition that marched every time they were told to march and that voted whenever they were told to vote, was pulverized when Leopoldo, his media Mandela, his modern monarchic Bolívar, his martyr who was not, fled to Spain to live like the king that he thinks he deserves to be, and that Lilian had said that Leo would never leave here.

They delayed the amount of votes they won in 2015 in fair and free elections with coup shortcuts. Opposition voters were diluted. Some are angry because they did not invade us and Maduro is still there and others are fed up with shortcuts and manipulations and Maduro is still there; all adrift, without leadership, without reasons to vote.

There in that field that the same people who today register their candidatures, without charge, paid with hatred, fear, deception, betrayal and mockery ... with a yes, but no, but yes, but of course not and now as if ... there they want reap the votes in November. Whoever sows his corn, let him gather his pylon.

Eight months after stating that to vote in dictatorship is to consolidate it, fractured, with 20 candidates opting for each position, all sticking knives and taking off their dirty rags; spent their votes out of weariness; when they lose, it will be fraud, Maduro's fault. We all already know that story, just as we also know where that story has led the opposition.

We will win!

https://mronline.org/2021/09/11/everything-for-sale/

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 14, 2021 1:08 pm

HUGO CARVAJAL BETWEEN DRUG TRAFFICKING, THE CIA AND THE GUAIDÓ LEGACY
13 Sep 2021 , 12:52 pm .

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Former Venezuelan general Hugo Carvajal, better known as "El Pollo" (Photo: Emilio Naranjo / AP Photo)

The capture of Hugo Carvajal in an apartment in Madrid, the Spanish capital, on September 9 is the end of an investigation led by the United States and carried out by the Spanish police to extradite him to North American soil and be tried for the crime of drug trafficking.

In 2019 Carvajal, also known as "El Pollo", had escaped from his house arrest in Madrid after the Spanish justice approved his extradiction, months after he left Venezuela for Europe and recognized Juan Guaidó as "interim president "of the Bolivarian Republic and promote the invasion of the USAID of Colombian territory to the Venezuelan.

Carvajal's political change was apparently sudden, directed towards the strategy of "regime change" in the United States, while he was being persecuted by the DEA and the justice of that country.

An investigation by La Tabla published in February 2017 reveals the ins and outs of the accusation that is endorsed against the former deputy and former member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), and puts him on the edge of a plot where the CIA and its drug trafficking ratlines in the region.

AN AIRPLANE AND THE CIA

Former prosecutor Preet Bharara before the Southern District Court of New York had charged Carvajal for referring to a shipment of 5.6 tons of cocaine seized at the Ingeniero Alberto Acuña Ongay International Airport in the city of Campeche, Mexico, on 10 April 2006, "inside a DC-9 plane on which there are serious indications that it was owned or controlled by the CIA," says La Tabla .

The Venezuelan relationship comes from the information that the aircraft arrived at the Simón Bolívar International Airport of Maiquetía on April 5, 2006, "according to the testimonies offered by the officials of the air services company" that received it, says the media, " registered by the third court of the Vargas state that was in charge of the investigation in Venezuela. "

This plane has the registration number N900SA , registered in the United States, and according to "data collected by journalist Daniel Hopsicker, who has devoted himself to investigating the links between US intelligence and drug trafficking, it cannot but be from the CIA."

This aircraft, after the seizure, was renamed "Cocaine One" because, according to Hopsicker , "it was painted to be indistinguishable from official US government aircraft of the Department of Homeland Security."

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DC-9 plane, registration N900SA (Photo: File)

The Table expands on the details of the origin of the aircraft:

The expenses were paid by the pilot Carmelo Vásquez Guerra and the billing was made on behalf of the company Royal Sons Inc., domiciled in Clearwater, Florida state, and owner of the aircraft according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, its acronym in English).

Royal Sons is directed by Frederic J. Geffon, and he was the person who hired the Venezuelan pilot Alberto Damiani to bring the aircraft from St. Petersburg to Maiquetía and deliver it to Vásquez Guerra, according to his testimony before the CICPC.

Among the data Hopsicker highlights to link DC9 to the CIA are Brent Kovar's public ties to top Republican Party leaders, including Senator Tom Maley and former Florida state governor Jeb Bush.


Jeb Bush, a member of the family of Texas presidents, oilmen and financiers, had a vertiginous rise to financial and political power in Florida "accompanied by a line of corpses, failed banks and savings and loans institutions accused of money laundering for the CIA " published in 2015 the American investigative journalist Wayne Madsen.

Madsen himself says that Jeb Bush was one of the main financial operators of the Texas Commerce Bank in Caracas in the late 1970s, when his father George HW Bush was the head of the CIA and, unofficially, said entity was "the main CIA financial liaison with the Venezuelan oil industry and the Colombian narcotics cartels, "a scandal that little transpired at the time. The full story can be read here .

The Table continues , around the owners of the DC-9 plane:

Kovar heads a conglomerate of companies called Sky Way Communications Holding, of which Geffon was a fundamental shareholder. Those companies include Sky Way Aircraft, whose name was stamped on the DC9 in imitation of the emblem on United States government aircraft.

In 2005 Kovar filed for the bankruptcy of Sky Way Communications Holding and Geffon went ahead to reach an agreement as an alleged creditor that allowed him to keep three aircraft, including the DC9.

This action was challenged by other creditors, who obtained an order to prevent Geffon from being able to sell or export the aircraft. Despite this, he successfully managed all the documentation so that on April 5, 2006, the plane could fly to Venezuela. And also that his action was not investigated or sanctioned by the authorities.

And, even worse, the fact that his plane had been captured with drugs valued at more than 100 million dollars in the neighboring country has not even been investigated.

But, as if it were not enough, Geffon managed to get the FAA record to settle a transfer of the 'Cocaine One' to an unknown buyer from Venezuela, a fact that was carried out on April 13, 2006, that is, three days after its seizure. in Campeche.


The passage of the DC-9 through Maiquetía gave rise to the United States attacking the government of Hugo Chávez at the time, trying to connect the Venezuelan state with drug trafficking.

In order to clear from the media any connection between US officials, the drug trafficker and this company with shady businesses, "the history of the seizure in Mexico was modified and the existence of an alleged Venezuelan or Mexican buyer identified as Jorge Corrales emerged," says La Table - In the accommodative reconstruction they ended up involving the drug trafficker and businessman Walid Makled in the media. "

"THE CHICKEN" IN SAUCE

Although the anti-Chavez media and the US government have tried to involve Venezuela in a kind of fanciful story that links terrorism, drug trafficking, and dictatorship, the facts dictate that Hugo Carvajal, whether or not directly involved in the accusation before the New York Court, is not so innocent in terms of its connection with elements of the CIA and its drug business.

Hopsicker himself, in his book Barry and the Boys , tells the story of Barry Seal, an American smuggler and drug trafficker linked to the CIA who was assassinated in 1986 after he publicly threatened publication and testimony of the involvement of US institutions and of the federal government in the global narco. "The United States government moves more drugs than Latin American drug traffickers," Hopsicker said, according to his research, on an RT program in 2014 .

A previous investigation by Mission Truth had tracked down all the elements that show that the United States is governed by a narco-state , with the CIA and DEA playing a leading role, especially if we recall the details of the role of US intelligence and security agencies in the Iran-Contra case.


So Carvajal's potential links with the narco and the CIA do not look so far-fetched, in light of the investigations.

The Table reviews an interview that the anti-Chavista journalist Casto Ocando does with Walid Makled, where he assures that he paid "relatives" of "Pollo" to send drug shipments through the Maiquetía airport, when the former Venezuelan general was head of the DGCIM.

"To give you an example, let's talk about General Dalal Burgos, I gave General Dalal Burgos a weekly quota of 200 million Bolívares Fuertes, 100 million were for General Hugo Carvajal and 100 million were for General Dalal Burgos", Makled specified.

In this regard, it is pertinent to point out that Carvajal does not have records that indicate that he owns assets abroad. This was extensively verified in the United States, Spain and Panama.

On the other hand, the former general Haissam Dalal Burgos appears as a director of a company created in 2010 in Panama.


Although the interview is full of ambiguous data on drug trafficking businesses and Venezuelan government figures, with an emphasis on Carvajal, La Tabla was able to confirm not only the previous data but also doubts the US version, the accusation that the ramp Cuatro de Maiquetía (used by the Venezuelan presidential aircraft) was used by the DC-9 aircraft.

On the other hand, the version about the use of ramp four or presidential does not have any support, and on the contrary, the testimonies of the workers of the firm NF04 that serviced the aircraft at the Simón Bolívar international airport refer only to the use from ramp seven. The same is assured by LASER airline technicians who informally made repairs to the DC-9.

Also, the investigative journalism medium was able to confirm through the National Anti-Drug Office (ONA) that it was impossible that the shipment seized in Mexico in 2006 could have been loaded in Venezuela.

On the other hand, there are no elements that guarantee that the drug, which was in suitcases placed on the seats, had been loaded in Caracas. And the ONA authorities determined that the plane was diverted to Colombia, landed in Barranquilla and loaded the 5 and a half tons of cocaine. He also refueled (as he did not have enough) and continued the trip to Mexico.

But there is more:

The investigation indicates, according to a note in the Mexican magazine Proceso, that the plane arrived on April 10 at the Ciudad del Carmen airport, Campeche, at 11:45 a.m., which reflects an approximate flight time of seven hours.

According to the Venezuelan researchers, this is impossible: "The plane does not have a flight range of seven hours." Under this logic, according to the intelligence report, "he had to land somewhere to be able to refuel and get to Mexico. All this motivated because the fuel he loaded in Venezuela was not enough."

There are more reasons: "The flight period from Venezuela to Ciudad del Carmen (Mexico) is three hours, with a difference of four hours remaining. The captain (Miguel Vicente Vázquez Guerra) marked a specific air route in the Flight Plan, which did not establish passing through Colombian territory, and he himself deviated using a route that passes through Colombian airspace. "

The foregoing is corroborated with a recording between the DC-9 pilots and the control tower in Barranquilla, Colombia, in which they request authorization to land, presumably due to another emergency, and they do so at that terminal, according to the Office's report. National Anti-drug of Venezuela, "the shipment of cocaine that arrived in Mexico hidden in more than 100 suitcases was uploaded."


This version makes much more sense, taking into account that Venezuela is not a cocaine-producing territory, with Colombia being the largest in the world.

Faced with the accusation of drug trafficking from the United States, Carvajal had confirmed in February 2017 "my firm decision to move to the United States to testify as long as the arrest warrant issued against me is previously lifted."

Carvajal's reputation collapsed not only with drug trafficking accusations, but also because of his support for the US strategy crystallized in the "Guaidó project," whose legacy has been to attack and rob the Bolivarian Republic from all possible flanks. . Although the anti-Chavismo wants to endorse the Bolivarian Government the crimes that "Pollo" may have committed, it responds to the US agenda and against the Venezuelan State.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/hugo ... ado-guaido

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Thu Sep 16, 2021 1:22 pm

Venezuela Backs UN Report on Bad Effects of Coercive Measures

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Venezuelan border with Colombia | Photo: EFE/ Mario Caicedo

Published 15 September 2021

The coercive measures have flagrantly violated international law and constitute crimes against humanity.

Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia stated that Venezuela values the efforts of the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Alena Douhan, who presented the most recent report on the harmful effects of the unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States on the South American country.

During her participation in the 48th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Douhan stated that the unilateral coercive measures imposed against Venezuela had generated a tremendous negative impact on the population.

In this regard, the Foreign Minister said in the same meeting, via videoconference, that it has been clearly established that these "measures," in the form of collective punishments, applied by the U.S. with the connivance of other States and the European Union (EU), have flagrantly violated international law and constitute crimes against humanity.

"In an accentuated and blatant manner, since 2015, Venezuela has suffered the onslaught of a multidimensional financial, economic and patrimonial attack, with more than 430 coercive measures that have blocked its foreign and private trade, against every legal principle of sovereign immunity," he denounced.

He detailed that due to the illegal sanctions, contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and the most elementary principles of international law, Venezuela has suffered losses exceeding 130 billion dollars.

"The unilateral coercive measures constitute crimes against humanity. That is how we suffered, and that is how we denounced it in February 2020, when we requested an investigation to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity committed by the U.S. against the Venezuelan people," he stressed.

The consequences of these "measures," Chancellor Plasencia added, have translated into a drastic reduction of 99% of Venezuela's income, with a negative impact that has extended to all areas.

In his report, presented by videoconference, Douhan stated that his report clearly and unequivocally demonstrates that the so-called U.S. sanctions are in flagrant violation of international law.

The report demonstrates that different planned sectorial and unilateral measures that have been applied against Venezuela do not correspond to the requirements of international law.

He added that they are also not in accordance with the principle of sovereign equality of States, the immunity of the State's assets, its officials and diplomats.

Douhan considered that the sectoral sanctions concerning oil, gold, and mining, the economic blockade, and the freezing of the Central Bank of Venezuela assets had exacerbated the economic and humanitarian situation.

"This has had a devastating effect on the entire population of Venezuela," said the rapporteur, while expressing that several foreign partners, banks, and companies have been reluctant to do business with Venezuela for fear of sanctions.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ven ... -0024.html

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Venezuela’s International Reserves Increase as IMF Allocates Resources in Response to Mexico Talks – ‘Leftists’ Complain
September 16, 2021

The Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) has published on its website a considerable increase in Venezuela’s international reserves. This is quite unprecedented since the country has been subjected to an economic and financial blockade by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The official BCV website reveals that the reserves are currently at $11.3 billion, representing an increase of $5.1 billion, according to the spreadsheet that tracks the daily movements of the reserves.

As for the origin of the funds, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has allocated for Venezuela about $3.6 billion in the month of August within the framework of Venezuela’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR). Those resources were denied earlier, citing the blockade. In the same spreadsheet on BCV website, one can see similar allocations from December 2009 to December 2014, totaling more than $13.3 billion during the last years of former President Hugo Chávez’s administration.

SDRs are interest-bearing reserve non-repayable assets which derive from members’ quotas, and are provided in dollar, euro, yen, pound, and yuan. Created in 1969, SDRs look to “supplement other reserve assets” and “reduce members’ reliance on more expensive domestic or external debt.”

In March 2020, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) blocked Venezuela’s request for an emergency fund for the COVID-19 pandemic, with the excuse that President Nicolás Maduro “lacked recognition.” “IMF engagement with member countries is predicated on official government recognition by the international community, as reflected in the IMF’s membership. There is no clarity on recognition at this time,” a spokesperson for the international banking organization said at that time, despite the fact that about 150 countries—including the vast majority of UN member states—recognize Maduro’s government.

During the second round of the Mexico Talks held in Mexico City at the beginning of September, the Venezuelan government and the opposition signed two partial agreements. In the joint statement made public at the end of the negotiation it was stated: “The parties agreed to establish mechanisms for restoring and obtaining resources to meet the social needs of the population, with special emphasis on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including those from multilateral organizations that the Republic has the right to access.”

The statement also included the agenda for the upcoming third round of the Mexico Talks, scheduled for the end of September:

“The parties agreed that the first point of discussion in the next round will refer to ‘Respect for the Constitutional Rule of Law.’ In particular, it will discuss the justice system and respect for the institutional framework established in the Constitution.”
“The discussion will also continue regarding the protection of the national economy, and social measures and services for the Venezuelan people, including discussion of Venezuela’s Special Drawing Rights, provided for this purpose by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”
What does this increase in international reserves mean?
International reserves are a country’s financial assets invested abroad by the Central Bank of the country. The greatest attribute of these reserves is liquidity, which on the one hand supports the national currency, and on the other allows payment obligations outside the country to be settled.

In this sense, it is understandable that the more international reserves a country has, the more possibilities it has to circumvent the variables that affect the value of the local currency, hence slowing down inflation.

Armchair communists complaining

In a statement released on Saturday, September 11, the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) “energetically opposed” the “Mexico Pact [which] has taken the first step in returning Venezuela to the financial institutions of the Washington Consensus.”

“It would be innocent to think that these forces [behind the IMF] will not take advantage [of the allocation of assets] to impose conditions… which may include serious consequences in terms of labor rights,” the statement continued, while acknowledging the country’s severe funds crisis.

Many “progressives” in Venezuela have been denouncing what they call an alliance of President Maduro with local and international capital. However, these sectors refuse to do a dialectical analysis of the real context of the complex reality that Venezuela is facing, many analysts opine.

“These so called communists have been playing the game of the extreme right and the United States, trying to sow division among the Chavista ranks,” a political analyst consulted by Orinoco Tribune commented. “However, it is difficult to bring about this division because of the clear communication between real Chavista leadership and the people who can see who are the ones really paying attention to their problems.”

“Criticizing the Mexico Talks—a sovereign approach Maduro administration has achieved, forcing the weakened extreme right anti-Chavisto to seat in a negotiation table after countless defeats, in order to try to rescue State assets seized abroad and the lifting of illegal sanctions—such criticisms are extremely worrying, to say the least,” added the expert, referring to the position of PCV and Popular Revolutionary Alternative (APR) that PCV leads with other “leftist” political parties.

“Having an increase of about 86% in the international reserves,” stressed the analyst, “without signing any letter of understanding with the IMF, because SDRs do not require that, and thus securing resources to stabilize the exchange rate market and inflation, is something that could not be criticized by any means. If one does it, you have to look at them carefully, as well as those opposing any sovereign strategy to recover Venezuelan assets seized abroad or illegal sanctions,” he concluded.



Featured image: Venezuela’s international reserves have increased as IMF finally released SDR resources. Referential image.

(RedRadioVE) by Fransay Riera, with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/venezuelas-i ... -complain/

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CP of Venezuela, The Venezuelan Government Returns to the IMF with the Pact Between Elites in Mexico
9/14/21 2:12 PM

The Venezuelan Government Returns to the IMF with the Pact Between Elites in Mexico


The second round of negotiations between the two opposing groups of the national bourgeoisie took place in Mexico from September 3 to 6. Both sides have announced two initial partial agreements as being a great advance for the interests of the country and the Venezuelan people. One agreement refers to "the defense of the sovereignty of Venezuela over the Essequibo Strip" while the other comes under the title of "an agreement for the social protection of the Venezuelan people”.

The two agreements are a false facade that conceals the true surrender and anti-popular purposes of the elite pact. They use the territorial dispute with Guayana to demonstrate an alleged sovereignty and nationalist attitude, when it is known that one of the parties has been promoting illegal sanctions and foreign interference against Venezuela for years, while the other has been advancing in a shameless policy of concessions of sovereignty, privatizations and handing over of our resources and wealth to transnational monopoly capital through the unconstitutional Anti-blockade Law, Special Economic Zones Law and the declared intentions to reform the Hydrocarbons Law.

But there is something even more serious: with the euphemism of "protection of the national economy and social measures for the Venezuelan people,” both parties have announced their commitment to take steps so that Venezuela can access the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and request other resources from multilateral organizations. In other words, the Mexican pact has taken the first step towards returning Venezuela to the financial institutions of the Washington Consensus.

Several justifiers of the pact are already pointing out that the IMF's SDRs are not loans and therefore will not compromise the sovereignty of the country's economic policy. Certainly, Venezuela has the right to receive these funds as a member country of the IMF. However, the circumstances in which it would occur (mediated by the political action of the pro-imperialist right and in the context of an acute national economic crisis) lead us to incur that it would be naive to think that these forces will not take advantage to impose some conditions.

In addition, once the IMF’s SDRs have been approved, the Mexican pact has agreed to take steps to obtain resources from other multilateral international organizations. Although it is interestingly not specified which organizations, people have indicated that they may include seeking loans from the IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and other organizations in the domination orbit of US and European imperialism.

In Mexico, the submission of Venezuela to a financial "rescue" plan with its respective neoliberal macroeconomic adjustment program governed by objectives set by these multilateral institutions is simmering.

The Nicolás Maduro government is fully aware that going to these institutions implies submitting to their policies. His government deliberately hides this so as to not explicitly point out their surrendering policy. The pro-imperialist right, on the other hand, supports this request to the IMF and other multilateral organizations, because it knows that this rapprochement will result in changes in favor of the interests of the transnational and national capital that it represents. With the Mexican pact, the Maduro government gives in to imperialism.

By approaching these financial organizations, the government seeks to transmit a message of confidence to the US government and to transnational monopoly capital that it desperately seeks to attract within the framework of its policy of economic liberalization.

Submitting to the demands of the IMF or the World Bank will not represent a big shift for the national government. The current economic austerity program that it implements coincides greatly with the neoliberal program of these institutions: price liberations, wage freezing, deregulation of labor, privatizations, fiscal and tax preferences for capital, among others. Paradoxically, this is veiled under the discourse of placing the "welfare of the people at the center" or with the cynical argument of "recovering the economic freedoms of the people."

The submission of Venezuela to these organizations’ loan programs will bring serious consequences for the country and the working people in labor rights, universal access to public services, and the loss of sovereignty and dismantling of state property, as experiences already shows with recent events in Argentina, Ecuador and the concrete results of the historical experience of Venezuela in the late 1980s, with tragic results for our people.

From the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) we express our energetic rejection to any attempt to subject the country and the Venezuelan people, in the current precarious conditions of the economy, to the even more aggressive sacrifices imposed by these financial organizations.

The bourgeois pact of Mexico reveals its true purpose in each and every session: to lay the institutional-legal bases to distribute the wealth of the country between national and foreign private capital, placing the consequences of the deep crisis current on the shoulders of the working people.

The working class and the people in general cannot be fooled by the illusions and deceitful offers of the bourgeois pact of Mexico.

Faced with the pact between elites of the bourgeoisie, the crisis, the neoliberal adjustment and the imperialist aggression, let us continue building the Popular Revolutionary Alternative. It is possible to conquer a way out of the crisis that puts the interests and rights of the working people of the city and the countryside at the center.



Caracas, September 11, 2021



Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela

http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Venez ... in-Mexico/

In the long run the communists are surely correct, if there is a short term advantage to these dangerous liaisons I am incompetent to judge.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:27 pm

BIG PHARMA JOINS THE SOFT WAR AGAINST VENEZUELA

Eder Peña

16 Sep 2021 , 8:16 am .

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Drastic measures and scientific innovation have been key to maintaining control of COVID-19 infections (Photo: Zuma Press)

On August 25, the journal Nature , owned by the publishing mega-network Springer, published a note entitled "Venezuelan health workers who secretly collect COVID statistics" in which it points out that medical personnel are repressed so that they do not give "data reliable ". It is not the first time that an anti-Chavista sector of the Venezuelan scientific community has sought to make soft war propaganda using the platform of the editorial oligopoly that metabolizes world academic activity based on corporate profit .

It is an anemic continuation of the " report " that the Academy of Sciences issued last year predicting a disastrous future in Venezuela regarding the new coronavirus. Curiously, the author of the note published in Nature refers only to falsely accuse Congressman Diosdado Cabello of instigating the raid on the Academy and the arrest of scientists "for releasing models that predicted an increase in coronavirus infections and deaths."

The "released" models failed to predict anything; what happened months after the publication of the aforementioned report was due to other causes , not to the prophesied tragedy. Only another layer of mud remained with which the same academics who put their political militancy and their fidelity to imperial impositions are trying to discredit Venezuela above the probity that should accompany talent.

HOW TO CRITICIZE THE "LACK OF RELIABLE DATA" WITHOUT RELIABLE DATA?

A glance at the aforementioned note signed by Luke Taylor, a British journalist based in Bogotá, shows that much of its content is based on fictitious names and subjective approaches, the absence of data and the lack of rigor of what is shared is its brand.

It is striking that a renowned scientific journal allows an author to resort to such propaganda resources, but if she disrespects herself, who is one to stop it? Is it reliable for the scientific mission to seek the truth based on anonymous?

Referring to the COVID-19 statistics supposedly collected in secret, Taylor's work draws on an anonymous (or mythical) character named Gabriel Romero, who "coordinates a clandestine network that collects this data." Professor María E. Grillet, an ecologist of genetics and populations, says that the figures for Venezuela "are impossible" while Julio Castro, president of the Commission of Health Experts of the fake government of Juan Guaidó, says that the figures are between 5 or 7 times higher than what the government reports. Of course, neither of the two experts uses the term "under-registration" that is so common in the epidemiological area.


Underreporting continues to be one of the "top" discussions in the scientific milieu regarding the global pandemic, it has existed since epidemiology has existed but the speed of the current transmission of the virus is exceeding genomic surveillance systems. These increase the possibilities for tests and diagnoses to accurately report deaths related to the outbreak. Not only in Venezuela, but in many places in the world such as Asia (the most populated continent) and the Pacific, where only two out of every seven deaths are registered with their cause of occurrence.

All (but all) the reasons mentioned by the experts already named for the supposed concealment of figures have to do with the critical situation that hinders access to basic goods and services such as fuel, as well as the difficulties in purchasing inputs such as rapid tests. None of these experts speak of "sanctions" or blocking, and this is no coincidence.

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The article published in 'Nature' on the reliability of the Venezuelan COVID-19 figures does not take into account the limitations on access to goods and services such as fuel caused by the "sanctions" of the United States and the European Union (Photo : File)

Taylor and "Romero" continue in their narrative: a group tries to "control the situation in Venezuela" from outside the borders through a so-called Vector-Borne Diseases Control Network in Venezuela. It is an interim but epidemiological study, which published an investigation called "SARS-CoV-2 in transit: Characterization of the SARS-CoV-2 genomes of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia" in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases (IJID) .

This journal belongs to Elsevier, the world's largest publisher of scientific literature with more than 2,500 journals, including Cell and The Lancet , two of the most powerful in biology or medicine.

That network obtained six variants of SARS-CoV-2 in Venezuelan migrants, data that the government has not published, according to them. You might think that he has not done it so that what Taylor, Romero, Grillet and Castro are doing is not done: speculate and create alarm.

In particular because Taylor tries to make guesses from samples taken from 30 individuals. Without elaborating on the representativeness or not of the data, the article in IJID does not provide certain evidence regarding whether the individuals were infected by community transmission in Colombian territory or by transnational migration. Strange thing to criticize the lack of reliable data without reliable data.

The difficult economic situation caused by the total siege unleashed by the Global North and the oligarchy that represents it in Venezuela does not allow the country to have enough resources and supplies to carry out an adequate genomic surveillance of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, researchers from the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC) and the Institute for Advanced Studies (IDEA) have processed samples from various regions of the country and confirmed the circulation of the Delta variant, especially in areas bordering Colombia.

The national government has reported to the World Health Organization (WHO), and publications are being prepared in specialized magazines, as reported by the response prepared by Venezuelan scientists. In addition, one aspect that Taylor does not say or the answer is that there is no suspicion of Chavismo in scientists who have freely declared to the press about aspects of genomic surveillance.

COLLECTIVE RESPONSE: FIGHTING THE PANDEMIC OR CENSORSHIP?

The defense of sovereignty, as the only wealth that guarantees the life of our people and the existence of the nation, was the reason why some 170 Venezuelan scientists requested a right to reply to reply to the journal Nature , we appeal to the right that it has the world to obtain a more complete and accurate picture of the reality that our country has suffered since 2015, under the cruel imposition of a series of unilateral coercive measures (UCM) by the United States government.

The text details the decisions of the gringo elite against our country, the violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights committed by the entire Global North and confirmed by the UN rapporteur , Alena Douhan, last February. The article signed by Taylor omits that the MCUs have impacted the human rights of the general population, particularly affecting women and children, among other groups, who directly suffer the consequences of the denial of access to supplies and medicines.

It is explained in detail how in Venezuela both constitutional guarantees and the steps to address the pandemic in a comprehensive manner are respected, from epidemiological containment to hospital care.

The collective text refers to Taylor's accusation of the "deliberate effort of the government to downplay the situation of the pandemic", specifying how early measures were taken that helped to face the crisis while in neighboring countries people died in the streets and, in the name of the economy, the working population was left to its own devices.

The measures taken in Venezuela range from the so-called collective social quarantine to the communication strategy, pointing out in particular a fact that the experts participating in Taylor's writing omit: according to the repository of the National Observatory of Science, Technology and Innovation (ONCTI) , between January -2020 / June-2021, 309 documents written by Venezuelans have been identified, of which 71% have been collected in national and international peer-reviewed journals, in six major areas of knowledge and related to covid-19, specifying that the 61% of these texts contribute new knowledge to the scientific community, through discoveries, recommendations and documentary review.

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Academic sectors have responded to the national demand to know the SARS-CoV-2 virus in order to combat it (Photo: Ministry of Science and Technology)

This speaks of national scientific production in times of pandemic, which brings the National System of Science, Technology and Innovation (SNCTI) closer to a demand that has been made for a long time: solving national problems with a global vision and socializing scientific knowledge .

This scientific production, which could concern compatriots who demand reliable data, has not stopped. The figures show that the same scientific community has focused on learning about the virus in order to combat it amidst the difficulties posed by both "sanctions" and a scientific elite that has struggled to establish scientific activities based on a national agenda. and not from foreign interests.

On the other hand, in some northern countries there has been a discussion regarding the "excess deaths" from which journalists have anchored to make approximations and even conjectures about the number of deaths from covid; it is the total mortality above the average for a specific period.

Its media point the accusing finger at African, Asian or Latin American countries for the underreporting, while in the United States the authorities have said from the beginning that an underestimation of mortality was very likely, for the latter there have been no fuss.

Precisely, a well-known British epidemiologist, and collaborator of the Oxford COVID-19 Evidence Service , called Carl Heneghan, said that journalists should be careful when assuming that excess deaths over a period of many months in 2020 are definitely related to covid-19 For example, England and Wales also had an excess increase in deaths during the winter of 2017/2018, which was not related to any pandemic.

Governments, researchers, and journalists have invented multiple mechanisms to attack under-registration, and all of them have been insufficient due to the different circumstances surrounding the diagnosis, care, and monitoring of the disease, as well as the different criteria that the countries have assumed.

It should be said that if in Venezuela there were concealment of figures and not underreporting, which is usual in epidemiological conflicts, there would be no publications such as those recorded or press statements such as those mentioned.

THE MASKS OF NEUTRALITY FALL

Returning to the response from Venezuela, the position of the experts regarding the limited spread of the pandemic in the country is analyzed because on the one hand they affirm that it exists but on the other hand they doubt the figures and suggest an extremely serious situation. It is very similar to pettiness, the refusal to recognize the effect of drastic social measures, accompanied by a spectrum of economic measures that protected citizens. It is very similar to the cynical necrophilic propaganda attacks carried out by Julio Borges, who from abroad has sought to create doubts based on projections that have not been fairly validated in the territory.

As in the case of the "report" of the Academy of Sciences, professors have the right to be suspicious, but they cannot turn their suspicions and conjectures into a source of information, much less using sources that contradict each other, such as UNHCR and the IOM. These multilateral agencies have nurtured their databases with data from governments such as Colombia, which have shown partisan and even economic intentionality on the Venezuelan "humanitarian" issue. This is demonstrated by corruption scandals such as the so-called "Cucutazo", from which the Duque administration has not been able to distinguish itself with the entire global media cartel in its favor.


It still seems incredible that it must be shown that the main cause of the Venezuelan crisis is the multifactorial aggression unleashed by the global corporatocracy and its managing governments, however the collective response cites the sources that prove it.

Perhaps the positive balance of Taylor's publication is the new opportunity to demystify the academic clergy and the editorial network represented by Nature , which in a few days launched two media devices full of inconsistencies and lacking firm data. It is no coincidence that those same sectors have entrenched themselves in their chairs to prevent any hint of transdisciplinarity in addressing the complex problems of our time.

They are the same ones who study the effects of social exclusion such as deaths from diarrhea or floods, but do not dare (or refuse for class interests) to question the structural causes, even when instrumental reason does not admit an effect without a cause.

It is the same technocratic and neoliberal discourse that presents us, to peripheral countries and non-Western cultures, the model of Western scientific and technological development as an inevitable destiny and as a source of future well-being.

Some have already expressed their opinion on the weight that the economic interests of the powerful corporations that run magazines such as Nature have on scientific parameters, their access and participation conditions are tailored to a few. They are the top of a system that is nourished by public funds, not only in infrastructure and funds but also in human talent.

In Venezuela, the training of a scientist is financed almost entirely by the State, the same one that supports almost all scientific institutions and pays between 3 and 5 thousand dollars to publish their discoveries in magazines such as Science , Cell or Nature . Pablo Esteban says in a report on Página / 12 :

"If their work meets market requirements - beyond the quality of their interventions - then they agree to a contract that commits them to assign their rights and prevents them from sharing the content through any other channel."

Big Pharma, as part of that corporatocracy, directs that science that presumes to be neutral, is behind these attacks that are not accidental nor are they divorced from the total pressure that they want to exert against Venezuela to achieve a regime change. It is one more stain for the discredit that an elite is going through that has had to remove all masks to accelerate the global state of exception with which they structure the looting and continued accumulation.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/big- ... -venezuela

Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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