By PAULO NOGUEIRA BATISTA JR.*
The United States and the puppet Venezuelan opposition are unlikely to overthrow Nicolás Maduro
One thing seems certain to me, reader: it is essential to understand that Venezuela suffers the greed of the United States and other imperial nations. For them, what matters is the freest possible access to Venezuela's immense natural resources, particularly oil and gas. And for this purpose, nothing better, nothing more effective than having puppets and puppets in Caracas, like those of the opposition to Nicolás Maduro.
Am I being repetitive? Perhaps. But, as Nelson Rodrigues said, what is not repeated insistently remains strictly unpublished (a phrase that I have already repeated, in fact, hundreds of times).
It is worth recognizing, of course, that President Nicolás Maduro sometimes makes dubious decisions, to say the least. A striking example: the intention to incorporate more than half of Guyana's territory into Venezuela. This would create confusion in South America and, more broadly, in other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. South America has been a region of peace since the Falklands War in 1982 and needs to remain that way. Since Paraguay's war against the Triple Alliance, from 1864 to 1870, there has not been a conflict involving several countries on our continent.
Wouldn't a war between Venezuela and Guyana open the way for direct American intervention? Isn't that exactly what we want to avoid? Nicolás Maduro attacking Guyana would be equivalent to Saddam Hussein's fateful decision to invade Kuwait in 1990. Brazil could never endorse an advance by Venezuela on another of our neighbors. This doesn't interest Brazil, it doesn't interest anyone. I note, in passing, that Guyana is part of the group of countries that I represented on the IMF executive board. I have a soft spot for her, as I have developed a loving relationship (unprofessional, I admit) with almost all the countries in our group.
However, this does not influence what is written here and does not matter now. What I wanted to say is that, from a distance, in the middle of an information war, it is very difficult to determine who is lying and who is telling the truth about the result of the Venezuelan elections. Does anyone have the credibility to talk about this? Did the opposition prove something? Did the government prove it?
Who has the morality to talk about democracy?
Let's not lose sight of the fact that several countries that have an opinion have no morals whatsoever in interfering in the elections in Venezuela – or in any other country. for that matter. Where are there really reliable elections? In the United States? Frankly! To begin with: does anyone understand the American electoral system? It seems that there were a dozen people there who understood it perfectly and knew how to explain it, but they are all dead or disabled.
The complexity of the American system favors manipulations. There are recurring suspicions and even evidence of rigged elections. And the system still produces absurd absurdities – such as the victory in the presidential election of a candidate with fewer votes than his opponent. This is what happened, for example, in 2016, when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and lost to Donald Trump in the electoral college where delegates vote. Few abroad know that there is no direct election in the United States.
Not to mention the appalling level of political corruption. What they have in the United States, as the Americans themselves say, is the best Congress that money can buy (the best Congress money can buy). A plutocracy, therefore, not a democracy. If the reader will allow me to be commonplace, I will say that the American accusations against Venezuela should give rise to the famous catchphrase: “monkey, look at your ass!”.
I go further and enter here, for a moment, in marshy ground. After all, is democracy really a universal value, as is often stated? Or is it among those general and empty concepts that Nietzsche called “the last smoke of evaporated reality”? The risk of resorting to this notion of universality is that it leads to the idea that there is a single model of democracy – probably the one that countries in the Political West (or Global North) practice or say they practice and want to export to all corners of the planet. .
Aren’t we facing yet another scam from the so-called “international community” – the group made up of the United States, Canada, the European Union, some more European countries, Japan, South Korea, Australia and others? Community that only includes about 15% of the world's population!
Therefore, let Venezuela resolve its political and economic problems without foreign interference! These problems were created, remember, largely by the sanctions applied long ago by the United States and its European satellites. I will mention just one example: the international reserves and liquid assets of the Venezuelan state oil company were frozen and stolen by Americans, British and others. Piracy, there is no other word!
The difficulties of Venezuela's economy also reflect poor management on the part of the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, there is no doubt. But an enormous, perhaps preponderant, weight must be attributed to the numerous and systematic sanctions imposed on Venezuela. In fact, the list of countries that have been or are being sanctioned by the United States and its satellites is long – among many: Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Cuba and, more recently, Russia and China. This is precisely where de-dollarization and plans, still embryonic, to create a BRICS reference currency as an alternative to the dollar come from.
Role of Brazil
What is Brazil's role in this court? Many, on the Bolsonarist right, on the neoliberal right and even on the left, want the Brazilian government to intervene, condemn the Venezuelan elections and distance itself or even break with the “dictator” Nicolás Maduro – an epithet rarely applied to dictators or autocrats from sympathetic countries to the West. An example: Saudi Arabia. Other: Ukraine. Volodymir Zelensky suspended the elections due to the war, which supposedly legitimized the decision. Now, what has Venezuela been facing for many years if not an economic and financial war sponsored by the West?
For Brazil to make assumptions about Venezuela would be a big mistake, in my humble understanding. Venezuela is one of the main Latin American countries, has an extensive border with us and important economic ties. These ties are not greater, remember, because Venezuela was suspended from Mercosur in 2017, during the time of Michel Temer in Brazil and Maurício Macri in Argentina.
See how scandalous the decision was: Temer's coup government had the gall to invoke Mercosur's “democratic clause” (one of the many painful legacies of Fernando Henrique Cardoso's time) to suspend Venezuela's participation in the bloc. . During the Lula government, diplomatic relations were resumed. However, as far as we know, nothing has been done so far to readmit the country into Mercosur. It would be more important to bring Venezuela back than to promote neoliberal and harmful Mercosur agreements, inherited from Jair Bolsonaro's government, such as agreements with the European Union, with the free trade area of the rest of Europe, with South Korea and with Canada.
A final word on a central aspect of the issue. I may be wrong, but as far as anyone can tell, the United States and the puppet Venezuelan opposition are unlikely to overthrow Nicolás Maduro. Will Brazil allow Venezuela to fall into the arms of China and Russia? Pragmatically, isn't it up to Brazil to recognize the continuation of Nicolás Maduro's government?
Controversial opinion, I know. But aren't decisive issues always the subject of controversy?
*Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr. is an economist. He was vice-president of the New Development Bank, established by the BRICS. Author, among other books, of Brazil doesn't fit in anyone's backyard (LeYa)[https://amzn.to/44KpUfp]
Extended version of article published in the journal Capital letter, on August 09, 2024.
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