Chavistas held a massive demonstration in Caracas, August 18, 2024. Photo: X/@venanalysis.
By William Camacaro – Aug 22, 2024
The outcome of the elections in Venezuela has enormous geopolitical importance during a time in which the United States has spent its oil reserves and involved itself in very serious conflicts on a planetary level. In the Middle East, a conflict of enormous dimensions could break out between Iran, Israel, the U.S. and other nations. The United States requires cheap oil to continue its sponsorship of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, to expand NATO’s frontiers in Ukraine, to sustain its policy of aggression against the Russian Federation and to maintain its ongoing confrontation with China. Access to Venezuela’s oil reserves is key to the continuity of perpetual wars for the preservation of U.S. geopolitical hegemony.
All the while the United States is approaching its next presidential election, a dire situation for the self-proclaimed global beacon of democracy. While budgeting billions in taxpayer funds to finance wars abroad in the name of national security, an unpopular Biden Administration struggles to justify its legitimacy as it attempts manage an economy at the brink of crisis. President Biden has withdrawn from the campaign, for which Vice President Kamala Harris has stepped in as the new presidential candidate. At no point was the U.S. electorate consulted on this decision. At the same time, former president and Republican opponent Donald Trump has said that he will not recognize his electoral defeat.
In this ocean of foreign conflicts and neglect at home, the State Department has proclaimed its support of CIA asset and far-right Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo González – who, like Trump, has refused to accept the results of the country’s July 28 presidential elections unless he wins. During his time serving second to command to then-Ambassador to El Salvador Leopoldo Castillo in 1979-1985, González played a direct role in facilitating the U.S.-backed massacre of over 13,000 civilians and other war crimes perpetrated by right-wing death squads under Castillo’s joint execution of the CIA’s Operation Centauro, according to ex-combatants. It’s no surprise that the U.S. has taken such a strong interest in Venezuela’s elections in the midst of its own domestic political crisis and continues to ally with far-right elements in the country. Since the discovery of its oil reserves, Venezuela has remained a strategic center of interest for U.S. geopolitical ambitions in the Western Hemisphere.
In its premeditated refusal to accept its defeat in Venezuela’s presidential elections, the far-right opposition backing González’ candidacy called for mass mobilizations in and outside of Venezuela on August 17. To their dismay, they were overshadowed by national and international mobilizations of historical proportions in support of the Bolivarian Revolution. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans flooded the streets of Caracas and hundreds of cities across the country in defense of Maduro’s election.
The Venezuelan far-right’s call for mobilizations in protest of Maduro’s election reflects their last-ditch efforts to deny the outcomes of Venezuela’s electoral process. The first of such denials was the opposition’s re-affirmation of electoral fraud the night the National Electoral Council (CNE) – an independent fifth branch of government comprised of opposition supporters who themselves have recognized the integrity of the electoral system and legitimacy of the electoral outcome – announced Maduro’s statistically irreversible electoral victory with 80% of the votes counted.
The announcement came following an unprecedented volume of cyber attacks targeting Venezuela’s online system on July 28, including a hacking attempt that delayed the transmission of voting data. According to Minister of Science and Technology, Gabriela Jiménez, at least 126 state-owned websites had suffered cyber attacks, more than 30 million attacks per minute. Most of the cyber attacks on Venezuelan state websites were carried out from bot farms in the United States, Mexico, France and Switzerland. During these attacks, billionaire Elon Musk announced on his X account, “we are coming for you, Venezuela.” At that moment it was discovered that billionaire Jeffrey Bezos was also part of the cyber attack.
This latest attack to Venezuela’s electoral system not only reveals new forms of covert interference in the country’s affairs but also the extent of imperial desperations to end the Bolivarian Revolution. The United States and its transnational corporate allies underestimate the bravery and persistence of the Venezuelan people, who took to the streets by the hundreds of thousands to show the world who voted for Nicolas Maduro and defend Venezuela’s sovereignty.
Cheerfulness, music, peace and life prevailed in Venezuela on August 17. Yesterday it prevailed again, with the Supreme Court’s confirmation of the validity of the July 28 presidential election results announced by the CNE upon the conclusion of its independent investigation. May the Venezuelan people rejoice in sustained peace, prosperity and progress, and perhaps the U.S. will take lessons to interfere in its own crisis at home.
William Camacaro
William Camacaro is a Venezuelan-American National Co-Coordinator in the Alliance for Global Justice. He was a co-founder of the Bolivarian Circle of New York “Alberto Lovera” and Senior Analyst for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). He holds a Master’s Degree of Fine Arts and a Master’s Degree in Latin American Literature from City University of New York. William has published in the Monthly Review, Counterpunch, COHA, the Afro-America Magazine, Ecology, Orinoco Tribune and other venues. He has organized delegations to Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. He has been a long-time activist for social justice in the United States, such as organizing protests against police brutality in NYC, for the independence of Puerto Rico, and for the freedom of political prisoners. William has also been a leader in defense of progressive governments and social movements in Latin America.
