The Real Reason the U.S. Wants to Overthrow Venezuela
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (Gage Skidmore / Flickr)
Since 1998, the United States of America has tried to overthrow the
government of Venezuela. What threatened the government of the United States
since then was the Bolivarian dynamic set in motion by the election of Hugo
Chávez as president of Venezuela that year. Chávez won the elections with a
mandate from Venezuelas workers and poor to overhaul the country to tend to
their long-neglected needs.
Venezuela, with the worlds largest proven oil reserves, had enriched the
U.S.-based oil companies and its own oligarchy. Venezuelas key oil minister
in the early 1960s (and architect of OPECthe Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries) Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso rightly called oil the
devils excrement. It promised so much and delivered so little. Chávez
arrived as the embodiment of popular hope. He threatened the oil companies
and the oligarchy, which is why the United States tried to overthrow him.
The first attempt at a coup came in 2002, when the United States egged on
the military and the oligarchy to overthrow Chávez. They failed. He was
supremely popular, the Chavista base eager for change that would improve
their lives. They had no faith in the United States or the oligarchy, both
of whom had suffocated them for the past century.
Never has the Monroe Doctrinewhich the United States invoked to control the
American hemispheredone much good for the millions of people from the
southern tip of Argentina to the northern reaches of Canada. It has helped
along the big corporations and the oligarchs, but not the ordinary
peoplethe base of the Chavistas.
The residue of that base lined up this Sunday to sign a pledge in public
against a new U.S. diplomatic and military intervention, against economic
war.
What drives the United States to persist in its interventionsdiplomatic,
economic and militaryagainst the Venezuelan government?
1. Humanitarian Concerns
Is the United States of America motivated by humanitarian concerns? If it
were so, why did the United States attempt to overthrow Chávezs government
in 2002, when there was no problem with Venezuelas finances? Why has the
United States tried to push policies for all of Latin Americasuch as the
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)that have been clearly shown to
increase suffering for the people?
A logical person would look at these U.S. initiativesthe attempted U.S.
coup in 2002 and the FTAAand conclude that the U.S. government has more
concern for corporate interests than for the interests of the poor. After
all, what bothered the United States with Chávez was that he demanded that
oil companies pay higher royalties for the oil that they sucked out of
Venezuela. Such audacity has to be repaid with a coup attempt.
It is what happened in 1953 to Mohammed Mossadeq of Iran and in 1954 to
Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala and in 1971 to Salvador Allende of Chile. You
cross U.S. multinational corporations, and you get overthrown.
Heres a quick way to end the humanitarian crisis: stop trying to
destabilize Venezuela, end the economic war and allow Venezuela to manage
its external revenues. If all this is done, Venezuelas government should be
able to import goods and use its resources to continue the process of
diversifying its economy. But this is not what the United States wants.
2. Democracy
Evidence from the past century of U.S. interventions overseas suggests that
the United States likes to use the word democracy to push its own agenda.
Chávez was elected several times, his policies ratified by the people in
several referenda. Nicolás Maduro asked the United Nations and external
monitors to come to Venezuela and observe last years election. The United
States pressured these agencies not to go. The right-wing opposition lost
the election because they could not come together around a credible
candidateand they have no platform to go to the people.
Even with the chaos in the camp of the right, the right won 33 percent of
the vote. Rather than try to appeal to more people on a political basisthe
path of democratic politics, in other wordsthe right has taken cover behind
the United States Treasury Department and the U.S. military, with the
Canadians in the wings. This is hardly a good way to move a democratic
agenda.
What does the United States mean by the promotion of democracy? It is
worthwhile to allow U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield to explain the
process himself. In November 2006, Brownfield sent a cable to Washington
with this five-point strategy (which had been worked out in August 2004):
1.Strengthening Democratic Institutions
2.Penetrating Chávez Political Base
3.Dividing Chavismo
4.Protecting Vital US Business
5.Isolating Chavez internationally
This is blatant U.S. interference in Venezuelan politics. The first
pointstrengthening democratic institutionsis the most Orwellian of them
all. The U.S. governmentvia its agencies such as USAID and the National
Endowment for Democracy as well as the CIAhas been funding a series of
civil society groups to challenge the legitimacy of the Venezuelan
electoral process.
A vote monitoring groupSúmatewas used to challenge each election, while
groups were funded to take to the streets. In 2009, unrest of the
streetsthe U.S. State Department admittedwas funded by its agencies.
Eduardo Fernandez of Development Alternatives Incorporated (DAI) said that
the streets are hot and that all these people who have organized the
protest are our grantees. So much for democracy promotion.
3. Steal the Oil
Venezuela has the worlds largest proven oil reserves. No question that the
oil companies have long wanted to return to the days when they called the
shots in Caracas. When Chávez increased Venezuelas share of the profits, he
threatened a broader challenge to the oil firms. They have long wanted to
punish the Bolivarian experiment for its audacity.
But there is no immediate need to take the oil. The world currently faces a
glut of oil production, with Saudi Arabia running its wells at full tilt and
the United States able to produce more oil than previously.
Low oil prices combined with currency problems within Venezuela has provided
the United States with a unique opportunity to challenge Maduros
government. The atmosphere for regime change was improved when Jair
Bolsonaro came to power in Brazil, and when Canada and the dozen Latin
American leaders were willing to create the Lima Group to push to overthrow
the Maduro government.
Low oil prices and the rise of the Latin American right provided the
opportunity for the United States, Canada and the Latin American oligarchies
to go for regime change. This is about oil, but not only about oil.
4. Crush the Alternative
After the fall of the USSR, the United States and its oligarchic allies
hoped that no alternative to their dominance would arise. Any challenge to
the United States and its world order had to be crushed. To understand the
approach of the U.S. government toward the world, the best document to
consult is the National Security Strategy (2002).
That document opens with a declaration of U.S. powerThe United States
possesses unprecedentedand unequalledstrength and influence in the world.
No question that the United States has the largest and most powerful
military, strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a
military build-up in the hopes of surpassing, or equally, the power of the
United States.
Key here is the idea that the United States must be the most powerful
country in the world and that no one will be allowed to threaten this power
militarily or with an alternative economic agenda. Chávez attempted an
alternative in Venezuela and, worse for the United States, through the
Bolivarian project across Latin America. The Bolivarians understood that
there was no hope for their revolution if they remained within their
borders. They had to build bridges with their neighbors on a new foundation.
The U.S.-attempted coup in 2002 came to break the political alternative
posed by Chávez. Once more, the National Security Strategy is useful. The
United States has long maintained the option of pre-emptive actions to
counter a sufficient threat to our national security, the U.S. government
wrote. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inactionand the
more compelling case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves.
To
forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States
will, if necessary, act pre-emptively. Coups are pre-emptive. So is
economic warfare.
Greece, under Syriza, offered a mild alternative. It had to be shut down.
Coups come these days, said the former Greek finance minister, by banks as
much as tanks.
Venezuela, under the Bolivarians, offered a stronger alternative. It has to
be shut down. Humanitarian concerns? Democracy? Not so important to the
United States. Far more important is to deliver the planet into the hands of
the billionaires, to extend the dictatorship of the billionaires over every
square inch of the planet.
This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent
Media Institute.
Vijay Prashad / Independent Media Institute
