I Resist; Therefore, I Exist

Editorial note: Orinoco Tribune does not necessarily agree with all of the author’s arguments; however, this article addresses significant concerns and demands for clarity raised by many Chavistas.

The Venezuelan people are unaware of the extent of the concessions made to the enemy in the minutes following the aggression or of the way in which those concessions vary or expand to the present and the foreseeable future. Given the lack of clarity surrounding the matter, we presume that the aggressor aims to eliminate Venezuelan sovereignty.

We have suffered a devastating blow. If we wish to overcome it, we must acknowledge it, investigate its causes, and address its effects.

We reiterate that according to an October 2025 Hinterlaces poll, 83% of respondents said they would be willing to confront a foreign military invasion, and only 6% said they would not; 89% considered that the real objective of any such intervention would be to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro in order to seize Venezuela’s oil.

Six months later, I have not found a single compatriot who does not reaffirm those responses—but new questions have arisen.

First and foremost, it is necessary to establish clearly, precisely, and in detail what did or did not happen in the early hours of January 3, 2026. Venezuela possessed — and still possesses — modern, effective, and costly weaponry that was not deployed. A total of 47 Venezuelan soldiers and 32 Cuban escorts died bravely repelling the massive aggression with basic weapons. The facts must be established with precision and failures corrected ahead of future and foreseeable confrontations.

The investigation must also reformulate the Strategic and Tactical Doctrine of Security and Defence. It would appear that following a swift skirmish that demonstrated the enemy’s air superiority, an unconditional surrender was decided upon, with weapons, troops, and stockpiles almost intact and without the adversary effectively or durably controlling a single centimetre of Venezuelan national territory. Any new doctrine must categorically exclude the possibility that the abduction of officials or mere coercion result in concessions harmful to sovereignty.

It has always been known that the United States enjoys superiority in conventional weaponry. This is no argument for all the peoples of the earth to surrender unconditionally. Many have decisively defeated it with inferior arms. To resist it, the unconventional warfare tactics that have systematically rendered that superiority useless in almost every asymmetric conflict of the past and present century should be adopted. It is urgent to understand why those tactics were not applied in this case, to formulate doctrines that correct the errors, and to incorporate the entire citizenry into active defence.

The Venezuelan people are unaware of the extent of the concessions made to the enemy in the minutes following the aggression, through what mechanism, or of how those concessions vary or relate to the present and the foreseeable future. Given the lack of clarity on the matter, we presume that the aggressor aspires to an absolutely totalitarian discretionary power that would entail the elimination of Venezuela’s sovereignty and the unconditional plundering of its resources. Laws have been passed that seek to enable the unconstitutional privatization of our hydrocarbon and mining industries in order to drastically reduce the state’s stake in them and to subject related disputes to foreign courts or arbitrators. The aim is to usurp all rights belonging to our people while assuming no duties towards them.

Such a model is unsustainable. The invader’s propaganda claims that a period of torrential investment is opening up, one that will bring floods of foreign currency and prosperity. Elsewhere, we have noted the failure of the January 9, 2026, meeting between the US president and some 17 American oil companies gathered to divide up Venezuela’s energy spoils. Not one of them advanced a single dollar of investment. They considered the country “uninvestable”—due to lack of legal certainty—because extracting the first drop of oil would require a billion-dollar investment and a ten-year timeframe and because part of the wealth is already committed elsewhere.

Indeed, concessions covering more than 45% of oil and gas reserves have been legally granted for periods exceeding 25 years to Chinese companies and subsidiaries of the Russian state oil company Rosneft, which were exploring and extracting hydrocarbons while the US blockade prevented the maintenance of much of the remaining fields. Among the information vacuums that followed the invasion is the current status of those Russian and Chinese operations and of the hydrocarbons and other minerals produced by them. The revenues from such concessions are inalienably Venezuelan and, as such, must enter the public treasury and be distributed through the national budget and administration.

Meanwhile, the enemy maintains its aggressive position inflexibly. Not one of the thousand-plus unilateral coercive measures applied against Venezuela has been revoked. The hostages seized by brute force have not been freed. No acknowledgement has been made of the patent falsity of the pretexts for the invasion: the non-existence of the so-called Cartel de los Soles and the defunct Tren de Aragua, the non-existence of the production and smuggling of illicit substances, and the non-existence of an opposition majority that supposedly won electoral majorities. Not a word has been said about reparations for the damage caused by a quarter century of brutal harassment, more than a decade of blockade, a bombardment carried out by some one hundred and fifty aircraft, or Venezuelan assets illegitimately confiscated abroad. Against our country, the full rigour and coercion of a state of illegitimate war—unauthorised by the US Congress—is maintained.

In a previous text, we noted that the invader, through Executive Order 14,373, seeks to divert all income from Venezuelan hydrocarbons and minerals—historically 80% of the country’s foreign currency earnings—into a US Treasury account or secret private accounts in Qatar under exclusive US discretionary management and solely for the purchase of goods produced in the US.

Alongside the announcement of this unacceptable near-total theft of our revenues comes the resumption of relations with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank—institutions specialized in annulling the sovereignty of countries through the extortion of unpayable public debts. Stripped of income, Venezuela will have to fund its expenditure by accepting usurious loans secured against whatever remains of its assets and resources. The new funds will be applied preferentially to repay, at full face value, debts acquired at token prices by vulture funds.

This total dispossession of public income will have devastating effects. In recent times, the Venezuelan government’s social spending amounted to more than 70% of total expenditure. The brutal reduction in available funds will bring with it a parallel dismantling of all current programs in education, health, housing, social assistance, food, culture, scientific research, agricultural and livestock development, industrialization, defence, and infrastructure—already severely damaged by more than a quarter century of aggression, a decade of blockade and over a thousand unilateral coercive measures designed to strangle and destroy our economy.

With the dismantling of those programs, or the drastic reduction of their staff through the imposition of barely symbolic wages, will come a wave of unemployment that limited private investment will be unable to absorb.

This situation will produce political effects. As they prove progressively incapable of meeting the most vital needs of the population, support for organizations that collaborate with the occupation will erode.

The right-wing opposition, discarded as a political instrument by the invaders due to its lack of popular support, will become progressively more violent in an attempt to prove its worth to the occupiers. Electoral processes administered by the same firms that committed fraud in Honduras, Peru, Ecuador, and other countries will legitimize hollow shams that will wrest power from representative organisations.

Drastic reforms to labour laws will be enacted, reversing or annihilating workers’ rights, with social, economic, and political repercussions equal to those that such measures produced during the last century.

Collaboration with the invaders will bring illegal gains to a tiny elite of influence peddlers and transnational speculators while destroying the credibility of the political and social movements that surrender to it.

Of the Empire, it can be said, as of the Bourbons, that it has forgotten nothing and learned nothing. It will undertake a systematic, relentless, and comprehensive eradication of every movement that has had or has shown any progressive orientation. Once its usefulness is exhausted, the collaborationist sector will be no exception. From the media, educational programs and history itself, the deeds and ideas of the Liberators will be erased—or grotesquely falsified to represent the opposite of their ideals. Following the guidelines of Rudolf Atkon, education will be purely instrumental; in line with those of Laura Berns, free higher education will be eliminated.

We all know what lies behind the deafening silence that oppresses us. Without any consultation of our will, there are those who seek to strip us of sovereignty, independence, natural resources, autonomy, and rights—past, present, and future—in favor of an aggressive power that hates and despises us.

Since the invasion, two battles have been underway: one for the annihilation of our country and another for the full recovery of the sovereignty, resources, independence, autonomy, and self-determination of the Venezuelan people.

You already know which side you must be on.

Self-defence is the most undeniable of human rights, and it falls to us to exercise it as resistance to the best of our ability—in thought, word, and deed. Ideas to comprehend a horrific reality, words to denounce it, and actions to change it. Existing organizations must be oriented towards resistance and victory; where that is not possible, new ones must be created.

There are as many forms of resistance as there are people and talents; each person must assume it within the scope of their own skills, capacities and competencies. Resistance must take more forms than the oppression it combats, and a people has the right to exercise them all before consenting to its servitude or extinction.

I resist; therefore, I exist.

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(Rebelión) by Luis Britto García – Rebelión published this article with the author’s permission under a Creative Commons licence, respecting his freedom to publish it in other outlets. 

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/CB/SL