HANDS OFF VENEZUELA!

Washington’s bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its President, Nicolas Maduro, is the latest in a long series of US attempts at regime change in Latin America.  It is a flagrant violation of the basic principles of self determination and national sovereignty, principles expressed clearly and explicity in the following two articles of the United Nations founding charter: 

Article 2(1) 

“The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.” 

Article 2(4) 

“All Members shall refrain… from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state…” 

The US and the UK are both signatories to this charter as well as being members of the Security Council whose supposed duty it is to uphold it. 

In effect, the removal of Maduro alongside Trump’s assertion that he will run the country as an interim measure is nothing short of a coup d’etat carried out by military force. However, not a single leader of the so-called free world has openly condemned this coup. Even the titular head of the UN, Antonio Gutierrez, who has the power to convene an emergency session of the UN Security Council, has limited himself to a handwringing statement of "alarm”.  

This is regardless of the fact that  Trump has framed the coup using all the bombast, swagger and arrogance reminiscent of 19^th century European imperialism. At least he is clear about where he stands. Consistent with his renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, Latin America is once more being corralled as part of Washington’s backyard. The agenda is one of exercising hegemony over the Western hemisphere and repelling all newcomers, particularly when it comes to China. It is also a statement of intent against any Latin American government which might choose to challenge US prerogatives in the region.  

It is no secret that the first point on US imperialism’s agenda is control over Venezuela’s vast reserves of oil and gas, as well as its precious mineral resources, including its prized gold fields in the Amazon basin. Besides the bonanza this would represent for US big business, it would be one more step towards realising US imperialism’s historic goal of putting an end to the Cuban revolution.

Cuba as next target

As part of ramping up the longest and most severe economic embargo in history, Trump now hopes to end all oil supplies to Cuba. This is already part of his sanctions on Venezuelan oil trade and the seizure of its tankers. It is one of the reasons why Venezuela’s oil exports to Cuban have declined by some 15 per cent in the last year. If Washington was able to gain control of Venezuela’s oil industry, the results for Cuba would be catastrophic.  

According to The Guardian newspaper, the threat to Cuba was made explicit at  the Saturday press conference in Mar-a-Lago,

“The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio – the son of Cuban immigrants and a longstanding critic of the regime in the country – sent a clear warning shot to Díaz-Canel and his allies. “If I lived in Havana, and I was in the government, I’d be concerned – at least a little bit,” Rubio said “ Alexandra Topping, The Guardian, Sunday, 4 January. 

How successful Washington’s coup will be, remains to be seen. The timescale for its completion, its next steps and the politcal profile of any new regime that emerges from it, are far from clear. As one military analyst put it, kidnapping Maduro was the easy part, creating a stable alternative is quite another matter.  

Inside the Venezuelan regime

Given the surgical nature of the coup and the fact that it met with virtually no effective resistance, tends to confirm the view that there were and are significant rifts within the Maduro administration and amongst the top echelons of the military. After all, even Maduro himself had begun to buckle under US pressure, beginning with his attempted rapprochement with the Biden administration between 2021-2023.  

It is also worth remembering how the Venezuelan military removed Chavez from office and were only forced to back down when the Venezuelan masses poured into the streets to demand his return.  Besides providing the necessary intelligence to the coup plotters, some sortg of logistical support would also have been necessary - if nothing else simply in the form of orders to stand down in face of the extraction team. This scenario is also suggested by the extreme confidence shown by Trump in the immediate aftermath of the coup. 

How much stomach, if any, the interim administration, headed by Delcy Rodríguez, has for a fight also remains to be seen. Leaving aside the official declarations of resistance and insistence that Maduro should return as Venezuela’s president, as yet there have been no visible expressions of mass opposition to the coup.  

Prospects for resistance

This could still happen, but the scope of any such resistance, its depth and and its militancy will inevitably be conditioned by the drastic impact of the pro-capitalist policies of the Maduro regime. In addition to producing a mass exodus of millions of workers fleeing the country in search of basic sustenance, it also resulted in a wave of strikes. If you add to that the brutal repression carried out during that period and in the aftermath of the elections, it is highly unlikely that the current administration would want or be able to mount any sustained or effective mass resistance. To do so would require an end to the repression, release of the political prisoners and the formation of a popular armed militia based upon the working class and its organisations. In other words, a complete volte face by the Maduro regime.  

It is early days and much will depend on how Trump seeks to impose his imperial demands. Such is the arrogance of his administration that he has already ruled out the participation of Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado, the darling of the Venezuelan and European bourgeoisie and the real winner of the last election. If Trump remains true to his public swagger, this can only mean one of two things: either more bombing and boots on the ground, or winning over a section of the Venezuelan military high command to do the job for him.  

In either case, the Venezuelan working class faces an enormous challenge.

The defence of Venezuelan sovereignty inevitably means supporting the release of Maduro and building a united front in opposition to all forms of imperialist intervention in the country. However, as the Cuban revolution has demonstrated, this anti-imperialist course can only be carried through to a successful conclusion both independently of the Venezuelan capitalist class and in opposition to them. 

Regardless of this, it is vital that the international labour movement unequivocally and

unconditionally opposes the coup and demands the release of the Maduros from US custody.  

Hands off Venezuela, free Maduro, fight imperialism!

Note 

To fully understand the class nature and descent of the “Bolivarian revolution” in Venezuela, read my  feature article here in Black Dwarf https://www.blakdwarf.org/post/crisis-in-venezuela