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  1. #11
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    Default Re: The Crisis in Venezuela

    That provides a lot of context and helps me understand the alliances and the history. I am not knowledgeable enough on the subject to fully grasp where the current crisis fits into this history but your suggestion that a lack of economic diversification, state control of the media, currency controls which led to artificial rather than market prices for commodities, corruption and elements of authoritarian control have all played a role actually makes sense.

    It doesn't make sense to me personally that because the country's wealthy elites are still living and breathing they have magically exerted an influence unless Mr. Livingstone has somewhere explained what that influence is. Or that because the Americans or the Blairites believe there's a crisis, there must not be because both the former and the latter are really just interested in "the black stuff" and the Americans will get first dibs. This is Mr. Galloway's view and I have not heard anyone else describe it as he has on twitter, namely that Venezuela faces "terrorist attack, propaganda war, and economic subversion."

    So, I guess instead of arguing whether either of these two men have ever had ANYTHING relevant to say, as the prophetic Mr. Galloway believed Trump was the lesser evil in our election, I'm curious if there is anything to what they are saying NOW. Surely the United States has taken positions in conflicts that are based on our economic interests and our ability to secure access to energy resources, but is that the cause of this crisis? Were the current circumstances procured by our meddling and now exaggerated by our media to justify intervention or are their real structural problems within Venezuela that the country must deal with? The latter seems more likely to be true....but I'm just curious if the former view can even be defended.


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  2. #12
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    Default Re: The Crisis in Venezuela

    To understand the mind-set of Livingstone, and Corbyn in particular, given that he has had a personal interest in Latin America through his wives, you should be aware that in the 1960s and 1970s there was a growing literature, produced by various Marxists, and shaped by 'dependency theory' which argued that 'third world' countries were poor because they had a structural and unequal relationship with the rich countries of Europe and America, which meant that the elites of the Third World who were landowners and beneficiaries of the national wealth, had more in common with elites of their own kind in Europe and America than at home where poverty and corruption were facts of life and largely ignored by the ruling class.
    The national wealth was not used to invest in long term development as in the 'make or buy' option they chose to buy in what they needed, and educate their sons and daughters in posh schools and universities in the US and the UK. In return, corporations invested in the extraction of the national wealth on favourable terms -petroleum in Venezuela's case- while across Latin America, the US guaranteed the security of the state so that whenever there were threats to the existing regime, the US would step in to help, famously in Guatemala in 1954, again the Cuban problem (though the attempts to overthrow the Fidelistas failed), and then the insurgencies in the southern cone in the 60s and 70s which led to military coups in Paraguay, Brazil, Chile and Argentina, until in the 1980s you had Nicaragua (another of Reagan's foreign policy failures), and Grenada in 1983.

    From this background you have 'the left' on the side of Fidel and any mass movement or left-wing experiments (so-called, as with Chile), and an instinctive hostility to the US believing it is always on the side of the military (the irony of Chavez again -but I guess he was 'our kind of soldier' and those Trotskyists can always quote their hero from the revolutionary period when he was in charge of the Red Army).

    Again, it is the fetish for revolutionary politics which cannot quite get over the fact that, with the exception of Chile under Allende, and to some extent the first of the Sandinista governments in Nicaragua, these new experiments failed, either because they didn't have time to mature, as was the case with Chile, or because the revolutionaries were too bold too soon and pursued changes that could not be accommodated with limited resources. Venezuela nationalized most of its petroleum industry in the 1970s (as did Colombia) and much of the country's internal changes did begin around this time, but it was based on the surge in the price of the oil which peaked in 1979, crashed in 1982 and sank to its lowest rate in 1986 undermining attempts the state was making to invest in its future. Internal opposition, corruption, the intense roles of the military in some states, the Church in others complicated the issues -the Church was conservative and pro-military in Chile and Argentina, radical and populist in Colombia and Brazil.

    This does not suggest the 'left' has always been wrong, but a more rational view of what was achieved and where it failed is replaced in the mind-set of Corbyn for whom the 'struggle' in Latin America has always been about rapacious capitalists and military hard men backed by the US versus the People, and it really is more complex than that. The current arguments about the 'neo-liberal' order that is associated with Reagan and Thatcher are that the old dependency model was replaced with a hard-nosed military capitalism which extended the reach of global corporations and in Venezuela strangled domestic economic development, while states like Peru and Colombia became dependent on narcotics, though I think this is all too simple.

    Perhaps in the end it just comes down to bad leadership, that for all his charisma and enthusiasm for change, Chavez just wasn't up to the job and allowed people with the power in his government to spend money on fatuous schemes that had no long term prospects, funded by the illusion that the $100 barrel of oil was going to last longer than it did.
    Venezuela appears to have run out of money and the intelligent people it needs to get them out of this mess. Rather like the the situation the UK could be heading into over the next few years.



  3. #13
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    Default Re: The Crisis in Venezuela

    The crisis in Venezuela has taken a new turn, one that now puts the elected President Maduro on a collision course with the President of the National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó. Maduro's election has been treated as fraudulent, while Guaidó became leader of the NA on the 5th of January and has used that position to declare himself interim leader, dismissing Maduro as President. It is hard to believe that Guaidó acted without first consulting the US, but it would have served him better to contact the head of the armed forces who has spoken in favour of Maduro -for the good of the country or his share of profits from the state oil company now part-owned by the military.

    The tension mounting exists because of the instability in the country, the possibility that divisions may open up in the military (lower ranking officers without access to the revenues from oil and other parts of the economy are badly paid, as they were in Iraq when Saddam was in charge), and the fact that external parties are taking sides: the US supporting Guaidó, Maduro relying on support from Russia, China and Iran.

    Iran has had close relations with its OPEC partner for some years, with Iranian investments in Venezuela reaching $4 billion by 2008, in energy, agriculture and food. President Ahmadinejad went to Caracas for the funeral of Chavez in 2013 and Maduro has been to Tehran, often on the way to or back from Moscow. What probably made the eyes of John Bolton go pop was the announcement last December that Iran would be sending its new warship, the Sahand to Venezuela for a three month tour, accompanied by maybe two others, though there is some speculation on whether this will happen or indeed if ships are already there -I heard this on the BBC Radio 4 World at One today but can't find any confirmation of it on the web.

    The Russians have been developing relations with Venezuela for some time, now owning a proportion of five oilfields, trading oil, and advising the Government on financial matters, creating a digitial currency -the Petro- with which to trade with Venezuela while avoiding US sanctions. It has been claimed however that the Russians are annoyed with Venezuela for not paying its bills and that Putin will regard Maduro as surplus to requirements when the time comes, which may come soon. The major nuisance however was the arrival in Venezuela of two Russian bombers capable of transporting nuclear weapons, not quite Cuba Redux but enough to alert the Pentagon.

    If the Russians and the Iranians are wondering where all that money went they invested in Venezuela then maybe its just simple -Chavez spent it, and Maduro would like to if he could get more of it. That may also be what China wants to know as it too has been a significant investor in Venezuela, not least because of its thirst for oil most of which is imported. By the time of Chavez's death in 2013, Venezuela-China loans for oil were worth $40 billion.

    Crucial here may be the US argument that they cannot turn a blind eye to the domestic collapse in Venezuela or the strategic importance of having a Chinese, Russian and Iranian military and political presence in the Americas. While these are for the most part commercial arrangements, Chavez was deliberate in selecting as partners rich patrons he knew the USA was wary of. The US President has not said the US will not use military force, and though one can imagine Bolton raring to go, the strategic rationale does not seem to make sense, yet, if Maduro decides to fight Guaidó with or without military support, the integrity of the country could be in jeapordy and both Colombia and Brazil might feel their own military need to get stuck in, if only to 'protect' their borders. The US could offer military 'assistance' to Colombia and Brazi, and who knows, the President may even suggest they build a wall to keep out refugees from Venezuela.

    The situation is delicate, and I don't have any predictions, other than that it will probably get worse before its gets better.

    Some links:
    On Iranian warships in the Atlantic-
    https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-navy-to.../29693199.html
    http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone...ast-of-the-u-s

    Iran and Venezuela
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E...uela_relations

    Russia and Venezuela
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.d0610f4b4c8c

    https://www.americasquarterly.org/co...a-new-cold-war

    China and Venezuela
    https://carnegietsinghua.org/2018/09...torm-pub-77352

    US and Venezuela
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...e-in-venezuela

    https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...nicolas-maduro


    Last edited by Stavros; 01-25-2019 at 09:19 PM.

  4. #14
    Eurotrash! Platinum Poster Jericho's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Crisis in Venezuela

    Yes, it's nothing to do with bad neighbours!


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    I hate being bipolar...It's fucking ace!

  5. #15
    Eurotrash! Platinum Poster Jericho's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Crisis in Venezuela

    Quote Originally Posted by fred41 View Post
    When you make comments like this, it pretty much just paints you as a left wing idealogue.
    Which just goes to illustrate how divisive this whole brexit situation is.
    I'm probably further to the left than PJ, yet we're both bitterly divided on Europe.
    I'm staunchly remain, always will be.


    I hate being bipolar...It's fucking ace!

  6. #16
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    Default Re: The Crisis in Venezuela

    I heard a mansion in Venezuela costs $40 dollars


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  7. #17
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    Default Re: The Crisis in Venezuela

    This is a very good article on the crisis, two excerpts:

    Back in 2012, Venezuela was selling almost $100bn to the rest of the world. Last year it sold $32bn. Just like a person or a family, an economy that suffers a large decline in what it sells to other economies will be able to buy much less from them. Put simply, Venezuela suffered a two-thirds decline in its annual paycheck. Any country that suffers such a massive decline in its income is bound to experience a collapse in living standards.


    Advocates of sanctions on Venezuela claim that these target the Maduro regime but do not affect the Venezuelan people. If the sanctions regime can be linked to the deterioration of the country’s export capacity and to its consequent import and growth collapse, then this claim is clearly wrong. While the evidence presented in this piece should not be taken as decisive proof of such a link, it is suggestive enough to indicate the need for extreme caution in the design of international policy initiatives that may further worsen the lot of Venezuelans.

    https://venezuelablog.org/crude-real...omic-collapse/



  8. #18
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    Default Re: The Crisis in Venezuela

    Labour’s Emily Thornberry has refused to recognise Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s interim president despite acknowledging the “desperate” situation in the country.
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a8765381.html

    This is an odd position to take with the Popular Will party that Juan Guaidó represents, as it was formed in 2009, and in 2014 joined the Socialist International, thus becoming a fraternal member of the SI with, yes, you guessed it, the Labour Party...for whom Emily Thornberry speaks on foreign affairs...
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Will



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