During the second half of the 20th century, Venezuela's relations with
the United States were relatively peaceful, largely because, after the
overthrow of military dictator Pérez Jiménez in 1958, a "democratic"
two-party system of Christian Democrats, allied with the United States,
took power, which increased oil extraction by US companies. To
understand the First World's interest in Venezuela, it is important to
understand that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world,
with underground reserves exceeding 300 billion barrels. However, it
should be noted that this is super-heavy crude oil, which requires
specialized technology to extract and process. Likewise, there are vast
natural gas reserves underground, ranging from 195 to 200.3 trillion
cubic feet (BCP), making Venezuela the eighth largest country in the
world and first in Latin America in proven gas reserves. The United
States' interest in maintaining control of Venezuelan oil is thus
evident, especially considering that until 1999, US oil companies paid
minimal royalties (1% to 5%) to the Venezuelan state. This situation
changed radically when Chávez came to power and overturned the oil
system, imposing royalties of 33% and subsequently changing the
historical rules on ownership of extracted oil, imposing the creation of
mixed companies, with at least 51% held by the Venezuelan state.
The autonomy from the United States that the Chavista project sought was
achieved partly in the political realm but not in the economic one,
since the United States remained the largest purchaser of Venezuelan oil
and, moreover, Venezuela's largest heavy oil refinery (CITGO) is located
on US soil, along with its own distribution network in that country (now
under seizure). Thus, as Venezuela increasingly tightened its relations
with Cuba and the Chávez project became more radical, the crisis in
relations between the two countries due to the increase in oil royalties
was compounded by an ideological motivation: the United States was
reactivating its historic fight against "communism" in Latin America.
From the beginning of Chávez's presidency, the United States increased
its pressure, including by instigating an unsuccessful coup in 2002 and
imposing sanctions on officials and the military in 2008; But it was
with his death in 2013 and Maduro's rise to the presidency that the
United States changed its strategy, imposing economic sanctions and
progressively blocking Venezuela from selling oil and other exports,
such as gold (a large portion of Venezuela's gold reserves, held in the
British central bank, have been seized). In 2014, with Obama as
president, a long series of general and individualized sanctions against
Venezuela began, including the seizure of US bank accounts of Chavista
officials and military personnel, both Democratic and Republican, until
Trump's second presidency, when the sanctions strategy, which
practically pushed Venezuela into the open arms of Russia and China, was
supplemented by the mass expulsion of Venezuelan emigrants to the United
States and, finally, military pressure (it should also be remembered
that since 2018, the European Union has also joined the North American
sanctions policies).
The expulsion of several thousand Venezuelans from the United States,
even those with residency and work permits, to prisons in El Salvador or
their country of origin, on Venezuelan government planes, was legally
validated by the Trump administration, citing a 1798 law that gives the
US president the authority to expel foreigners from nations at war with
the United States. To demonstrate this nonexistent war, Trump has
developed a bizarre theory: the Venezuelan government has emptied its
prisons of criminals and sent them, along with "madmen" from mental
institutions, to the United States to destabilize it. Specifically, this
would involve sending criminals associated with the "Aragua Train" gang,
a Venezuelan-origin, mafia-style group that is expanding in Latin
America. To identify members of this gang, they developed ethnic
criteria and, more importantly, specific tattoos that would identify
them. As a result, anyone with a strange tattoo and Latino physical
characteristics could be arrested and deported. And although some judges
partially blocked the use of that old law, Tramp public opinion in the
US was happy to have a new foreign enemy against whom they were
implicitly declaring war.
And since the domestic explanation would not have been of much use on
the international front to explain the new attack, this time a military
one, on Venezuela, on August 19, 2025, Trump declared that a plan would
be activated to combat drug trafficking that was being sent from
Venezuela to the United States by a supposed "Cartel de los soles," so
called because it was supposedly run by Venezuelan army generals, headed
by Maduro (whose reward was increased by Trump to 50 million dollars for
anyone who helps capture him). And even though many Latin American
countries don't believe this hoax, as is the case with the president of
Colombia, and even though they certainly don't support it politically,
Trump went ahead with his plan: in the days following the announcement,
six warships, including the "Amphibious Rapid Attack Force Iwo Jima,"
with 8,500 marines and sailors, plus about twenty attack helicopters, a
nuclear submarine, and an unspecified number of P-8 Poseidon maritime
patrol planes, arrived in the Caribbean. And it was these ships that,
patrolling the borders of Venezuelan territorial waters, sank four
speedboats, probably Venezuelan or Colombian fishermen, between late
August and early September, bombing them from afar. The attackers
explained that they were drug traffickers from the "Aragua Train" coming
from Venezuela and carrying crates of drugs to the United States.
However, they failed to show either the bodies of the twenty victims or
the crates of drugs. As the New York Times wrote, quoting a US military
official, "Sending this type of contingent to fight the cartels and stop
the speedboats is like showing up with a cannon at a knife fight." And
even among Latin American presidents and within the UN itself, fearing
an escalation of violence, some have explicitly stated that this was a
veritable assassination, outside of any international law. We'll see
what happens in October and we'll report on it.
Francisco López
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
the United States were relatively peaceful, largely because, after the
overthrow of military dictator Pérez Jiménez in 1958, a "democratic"
two-party system of Christian Democrats, allied with the United States,
took power, which increased oil extraction by US companies. To
understand the First World's interest in Venezuela, it is important to
understand that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world,
with underground reserves exceeding 300 billion barrels. However, it
should be noted that this is super-heavy crude oil, which requires
specialized technology to extract and process. Likewise, there are vast
natural gas reserves underground, ranging from 195 to 200.3 trillion
cubic feet (BCP), making Venezuela the eighth largest country in the
world and first in Latin America in proven gas reserves. The United
States' interest in maintaining control of Venezuelan oil is thus
evident, especially considering that until 1999, US oil companies paid
minimal royalties (1% to 5%) to the Venezuelan state. This situation
changed radically when Chávez came to power and overturned the oil
system, imposing royalties of 33% and subsequently changing the
historical rules on ownership of extracted oil, imposing the creation of
mixed companies, with at least 51% held by the Venezuelan state.
The autonomy from the United States that the Chavista project sought was
achieved partly in the political realm but not in the economic one,
since the United States remained the largest purchaser of Venezuelan oil
and, moreover, Venezuela's largest heavy oil refinery (CITGO) is located
on US soil, along with its own distribution network in that country (now
under seizure). Thus, as Venezuela increasingly tightened its relations
with Cuba and the Chávez project became more radical, the crisis in
relations between the two countries due to the increase in oil royalties
was compounded by an ideological motivation: the United States was
reactivating its historic fight against "communism" in Latin America.
From the beginning of Chávez's presidency, the United States increased
its pressure, including by instigating an unsuccessful coup in 2002 and
imposing sanctions on officials and the military in 2008; But it was
with his death in 2013 and Maduro's rise to the presidency that the
United States changed its strategy, imposing economic sanctions and
progressively blocking Venezuela from selling oil and other exports,
such as gold (a large portion of Venezuela's gold reserves, held in the
British central bank, have been seized). In 2014, with Obama as
president, a long series of general and individualized sanctions against
Venezuela began, including the seizure of US bank accounts of Chavista
officials and military personnel, both Democratic and Republican, until
Trump's second presidency, when the sanctions strategy, which
practically pushed Venezuela into the open arms of Russia and China, was
supplemented by the mass expulsion of Venezuelan emigrants to the United
States and, finally, military pressure (it should also be remembered
that since 2018, the European Union has also joined the North American
sanctions policies).
The expulsion of several thousand Venezuelans from the United States,
even those with residency and work permits, to prisons in El Salvador or
their country of origin, on Venezuelan government planes, was legally
validated by the Trump administration, citing a 1798 law that gives the
US president the authority to expel foreigners from nations at war with
the United States. To demonstrate this nonexistent war, Trump has
developed a bizarre theory: the Venezuelan government has emptied its
prisons of criminals and sent them, along with "madmen" from mental
institutions, to the United States to destabilize it. Specifically, this
would involve sending criminals associated with the "Aragua Train" gang,
a Venezuelan-origin, mafia-style group that is expanding in Latin
America. To identify members of this gang, they developed ethnic
criteria and, more importantly, specific tattoos that would identify
them. As a result, anyone with a strange tattoo and Latino physical
characteristics could be arrested and deported. And although some judges
partially blocked the use of that old law, Tramp public opinion in the
US was happy to have a new foreign enemy against whom they were
implicitly declaring war.
And since the domestic explanation would not have been of much use on
the international front to explain the new attack, this time a military
one, on Venezuela, on August 19, 2025, Trump declared that a plan would
be activated to combat drug trafficking that was being sent from
Venezuela to the United States by a supposed "Cartel de los soles," so
called because it was supposedly run by Venezuelan army generals, headed
by Maduro (whose reward was increased by Trump to 50 million dollars for
anyone who helps capture him). And even though many Latin American
countries don't believe this hoax, as is the case with the president of
Colombia, and even though they certainly don't support it politically,
Trump went ahead with his plan: in the days following the announcement,
six warships, including the "Amphibious Rapid Attack Force Iwo Jima,"
with 8,500 marines and sailors, plus about twenty attack helicopters, a
nuclear submarine, and an unspecified number of P-8 Poseidon maritime
patrol planes, arrived in the Caribbean. And it was these ships that,
patrolling the borders of Venezuelan territorial waters, sank four
speedboats, probably Venezuelan or Colombian fishermen, between late
August and early September, bombing them from afar. The attackers
explained that they were drug traffickers from the "Aragua Train" coming
from Venezuela and carrying crates of drugs to the United States.
However, they failed to show either the bodies of the twenty victims or
the crates of drugs. As the New York Times wrote, quoting a US military
official, "Sending this type of contingent to fight the cartels and stop
the speedboats is like showing up with a cannon at a knife fight." And
even among Latin American presidents and within the UN itself, fearing
an escalation of violence, some have explicitly stated that this was a
veritable assassination, outside of any international law. We'll see
what happens in October and we'll report on it.
Francisco López
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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