Burkina Faso’s New President Condemns Imperialism, Quotes Che Guevara, and Allies with Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba

[Pictured: Burkina Faso’s Revolutionary President, Ibrahim Traoré (center), attends the closing ceremony of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou on March 4, 2023. OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP]

By Ben Norton

Republished from Geopolitical Economy Report.

The new president of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, has vowed to fight imperialism and neocolonialism, invoking his country’s past revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara and quoting Che Guevara.

The West African nation has also formed close diplomatic ties with the revolutionary governments in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, as well as with NATO’s arch-rival Russia.

In January 2022, a group of nationalist military officers in Burkina Faso toppled the president, Roch Kaboré, a wealthy banker who had fostered close ties with the country’s former colonizer, France, where he was educated.

The military officers declared a government run by what they call the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR), led by a new president, Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.

They pledged to seek true independence from French hegemony, condemning the neocolonial policies and economic, political, and military control that Paris still exercises over Francophone West Africa.

Burkina Faso ended its decades-long military agreement with France, expelling the hundreds of French troops that had been in the country for years.

The new president, Damiba, was initially popular. But support waned as he was unable to defeat the deadly Salafi-jihadist insurgents that have destabilized the country.

In September 2022, discontent led to a subsequent coup in Burkina Faso, which brought to power another nationalist military leader named Ibrahim Traoré. He was just 34 at the time, making him one of the world’s youngest leaders.

Traoré has pledged to carry out a “refoundation of the nation” and comprehensive “modernization”, to quell violent extremism, fight corruption, and “totally reform our system of government”.

The charismatic Burkinabè leader frequently ends his speeches with the chant “La patrie ou la mort, nous vaincrons!”, the French translation of the official motto of revolutionary Cuba: “Patria o muerte, venceremos!” – “Homeland or death, we will prevail!”

As president, Traoré has brought back some of the revolutionary ideas of Thomas Sankara.

Sankara was a Marxist Burkinabè military officer and committed pan-Africanist who ascended to power in a 1983 coup.

Sankara launched a socialist revolution, transforming the impoverished country through land reform, infrastructure development, and expansive public health and literacy programs.

Under Sankara’s leadership, Burkina Faso also challenged French neocolonialism and pursued an anti-imperialist foreign policy, forming alliances with revolutionary struggles across the Global South.

These leftist policies were reversed in 1987, when Sankara was overthrown and killed in another coup, led by his former ally Blaise Compaoré – who subsequently moved hard to the right and allied with the United States and France, ruling through rigged elections until 2014.

Today, Ibrahim Traoré is drawing heavily on the legacy of Sankara. He has made it clear that he wants West Africa, and the continent as a whole, to be free of Western neocolonialism.

This July, the Russian government held a Russia-Africa Summit in Saint Petersburg. Traoré was the first African leader to arrive to the conference. There, he delivered a fiery anti-imperialist speech.

“We are the forgotten peoples of the world. And we are here now to talk about the future of our countries, about how things will be tomorrow in the world that we are seeking to build, and in which there will be no interference in our internal affairs”, Traoré said, according to a partial transcript published by Russian state media outlet TASS.

TASS reported:

In his speech, the Burkinabe head of state also focused on sovereignty and the struggle against imperialism. “Why does resource-rich Africa remain the poorest region of the world? We ask these questions and get no answers. However, we have the opportunity to build new relationships that will help us build a better future for Burkina Faso,” the president said. African countries have suffered for decades from a barbaric and brutal form of colonialism and imperialism, which could be called a modern form of slavery, he stressed.

“However, a slave who does not fight [for his freedom] is not worthy of any indulgence. The heads of African states should not behave like puppets in the hands of the imperialists. We must ensure that our countries are self-sufficient, including as regards food supplies, and can meet all of the needs of our peoples. Glory and respect to our peoples; victory to our peoples! Homeland or death!” Traore summed up, quoting the words of legendary Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara. The 35-year-old president of Burkina Faso was attired in a camouflage uniform and red beret during the summit.

On July 29, Traoré had a private meeting in Saint Petersburgh with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In their talks, the Burkinabè leader praised the Soviet Union for defeating Nazism in World War II.

Burkina Faso strengthens ties with Latin American revolutionary movements

The new nationalist government in Burkina Faso has also sought to deepen its ties with revolutionary movements in Latin America.

In May, the West African nation’s prime minister, Apollinaire Joachim Kyélem de Tambèla, traveled to Venezuela.

Tambèla met with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who pledged to “advance in cooperation, solidarity, and growth… building a solid fraternal relation”.

In July, the Burkinabè prime minister traveled to Nicaragua to celebrate the 44th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution.

Tambèla attended the July 19 celebration of the revolution in Managua, at the invitation of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

Following the September 2022 coup in Burkina Faso, the new president, Traoré, surprised many observers by choosing as his prime minister a longtime follower of Thomas Sankara, Apollinaire Joachim Kyélem de Tambèla.

Tambèla was an ally of Sankara during the Burkinabè revolution. When Sankara came to power in the 1980s, Tambèla organized a solidarity movement and sought international support for the new leftist government.

Tambèla is a pan-Africanist and has been affiliated with communist and left-wing organizations.

Traoré said in a speech in December that Tambèla will help to oversee the process of the “refoundation of the nation“.

By appointing Tambèla as prime minister, Traoré tangibly showed his commitment to reviving the revolutionary legacy of Sankara.

In his remarks at the anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, Tambèla discussed the historical legacy of solidarity between the revolution in Burkina Faso and that of Nicaragua.

Burkina Faso’s President Thomas Sankara with Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega in 1986.

Tambèla recalled that Sankara visited Nicaragua in 1986, and the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega visited Burkina Faso that same year.

When he spoke at the United Nations General Assembly in 1984, Sankara declared,

I wish also to feel close to my comrades of Nicaragua, whose ports are being mined, whose towns are being bombed and who, despite all, face up with courage and lucidity to their fate. I suffer with all those in Latin America who are suffering from imperialist domination.

In 1984 and 1986, Sankara also visited Cuba, where he met with revolutionary President Fidel Castro.

“For people of my generation, there are things that unite us with Nicaragua, Augusto César Sandino, the Sandinista National Liberation Front and Commander Daniel Ortega”, Burkinabè Prime Minister Tambèla said in his speech in Managua on July 19, 2023.

“We have learned to know Nicaragua. When the liberation struggle began, I was small, but we followed, day by day, the context of Nicaragua’s liberation. I went in July of ’79, and when they entered Managua we were happy, people of my age celebrated that”, he recalled.

And then, when Thomas Sankara came to power, Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista Revolution was something happy for us; we as students studied a lot the history of Nicaragua, we followed its evolution.

Tambèla added that Burkina Faso supported Nicaragua in its International Court of Justice case against the United States. Washington was found guilty of illegally sponsoring far-right “Contra” death squads, which waged a terror war against the leftist government, as well as putting mines in Nicaragua’s ports. (Yet, although Nicaragua won the case in 1986, the U.S. government has still to this day refused to pay the Central American nation a single cent of the reparations that it legally owes it.)

“Nicaragua’s struggle is also that of our people”, Tambèla stressed.

In his July 19 speech, the Burkinabè prime minister also sent special greetings to the diplomatic delegations from Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran.

“We have very close relations with Cuba”, Tambèla added.

President Fidel Castro has been and was a very important person for the revolution in Africa; we have excellent memories, both of Cuba and of President Fidel Castro.

Ben Norton is an investigative journalist and analyst. He is the founder and editor of Geopolitical Economy Report, and is based in Latin America. (Publicaciones en español aquí.)

Lula’s Victory Means Relief for Venezuela

By Joseph Lobodzinski

Lula's victory on October 28th was an electoral win for leftists both in and outside of Brazil. The pink tide that has swept many right-wing leaders across Central and South America from power once again crested to wash out the crazed fascist Jair Bolsonaro. 

There are many reasons to celebrate this triumph. Lula has pledged to end the Bolsonaro administration’s massive deforestation efforts, promising to protect the rights and livelihoods of the millions of indigenous peoples who call the Amazon their rightful home. Lula’s pledge will also prevent approximately 100 billion metric tons of carbon being released into the Earth’s atmosphere.

However, there is reason to temper hopes. Despite Lula’s win, Brazil’s right wing secured a majority in the national congress and have vowed to block any of his progressive policies. The Vice President-elect of Brazil, Geraldo Alckmin, is a social democrat who has been labeled as a “pro-business centrist,” highlighting the fact that the incoming presidential administration will take a more “pragmatic” and “means-tested” approach to governance.

Despite these issues, Lula's win is another step in the beginning of a new era — one in which Brazil and other Latin American countries will begin normalizing relations with Venezuela.

The recent pink tide has brought forth more leaders who are either actively advancing diplomatic relations with Venezuela, or who are — at the very least — open to doing so.

In Colombia, leftist President Gustavo Petro, elected earlier this year, has taken the most ambitious approach toward working with President Nicolás Maduro and Venezuela. In late September, the two countries reopened cargo trade, and their borders, for the first time in seven years. A few weeks later, on November 1st, Maduro welcomed Petro in Caracas, inaugurating the reactivation of flights between the two countries.

In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who hosted Maduro in Mexico City for his 2018 presidential inauguration and has refused to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaidó, recently urged the United States to restore relations with Venezuela. Since the decision by the US to impose draconian sanctions, Venezuela’s economy has collapsed, creating a massive humanitarian catastrophe. Unable to obtain housing, food, and medical care, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have left the country, triggering a migration crisis that has left thousands stranded in Mexico as they seek entry into the United States. While the US agreed to take in 24,000 asylum seekers, last month, the Department of Homeland Security inexplicably deported 1,700 Venezuelans back to Mexico.

Lula’s victory, however, may facilitate the amelioration of this dire situation. Like in other countries, Brazil’s executive office holds significant power to shape foreign policy and direct trade agreements. Not only should Lula’s administration be able to reverse the diplomatic approach of its delusional predecessor; they should be able to convince other nations — specifically, the United States — to normalize relations with Maduro and lift sanctions through appropriate avenues of economic leverage, such as placing an exports tax on some of the $31.3 billion of goods shipped to the US from Brazil.

The timing could not be any more relevant. With relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia souring after the latter seemingly convinced other OPEC members to follow its lead in cutting oil production as an act of retaliation for Western opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US has now been left scrambling to find an alternative source of crude oil.

This has led all eyes to fall on Venezuela.

Both Biden and Maduro have supposedly signaled their openness to normalizing relations, whether by directly stating it or by opening certain diplomatic avenues. 

Maduro has been forward, auctioning off some of the 300 billion barrels of oil in his nation’s reserves to the West, including a three-million barrel sale to Italy earlier this year, leading to global leaders such as France’s Emmanuel Macron meeting with Maduro at COP27 to begin “proposing dialogue” between their countries.

Earlier this year, US senior officials began negotiating with Maduro over the possibility of relieving sanctions. Now several months into the process, the prospect of reaching an agreement seems increasingly likely.

In exchange for cash and sanctions relief, all Maduro has to do is agree to a “clean” presidential election in 2024 and return to stalled negotiations with the Unitary Platform, his liberal-democratic opposition.

However, this is all tentative. As history shows, the US will do anything to obtain the natural resources it needs to drive its economy. In the case of Venezuela, if throwing the opposition under the bus or launching another imperialist coup provides access to their oil reserves, either may happen.

Then there’s Lula.

Lula’s established relationship with both Maduro and countries such as the United States makes him the best mediator for a decent deal.

Lula has had solid diplomatic relations with Maduro dating back to his initial presidency from 2003–2011, and both have already agreed to resume a “cooperation agenda” between their two countries. Lula’s respect among Western powers like the United States is also quite notable. This relationship was recently exemplified by the Biden administration’s immediate recognition of Lula’s electoral victory.

What all of this ultimately means is that Lula can lead the charge of providing sanctions relief for Venezuela, as well as restarting their economy through the oil sector. Lula can influence the United States to begin lifting sanctions and reversing some of its hostile diplomatic stances toward the Maduro government. In return, Maduro would take steps toward “free” elections and resume oil sales to the United States, giving him the money he needs to rescue his country.

Regardless of how this diplomatic situation plays out, it is important to remember that the people of Venezuela need to be alleviated of their current strife. After years of trade embargos that have caused poverty to skyrocket, creating a massive humanitarian crisis, any means of bringing this to an end should be considered.

And while it looks like the US is once again getting away with geopolitical hostage-taking by placing another country with leftist sympathies under the gun of despotic sanctions, we should be cautiously optimistic that Venezuela — with the help of Brazil — may be able to lift the imperialist boot from its neck.

Joseph Lobodzinski is a University of Michigan alumnus and leftist writer covering international politics, American social movements, labor, and the environment.

Blows Against the Empire—2020 In Memoriam

By Steve Lalla

To say that 2020 has been memorable would be an understatement, but experience teaches us that our memories of the pandemic may well be struck from the record.

“The 1918 influenza epidemic is one of history’s great conundrums, obliterated from the consciousness of historians,” wrote Gina Kolata, and COVID-19 may yet meet the same fate.[1] Kolata recalls that not only was the Spanish flu omitted from basic history in her elementary and high school, but was also ignored in microbiology and virology courses in college, even though it killed more people than the first world war.

From the onset of the pandemic it was clear that it would accelerate the crumble of the u.s empire. Many had commented on the fragility of neoliberalism in the face of public health crises, and it was pretty obvious from the start that the imperialist system would prove incapable of handling COVID-19 in a reasonable manner.

While the u.s and its capitalist vassals fell prey to COVID-19, blaming it on China or insisting that “one day, like a miracle, it will disappear,” the pandemic overshadowed imperialist defeats in the Middle East and Latin America, and masked some of the scariest climate catastrophes in recorded history.

A chronology of 2020’s most salient dates:

January 5: Iraq’s parliament voted to expel all u.s troops from the country. Deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Units of Iraq, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, was assassinated in a January 3 drone strike—in addition to Iran’s General Soleimani—the last straw for Iraq politicians’ toleration of any u.s troops on their soil. About 5,000 u.s troops remain in the country. The ruling was the final blow to Bush Jr.’s lie that the Iraq War would “bring freedom” to Iraqis, who instead revile the u.s for killing a million of their brothers and sisters, destroying their economy and infrastructure, and bombing their most precious ancient sites.

January 6: Millions filled the streets of Tehran, Iran, following the drone killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani. Widely publicized footage of astounding mourning processions contradicted u.s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s hollow boasts: “We have every expectation that people not only in Iraq, but in Iran, will view the American action last night as giving them freedom, freedom to have the opportunity for success and prosperity for their nations. While the political leadership may not want that, the people in these nations will demand it.” Coupled with the late-2019 u.s retreat in Syria, it became clear that the empire was losing their war against the Shia Crescent.

January-February: Early in the new year raging forest fires in Australia grabbed world attention. Fires incinerated over 45 million acres and caused almost 500 deaths, either directly or as a result of smoke inhalation. Ecologists estimated that over one billion mammals, birds and reptiles were killed, including about eight thousand koalas. Climate change and destruction of the environment, spurred by decades of conspicuous consumption and a dependence on fossil fuels, are the results of an anarchic capitalist economic system that profits from waste and obsolescence. The u.s produces over 30 percent of the planet’s waste but holds about 4 percent of world population, a profligate lifestyle they imagine can be exported globally.   

March 10: China announces victory in the struggle against the COVID-19 virus. To date, they’ve reported one death and a handful of cases since mid-April. Following strong measures to combat the pandemic including mandatory lockdowns and mask use, antibacterial dousing of public spaces, contact tracing, and regulating travel, China emerged as the global leader in pandemic defense. As a result China represents the one significant national economy that didn’t slump in 2020 and the world’s “only major growth engine,” according to Bloomberg. They dealt an additional blow to imperialism by sending doctors and equipment to the rescue of NATO countries, notably Italy, France, and Spain, or to stalwart u.s allies such as Brazil, Indonesia or the Philippines, in addition to helping numerous resistance nations including Palestine, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, and African nations such as Algeria, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, or Zimbabwe.

April 6: Prominent right-wing political figures and news sources shared the story that Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega had died of COVID-19. In reality Nicaragua had recorded only one death. Camera-shy Ortega made a rare televised speech on April 15th denouncing the u.s empire for spending trillions of dollars on bombs and war but refusing to provide basic free health care for their people. By December, the u.s death rate for COVID-19 was 40 times that of Nicaragua. 

April 20: A blitz of news regarding the death of Kim Jong-un filled all mainstream media. With the pandemic claiming lives around the world this story became huge. Unsurprisingly the lie originated with media funded by the u.s regime-change operation National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

May 3: Venezuelan fishermen foiled the Operation Gideon armed invasion led by former green berets employed by private security company Silvercorp. In March trump placed a $15 million bounty on Maduro, with predictable results. Following the arrest and confession of Silvercorp founder Jordan Goudreau, we learned that u.s officials and their Venezuelan puppets juan guaidó and leopoldo lópez planned and funded the attack. Goudreau even presented documents to prove it. Eight mercenaries were killed, seventeen were captured. The photo of prostrate commandos in front of the Casa of Socialist Fishermen was cited as one of the year’s best.

May 24: Anti-imperialist nations, locked out of world markets by u.s sanctions, were starting to team up. On this day Iranian oil tankers, escorted by boats, helicopters and planes of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) of Venezuela, broke the blockade and landed in El Palito.

May 25: The public lynching of George Floyd horrified the world. In the middle of the street, in broad daylight, while being filmed, a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on George Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes, until Floyd breathed no more. One of over 1,000 murders by u.s police in 2020, Floyd’s killing sparked massive spontaneous protests across the u.s in every city and town. Widespread arson and looting occurred and an army of live streamers shared daily demos, speeches, and police brutality, for those at home. The protests raged for months and had many peaks. The empire deployed the National Guard, military helicopters, and by July were using unidentified troops in black vans to kidnap protesters. At least 14,000 civilians were arrested, and 19 killed, in the protests.

May 28: Protestors torched the Minneapolis’ 3rd Precinct police headquarters, where George Floyd’s killer worked. Police forces had fled the building. The incendiary images provided some of the year’s most widely shared and beloved photographs.

May 31: u.s president trump was taken to a fortified bunker as thousands of protestors besieged the White House and threatened his life. Eventually the empire’s security forces established a perimeter around the president’s residence, with multiple layers of fencing, and fought a pitched battle with bottle-throwing protestors for weeks on end.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/03/trump-bunker-george-floyd-protests

June 3: Cristobal makes landfall in Louisiana, the first of a record-breaking five named storms to hit the state in 2020. Lake Charles, a city that held almost 80,000 people, immortalized in The Band’s “Up On Cripple Creek,” will never recover. Over 45,000 homes were damaged, insured losses topped $10 billion, and thousands of residents are still displaced.

June 20: After tweeting that “almost one million people requested tickets for the Saturday night rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma!" trump spoke to only 6,000 supporters and over 13,000 empty seats. He was trolled by K-Pop fans and teens on Tik Tok who had bought up all the tickets and created fake hype around the event. Photos of a dejected trump leaving the rally were wildly popular.

August 19: Out-of-control California wildfires began to gain international media attention. By this day over 350 fires were already burning. The state went on to record over nine thousand fires, burning about 4 percent of the state’s land, by far the worst wildfire season in California’s history. The smoke from the fires, which are still burning, will create a miniature nuclear winter, contributing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the cars, cities and industries in the u.s during an entire year, and release energy equivalent to “hundreds of hydrogen bombs.”

October 6: Enormous protests erupted across Indonesia in the wake of the government’s passing of an Omnibus Law that undermines workers’ rights and the environment. The law was enacted November 3; protests are ongoing and have resulted in the arrest of at least six thousand civilians including 18 journalists.

October 13: In recognition of their success in maintaining the “highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights,” both Cuba and China were elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

October 18: Luis Arce, candidate of the Movement for Socialism (MAS), swept into power by trouncing Carlos Mesa in Bolivia’s presidential election, gaining 55 percent of the vote to Mesa’s 28 percent. The results put the lie to claims by u.s-backed Organization of American States (OAS) that the 2019 elections, in which Evo Morales was elected to a new term, were fraudulent. Arce’s election vindicated those who had argued for a year that Morales was deposed in an illegitimate, u.s-sponsored coup. Coup dictator jeanine añez and her coterie of imperialist supporters were panned worldwide. añez was captured trying to flee the country while other offending politicians, such as Minister of the Interior arturo murillo, and Minister of Defense fernando lopez, escaped.

October 25: In response to gigantic demonstrations that began in October, 2019 and still haven’t let up, Chile held a Constitutional Referendum. The main objectives of the ongoing protest movement are the removal of president piñera and of the pinochet Constitution that made Chile “ground zero” for the failed neoliberal experiment. To date over 2,500 Chileans have been injured, almost three thousand arrested, and 29 killed in the protests. In the October 25 referendum 80 percent voted for a new constitution, and chose to have it drafted by a Constituent Assembly elected by the people.

November 3: trump’s loss in the u.s presidential elections wasn’t really a defeat for imperialism because biden’s regime will prove to be just as bad, or worse,  for targets of the empire.

Nevertheless, it felt like a victory for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because trump embodied outright neo-fascism and was supported by the most reactionary, racist yankees. Secondly, because, following his electoral defeat, trump and his entourage resorted to every possible ruse that CIA regime-change operations have employed in other countries for decades: crying fraud, attacking voting centers, and denouncing imaginary communists. “trump did more for the liberation of humanity from Western imperialism, because of his crudeness, than any other u.s leader in history,” commented political analyst Laith Marouf. “The latest example was him calling the u.s elections a fraud. With that he made it impossible to undermine the elections in Venezuela.”

November 11: Evo Morales returned to Bolivia exactly one year to the day after his ouster. His return was celebrated by multitudes, and hailed as a “world historic event.” Morales assumed his place as head of MAS and as an eminent spokesperson against imperialism.

November 23: While u.s reported their largest increase in poverty since they began tracking data, China announced that they had lifted all counties out of poverty, and eradicated extreme poverty across the Republic. Since 1978 China has lifted over 850 million out of poverty, according to the World Bank.

November 25: Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla revealed links between members of the San Isidro movement and the u.s embassy in Havana. The failed San Isidro campaign revolved around Cuban rapper Denis Solis, detained in Havana for failing to respect COVID-19 regulations and assaulting a police officer. A small group went on a highly publicized "hunger strike" demanding his release and claiming that Cuba was repressing dissent. Meanwhile Cuba's government and investigative journalists revealed the ties, including funding and numerous meetings, between San Isidro group members, Miami-based right-wing agitators and u.s politicians in Cuba. The rapper in question, Denis Solis, didn't help his case by yelling "trump 2020!" at Cuban police officers in a video he filmed and shared himself a few days after trump had lost the election.

November 26: Over 250 million took to the streets in India, reported as the “biggest organized strike in human history,” protesting new laws that will attack farm workers and subject the nation to inequitable neoliberal doctrines. Huge masses of demonstrators marched on Delhi from neighboring states. They met barricades, roadblocks, armed security forces, teargas and all manner of obstructions, but dismantled everything and reached their target. "They are trying to give away agriculture to capitalists, just like they sold so many of our important public sector companies across India," said a spokesperson. "Through this relentless privatization they want to further exploit farmers and workers."

December 6: Venezuela’s Parliamentary Election resulted in a landslide victory for Maduro’s Chavista party PSUV/GPP, breaking a deadlock in Parliament that had lasted for five years, and ushering in a new era in Venezuelan politics that will last until the end of Maduro’s term in 2024—barring a military invasion, assassination or successful coup by imperialist powers.

The upcoming year certainly holds more of the same in store for us: embarrassments for imperialism, hundreds of thousands of preventable COVID-19 deaths, and a doubling-down on capitalism’s claims that it provides the only way forward, evidenced by the hubris of promotional efforts for The Great Reset.

Notes

[1] Kolata, Gina. Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999

Remembering Guaidó’s Last Stand

[Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images]

By Matthew Dolezal

Originally published at the author’s blog.

The year of our Lord 2020 will likely go down in the history books as one of the most existentially ridiculous years ever. It began with President Donald Trump belligerently assassinating Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was on a peace mission in Iraq. Unlike many controversial Middle Eastern figures, Solemani was universally beloved in Iran and played a leading role in the defeat of ISIS in Syria. Shortly thereafter, Chinese officials isolated a novel coronavirus strain noticing a strange influenza-like ailment afflicting residents in and around the city of Wuhan weeks earlier. Needless to say, the coronavirus behind what is now referred to as Covid-19 has led to a massive global pandemic. On May 25, with said catastrophe in full effect, a white Minneapolis police officer lynched an unarmed, nonviolent black man named George Floyd, causing nationwide rebellions and calls to defund/abolish the institution of American policing. And that’s just the tip of the quickly melting iceberg.

It has certainly been a hell of a year. But there’s a special little story that may have barely registered on the radar of all but the most avid connoisseurs of current events. During the first week of May, a ragtag gang of mercenaries launched from Colombia and was quickly apprehended by Venezuelan forces and socialist fishermen after attempting to invade the neighboring country via the coastal La Guaira State and the peninsula of Chuao. In the wake of this misadventure, news broke that two of the approximately sixty combatants were in fact American citizens and former Green Berets Luke Denman and Airan Berry. This embarrassingly botched mission, coined “Operation Gideon”, was quickly revealed to be yet another coup attempt against democratically-elected Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the Bolivarian government more broadly. A leaked contract described tactics that included captures, assassinations, drone strikes, and even death squads in order to “liberate” the oil-rich nation.

The lead planner behind the foiled operation was none other than Silvercorp CEO Jordan Goudreau. Gourdreau's Florida-based private security firm was contracted for $212.9 million, yet only offered the aforementioned mercenaries between $50,000 and $100,000 each for their life-threatening services. Silvercorp USA initially began with hopes of converting military veterans into school security personnel — theoretically to protect students from school shooters for a small subscription fee — but the scheme appears to have been shelved. Gourdreau, himself a U.S. Army veteran, teamed up with retired Venezuelan General Cliver Alcala, who had previously been involved in various coup plots, often with assistance from the right-wing Colombian government. This was supposed to be Silvercorp’s big break.

As journalist Lucas Koerner summarized, “Jordan Goudreau, 43, was responsible for training a contingent of 300 Venezuelan army deserters in Colombia, who were to penetrate Venezuela in a heavily armed caravan and seize the capital of Caracas within 96 hours.” These details and more had been laid out in the aforementioned contract, which, thankfully, also contained an equal opportunity employment clause, promising to be inclusive “across gender, ethnicity, age, disabilities and national origin…”

One of the most notable aspects of the contract, however, is the fact that it named Juan Guaidó as the operation’s “Commander in Chief.” Guaidó, who initially denied any involvement, is a disgraced Venezuelan politician who clumsily declared himself “interim president” of the Bolivarian republic early last year and has since become embroiled in a corruption scandal.

The political trajectory of Guaidó is fascinating in its own right. In 2007, after graduating from Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas, Guaidó moved to Washington, D.C. to study under neoliberal economist Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia at George Washington University. Later that year, he took part in anti-government rallies after the Venezuelan government declined to renew the license of Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) — a privately owned station that played a prominent role in the 2002 coup attempt against then-president Hugo Chávez (an event chronicled in a documentary entitled, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"). And thus began Guaidó’s tumultuous tenure in the realm of Venezuelan politics.

The young Guaidó continued taking part in anti-government demonstrations with “Generation 2007” youth activists, and, in 2009, helped establish the Popular Will Party with infamous right-wing political figure Leopoldo Lopez. During the subsequent years, Guaidó met with various regime change specialists and wealthy business owners, and even participated in the violent guarimbas in 2014, which aimed to destabilize and ultimately overthrow the government. The emerging political figure then proceeded to publicly whitewash the deadly tactics used by right-wing protesters, presenting himself as a polished and professional advocate for democracy.

Guaidó also participated in Venezuela’s National Assembly, spending many years as an alternate deputy, until the 2015 elections when he narrowly secured a seat on the governing body. The opposition-dominated National Assembly eventually selected Guaidó as its president — a position that is awarded on a rotating basis. This new development made Guaidó the perfect candidate for Washington’s regime change efforts. Despite still being unknown to 81% of Venezuelans, Guaidó declared himself “interim president” on January 22, 2019 with the full support of the Trump administration. What followed was a series of Western media misinformation campaigns, bungled coup attempts, and, after all else failed, a new wave of U.S. economic sanctions that killed an estimated 40,000 Venezuelans in just one year.

After losing his National Assembly seat in early January, 2020, Guaidó staged a childish scene in which he attempted to climb over the fence surrounding parliament. The floundering politician then faded from the spotlight until the recent failed incursion. Indeed, Operation Gideon — also referred to as “Stupid Bay of Pigs” — appears to have been a pathetic, last-ditch effort to install Guaidó as Venezuela’s president and implement a program of neoliberal “shock therapy”, primarily focused on privatizing the country's vast oil reserves.

Though appearing exotic on its surface, this quaint anecdote also fits into the “bigger picture” of 2020’s troubling zeitgeist. As part of its long-standing policy of violent imperialism throughout Latin America, the U.S. government funded the aforementioned 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela, hoping to oust popular president Hugo Chávez. Despite its consistent two-decade commitment to disrupting the progressive Bolivarian Revolution, the world’s only remaining empire has evidently failed miserably. This defeated regime change effort mirrors other recent U.S. foreign policy failures, such as that of the devastating Syrian proxy war. In keeping with its increasingly desperate imperial ambitions, the U.S. has now lashed out against China — its main competitor on the global stage and a nation that has aided Venezuela amid the aforementioned brutal sanctions. The epic downfall of Juan Guaidó is not only a tale of personal and professional shortcoming, but could also symbolize a decline in the neoliberal global order more broadly, with new possibilities on the horizon.

US Puppeteering and the Philosophy of Chavismo: Nicolas Maduro as a Symbol of Venezuelan Sovereignty

By Canyon Ryan

On January 23, 2019, President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, at an opposition rally in Caracas proclaimed himself President of Venezuela. Quickly, the United States (U.S.) and lobbied allies announced their recognition of Guaidó as the legitimate President and denounced the elected president, Nicolás Maduro, as a usurper and dictator.

Before that day, Guaidó was largely an unknown figure to much of Venezuela. Polling prior to Guaidó's self-proclamation suggested approximately 80% of Venezuelans had never even heard of him (Ciccariello-Maher, 2019). Ignoring the absence of such a mandate, as of July 2019, reportedly 54 countries support Guaidó as the interim-President of Venezuela.

As Guaido asked for China's support while painting a picture of a country grappling with "90% food and medical shortages, a population in which 87% live below the poverty line and an inflation which exceeds 2,000,000%," it appeared to Washington and Venezuelan elites that the "Bolivarian Revolution" was on the brink of collapse. Instead, as the last seven months passed so too has Guaidó's legitimacy within Venezuela, the U.S. and the international community.

"The Bolivarian Revolution"

In 1998, famed Venezuelan revolutionary Hugo Chávez won a sweeping electoral victory six years after leading a failed coup attempt. Chávez, an ardent socialist, believed in the utilization of Venezuela's national resources to benefit the country's poorest citizens. This movement would come to be known as "The Bolivarian Revolution", a reference to revolutionary Simón Bolívar, who liberated numerous Latin American countries from the Spanish Empire, including Venezuela.

The Revolution faced its first substantial obstruction in 2002 after a coup that ultimately found Chávez reinstated within 2 days. The coup was led by business lobbies, reactionary trade unions, and a unified political opposition rallying behind Pedro Carmona; all of whom felt that Chávez was acting in an undemocratic manner which also threatened their commercial interests.

Immediately following the coup and during the subsequent military detention of Chávez, the U.S. recognized the Carmona government and attempted to lobby international support for the legitimization of the government which overthrew a President elected with nearly 60% of the vote just two years earlier. Less than two weeks later it was understood that the U.S. had met with the coup plotters and both knew of and supported their ambitions (Vulliamy, 2002). In the end, the coup failed as tens-of-thousands Chávistas took to the streets, flipping the military high command to support the reinstatement of Chávez.

"Chavismo" is the espoused economic and social philosophy of President Chávez who in 1998 inherited a country in which two thirds of the population subsisted on less than $2 a day (Cooper, 2002). In the years following the 2002 coup attempt, Chávez lowered the Gini Coefficient by 54%, reduced poverty from 70.8% (1996) to 21% (2010) and extreme poverty from ~40% to 7.3% (2010), with 20,000,000 benefitting from the anti-poverty programs (Muntaner & Benach & Paez-Victor, 2002). It is for these reasons that Venezuelan elites so much feared and despised the President.

Acquired Economic Crisis

In 2013, Chávez passed away after a two-year battle with cancer. His Vice President at the time Nicolás Maduro, in accordance with the Venezuelan Constitution, held a presidential election within 30 days of a sitting President's death. Maduro won the election, narrowly edging out opposition candidate Henrique Capriles by a 1.5% margin, much less than the 11% victory attained by Chávez over Capriles seven months earlier. Despite having Chávez's public endorsement, Maduro lacked the charisma and connection attained by Chávez after almost 20 years of public admiration. Among the primary polling concerns at the time were a retracting national economy, increasing crime rates, and land ownership rights.

2013 was also a high point for global oil prices, with a barrel of crude selling on the market for $105.87. With the largest oil reserves in the world, Venezuela benefited dramatically during this period of rising prices, and began promoting numerous socialist programs both domestically and abroad. As early as 2006, the Chávez Administration was financing eye surgeries for the poor in Mexico and subsidizing heat for struggling homeowners in the U.S. Approximately 30 countries benefited from Venezuela's assistance in the form of generous debt and bond purchasing, discounted oil sales through the PetroCaribe program, and numerous development programs throughout the overexploited world. These projects were managed while considerably investing in the poor of Venezuela.

However, critics have noted the spending and centralization throughout the Chávez era to be reckless and attuned to economic mismanagement. Toppled with an imposed currency control which overvalued the Venevuelan bolivar and the complex multi-tiered exchange rate system which encouraged corruption through bolivar sales on the black market, the Venezuelan economy had reached a point of extreme insecurity which the Maduro Administration has had difficulties solving.

Accentuating the economic crisis, by 2015 a barrel of crude oil sold for less than $50 on the global market. With a 50% decrease in value, the Maduro Administration faced serious challenges in restoring an economy that was already in recession. Moreover, Venezuela is a single resource economy with 95-99% of its export earnings coming from oil sales, meaning it relies heavily on imports due to the lack of resource and commodity diversity. It is important to note that this is not solely the blame of the Bolivarian Revolution. That Venezuela is a single resource export economy is a problem that has existed since Spanish colonization, and every government since has been tasked with attempting to diversify the national economy while suffering from boom-and-bust cycles attached to the sale of oil. This renders the state fully reliant on oil sales, a product of colonialism and a symptom of the "resource curse". Additionally, the ongoing economic crisis has been heightened due to sanctions waged by the U.S.

In 2006, the U.S. Department of State began barring the sale of new military equipment and spare parts to Venezuela. In 2011, the U.S. placed sanctions against the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA. In 2013, further sanctions were placed against the state-owned firearms manufacturer, CVIM. By 2015, President Obama sanctioned Venezuelan officials and declared ludicrously by Executive Order a "national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security… of the United States posed by… Venezuela." Today, the U.S. Treasury Department has sanctions on 115 Venezuelans and hundreds of visas have been revoked by the U.S. State Department (Seelke & Sullivan, 2019). A 2019 report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research conducted by Mark Weisbrot and Jeffery Sachs found that sanctions imposed by the Trump Administration since August 2017 alone have resulted in the preventable deaths of more than 40,000 Venezeulans and have contributed to the suffering of millions due to restrictions on Venezuela's ability to import food and medicine. With continued sanctions placed on PDVSA in 2019, it is clear the U.S. intends to undernourish the nation.

Since 2013, the Venezuelan economy has contracted by more than 47% (according to the Venezuelan Central Bank) with hyperinflation reaching levels previously unseen. The goal of U.S. sanctions is clearly the polarization of Venezuelan society by a heightening of economic struggle afforded by the general populace. This is a multifaceted attack, including not just the governments of the West and their right-wing sycophants throughout Latin America, but also through disinvestment and deceitful marketing by numerous financial institutions. An example of such can be seen regarding Venezuela's risk-rating by J.P. Morgan Bank in 2017 which was listed at 4,820 points. Whereas Chile, despite having the same debt/GDP ratio as Venezuela, was ranked thirty-eight times lower (Ramonet, 2018). Throughout the years, U.S. sanctions against Venezuela have resulted in the government's inability to send and receive payments in the millions and prevented Venezuela from accessing billions from its own reserves overseas.

Maduro's Continuation of Chavismo

On August 4, 2018, President Maduro survived an assassination attempt after several drones carrying explosives flew toward him during a speech in Caracas. A month later it was reported that U.S. officials had met with military officers involved in the coup several times over the year preceding the attempt (Diamond & Labott & Stracqualursi, 2018). In June 2019, the Associated Press in Caracas reported that Maduro's spokesperson, Jorge Rodríguez, announced that the government had foiled an assassination plot designed by former Venezuelan military and police officers. Blame for this conspiracy was directed by Rodríguez at U.S. allies Colombian President Iván Duque and Chilean President Sebastian Piñera.

Since 2013, Maduro has accused the opposition, the U.S. and their regional subordinates of numerous assassination attempts and coup plots. In tradition with the Bolivarian Revolution, Maduro sees himself as a defender of Venezuela against imperialists intent on exploiting the people and natural resources of Venezuela. Instead of bowing to the pressures of the hegemon, Maduro has been unwavering in his commitment to Chavismo and Venezuelan sovereignty.

In 2016, Bolivarian government social spending amounted to 73% of the national budget while the Venezuelan Great Housing Mission constructed an additions 370,000 homes to be distributed to families living in the barrios, achieving the second lowest homelessness rate in the region (Boothroyd-Rojas, 2017 & Fúnez, 2017). Regarding social advancements, in 2016 Venezuela's Public Ministry announced that transgender people may request a new identification card according to their gender identity. Venezuela's government also founded and financed numerous ministries to advance several minority communities, including the Ministry for Women and Gender Equality, the Centre of African Knowledge, and the Ministry of Popular Power for Indigenous Peoples (Fúnez, 2017)

By the end of 2017, the government had expanded its free healthcare system to cover over 60% of the nation, while increasing the salaries of all doctors working in the public sector by 50% (Fúnez, 2017). In the realm of education, Maduro's government continued the policies of Chávez which have resulted in Venezuela ranking sixth in the world regarding primary education enrollment, with 73% of the population enrolling in secondary education and a literacy rate of 95.4% (Fúnez, 2017). In order to circumvent the banking blockade, the country also launched its own cryptocurrency known as the Petro. Meanwhile, the Local Committees of Supply and Production (CLAP) program expanded to reaching more than four million people, supplying them with government subsidized goods that are otherwise difficult to afford for the impoverished due to economic speculation.

The 2018 presidential election was largely boycotted by a fractured opposition who had requested the U.N. not send international observers so not to legitimize an election they otherwise were likely to lose. Despite the intended boycott not all of the opposition abstained from participating, resulting in a Maduro victory with 67% of the vote.

By the end of the year, Venezuela's Great Housing Mission had constructed over 2.5M dignified homes for distribution to those in need. As a result of this achievement, in May 2019 the U.N. Habitat Assembly recognized Venezuela as a world leader with regard to right-to-housing.

"The Making of Juan Guaido"

Investigative journalist Max Blumenthal, in an article titled "The Making of Juan Guaidó," delineates through an extensive review how Guaidó became a prominent figure of the opposition.

After graduating from Andres Bello Catholic University, a leading private university in Caracas, he enrolled at George Washington University in Washington D.C., where he studied under former International Monetary Fund Executive Director Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia. In 2007, Guaidó and allies led an anti-government rally after Chávez refused to renew the broadcasting license for Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV). The refusal was primarily due to RCTV's role in the 2002 coup, where the station promoted the anti-government rally and then manipulated significant events during the coup (Blumenthal, 2019), quite literally spreading "fake news" to delegitimize the Chávez Administration.

In 2010, Guaidó and others traveled to Mexico for a secret five-day training session directed by "Otpor" (Blumenthal, 2019), an NGO created in Belgrade largely credited with leading removal of President Slobodan Milošević following the 2000 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia elections. Otpor is ostensibly a regime change arm of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) whose reputation has blurred the lines between being a provocative pro-democracy NGO and being a subversive soft-power entity used by foreign governments hostile to alleged autocracies across the world.

Guaidó also participated in the "guarimbas", which were often violent anti-Maduro roadblocks notorious for killing at least 43 people in 2014. Since deleted, that same year Guaidó tweeted a video of himself wearing a helmet and gas mask, surrounded by masked guarimberos who has shut down a highway, proclaiming to be the "resistance" (Blumenthal, 2019). In February 2014, Guaidó joined opposition figure Leopoldo Lopez on stage where they led a crowd of protestors to Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz's office which armed gangs later attempted to burn down (Blumenthal, 2019).

Is this what democracy looks like?

NGOs and Disingenuous "Development"

From 2002-2007, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) granted 360 "scholarships" in what amassed to $11,575,509 for social organizations, political parties, and political projects through Development Alternatives Incorporated (DAI), a company contracted by USAID to work in Venezuela (Golinger, 2011). During the December of 2002, DAI paid for numerous radio and television advertisements on behalf of the opposition, calling for a general strike to halt operations until Chávez stepped down (Golinger, 2004).

The "labor rights" branch of the NED, known as the Solidarity Center, had members in Venezuela in 2002 meet with Otto Reich, then Assistant Secretary of Western Hemisphere Affairs, and an individual who was implicated in cooperating with anti-Chávez groups in destabilization campaigns prior to the coup attempt in 2002 (Cox, 2012). The Center also financed unions such as the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, which organized with the National Business Confederation of Venezuela, a group complicit in working with the opposition and supporting the 2002 coup (Cox, 2012). These revelations emphasize the coercive nature of the NED as their labor rights arm operates with the U.S. Department of State in destabilizing Venezuela by organizing labor against the state.

Opposition parties and organizations have also been financed by USAID, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute (each U.S. party's branch of the NED), totaling over $7M between 2002-2011 (Golinger, 2011). Between 2013-2014, the NED and USAID collectively sent $14M to opposition parties organizing protests in 2014, of which Guaidó was a participant. In 2013 alone, of the $2.3M sent to Venezuela by the NED, $1.7M was sent directly to opposition parties (Golinger, 2014).

Given the U.S. recognition of the self-proclaimed President of Venezuela Juan Guaidó, it should be clear that preserving democracy is not the intent of President Trump's Administration. Unlike both Mr. Guaidó and Trump, Maduro was elected by a majority of the Venezuelan population to be President of the country, twice. If the U.S. actually cared about the Venezuelan people, it would relinquish the sanctions and send reparations for the havoc it has created.

Instead, the war drum continues to beat. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio in February 2019 tweeted a photo of the corpse of U.S. adversary Muammar Gaddafi as an apparent threat against Maduro (Rahim, 2019). Moreover, the appointment of Elliott Abrams as U.S. Special Envoy to Venezuela should serve as explicit evidence that "democracy and human rights" are not the U.S. goal for Venezuela. Abrams himself has links to the Venezuela 2002 coup attempt, and in 1991 plead guilty to misleading the U.S. Congress following the Nicaraguan Contras funding scandal that engulfed President Reagan's Administration. Abrams also misled the U.S. Senate concerning the El Mozote massacre during the 12-year El Salvador Civil War, a massacre whose perpetrators were funded and trained by the U.S. (Al Jazeera, 2019). Thus, as Guaidó has pledged and John Bolton proclaimed, the goals in Venezuela for the U.S. are the opening of markets, the privatization of state assets and U.S.-owned multinational corporations' access to oil reserves.

In July 2019, the Los Angeles Times reported that a USAID memo sent to Congress noted that the Trump Administration would be diverting over $40M, initially intended for Guatemala and Honduras, to the Guaidó faction in Venezuela. This more than $40M redirection accounts for more than 10% of the allocated $370M for the region. Moreover, it is important to note that just a month earlier, it was reported that the Guaidó faction had spent over $165,000 on luxury goods and personal expenses which had been sent to them in the form of humanitarian aid (Cohen, 2019).

The Conflict is The Contradiction

Guaidó alone is no standout figure. It is said that the day before the self-proclamation, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence personally called Guaidó and asserted U.S. support for his declaration. Many in attendance at the rally were caught off guard, and even fellow stage members showed bewilderment at the announcement. Still, minutes after the announcement the U.S. and lobbied allies legitimized the proclamation.

The conflict for the U.S. is the outright contradiction of a foreign powers' selection and international lobbying of support for a character who proclaimed themselves President without grasping any control of Venezuela. Without the military abandoning the Bolivarian Revolution, Guaidó has the world's attention and nothing to show for it. This has only been highlighted by the forced occupation of the Venezuelan Embassy in the U.S. (where occupiers were evicted by siege) and Costa Rica (which was denounced by the Costa Rican government) by Guaidó appointees. Another example of Guaidó's foreign inabilities is Germany's refusal to recognize Otto Gebauer as an ambassador of Venezuela, instead regarding him a "personal representative of interim president Juan Guaidó".

Meanwhile, the Maduro government remains committed to Venezuelan sovereignty and Chavismo. With the U.S. constantly reminding that "all options are on the table", it appears the truth is that the coup attempt has ultimately failed and the only flex the U.S. is willing to display are twitter threats accompanied by starvation sanctions. What the future holds remains a mystery, but from what the history of Chavismo has shown us, the people of Venezuela are unwilling to submit their independence to the U.S. in exchange for commercial contracts and austerity measures to resurrect the economy. While the country remains in deep struggle, Venezuela at least remains a sovereign Latin American state.

References

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