Re: Venezuela
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2019 3:06 pm
FINANCIAL BLOCKADE: CHRONOLOGY OF A STRATEGY TO DESTROY VENEZUELA
14 Feb 2019 , 12:01 pm .
The sanctions against Venezuela are real and palpable mechanisms of destruction of the State, the identity and, with it, of the Venezuelan society. They are part of a war strategy based on the application of various resources and sophisticated tools of financial hegemony against fundamental nodes of national life. Although there are no bombs in Venezuela or US marines are seen landing along the coast, there is plenty of evidence of the resources of permanent aggression, national and international, by corporate and political sectors.
In this context, since 1999 the internal maneuvers of antichavism alternated between low-profile mechanisms such as boycotts or corporate divestment and forceful actions such as the April 2002 coup or the oil strike.
Since 2015, when the then president of the United States, Barack Obama, declared Venezuela as an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security of the United States," the political vanguard and leadership in the anti-chavism of the transnational elite that governs in Washington, they printed more firmly on a string of measures that have determined not only the destruction of the national economy but severely modified the cultural imaginary.
What is understood in its fair dimension with the statements of Jack Lew, former Secretary of the Treasury during the Obama Administration, who believes that the sanctions are more effective and cheaper to bend their enemies than traditional power, because they have influence in the markets American financiers, the central nerve of the globalized economy. The sanctions, thus, are measures of siege to fortresses, as in the medieval era, updated to this new era of intelligent, technological, globalized power, where every nerve that touches power is a function of bending its enemies, according to Lew.
2015: THE UNITED STATES ASSUMES THE CONTROL OF ANTI-CHAVEZ
The financial blockade has been mutating since the attack on the debt, through the isolation of the US financial system, until reaching the application of espionage techniques that pursue Venezuelan transactions, and withhold funds destined to the importation of food and medicines.
Venezuela has since suffered the ravages of falling oil prices because the United States agreed with Saudi Arabia to aggressively increase oil production to lower prices and affect important producing countries, such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran.
In addition, the economy began to deteriorate due to lack of income and a company created in Miami in 2010, called Dollar Today , which artificially devalued the value of the currency in order to initiate an inflationary escalation. Venezuela lost approximately 60% of its national income that year.
The Executive Order (13692) signed by the Obama Administration in March 2015 initiated the financial blockade actions against Venezuela and, with it, the US government made the economic attack on the country a legal matter. Based on the International Economic Powers Emergency Law, activated at the constitutional level, to provide the administration with tools to "defend" the threat.
Under this pretext, the White House placed its financial system on alert, through the Treasury Department, regarding Venezuelan financial operations.
On March 5, 2015, Barack Obama signed an executive order declaring Venezuela as "an unusual and extraordinary threat" to the security of the United States (Photo: White House)
With the excuse of blocking the mobility of unproven personal accounts of, until then, seven Venezuelan officials, this legal instrument has attacked the use of the US financial system to import food and medicine by the Venezuelan State.
In parallel, risk rating agencies, agencies created by the United States to destabilize sovereign countries, published a global map of "risky countries." This to complement the economic-financial fence against the recovery plans of the Venezuelan government, product of the fall in oil prices.
Venezuela was listed by the French- based financial company Coface as the country with the highest risk in Latin America, similar to African countries that are currently in situations of war. The "study" was conducted based on the negative ratings of the three major US rating agencies, Standard and Poor's, Fitch Rating and Moody's, largely responsible for the global financial collapse of 2008.
As of 2015, the country risk variable began to artificially increase to hinder the entry of international financing and, until the first half of 2018, these three major rating agencies have worsened their attacks against Venezuela, omitting the appropriate debt payments in order to push the country towards default and project a situation of insecurity for international investment.
In this context of siege based on social unrest caused by the decline in oil prices, shortages, shortages and the wave of looting, the anti-Chavez won the majority in the National Assembly and set up a higher floor, now since the parliamentary instance, for financial aggressions against Venezuela.
2016: FINANCIAL FENCE AND THE DEFAULT THAT DID NOT ARRIVE
In April 2016, the International Monetary Fund warned of the "economic catastrophe" in Venezuela through a report, generating expectations of collapse, inflation and scarcity to legitimize the actions of economic warfare carried out by Fedecámaras and Consecomercio, the two main private entities from the country.
The National Assembly, in contempt for incorporating three members whose elections were demonstrably fraudulent, approved legal instruments in May and August that declared oil contracts, international investments and the issuance of new indebtedness by the country "void", thereby trying to hinder Let fresh money enter the coffers of the State.
During 2016 and 2017, Venezuelan accounts were closed in the United States by large-scale private banks, such as Citibank and JP Morgan, because Executive Order 13692 empowered the Treasury Department to employ mechanisms to monitor Venezuela's financial transactions in U.S.
Following the excuse of protecting its financial system from "corrupt officials", it was sought to isolate Venezuela from the US financial system and hinder both its imports and the payment of external debt. This was joined by the second largest bank in Germany, Commerzbank.
In July 2016, the EMBI country risk index, created by the JP Morgan bank , placed Venezuela with the highest score in the world (2640 points) above countries at war like Ukraine, even though the Venezuelan state paid 6 thousand million dollars in foreign debt that same year. In September, PDVSA made an offer to exchange 7 thousand 100 million dollars in bonds in order to ease its payments, and the three major US risk rating agencies sought to frighten investors with declaring default if they agreed to the proposal of the state oil company .
In November, JP Morgan issued a false default alert on an alleged default of PDVSA debt of 404 million dollars to generate fear in the financial world and damage the image of the state. US oil company ConocoPhillips also sued PDVSA before a Court in Delaware for its bond swap operation to frighten participants and thereby fail the operation.
In this aggressive environment against the Venezuelan economy, inflation through the Dollar Today effect closed at approximately 800%, according to figures leaked to some international agencies.
2017: EMBARGO, FAILED VIOLENCE AND MORE DESTABILIZATION
In April 2017, the president (illegally elected) of the National Assembly, Julio Borges, demanded that more than 20 international banks cease their economic and financial ties with Venezuela. While in May he declared "null" the purchase of 865 million dollars in PDVSA bonds by the US bank Goldman Sachs.
In his eagerness to coordinate financial and economic sanctions against Venezuela, and using Parliament as an instrument to legitimize the financial blockade, Borges met with the National Security Advisor of the White House at that time, General HR McMaster. In this way, the financial blockade prevented the country from importing food and medicines necessary for its survival.
Supported by the United States and the OAS, Venezuelan anti-Chavez undertook a new escalation of chaos and violence more intense and dangerous than that of 2014, which caused millions of losses to the country and left an unfortunate balance of 130 dead and thousands injured. The United States also sanctioned more than 20 Venezuelan officials, representatives of all public authorities and responsible for maintaining internal order, as a measure to feed the chaos of the guarimbas.
As an extreme measure, President Nicolás Maduro convened in May to elect a National Constituent Assembly (ANC), whose elections were held in July amid targeted violence. More than 8 million Venezuelans attended the election and a traumatic scene of violence was closed from there. The country gained political and social stability in the face of a cycle of aggressions that aimed to remove President Nicolás Maduro, and eliminate the current constitutional framework.
2017 AFTER THE CONSTITUENT ELECTION: INTERFERENCEIST VIRULENCE
Between August and November, the most dynamic days of aggression against Venezuela ran that year. When the guarimbas failed, Europe entered the destabilizing game; In August, the Swiss bank Credit Suisse prohibited its clients from carrying out financial operations with Venezuela, as Julio Borges had requested in April.
For his part and through an executive order, Trump banned the purchase of Venezuelan debt and the repatriation of dividends from Citgo, a subsidiary of PDVSA in the United States, thus closing two key financing channels for a Venezuela devastated by guarimbas.
Next, the United States began executing an undeclared oil embargo . The US private banks, pressured by the Department of the Treasury, refused to issue letters of credit for the purchase of Venezuelan crude, thus affecting the income of the nation.
The PBF Energy company, one of the refiners that made the largest purchases from Venezuela, had to give up its economic ties to the country as a result of the sanctions.
In September, the Treasury Department, through its Financial Crime Control Network (FINCEN), issued an alert called "red flags" that imposes a surveillance and control system on Venezuelan financial transactions to prevent the payment of food and medicines while, as a result of Trump's sanctions issued in August, Citgo began having trouble acquiring crude oil for its refineries and keeping its operations stable.
In this context, some 300 thousand doses of insulin paid by the Venezuelan State did not arrive in the country because Citibank boycotted its purchase. At the same time, the landing of 18 million CLAP boxes to Venezuela was interrupted by the obstacles imposed by the US financial system, given that its authorities closed 52 Venezuelan bank accounts in entities such as Wells Fargo, East and City, because their Headlines, supposedly, were linked to the Venezuelan government.
As Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, he was in charge of pursuing Venezuela's transactions through technical measures (Photo: The Nation)
While this was happening, regional elections were held with more than 11 million votes throughout the process. Chavismo obtained 19 of 23 governorates in an election, convened by the ANC, where political awnings of anti-Chavez such as Democratic Action and Popular Will participated.
Despite this, even though Venezuela had not failed to honor its international commitments in the last three years, in November the European Euroclear company, founded by JP Morgan, kidnapped 1.6 billion dollars that were destined to the purchase of food and medicine .
The Americas Committee of the International Association of Swaps and Derivatives (ISDA), declared Venezuela in default, omitting the payment of debt for 70 billion dollars in the last two years. While JP Morgan again increased Venezuela's country risk to 2,989 points, the highest figure since 2014, when it reached 1,458 points.
The rating agency Standard and Poor's declared Venezuela "selective default" because it could not honor debt commitments, as a result of which the sanctions limited the country's financial transactions in the US payment system. With these maneuvers they tried to open the door to confiscate PDVSA assets.
That same November, the US bond manager Wilmington Trust accused Corpoelec of not canceling debt interest in the order of $ 27 million, just when the country was experiencing a total blockade of the means of payment in the US financial system.
So much so that a shipment of Primaquina, a medicine used to treat malaria, did not enter the country due to the blockade of a Colombian laboratory called BSN Medical and 23 operations in the international financial system were returned: a total of 39 million dollars for food, basic supplies and medications.
In December, another 19 Venezuelan bank accounts abroad were arbitrarily closed by US banks, preventing payments to creditors, while anti-Chavez decides not to participate in the mayors' elections after his defeat in the October regionals. Chavism again devastates with more than 95% of all mayorships.
2018-2019: HUGE AND MULTIFACTORIAL ATTACK
In January 2018, the head of the CIA on duty, and current US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said at a conference at the American Institute of the Company that the financial sanctions against Venezuela had been coordinated by him directly with the President Trump
At the same time, eleven Venezuelan and PDVSA bonds, worth US $ 1,241 million, could not be canceled to their creditors due to the obstacle of the sanctions. The National Assembly (still in contempt) signed an agreement where it criminalized the Venezuelan cryptoactive Petro, reaffirming its interest in keeping the country without funding sources.
In March, the Trump Administration, by executive order, declared the purchase or other operation related to Petro by US companies and citizens illegal. With this maneuver he legalized the agreement of the National Assembly affecting the initial presale and the resources that would enter the country in a context where another 2.5 billion dollars of Venezuela were retained in US banks. This money was largely going to be directed to the payment of international creditors.
In that month, fifteen Venezuelan boxers could not travel to the qualifying event for the 2018 Central American and Caribbean Games (CAC) in Mexico due to the financial sanctions that prevented processing payments for logistics. Once, this stumbling block was drawn, the other drama was that Colombia blocked its airspace so that these boxers made the trip.
The Colombian government blocked 400 thousand kilos of food in CLAP boxes that would enter the country to strengthen this program with which more than 6 million families feed throughout the national territory.
The former Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, announced at a conference the theft of 400 tons of food in CLAP boxes. (Photo: Nariño House)
In April, the United States and Colombia created a financial intelligence group to block the importation of food and medicine by internationalizing financial suffocation. And in May the US oil company ConocoPhillips executed a series of embargoes against PDVSA assets for the claim of an arbitration award for 2 thousand 40 million dollars demanded from the International Chamber of Commerce.
This maneuver not only affected its installed capacity in the international arena, but also limited the country's income from the sale of crude oil, intensifying the damage to the heart of the national economy and seeking to dissolve the social fabric that sustains part of the stability.
This was joined by the Canadian capital mining company Rusoro, filing a lawsuit that sought to unite the assets of Citgo and some of PDVSA as payment for an arbitration prize of 1.2 billion dollars. Canadian contractor SNC-Lavalin also sued PDVSA for more than $ 25 million for alleged debt default, before a New York court.
Thus, the United States reinforced its policy of financial suffocation and kidnapping of Venezuelan resources by limiting both the sale of Venezuelan oil assets on US soil, and the liquidation of accounts receivable, in response to the presidential triumph of Chavismo on May 20.
In turn, the countries of the Lima Group agreed, following Trump's policy, to put the financial intelligence of their respective States to pursue the transactions, accounts and financial operations of Venezuela. The result of all this was the sharp drop in imports, which went from 60 billion dollars annually, between 2011 and 2013, to a total of 12 billion in 2017.
One of the highlights of this phase of aggressions, without a doubt, is the embargo of the PDVSA company in the United States, Citgo, announced by the director of the National Security Council, John Bolton, in line with the imposition of an oil embargo Against the country
This seeks to further damage the ability to obtain financing for Venezuela and, therefore, to pay imports, since the effects of this virtual embargo are immediately "heinous," according to The New York Times , if one considers that in the first week of the Venezuelan oil sales to the United States were reduced by 40%.
Thus, the "humanitarian crisis" scenario that serves the interventionist claims that underpin Juan Guaidó's internship has been set up within the framework of a definitive strategy to assault resources and national dignity.
DECONFIGURING THE COUNTRY IS THE FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTIVE
Historical data show that the financial blockade has set the stage for the intervention and international recognition of a parallel government (Libya case), to create economic incentives for mercenary movements stimulated from the CIA (Yugoslavia case), to weaken the armed force of a government not aligned to Washington and strengthen the firepower of paramilitary groups (Syria case), fracture the high political-military command using the precariousness of the population as a means of political pressure (Cuba case) or the effects of the oil industry and conditions internal to prevent energy development as a political weapon (Iran case).
The financial blockade against Venezuela pursues the massive destruction of the national economy, the dismantling of the social achievements of the Chavez era and the affectation of the poorest population that since 1998 has proven to be the most solid political base of Chavismo and, above all, the undermining of national confidence that the internal potential of the country (its population and strategic resources) can provide the necessary resources to resume stability.
In a nutshell: completely deny the right of a nation to constitute itself in the face of difficulties, and decide its own future beyond the decisions taken in a few offices far from the country.
http://misionverdad.com/entrevistas%20/ ... -venezuela
Google Translator
14 Feb 2019 , 12:01 pm .
The sanctions against Venezuela are real and palpable mechanisms of destruction of the State, the identity and, with it, of the Venezuelan society. They are part of a war strategy based on the application of various resources and sophisticated tools of financial hegemony against fundamental nodes of national life. Although there are no bombs in Venezuela or US marines are seen landing along the coast, there is plenty of evidence of the resources of permanent aggression, national and international, by corporate and political sectors.
In this context, since 1999 the internal maneuvers of antichavism alternated between low-profile mechanisms such as boycotts or corporate divestment and forceful actions such as the April 2002 coup or the oil strike.
Since 2015, when the then president of the United States, Barack Obama, declared Venezuela as an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security of the United States," the political vanguard and leadership in the anti-chavism of the transnational elite that governs in Washington, they printed more firmly on a string of measures that have determined not only the destruction of the national economy but severely modified the cultural imaginary.
What is understood in its fair dimension with the statements of Jack Lew, former Secretary of the Treasury during the Obama Administration, who believes that the sanctions are more effective and cheaper to bend their enemies than traditional power, because they have influence in the markets American financiers, the central nerve of the globalized economy. The sanctions, thus, are measures of siege to fortresses, as in the medieval era, updated to this new era of intelligent, technological, globalized power, where every nerve that touches power is a function of bending its enemies, according to Lew.
2015: THE UNITED STATES ASSUMES THE CONTROL OF ANTI-CHAVEZ
The financial blockade has been mutating since the attack on the debt, through the isolation of the US financial system, until reaching the application of espionage techniques that pursue Venezuelan transactions, and withhold funds destined to the importation of food and medicines.
Venezuela has since suffered the ravages of falling oil prices because the United States agreed with Saudi Arabia to aggressively increase oil production to lower prices and affect important producing countries, such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran.
In addition, the economy began to deteriorate due to lack of income and a company created in Miami in 2010, called Dollar Today , which artificially devalued the value of the currency in order to initiate an inflationary escalation. Venezuela lost approximately 60% of its national income that year.
The Executive Order (13692) signed by the Obama Administration in March 2015 initiated the financial blockade actions against Venezuela and, with it, the US government made the economic attack on the country a legal matter. Based on the International Economic Powers Emergency Law, activated at the constitutional level, to provide the administration with tools to "defend" the threat.
Under this pretext, the White House placed its financial system on alert, through the Treasury Department, regarding Venezuelan financial operations.
On March 5, 2015, Barack Obama signed an executive order declaring Venezuela as "an unusual and extraordinary threat" to the security of the United States (Photo: White House)
With the excuse of blocking the mobility of unproven personal accounts of, until then, seven Venezuelan officials, this legal instrument has attacked the use of the US financial system to import food and medicine by the Venezuelan State.
In parallel, risk rating agencies, agencies created by the United States to destabilize sovereign countries, published a global map of "risky countries." This to complement the economic-financial fence against the recovery plans of the Venezuelan government, product of the fall in oil prices.
Venezuela was listed by the French- based financial company Coface as the country with the highest risk in Latin America, similar to African countries that are currently in situations of war. The "study" was conducted based on the negative ratings of the three major US rating agencies, Standard and Poor's, Fitch Rating and Moody's, largely responsible for the global financial collapse of 2008.
As of 2015, the country risk variable began to artificially increase to hinder the entry of international financing and, until the first half of 2018, these three major rating agencies have worsened their attacks against Venezuela, omitting the appropriate debt payments in order to push the country towards default and project a situation of insecurity for international investment.
In this context of siege based on social unrest caused by the decline in oil prices, shortages, shortages and the wave of looting, the anti-Chavez won the majority in the National Assembly and set up a higher floor, now since the parliamentary instance, for financial aggressions against Venezuela.
2016: FINANCIAL FENCE AND THE DEFAULT THAT DID NOT ARRIVE
In April 2016, the International Monetary Fund warned of the "economic catastrophe" in Venezuela through a report, generating expectations of collapse, inflation and scarcity to legitimize the actions of economic warfare carried out by Fedecámaras and Consecomercio, the two main private entities from the country.
The National Assembly, in contempt for incorporating three members whose elections were demonstrably fraudulent, approved legal instruments in May and August that declared oil contracts, international investments and the issuance of new indebtedness by the country "void", thereby trying to hinder Let fresh money enter the coffers of the State.
During 2016 and 2017, Venezuelan accounts were closed in the United States by large-scale private banks, such as Citibank and JP Morgan, because Executive Order 13692 empowered the Treasury Department to employ mechanisms to monitor Venezuela's financial transactions in U.S.
Following the excuse of protecting its financial system from "corrupt officials", it was sought to isolate Venezuela from the US financial system and hinder both its imports and the payment of external debt. This was joined by the second largest bank in Germany, Commerzbank.
In July 2016, the EMBI country risk index, created by the JP Morgan bank , placed Venezuela with the highest score in the world (2640 points) above countries at war like Ukraine, even though the Venezuelan state paid 6 thousand million dollars in foreign debt that same year. In September, PDVSA made an offer to exchange 7 thousand 100 million dollars in bonds in order to ease its payments, and the three major US risk rating agencies sought to frighten investors with declaring default if they agreed to the proposal of the state oil company .
In November, JP Morgan issued a false default alert on an alleged default of PDVSA debt of 404 million dollars to generate fear in the financial world and damage the image of the state. US oil company ConocoPhillips also sued PDVSA before a Court in Delaware for its bond swap operation to frighten participants and thereby fail the operation.
In this aggressive environment against the Venezuelan economy, inflation through the Dollar Today effect closed at approximately 800%, according to figures leaked to some international agencies.
2017: EMBARGO, FAILED VIOLENCE AND MORE DESTABILIZATION
In April 2017, the president (illegally elected) of the National Assembly, Julio Borges, demanded that more than 20 international banks cease their economic and financial ties with Venezuela. While in May he declared "null" the purchase of 865 million dollars in PDVSA bonds by the US bank Goldman Sachs.
In his eagerness to coordinate financial and economic sanctions against Venezuela, and using Parliament as an instrument to legitimize the financial blockade, Borges met with the National Security Advisor of the White House at that time, General HR McMaster. In this way, the financial blockade prevented the country from importing food and medicines necessary for its survival.
Supported by the United States and the OAS, Venezuelan anti-Chavez undertook a new escalation of chaos and violence more intense and dangerous than that of 2014, which caused millions of losses to the country and left an unfortunate balance of 130 dead and thousands injured. The United States also sanctioned more than 20 Venezuelan officials, representatives of all public authorities and responsible for maintaining internal order, as a measure to feed the chaos of the guarimbas.
As an extreme measure, President Nicolás Maduro convened in May to elect a National Constituent Assembly (ANC), whose elections were held in July amid targeted violence. More than 8 million Venezuelans attended the election and a traumatic scene of violence was closed from there. The country gained political and social stability in the face of a cycle of aggressions that aimed to remove President Nicolás Maduro, and eliminate the current constitutional framework.
2017 AFTER THE CONSTITUENT ELECTION: INTERFERENCEIST VIRULENCE
Between August and November, the most dynamic days of aggression against Venezuela ran that year. When the guarimbas failed, Europe entered the destabilizing game; In August, the Swiss bank Credit Suisse prohibited its clients from carrying out financial operations with Venezuela, as Julio Borges had requested in April.
For his part and through an executive order, Trump banned the purchase of Venezuelan debt and the repatriation of dividends from Citgo, a subsidiary of PDVSA in the United States, thus closing two key financing channels for a Venezuela devastated by guarimbas.
Next, the United States began executing an undeclared oil embargo . The US private banks, pressured by the Department of the Treasury, refused to issue letters of credit for the purchase of Venezuelan crude, thus affecting the income of the nation.
The PBF Energy company, one of the refiners that made the largest purchases from Venezuela, had to give up its economic ties to the country as a result of the sanctions.
In September, the Treasury Department, through its Financial Crime Control Network (FINCEN), issued an alert called "red flags" that imposes a surveillance and control system on Venezuelan financial transactions to prevent the payment of food and medicines while, as a result of Trump's sanctions issued in August, Citgo began having trouble acquiring crude oil for its refineries and keeping its operations stable.
In this context, some 300 thousand doses of insulin paid by the Venezuelan State did not arrive in the country because Citibank boycotted its purchase. At the same time, the landing of 18 million CLAP boxes to Venezuela was interrupted by the obstacles imposed by the US financial system, given that its authorities closed 52 Venezuelan bank accounts in entities such as Wells Fargo, East and City, because their Headlines, supposedly, were linked to the Venezuelan government.
As Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, he was in charge of pursuing Venezuela's transactions through technical measures (Photo: The Nation)
While this was happening, regional elections were held with more than 11 million votes throughout the process. Chavismo obtained 19 of 23 governorates in an election, convened by the ANC, where political awnings of anti-Chavez such as Democratic Action and Popular Will participated.
Despite this, even though Venezuela had not failed to honor its international commitments in the last three years, in November the European Euroclear company, founded by JP Morgan, kidnapped 1.6 billion dollars that were destined to the purchase of food and medicine .
The Americas Committee of the International Association of Swaps and Derivatives (ISDA), declared Venezuela in default, omitting the payment of debt for 70 billion dollars in the last two years. While JP Morgan again increased Venezuela's country risk to 2,989 points, the highest figure since 2014, when it reached 1,458 points.
The rating agency Standard and Poor's declared Venezuela "selective default" because it could not honor debt commitments, as a result of which the sanctions limited the country's financial transactions in the US payment system. With these maneuvers they tried to open the door to confiscate PDVSA assets.
That same November, the US bond manager Wilmington Trust accused Corpoelec of not canceling debt interest in the order of $ 27 million, just when the country was experiencing a total blockade of the means of payment in the US financial system.
So much so that a shipment of Primaquina, a medicine used to treat malaria, did not enter the country due to the blockade of a Colombian laboratory called BSN Medical and 23 operations in the international financial system were returned: a total of 39 million dollars for food, basic supplies and medications.
In December, another 19 Venezuelan bank accounts abroad were arbitrarily closed by US banks, preventing payments to creditors, while anti-Chavez decides not to participate in the mayors' elections after his defeat in the October regionals. Chavism again devastates with more than 95% of all mayorships.
2018-2019: HUGE AND MULTIFACTORIAL ATTACK
In January 2018, the head of the CIA on duty, and current US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said at a conference at the American Institute of the Company that the financial sanctions against Venezuela had been coordinated by him directly with the President Trump
At the same time, eleven Venezuelan and PDVSA bonds, worth US $ 1,241 million, could not be canceled to their creditors due to the obstacle of the sanctions. The National Assembly (still in contempt) signed an agreement where it criminalized the Venezuelan cryptoactive Petro, reaffirming its interest in keeping the country without funding sources.
In March, the Trump Administration, by executive order, declared the purchase or other operation related to Petro by US companies and citizens illegal. With this maneuver he legalized the agreement of the National Assembly affecting the initial presale and the resources that would enter the country in a context where another 2.5 billion dollars of Venezuela were retained in US banks. This money was largely going to be directed to the payment of international creditors.
In that month, fifteen Venezuelan boxers could not travel to the qualifying event for the 2018 Central American and Caribbean Games (CAC) in Mexico due to the financial sanctions that prevented processing payments for logistics. Once, this stumbling block was drawn, the other drama was that Colombia blocked its airspace so that these boxers made the trip.
The Colombian government blocked 400 thousand kilos of food in CLAP boxes that would enter the country to strengthen this program with which more than 6 million families feed throughout the national territory.
The former Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, announced at a conference the theft of 400 tons of food in CLAP boxes. (Photo: Nariño House)
In April, the United States and Colombia created a financial intelligence group to block the importation of food and medicine by internationalizing financial suffocation. And in May the US oil company ConocoPhillips executed a series of embargoes against PDVSA assets for the claim of an arbitration award for 2 thousand 40 million dollars demanded from the International Chamber of Commerce.
This maneuver not only affected its installed capacity in the international arena, but also limited the country's income from the sale of crude oil, intensifying the damage to the heart of the national economy and seeking to dissolve the social fabric that sustains part of the stability.
This was joined by the Canadian capital mining company Rusoro, filing a lawsuit that sought to unite the assets of Citgo and some of PDVSA as payment for an arbitration prize of 1.2 billion dollars. Canadian contractor SNC-Lavalin also sued PDVSA for more than $ 25 million for alleged debt default, before a New York court.
Thus, the United States reinforced its policy of financial suffocation and kidnapping of Venezuelan resources by limiting both the sale of Venezuelan oil assets on US soil, and the liquidation of accounts receivable, in response to the presidential triumph of Chavismo on May 20.
In turn, the countries of the Lima Group agreed, following Trump's policy, to put the financial intelligence of their respective States to pursue the transactions, accounts and financial operations of Venezuela. The result of all this was the sharp drop in imports, which went from 60 billion dollars annually, between 2011 and 2013, to a total of 12 billion in 2017.
One of the highlights of this phase of aggressions, without a doubt, is the embargo of the PDVSA company in the United States, Citgo, announced by the director of the National Security Council, John Bolton, in line with the imposition of an oil embargo Against the country
This seeks to further damage the ability to obtain financing for Venezuela and, therefore, to pay imports, since the effects of this virtual embargo are immediately "heinous," according to The New York Times , if one considers that in the first week of the Venezuelan oil sales to the United States were reduced by 40%.
Thus, the "humanitarian crisis" scenario that serves the interventionist claims that underpin Juan Guaidó's internship has been set up within the framework of a definitive strategy to assault resources and national dignity.
DECONFIGURING THE COUNTRY IS THE FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTIVE
Historical data show that the financial blockade has set the stage for the intervention and international recognition of a parallel government (Libya case), to create economic incentives for mercenary movements stimulated from the CIA (Yugoslavia case), to weaken the armed force of a government not aligned to Washington and strengthen the firepower of paramilitary groups (Syria case), fracture the high political-military command using the precariousness of the population as a means of political pressure (Cuba case) or the effects of the oil industry and conditions internal to prevent energy development as a political weapon (Iran case).
The financial blockade against Venezuela pursues the massive destruction of the national economy, the dismantling of the social achievements of the Chavez era and the affectation of the poorest population that since 1998 has proven to be the most solid political base of Chavismo and, above all, the undermining of national confidence that the internal potential of the country (its population and strategic resources) can provide the necessary resources to resume stability.
In a nutshell: completely deny the right of a nation to constitute itself in the face of difficulties, and decide its own future beyond the decisions taken in a few offices far from the country.
http://misionverdad.com/entrevistas%20/ ... -venezuela
Google Translator