How did Venezuela fall from prosperity so quickly? How did socialist policies affect the nation’s economy? Is there any hope for its future?

Jorge Galicia, a refugee from Venezuela and outreach fellow at The Fund for American Studies, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to answer these questions and describe what it was like to grow up in Venezuela.

Also on today’s show, we cover these stories:

—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls on the United Nations to remove Russia from its Security Council.
—Twitter offers entrepreneur Elon Musk a seat on its board of directors after he becomes the social media company’s largest shareholder.
—Individuals who live in Palm Springs, California, and identify as transgender or nonbinary are eligible to receive up to $900 a month.

Read the lightly edited transcript.

Virginia Allen: Two decades ago, Venezuela was a thriving country. Today, Freedom House ranks it not free and The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom ranks it 176, coming in just above North Korea. The question is, what happened in Venezuela? How did it get to this point? Well, here with us today to answer that question is a Venezuelan refugee and an outreach fellow at The Fund for American Studies, Jorge Galicia.

Jorge, thank you so much for being here.

Jorge Galicia: No, thank you, Virginia. Thank you for the invitation, it’s an honor.

Allen: I would love to begin by just asking you to share a little bit of your own background. You actually grew up in Venezuela. What do you remember from living there? What was your childhood like in Venezuela?

Galicia: Yeah, that’s a good question. I only arrived here to the [United] States like three years ago. So almost my entire life, I spent it there in Venezuela. I experienced the whole transition.

When I was a child, my childhood in Venezuela was pretty normal, pretty happy, to be honest. I grew up having the latest versions of my favorite video games, good birthday parties every year when I was a child. I could say I had a regular middle-class life when I was a child in Venezuela.

But then in the year 2014, probably that’s the year when we saw this huge transition in my life, that things totally change. I started to see a lot of different problems in Venezuela.

For example, in my house, we stopped having constant water supply; scarcity of food, you needed to do huge lines to get just a piece of bread; electricity started to fail constantly; internet connection started to fail constantly. Every single aspect of life, of living in Venezuela, started to decline.

I went from being a happy kid of a middle-class family to being basically poor. At some point I even stopped eating as much as I was used to eating because we didn’t have enough money to afford a lot of food. The scarcity in Venezuela was that big that it was really hard at some point to get what you’re required.

In the year 2017, I actually stopped eating meat for a long period of time. We substitute it with grains and other different stuff that we could afford. But meat, all kind of meat, was unavailable for me for that whole year.

Allen: Prior to 2014, you had never experienced hunger or your family really struggling to make ends meet?

Galicia: No, yeah. Before that year, honestly, neither me or my family imagined that something like that could ever happen to us because, as I said, we had a pretty decent life. We had our problems, as everybody else, but no, no, we had a good house and my mom’s income was pretty good.

I was a kid, but we never struggled that much until 2014. After this year, this is when the crisis actually hit us. Because I believe even before that year a lot of people were already suffering, but in our case, this was the year when everything went south. Yes, I went from being a happy middle-class boy to being poor, basically.

Allen: Take us back. What was happening in Venezuela at that time in the early 2000s? As you got into 2012, ’13, ’14, what was going on in your country?

Galicia: Yeah, well, 2014 for me was the year of the collapse, but the reason of that was happening decades ago when Hugo Chavez actually took power.

When he was in power, he managed to confiscate thousands of private industries within Venezuela. He confiscated the industry … that used to provide water, he confiscated the industry that used to provide electricity for Venezuela, and stuff like that. He did [that] during all these years before.

A lot of people actually saw this coming, it was no surprise for a lot of people. But, well, the consequences of this politics didn’t arrive, at least for my family, until 2014.

This is exactly what I’ve been doing with The Fund for American Studies, with TFAS. I’ve been traveling to college campuses to give a historical review and to give an answer to that question of how Venezuela became what it is today. How did we go from being one of the richest places on earth, basically, to one of the poorest nowadays?

Yeah, this is thanks to socialist policies promoted by Hugo Chavez, but not only by Hugo Chavez, because before Hugh Chavez we started to play a little bit with these socialist policies.

This is something that the American audience needs to also understand, because a lot of progressive people here say something like, “No, we want to do democratic socialism. We don’t want to do the kind of authoritarian socialism Hugo Chavez did.”

But, well, guess what? In Venezuela, at least in ’75, this is when the oil industry in Venezuela was nationalized, this was our major first step into socialism that we ever gave and this was under a vibrant democracy.

This was already democratic socialism somehow. This move already paved the way to what we have today. It is not accurate to say that the decline in Venezuela started with Hugo Chavez. It started, actually, decades before.

Allen: What were the promises that Chavez and the other government officials were making to the Venezuelan people?

Galicia: Well, the main promise, I would say, was equality for all Venezuelans. He promised that everybody could have exactly the same results in life, which is unnatural, of course.

His campaigns were fueled by creating hatred against the rich class, the top 1%. He made them believe that the reason why they were poor was because there was this rich sector of the society that was taking advantage of them. A lot of people, unfortunately, believed this message, so he created a lot of divisions within the country.

So yes, he said that by confiscating private properties and private businesses of these top 1%, Venezuelans were somehow going to improve their life. Of course, this was never the case.

Allen: As things started to decline, what were you experiencing on a day-to-day basis in Venezuela? Were you ever fearful for your own safety? Were your friends fearful? What were the conversations like that you were having with friends and family in the country as things were declining?

Galicia: Yeah, no. Of course, when this happened, I was still a teenager, but me and my family did see where the country was heading to. I was extremely worried, even despite the fact that I was a teenager. I was so worried about my future.

Actually, that’s the reason why, in the year 2014, when I started to experience all of this chaos around my life and I started to see the decline of my quality, this is the year when I actually decided to step in and go into political activism.

I joined the student movement of my university and I also joined a political party named Vente Venezuela, which is a classical liberal political party, because I knew that the reason why my life was not doing so good was because of all of these socialist policies.

I decided to step in and try to fight again for recovering our democracy, recovering our republic, our freedoms, because Venezuela, even though it wasn’t perfect, we used to have a much better country and I wanted that to be the case again.

But yes, because I saw all of these declines in my lifestyle, I decided to step in. This actually brought me also some consequences, because as you know, we have a dictatorship there. [Venezuelan dictator Nicolas] Maduro does not tolerate really well dissidence. And well, in the year 2017, I got in trouble with police because of my activism.

Actually, one of my best friends, I don’t know, I cannot say his name for security reasons, but he was captured by police. In the middle of the night, they broke into his house without a warrant, without any kind of legality or due process, and they took him away.

When this happened, I panicked because he and I were part of the same team. I knew that if the police knew about his location, they probably knew about mine as well so I needed to disappear. I went into hiding, I spent a long period of time hiding at some religious place in Venezuela. It was a pretty dramatic situation in my life. Again, this is all thanks to all of the consequences that we suffered because of implementing these policies.

Allen: Do you know what happened to your friend?

Galicia: Oh, yeah. Well, after three months, my friend was, thankfully, thanks God, released from prison. He spent almost three months in prison. Later, when he was released, he was under probation. He needed to go to court every eight days to sign some crazy paper.

But then, I think two years after those events, he managed to escape the country. He escaped through the border to Colombia and now he’s living a good life, I would say, in Uruguay, in South America. I’m happy for him that he’s already free.

Allen: Yeah.

Galicia: Yeah.

Allen: Oh, it’s good to hear that he’s safe. What was your journey to America? How did you ultimately come to the [United] States and what was that journey like?

Galicia: After my friend was released, people need to understand that in this year, 2017, there were millions of people in the streets of Venezuela protesting and demanding freedom.

Even though I was, of course, persecuted—and my friend actually confirmed to me when we managed to meet again, after these events, that the police did ask, my name did show up in the so-called investigations.

But after he was released, I just decided to resume my ordinary life in Venezuela because there were millions of people doing exactly the same. I knew I was never a high-profile leader or something like that, so the police never spent a lot of time just looking for one guy when there were millions on the streets of Venezuela doing exactly the same.

However, I did decide to stay away from all of the activism because I really didn’t want to go through the same all over again, especially because I was worried about my family, especially my mom. She’s really overprotective and she almost lost her mind during this period of time.

But, well, thanks to this decision in the year 2018, I managed to finish my law degree in Venezuela. After that, I applied to participate in a leadership program named Project Arizona, which is a project being held at Arizona State University. Thanks God, I was selected to do that. Well, thanks to this, I was able to leave Venezuela and come here.

I was actually supposed to go back to Venezuela, but in the year 2019, thanks to the appearance and the ascension of Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela, everybody was talking about Venezuela during this year, it’s a little bit similar to what’s going on right now with Ukraine.

I started to receive also a lot of attention in Arizona, media invitations to speak about what’s going on, the students groups at ASU wanted to know more, so I resumed my activism while I was here in the states. I know for a fact that if I return to Venezuela under these circumstances my life is going to be in danger and I decided to claim asylum.

Allen: Is your family still in Venezuela?

Galicia: Half of them are. Yeah, my mom is still there, my grandma, my cousins, my uncle. Yeah, half of them are. My dad and sisters, they live here in Miami, but my mom, my grandma, almost everybody else is still there.

Allen: OK. As you travel around and speak to college students on campuses and various locations, what is your response to young people, or really any American, who might say, “Well, but what happened in Venezuela isn’t representative of socialism in its pure form. You can’t really claim that’s socialism”? What do you say to that?

Galicia: Well, I believe that what’s going on in Venezuela is the most pure version of socialism we have, well, probably surpassed by Cuba, of course, but in our Western Hemisphere, I don’t think we have seen a better example of socialism than the one we saw in Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez literally confiscated thousands of private industries within Venezuela. Well, even before Hugo Chavez, we nationalized our oil industry, it is almost completely operated by the state.

You have to understand that more than 90% of our revenues as a country come from the oil industry, so the government was already controlling more than 90% of all of our revenue as a nation.

Yes, Venezuela is a really good example of socialism and it is a really good example to explain why socialism actually doesn’t work.

A lot of people like to talk about, I don’t know, Norway or Sweden, but these are not actual examples of socialists. Actually, you have free market principles operating in the economies of all of these great countries. Even they actually have sometime freer economies than the United States itself at some cases.

It is not true to say that Venezuela is not a real example of socialism, I’m sorry, but Hugo Chavez claimed to be a socialist and everything he did was inspired by the Marxist doctrine, and now we’re paying the consequences.

Allen: What is the end goal of socialism?

Galicia: Well, that depends on who you ask. A lot of people who actually believe in this doctrine might say that they want to create a much equalitarian society. But I am not entirely convinced that people, especially politicians, that promote this doctrine actually believe in this.

I believe that many of these people, what they really want to is to control society, to gain unlimited power, and to gain just status and position. I believe this is all they want.

Because, look, in Venezuela, do you believe that this chaos was because of failure because they didn’t know what they were doing? I don’t think you can. How [can] you manage to fail that constantly every single year and get these horrible results?

If you really have good intentions, at some point you might say, like, “Hey, I think we’re doing something wrong. We better change this or that,” but no, they just went further into the system. I think their goal was actually to make us poorer so they can control society easier.

For example, in the year 2017, we had this problem because we were inviting society to join protesters, to join the demonstrations, but the problem is the majority of Venezuelans were so miserable, so poor, that they couldn’t afford to spend a single day in going into a demonstration against the government or doing any kind of activism, because they needed to spend that day doing a huge line to get, I don’t know, a piece of bread.

Or sometimes if the regime finds out that you are supporting demonstrations, they are going to stop delivering, I don’t know, some medicine or something. I mean, they make you dependent on government, so they can control you.

I feel like this was the end goal of Maduro and Hugo Chavez, at the end, they wanted to control us in the easiest way possible.

Allen: Do you ever worry that what you saw happen so rapidly in Venezuela could happen in other Western countries, even in the United States?

Galicia: Yeah. This is what I talk about in these presentations that I’m giving. It’s not like I feel like the United States is condemned to be exactly like Venezuela, but I do see a lot of similarities.

The biggest one I find is the levels of spending here in America and how hard it is for this country to actually try to bring back fiscal responsibility, to try to eventually balance the budget. I feel in Venezuela we struggle a lot with this same issue, especially during ’75.

In ’75, this is when the oil industry was nationalized, Venezuela started to receive a bunch of new resources. I mean, the government had started to receive a bunch of new resources because of the nationalization. They started to spend like crazy, creating social programs, subsidies, all kinds of different stuff—free college for everybody, health care free for everybody.

I mean, at some point Venezuela was called “Venezuela Saudi” for all of the revenue and all of the expenses that we were having during this time.

Well, during these five years, ’75 until the ’80s, Venezuelans were used to this idea of living out of government assistance. But then when we started to see a decline in the oil prices, … this is when our problems began, because the government didn’t find a way to stop spending as much as they were used to.

They started to bring money out of nowhere, borrow more money out of the international market, raise taxes. The vibrant Venezuela economy that we used to have basically came to an end and started to decline during the ’80s.

Again, what we’re seeing right now in Venezuela is just a continuation process from the ’80s until today, because we never found a way to actually say we cannot afford this living anymore, because it was politically not viable to just cut spending.

Actually, at some point in ’89, Carlos Andrés Pérez, a president of Venezuela, he did try to make some reforms that were actually pointing in the good direction. He tried to cut a lot of the subsidies and reduce a lot of the social programs, but the backlash from the population was so big that thousands of Venezuelans went to the street to protest, to rally against the government, to loot private businesses.

The chaos was so big that even the police was participating with looters, so the government was forced to send military forces and a lot of people died. It was a really horrible scenario. Again, this is all because people really got used to this idea of just extending the hand and receiving something out of government.

I’m fearful that something like that might be already happening here. We hear a lot of Republicans complaining about the levels of the spending and the deficit and that’s OK, but whenever they reach power, they realize that, well, it is not that simple just to start cutting things here and there because when they control the federal government, the spending keeps rising, the deficit keeps rising.

I don’t know, I’m fearful that we might be already in that point where this is just a snowball that we can no longer stop and when is going to be the end, right?

Allen: Yeah. What do you think of President Joe Biden’s approach to the Maduro regime?

Galicia: Well, I’m extremely worried about that situation. Venezuelans were really hopeful about seeing some sort of liberation process under the Trump administration. All of the sanctions we saw, all of the diplomatic pressure we saw, actually, we saw some minor results.

Some members of the regime abandoned Maduro, some members of the military also abandoned Maduro. Of course, it was not near enough, but we were experiencing change, some kind of changes within Venezuela.

But now it feels like all of the is hard rhetoric against the dictatorship in Venezuela is now completely gone. We don’t see the same pressure that we were seeing before under the Trump administration.

Now, all of these talks that we are seeing between Washington and Caracas to try to lift sanctions against the Venezuelan oil industry is something that completely, if that ever happens, my heart is going to be broken, because I know that we’re not going to get rid of Maduro anytime soon without American support. If he starts … receiving revenue coming from these oil industries, he’s going to be, again, stronger than ever.

This money is not going to go to, I don’t know, to regular Venezuelans to help them improve their ordinary life. This is just going to go to the military to acquire new equipment, to make it easier to repress society even further. …

I’m deeply concerned. I mean, I hope that we don’t see any kind of new deal within the American states and the Venezuela dictatorship, because I feel that’s going to be the end for our cause.

My dream is to return to Venezuela. Even though I love America, I love all of the experiences I having right here in this beautiful country, I don’t feel yet like this is actually my home. My home is still there in Venezuela and I want to be able to eventually return. I don’t feel like I’m heading to a situation where that’s going to be possible with this new administration.

Allen: Hmm. How can we follow your work, Jorge? You are on the forefront of this issue and we want to keep up with what you’re doing.

Galicia: Well, yeah, you can always follow me on social media. That’s going to be @jorgegalicia95 on Twitter and Instagram.

Listen, if you have a request, if you are in need of some speaker to speak about these very same issues, I’m available. This is my work with The Fund for American Studies. They are going to send me whenever I’m requested, basically for free. They’re going to cover all the expenses of my travel and fees or whatever. All you need to do is find me an audience and a good place to speak and a projector, stuff like this, and that’s going to be it.

I’m more than happy to contribute with debate whenever you need me. Of course, I usually speak at colleges, but I could speak anywhere where [this] kind of message is needed. So, yeah.

Allen: Excellent. Jorge, thank you so much for your time, we truly appreciate it.

Galicia: Yeah. Thank you, Virginia. It was an honor.

Source: https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/04/06/how-socialist-policies-destroyed-his-home-country-of-venezuela/

The post How Socialist Policies Destroyed His Home Country of Venezuela first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

(Bloomberg) — Inside a chic lounge, oil lobbyists and executives rub shoulders as Spanish, French, and Italian can be heard in the halls. This isn’t the ZaZa boutique hotel in Houston, where global energy top brass like to stay. It’s the Cayena Hotel in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.

Drawn by promises of privatization and more autonomy to tap the world’s biggest crude reserves, they’re meeting with the Nicolas Maduro regime and state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA to best position themselves when doing business there is possible again. Bigger producers like Chevron Corp., France’s Total SE, and Italy’s Eni SpA would probably wait until U.S. sanctions are lifted, but smaller players might get started whenever new rules opening up the industry for private enterprise take effect.

“I want to tell investors from the U.S. and around the world that Venezuela’s doors are open for oil investment,” Maduro said in a recent televised address.

It’s a make-or-break moment for an impoverished nation that’s running out of fuel to haul food and cash to pay for imports of basic necessities. Whether Maduro will succeed in luring some investment is still unclear. But one thing is certain: Oil companies have never had such leverage with him to negotiate a piece of the country’s more than 300 billion barrels of crude.

“There is some easy potential to increase production if sanctions enforcement declines,” said Francisco Monaldi, a Venezuelan-American lecturer in energy economics at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, and an expert on Venezuela’s oil industry. “After that, you need significant investments.”

The successor of the late Hugo Chavez, who infamously seized assets from Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips, is promising to pass a law that will officially end an oil monopoly in the hands of PDVSA, as the country’s ruined oil cash cow is known.

Executives representing oil companies are holding meetings to discuss what the terms would be under the new legislation, according to people with knowledge of the talks, who asked not to be named because they’re not authorized to comment on them in public.

Chevron, for one, is even getting in touch with contractors to assess how fast they could help the San Ramon, California-based company restart operations in the South American nation, one person said.

Chevron and Total didn’t return requests for comment, as didn’t Maduro’s Information Ministry, the Oil Ministry, and PDVSA. Eni said none of its executives visited Caracas.

Maduro’s government says his new energy law alone will allow oil companies to get back in business as they assume control of Venezuelan assets. That’s because the U.S. only bans doing business with PDVSA, the regime, and those who help it. Oil ventures run by independent oil companies, in theory, wouldn’t be barred from developing crude reserves in the country.

Major oil companies would probably wait for sanctions to be lifted regardless, but others could jump in as soon as they can claim they’re operating independently from PDVSA and Maduro’s regime, and therefore not subject to sanctions.

There are people close to the government “eager to get some oil fields; I would expect there to be some privatizations,” Monaldi said. “They will try to invest in the wells that are the easiest to connect.”

Wilmer Ruperti, a Venezuelan-born shipping magnate, is among less-known entrepreneurs who have sought to do business with PDVSA in the past despite sanctions. Ruperti didn’t reply to requests for comment on potential investments under the proposed new rules.

Restoring Venezuela’s oil industry back to its former glory would likely take tens of billions of dollars, and that might never happen, but any business activity would help the country.

Once a prosperous OPEC-founding member that produced more than 3 million barrels a day of crude, the nation is now pumping less than half a million.

Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami recently vowed to boost production to 1.5 million this year, and that would be difficult to achieve without help. Monaldi estimates more than $100 billion and a decade of work would be required to get output past 2 million barrels a day.

“This means you need a ton of private investment,” he said.

An increase in oil output would not only buoy the economy but also raise capital to ultimately pay off creditors holding roughly $60 billion of defaulted obligations.

So, executives from the oil industry and capital markets have also been pleading their case to officials in Washington, people familiar with those discussions said. Their message: If others are going to play ball, let’s get in on the action, too.

“The big question is if the oil companies have enough political clout for an easing in sanctions,” said Raul Gallegos, a Bogota-based director at Control Risks, an international consulting firm. “They are interested in the flexibility that Maduro is offering.”

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces the sanctions, didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.

With bigger issues to tackle, from the coronavirus to tension with Russia and trade with China, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration hasn’t yet made a significant pivot from President Donald Trump’s strategy on Venezuela. The U.S. government officially recognizes opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president until there’s a free and fair election.

If the new U.S. government at least moves to let companies resume swaps of diesel for Venezuelan crude, that would help the country avert collapse. The fuel is needed for trucks to take imported food, medicines, and other products from ports to cities, as well as to haul goods from farms and factories.

Without investments in the country’s crumbling energy infrastructure, though, that would be just a stopgap solution.

–With assistance from Peter Millard, Patricia Laya, Francois De Beaupuy, and Kevin Crowley.

To contact the authors of this story:
Fabiola Zerpa in Caracas at fzerpa@bloomberg.net
Ben Bartenstein in Dubai at bbartenstei3@bloomberg.net

Source: https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/are_foreign_oil_firms_about_to_return_to_venezuela-19-mar-2021-164935-article/

The post Are Foreign Oil Firms About to Return to Venezuela? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post In Venezuela, an ongoing struggle for power amid a growing humanitarian disaster first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The international Organization of American States (OAS) has called on its 35-member nations to reject the parliamentary elections planned by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro next month on Dec. 6.

“It cannot be accepted by the international community. We must be clear about it, reject that idea and any political margin to try to validate that process,” Luis Almagro, Secretary-General of the OAS said during a press conference earlier this week, according to El Nacional.

US THREATENS TO DESTROY IRANIAN MISSILES SHIPPED TO VENEZUELA

“It is definitely unacceptable from every point of view,” he added. “These elections are one more mechanism of impunity and cooptation of the Powers of the State.”

Almargro believes that Maduro is attempting to seize power over the opposition-controlled National Assembly – a sentiment shared by the leader of the government body Juan Guaido, who is recognized by the United State and the European Union as the acting president of Venezuela.

“We will not recognize the results of these elections and reiterate our demands for free and fair presidential elections, which is the only way to resolve this now international crisis,” a State Department spokesperson told Fox News.

Guaido has already denounced the December election as “fraud,” and points to Venezuela’s Maduro loyalist-Supreme Court having appointed officials to the nation’s top electoral body, instead of recognizing parliament’s role in the process, France 24 reported.

The National Assembly is the only body currently under control by the opposition but was deemed ineffective by the Supreme Court in 2017 when the high court found it in contempt and effectively revoked the body’s powers.

But Maduro is still looking to gain control of the legislative body.

“Here we don’t elect Donald Trump, [Jair] Bolsonaro or [Ivan] Duque,” Maduro said earlier this month, commenting on who he associates as right-wing leaders in the U.S., Brazil and Colombia – all of which denounce the Maduro presidency and regime.

Almagro said that Venezuela’s dictatorship began under Hugo Chavez and “has accelerated with the inauguration of Nicolás Maduro.”

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“Dictators must leave the country and be tried for their crimes,” Almagro said Wednesday.

“The U.S. government agrees with calls from the Organization of American States (OAS) that the illegitimate Maduro regime’s fraudulent parliamentary elections to be held December 6 will not meet the conditions for free and fair elections,” said a spokesperson from the Department of State.  “These electoral conditions, fraught with regime manipulation, censorship, and harassment, are the worst that have been seen in modern Venezuelan history.”

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/world/organization-of-american-states-warns-of-sham-elections-in-socialist-venezuela

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ANEW raft of EU sanctions on Venezuela came into force today, despite President Nicolas Maduro warning that the punitive actions are harming his country’s citizens.

The measures, first implemented by the neoliberal economic bloc in 2017, have been extended for a further year and now include 36 named officials, ostensibly “because of their role in acts and decisions undermining democracy and the rule of law.”

EU officials had joined the United States and Britain in recognizing hapless former National Assembly President Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim leader.

But Mr. Guiado has since been voted out of that position after Venezuela’s opposition branded him “a dream that turned into a nightmare” following a series of embarrassing failed coup attempts.

Despite EU claims that its sanctions “are flexible and reversible and designed not to harm the Venezuelan population,” the country remains short of essential items.

The EU has followed the path of the US, which has ratcheted up pressure on Venezuela by imposing what has been described as a total embargo to try to force Mr. Maduro from office.

Former United Nations special rapporteur Alfred de Zayas warned last year that the measures are killing ordinary Venezuelans and accused Washington of “waging economic warfare.”

He said that the poorest people in the country were suffering the most, comparing the sanctions to a “modern-day medieval siege” which could amount to crimes against humanity.

Earlier this year, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza asked the International Criminal Court to investigate US officials over the sanctions.

A 60-page dossier lodged with the court, based at The Hague in the Netherlands, alleges that Washington’s punitive measures have been “a death sentence for tens of thousands of Venezuelans per year.”

Last month, Venezuela’s government scored a victory at the High Court in London court in its battle for the return of $1 billion of the country’s gold, which is stored in the Bank of England’s vaults.

Mr. Maduro has demanded the release of the gold to help fund efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

But the bank refused — reportedly under pressure from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It then asked the High Court to determine who the British government recognizes as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, Mr. Maduro, or Mr. Guaido.

Judges ruled that the government’s position was ambiguous and the case will return to the High Court.

The new sanctions will last until November next year.

Source: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/eu-imposes-new-raft-of-sanctions-on-venezuela

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Guaido has already denounced the December 6 election as a “fraud” while the United States, European Union, and Organization of American States (OAS) have all voiced their concerns.

The opposition leader’s main gripe is that Venezuela’s regime-loyalist Supreme Court-appointed officials to the top electoral body ahead of the vote when that role should be performed by parliament.

The National Assembly is the only government branch in opposition hands, but it has been left impotent since 2017 when the Supreme Court declared it in contempt and subsequently annulled its every decision.

Nevertheless, Maduro is desperate to reclaim control of it.

“Here we don’t elect Donald Trump, (Jair) Bolsonaro or (Ivan) Duque,” socialist Maduro said on Sunday, alluding to the right-wing leaders of the US, Brazil, and Colombia.

Maduro is no stranger to being accused of fraud over an election. The opposition rejected his 2018 re-election and declared him a “usurper.”

That led to Guaido proclaiming himself acting president in January 2019 in a direct challenge to Maduro’s authority — a move that quickly garnered support from about 60 countries.

But “Maduro doesn’t seem to care much about legitimacy,” Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, told AFP.

Taking back control of the legislature would allow him to “consolidate a hegemonic authoritarian regime, with Guaido no longer as a relevant player.”

– Little hope for change –

The planned boycott by Guaido and other main opposition parties leaves the way open for Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to win a parliamentary majority.

In an attempt to minimize the impact of the boycott, the National Electoral Council announced that more than 14,000 candidates representing 107 parties are standing for the 277 seats.

But the list even includes Guaido’s Popular Will party amongst others to have announced they would boycott the vote.

Maduro “is entrenched, protected by force and the powers he controls,” political scientist Luis Salamanca told AFP, referring to support the president receives from the armed forces.

Luis Vicente Leon, director at pollsters Datanalisis, believes there will be high levels of abstention among the 20.7 million voters in the country of 30 million.

But “the unresolved problem is what to do after abstaining,” added Leon, who said on Twitter that the chance of an opposition boycott leading to political change “is not very promising.”

Despite almost two years of pressure from Guaido and increasing sanctions against government figures and the state oil company PDVSA, Maduro has held onto power.

– Last roll of the dice –

Guaido, whose popularity has fallen dramatically since his bold move in January 2019, says he will hold his own vote between December 5-12 without the electoral council, although he hasn’t said how.

His vote would ask Venezuelans whether or not they would support “all national and international pressure mechanisms” to ensure “free presidential and parliamentary elections” and whether they reject the December 6 vote.

Guaido’s intention is that if the legislative election is invalidated then the current make-up of the National Assembly, with its opposition majority, would remain in place.

But Salamanca doubts this will maintain allow Guaido to retain his influence.

“He needs to offer other initiatives to stay afloat. I don’t think the poll will help.”

A similar move in 2017 saw the opposition claim to have gathered 7.6 million votes in rejection of the Constituent Assembly — a body made up entirely of regime loyalists that was effectively created to replace the legitimate parliament’s functions.

But “today, Venezuelans are disillusioned with Guaido because he failed to deliver on his promise of regime change,” said Shifter.

“Expectations of a political transition under his leadership are very low.”

What’s more, “Guido will lose formal legitimacy as president of the National Assembly in January, when Maduro consolidates total power.”

It will also leave those governments that backed Guaido with “a very tricky and complicated problem.”

They “will not want to abandon Guaido … but may eventually be forced to recalibrate, depending on how the realities on the ground evolve.”

Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/maduro-looks-for-total-power-in-venezuela-legislative-election/article/580513

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Today, the United States is sanctioning, under Executive Order 13692, David Eugenio de Lima Salas, Reinaldo Enrique Muñoz Pedroza, Indira Maira Alfonzo Izaguirre, and Jose Luis Gutierrez Parra in light of their involvement in Maduro’s efforts to manipulate the Venezuelan National Assembly and restructure the National Electoral Council, moves that rob the Venezuelan people of free and fair elections and destroy their democratic institutions.

The work of these individuals to help Maduro subvert the Venezuelan people’s access to democratic institutions and appoint a new puppet National Electoral Council has undermined the integrity of the National Assembly, the only remaining legitimately democratic institution in Venezuela.  These actions demonstrate the desperate lengths to which Maduro and his cronies are willing to go, and have gone, on their charted course towards full dictatorship.

With this latest Treasury Department action, the United States reaffirms its commitment to promoting accountability for all those who seek to rob Venezuela of its democratic future.  We stand with interim President Guaido in his effort to restore a democratic Venezuela.

Source: https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-responds-to-the-maduro-regimes-attempts-to-corrupt-democratic-elections-in-venezuela/

The post The United States Responds to the Maduro Regime’s Attempts To Corrupt Democratic Elections in Venezuela first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition said on Thursday the United States has granted it access to millions of dollars of frozen Venezuelan government funds to support efforts to combat the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

The U.S. Treasury Department had approved the release of the funds, the opposition said in a statement without specifying the total amount.

The statement said part of the released funds would go to pay some 62,000 health workers $300. During a live appearance on Twitter on Thursday night, opposition leader Juan Guaido said health workers could register accounts to receive payments of $100 a month starting Monday.

Healthcare workers in Venezuela can earn as little as $5 a month.

Guaido first announced the additional support for healthcare workers four months ago, but distribution required a permit from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), as the frozen funds were held by the New York Federal Reserve.

The opposition plans to distribute the funds using AirTM, a digital payment platform, but on Thursday, the website was blocked in Venezuela.

“You have to be very bad to block an account for men and women who are giving everything with conviction to protect our people when they are going to receive a bonus,” said Guaido.

The opposition leader added healthcare workers would be sent a manual with the steps to download a virtual private network (VPN) so they could circumvent the restrictions. AirTM also tweeted instructions how to use a VPN.

Guaido has been recognized by more than 50 countries as Venezuela’s rightful president after assuming an interim presidency in 2019 on the grounds that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was fraudulent.

In July, the opposition obtained permission to distribute $17 million in funds frozen in the United States that would be channeled through international health organizations to purchase supplies for medical workers.

The license also approves another $4.5 million to support Venezuelans at risk of death, an opposition press release said.

Venezuela is suffering economic collapse and its crumbling health system has so far registered 37,567 cases of COVID-19 and 311 deaths, although experts say the number is likely to be higher due to widespread insufficient testing.

(Reporting by Sarah Kinosian; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Source: https://www.metro.us/u-s-unfreezing-venezualan-assets/

The post U.S. unfreezing Venezualan assets to help opposition fight COVID-19: Guaido first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The Trump administration offered a $5 million reward Tuesday for information leading to the arrest of the head of Venezuela’s high court, accusing the judge of taking bribes.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Supreme Tribunal of Justice President Maikel Moreno, a close political ally of socialist President Nicolás Maduro, actively participated in transnational organized crime.

Moreno has allegedly received bribes in over 20 criminal and civil court cases, Pompeo said.

Moreno quickly rejected the reward, saying it was based on lies aimed at undermining him and will only strengthen his “autonomy and independence” as the head of Venezuela’s high court.

“This is not the first time a mouthpiece of the U.S. empire has tried to attack me,” Moreno said in a statement posted on Facebook. “They will never succeed because the independence and sovereignty of our homeland is not up for discussion.”

The Trump administration this year launched a “maximum pressure” campaign to oust Maduro as Venezuela’s economic and social crisis deepens in the once-wealthy oil nation. U.S. officials earlier this year charged Maduro as a narcoterrorist, offering $15 million for his arrest.

Maduro has rejected the U.S. charges against him, saying the are politically motivated.

The White House recognizes opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. U.S. federal prosecutors earlier this year charged Moreno with money laundering offenses associated with the bribery.

“The United States continues to stand with the people of Venezuela in their fight against corruption and for the peaceful restoration of democracy,” Pompeo said in a statement.

Source: https://apnews.com/851abaf040c0a3d6895b09f0f852ab63

The post US offers $5M bounty for top Venezuela judge, Maduro ally first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

For the second time in three weeks, U.S. Southern Command has sent a Navy warship through waters off the coast of Venezuela, the combatant command said Wednesday.

The guided-missile destroyer Pinckney steamed through waters off the South American country’s coast to challenge Caracas’ “excessive maritime claims in international waters.”

Such freedom of navigation operations, or FONOPs, occur regularly in the South China Sea, where the U.S. military regularly contests Beijing’s territorial claims, but several such operations have also taken place off Venezuela this year.

A SOUTHCOM release announcing the Pinckney FONOP decried “the illegitimate Maduro regime” of the country’s authoritarian president, Nicolas Maduro, and alleges that his government “improperly claims” waters that lie three miles outside of Venezuela’s 12-nautical-mile sea territory.

Pinckney is operating in the Caribbean Sea with other Navy and Coast Guard vessels on a counter-narcotics mission.

“We will exercise our lawful right to freely navigate international waters without acquiescing to unlawful claims,” SOUTHCOM’s commander, Adm. Craig Faller, said in a statement. “The guaranteed rights of nations to access, transit, and navigate international waters is not subject to impositions or restrictions that blatantly violate international law.”

Last month, the warship Nitze conducted a FONOP off Venezuela.

Nitze’s FONOP followed a similar operation in January by the littoral combat ship Detroit.

The United States has joined nearly 60 other countries in backing Venezuela’s opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, as the country’s legitimate ruler, rather than the dictatorial Maduro, who is accused of illegitimately winning a 2018 election that banned other opponents and driving his oil-rich country into financial ruin.

About Geoff Ziezulewicz

Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at geoffz@militarytimes.com.

Source: https://www.navytimes.com/news/2020/07/15/destroyer-pinckney-challenges-venezuelas-maritime-territorial-claims/

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