In terms of Venezuelan internal politics, the unusual paradox of the debate over Venezuelan sovereignty between Chavismo and the opposition has been going on for years.
By Franco Vierma
This debate is paradoxical because there is not really a discussion of two country models, in fact, there is a discussion about a country model and a colony model. And the positions are clearly differentiated. Chavismo represents a vision of the country and since 1999 it has unleashed a series of siege acts from Washington to Caracas after Venezuela left the US orbit.
In contrast, Venezuelan antichavismo, which functions as a franchise of the US government, has preferred to ignore the historical relations of subordination it had with the United States.
They also ignore and dismiss their own gendarmerie position of US interests. Instead, they have proposed a very weak argument that refers to the “loss of sovereignty” of the nation against countries such as Cuba, Iran, China and Russia.
This debate and its false dilemmas transcended Venezuelan internal politics and are now part of a discursive line. Washington aims at the head with serious threats of military intervention to displace the government and, as part of the reasons that “justify” it, is the supposed extension of Russia’s borders.
Beyond Russia, there are the dangers of the “expansion” of China, the “hegemony” of the Cuban political model and Iranian “terrorism” that “uses” the country as a beachhead. All represent narrative strategies that are now components of the siege and that are backed by the alleged “loss” of Venezuelan sovereignty.
THERE IS NO COLONIALISM SINCE THE MULTINATIONAL DIVERGENCE
There is no thesis of political science, nor are there historiographic elements recorded since the advent of nation-states, which indicate that it is possible for a single country to be a colony of several countries simultaneously. That antichavista argument, now of the White House, is absurd and very weak from that perspective.
There could be countries colonized and submitted to a structured block of other powers, as any African nation would be today under the shadow of the European Union. But there is not a single case of a country that is recolonized by several others, which are also dissimilar in their political model, in geographic distances and in their geopolitical orientations. Such a question is against nature, absurd and incongruous.
The core common denominator between the nation and these four countries is its counter-hegemonic position against the United States and old Europe, but this is not a factor indicative of relations of subordination. To begin with, because tutelage is open, it works under discretionary judgments and concur according to a single political directionality.
THE ABSURDITY OF THE “CUBAN DOMINATION”
There are no cases recorded in modern political historiography that account for a country that has been subdued, dominated and recolonized by a smaller, less populated country with fewer resources, fewer arms and less influence in the field of foreign relations. .
The dignity of the Cuban people and the political cohesion of its leadership have been and are exceptional. But Cuba is surpassed by Venezuela in all those fields and elementary relations of weight, strength and proportionality in the field of international relations (for different reasons).
In the indication of the “Cuban domination” there is also a huge weak point: in theory, China, which is the second economy in the world and Russia, which is the second armed power in the world, shares its control with Cuba. Why would two big emerging powers do that, if that were the case? There are no references that can explain it.
The relationship of Cuban “domination” becomes more confusing when we look at the inside of the relations between both countries. There is an approximate of 20 thousand members of the Cuban health services, paying attention in different spaces where many doctors and Venezuelan personnel do not reach, i.e., barrios and villages. They serve the Venezuelan population in the most difficult conditions.
This Cuban personnel live next to the common Venezuelan people in identical conditions, without privileges and with the adversities that the financial and commercial blockade of Washington has imposed on them. Having said that, the way in which the members of the “occupying power” live in the country is quite particular, without a doubt.
“THERE COME THE RUSSIANS”
The collaboration between Venezuela and the Russian Federation in various matters, especially the military, is the focus of signals from Washington and elementary input of the mantra of the Venezuelan “loss of sovereignty” against Russia.
At the beginning of the first government of Comandante Chávez, Washington decided to apply an undeclared arms embargo against Venezuela, vetoing the purchase of essential spare parts for US-made F-16 fighter jets. Actually, the authorship of relations with Russia started at a Pentagon table.
Recently, the United States Professional Intelligence Veterans for Sanity (VIPS) group, all in a situation of retirement, warned in a memorandum to the government of US President Donald Trump on several security matters. But in it they blur the colonial argument of Russia on Venezuela.
“As former intelligence officials and national security professionals, with many decades of experience, we urge you not to go so far as to adopt catastrophic military action in response to civil disturbance in Venezuela or Russian activities in the Western Hemisphere. Recent arrival of two transport planes and the persistent political support to the Venezuelan government, the Russians are far from crossing any red line arising from the Monroe Doctrine of 1823”, they said in the document.
That is to say, for the experts of the American intelligence and designers of the American expansion strategy, it remains within the area of historical influence of the United States. The Russians do not have a vassal country in the Caribbean and what there is with Russia is a military collaboration and not the consolidation of a tropical Eurasian franchise.
The wear and tear of the Cold War discourse reaches a high level when it comes to equating the military relationship between Caracas and Moscow with a new “Cuban missile crisis” to ignite all the anti-virus alarms in US politics and other areas of influence. All under a semiotic that you have to invade the country for being a “Soviet colony.” Such a corrosive and false approach, like that of the “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq.
“IRANIAN TERRORISM” AND ITS TROPICALIZED VERSION
On Venezuela, they do not argue that it lost its sovereignty over Iran because it is an emerging power, economically booming and with more than 100 million inhabitants. No. Iran is a Muslim country and that is enough to declare it immediately as a “terrorist country” and Venezuela therefore also is. Reductionism and forced simplification without foundations.
The incongruity of Venezuela’s “loss of sovereignty” over Iran is as absurd as the version of a Shiite tropical terrorist Islamism that is theoretically sponsored by the Persian nation. Or at least they have been pointing this out from the White House to create a single discourse that simultaneously tyrannizes the two oil countries.
Washington recently declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guards of Iran as a “terrorist organization” and the reopening of direct flights between Caracas and Tehran triggered fierce reactions, including that of Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who inferred that these commercial flights from the Caribbean to Central Asia is a logistical platform for “terrorism” and represents a “threat to American security”.
Showing the “terrorist” relationship has been impossible, as is demonstrating that there is a relationship of tutelage from Tehran to Caracas. To begin with, because of the enormous ideological distance between both projects: the openly clerical Islamic revolution has only in common with Venezuela the anti-imperialist position, but that element is not substantial for a relationship of tutelage.
Asian financing has not been uncovered the Caribbean, nor is there Iranian administration of Venezuelan assets. The only Iranian oil investments in the country are modest and in fact are in a minority condition before the Venezuelan State. Something quite curious for a “Persian colony”.
THE CHINESE “COLONIZATION” IN THE “OLD AMERICAN BACKYARD”
The White House has called the presence of China in this part of the world as “a threat” to US and continental security. Openly, the neoconservatives of the Trump Administration have defined the Latin American and Caribbean region as a “backyard” in the style of the old-fashioned Reagan or Nixon and this has resulted in China itself having to reiteratee that “Latin America it is not owned by the United States. ”
China has joined the region as a modulator of investment, financing, co-option of raw materials and focus of its commercial expansion. Without discussion, China’s agenda in the region has been one of shifting the situation of hegemony and domination Washington has had on the continent. And the Chinese are achieving it without a single invasion, without a single coup d’état and without a single salvo, which makes it more difficult for Washington to maintain its position of “friendly power” against the “evil Chinese”.
The energy and financial collaboration with China is the epicenter of the discourse that points to the country as a “tropical Cantonese colony”.
But it is far from being a Chinese colony, as is Peru, Brazil and Chile. Countries that receive more net investment from China than Venezuela and whose foreign policy is clearly confiscated by the US government. Chile, in fact, already has China as a first trading partner according to the World Trade Organization, before the United States itself. Make it an obvious reading: that economic collaboration with China does not mean being a colony.
Obviously, explaining this is difficult in the contexts of politics in this American neighborhood. In Latin America the policy imposed by the neighborhood bully prevails. The American hegemonic system has become accustomed to its logic of subduing, invading and snatching; to get everything without wanting to pay for it. For this expansionist logic, it is very difficult to deal with another hegemon that breaks through and is effective without using the same methods of the traditional bully.
Translated by JRE\EF
