Political Report #1466 The April 2002 Coup Through Time

 by LAP Editor, Steve Ellner

Published in NACLA: Report on the Americas. Vol. 54, no. 1

On April 14, 2002, the folly of the abortive coup staged against the government of Hugo Chávez three days earlier was clear, but the depth of its long-lasting impact was not. The April 11 coup was a milestone event that shaped politics in Venezuela and the region for the next two decades. Most important, the coup and the events that immediately followed it set off polarization marked by the radicalization of the government and the opposition, which impacted not only national politics but also government policy on all fronts.

The year 2002 was thus a turning point in Venezuelan politics. How did the nation reach such a defining moment? In the initial period after gaining power, the Chavista movement, like Fidel Castro's Movimiento 26 de Julio in 1959, did not stand for thoroughgoing socioeconomic transformation, even though both movements originated in attempts to gain power using force. Castro in 1959 denied being a leftist, and Chávez embraced the “third way” doctrine that stood between pro-capitalist and pro-socialist.

In both cases, however, powerful adversaries viewed the movements as existential threats. In Cuba’s case, the Eisenhower administration took steps to overthrow Castro shortly after he came to power. And in Venezuela, the nation’s two main parties, Acción Democrática (AD) and Copei, joined forces in an eleventh-hour attempt to avoid Chávez’s triumph at the polls in 1998, while the business organization Fedecámaras staunchly opposed his candidacy. Shortly after his election, the Catholic hierarchy claimed that Chávez had earned the wrath of God. By 2002, Washington officials, who for the most part initially refrained from criticizing his government, questioned his democratic credentials and then, in effect, supported the April coup. These developments intensified the polarization that has plagued Venezuela ever since.

In our article “The Remarkable Fall and Rise of Hugo Chávez,” published in the July/August 2002 issue of the NACLA Report, NACLA director Fred Rosen and I showed how the radicalization of the opposition unfolded the day after the April 11 coup. The article defined two contrasting positions within the opposition that, despite changing political terrain, have continued to this day: a hardline, right-wing strategy that on April 12 decreed the elimination of democratic institutions, and a centrist strategy of working through existing institutions. The latter favored reaching an agreement with former Interior Minister Luis Miquilena and other disenchanted Chavistas to achieve regime change through the legislative branch and in a way that “broad sectors of the population would be represented,” we wrote.

We pointed out that the hardliners, guided by “a well-conceived plan” that gave them an advantage over the centrists, seized control of the government in what we called “nothing less than a coup within the coup.” Economic policy lay just beneath the surface. We noted that “as a member of the export-oriented business class, [provisional president Pedro Carmona] and his followers very likely wanted once and for all to remove all the obstacles to full-fledged, neoliberal formulas.” To do so required “a clean and violent break with the populist past.” In other words, to achieve pressing objectives, democratic principles had to be compromised.

Carmona was set on implementing a radical neoliberal program, sometimes referred to as the “shock treatment,” consisting of harsh and swiftly implemented austerity measures. He staffed his cabinet with members of the elite while excluding labor leaders of the AD-controlled Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV), even though the CTV had made April 11 happen in the first place and its president, Carlos Ortega, was originally slated to head the provisional government, as Gregory Wilpert later noted in a piece for Venezuelaanalysis.

The absence of leaders of AD, the nation’s largest party, which had wholeheartedly supported the mobilizations against Chávez, was not by accident. Throughout the 1990s, a major faction within AD had opposed the shock treatment brand of neoliberalism, a position that partly explains the party’s decision to expel neoliberal ex-president Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1993.

The neoliberal radicals, however, attributed Venezuela’s backwardness to the allegedly left-wing populist tradition associated with AD, which they blamed for Chávez’s rise to power in 1998. On the eve of Chávez’s election, one prominent academic supporter of neoliberal reform, Aníbal Romero, ominously wrote in Latin American Research Review: “Venezuela is experiencing the agony of populism…and one cannot be sure of where it may lead.”

Fast forwarding to the Maduro years, the polarization between the Chavista government associated with socialism and an intransigent opposition remained intact, as did the high stakes of Venezuelan politics. Various features largely dating back to 2002 stand out.

Most important, a dominant radical faction of the opposition continues to overshadow a moderate one. The moderates, unlike the radicals, advocate electoral participation, favor recognizing the legitimacy of the nation's democratic institutions and the Maduro presidency, and oppose U.S.-imposed sanctions.

As in 2002, radicals—headed by self-proclaimed president Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo López of the Voluntad Popular party—have had a distinct advantage over moderates, this time due to decisive support from Washington. The State Department demanded that the Maduro administration refrain from taking judicial action against Guaidó despite his numerous attempts to overthrow the government, and it influenced Maduro to privilege Voluntad Popular in the negotiations held in Mexico in 2021. In contrast, Washington placed sanctions on four important moderates including Bernabé Gutiérrez, a long-time AD politician.  

Radicals under Carmona prevailed the day after the April 11 coup even though they did not necessarily represent a majority of the opposition. Similarly, hardliners have relied throughout the Maduro years on U.S. support to maintain the upper hand over the rest of the opposition, even as most Venezuelans opposed sanctions and Guaidó’s popularity precipitously declined over the course of 2019 and 2020.   

Another overlap between 2002 and the current state of Venezuelan politics is the prospect of a revanchist wave should radical sectors of the opposition take power. The first day of Carmona’s two-day rule saw efforts to round up leading Chavistas as "Wanted: Dead or Alive" leaflets with prominent Chavista names circulated. Similarly, threats against Maduro supporters upped the stakes in the confrontation between him and Guaidó. In an indirect threat against Maduro supporters in the armed forces, the opposition-controlled National Assembly headed by Guaidó introduced a law in 2019 that granted “amnesty” to officers who supported regime change.

Blunders by opposition hardliners in 2002 repeated themselves over the next two decades, resulting in one fiasco after another. In April 2002 the opposition lacked a fallback plan. When sectors of the military, specifically among the high command, resisted the coup, the entire undertaking imploded. Similarly, as the prolonged general strike of 2002-2003 faltered and its regime change objective seemed lost, opposition leaders failed either to take stock or change strategy, instead letting the protest peter out. It was a pattern repeated in the months-long street protests known as La Salida (The Exit) in 2014 and later, during even more pitched protests against Maduro’s call for a Constituent National Assembly in 2017, as well as in numerous attempts at regime change undertaken by Guaidó beginning in January 2019.

The events of 2002 also affected Chavista leaders. Chávez reacted to the defection of his right-hand man and possible father figure Miquilena, and then the support of oil company personnel for the 2002-2003 general strike, by privileging political loyalty over competence and calling for unity at all costs. Hence Chávez’s oft-repeated slogan: "unity, unity and more unity." This type of learning experience—which political scientists call “political over-learning"—downgraded the importance of technical expertise, prompting frequent cabinet shuffles under both Chávez’s and then Maduro’s governments with little or no consideration of the professional training of incoming ministers.

The April coup also convinced Chávez and those closest to him of the need to prioritize social goals over economic ones to ensure the future support and mass mobilization of the popular sectors, so instrumental in defeating the coup. The government’s failure to put the accent mark on economic diversification to sever economic dependence invited criticism from across the political spectrum.

Another consequence of the 2002 events is that they exposed unreliable military officers as a result of their actions during the coup and general strike. Subsequently, loyal officers were privileged with promotions to higher ranks, particularly those involving troop command. The loyalty of the armed forces in the face of multiple efforts by the opposition and Washington to encourage rebellion has been a key factor in the Maduro government’s survival. Indeed, the U.S. strategy has backfired, as Washington failed to take into account the nationalist sentiment of military officers.

The overthrow of a president who in the previous three years had won two presidential elections with 56 and 60 percent of the vote—and went on to win again with 63 percent in 2006—proved a fatal move for the opposition. Refusing to recognize their error led to continuous insistence that the Chávez government was authoritarian and illegitimate, resulting in electoral boycotts and non-recognition of electoral results, even ones certified by international observers. As a consequence, the opposition time and again forfeited its presence on elected bodies at the national, state, and municipal levels.

The events of 2002 also locked Chavista leaders in a polarizing mindset of viewing Venezuelan politics as a faceoff between Chavistas and insurgent adversaries with little room for constructive criticism. As I discuss in a forthcoming article in Science and Society, the resultant sectarianism toward critical allies on the left led to the exit in 2020 of various parties from the governing coalition, including the nation’s oldest one, the Communist Party.  

Ultimately, what revisiting the April 2002 events shows is an urgent need for both chavismo and its opponents to take a step backward and critically analyze both the coup and its legacies, intended and otherwise, and examine their lessons against 20 years of hindsight.

________________________________________

Steve Ellner is an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives and a retired professor of the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela. His latest books include his edited Latin American Extractivism: Dependency, Resource Nationalism and Resistance in Broad Perspective (2021).

To cite this article: Steve Ellner (2022) The April 2002 Coup Through Time, NACLA Report on the Americas, 54:1, 16-19, DOI: 10.1080/10714839.2022.2045097

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2022.2045097

Political Report #1463 - Venezuela’s November Elections: Washington’s New Strategy but Same Old Assumptions

by Steve Ellner

Posted by Venezuelanalysis.com

It seems just yesterday that Eliot Abrams declared the Trump administration was "working hard" to oust President Nicolas Maduro from office. Now Abrams (currently a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations), along with the Biden administration, is urging the Venezuelan opposition to participate in the state and local elections slated for November 21. Washington’s change of tack, however, is a far cry from renouncing the right to intervene in Venezuela’s internal affairs.

Not surprisingly, Washington has prevailed on the rightist opposition led by self-proclaimed president Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo López to abandon their three-year policy of boycotting elections, which they claimed totally lacks legitimacy. Electoral participation is a hard pill for both politicians to swallow because it shatters the illusion nurtured by Washington that Guaidó is the rightful and existing president and that he is just days or weeks from occupying the presidential palace.

In the way of damage control López announced that he opposed participation in the November contests but that the rank and file of his and Guaidó’s Voluntad Popular party pressured him into accepting the new line. López, who represents an extreme position even within his party, was for the U.S. “our man in Caracas” until Guaidó’s self-proclamation in 2019. Recent examples of López’s extremism are his remark that the main business organization Fedecámaras “betrayed the country” by inviting Venezuelan vice president Delcy Rodríguez as guest of honor at its annual meeting and his attack on the European Union for legitimizing Maduro by agreeing to send electoral observers in November.

The rejection of Maduro’s legitimacy dates back to early 2015 when President Obama declared Venezuela an "extraordinary threat to U S national security." The statement not only scared off a number of large US corporations which closed shop and left, but it set the stage for the Trump administration’s severe sanctions and activist diplomacy designed to intimidate corporations throughout the world into severing relations with Venezuela. Francisco Rodríguez, Venezuelan economist formerly with Bank of America and a leading opposition advisor, extrapolated that had it not been for the sanctions oil production in the high-yielding Orinoco River region would have been three to five times greater this year.

In the November elections, Voluntad Popular will run candidates on the ticket of the Democratic Roundtable Unity (MUD) alliance which groups the major parties of the opposition. Unlike the MUD, a host of smaller moderate parties of the opposition are running candidates which have criticized the sanctions and recognize Maduro’s legitimacy. The opposition’s fragmentation enhances the possibility that Maduro’s United Socialist Party (PSUV) and its allies will achieve a plurality at the polls. The polling firm Hinterlaces puts the PSUV’s popularity at 34% compared to 13% for Voluntad Popular and the rest of the opposition combined. In contrast, opposition pollster Luis Vicente León claims that the PSUV is at 20 to 25%. In spite of the PSUV’s lead, the Nicaragua phenomenon of 1990, when Nicaraguans voted the Sandinistas out of office out of fear of continued U.S.-promoted violence and economic sanctions, may factor into November’s results to the opposition’s benefit.

Review of Latin American Extractivism Dependency, Resource Nationalism, and Resistance in Broad Perspective, from our LAP in the Classroom series

 from our LAP Classroom Series!

Latin American Extractivism

Dependency, Resource Nationalism, and Resistance in Broad Perspective

Edited by Steve Ellner

A review by Angelo Rivero Santos

NACLA

On September 26, 2000, during the inauguration of the second summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEP), President Hugo Chávez urged its members to recognize that the “worst environmental catastrophe facing the world is human poverty.” He called for unity through the promotion of a “social and egalitarian model of economic development to eradicate poverty” in member countries. Until his untimely death on March 5, 2013, petroleum, and the profits it produced during the commodities boom (2000-2014), would be at the heart of Venezuela’s extractive development model and foreign policy.


The election of Chávez as president of Venezuela in 1998 marked the beginning of the Pink Tide, a period when several progressive governments came to power in Latin America. Left-leaning leaders were elected in Brazil (2002), Argentina (2003), Bolivia (2005), Uruguay (2005), and Ecuador (2006). Citizens chose these Pink Tide governments in reaction to the disastrous social consequences of the Washington Consensus’s neoliberal policies. Although they emerged in different socio-cultural, political, geo-political and economic contexts, Pink Tide governments in Latin America shared the goal of restoring the role of the state in the development process and reclaiming their sovereignty over natural resources. Dependent on the export of commodities such as soy, petroleum, and natural gas, Pink Tide governments benefitted from the rising world demand and resulting high prices of their products. The surplus created by the commodities boom allowed these governments to aggressively increase social spending and pursue redistributive policies that aimed to reduce poverty and inequality. Politically, some of these governments also sought to promote “participatory democracy,” an attempt to empower citizens “from below” to help design and implement policies that directly impacted their lives. In South America, Pink Tide governments actively promoted a type of integration based on the logic of politics rather than one of economics and trade, which had been favored during the neoliberal period.


Pink Tide governments evolved in different contexts, so the results of their extractive development strategies were varied. Analysts across the political spectrum, however, have tended to simplify—and in some cases vilify—the Pink Tide governments, failing to account for the variety of contexts, policies, and strategies for dealing with the social ills and extractive sectors of their countries.


What were the strengths and weaknesses of Pink Tide governments in relation to the extractive development models they fostered? What are some of the tensions and contradictions found in Pink Tide governments in regards to foreign investment, social, economic, and political development and in their relation with their citizens? And, most importantly, how did Pink Tide governments differ from each other, and from moderate and conservative governments in the region, in dealing with the national and global economic and political structures that sustain the extractive sector?


Steve Ellner and his contributors explore these and other important questions in the book Latin American Extractivism: Dependency, Resource Nationalism, and Resistance in Broad Perspective. More than any previous work, this book takes an objective look at the Pink Tide and non-Pink Tide government policies toward the extractive sector and their impact on the development process in the first two decades of the 21st century. Through an in depth look at cases from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela, the book explores the complex logic of the extractive development model during this time and its relation to national and global capital. It examines how the Pink Tide approach differed from that of the neoliberal period, and how different governments, progressive and conservative, dealt with opposition to the extractive development model from environmental and indigenous movements.


The book also provides a constructive critique of “neo-extractivism” theory, which asserts that, although taxing the extractive sector produced profits that helped promote economic development and social welfare, the strategy ultimately proved detrimental to democracy and development. According to this view, neo-extractivist activities led by foreign capital promoted a development model that was not very different from dependent extractive models of the past. It replicated the “peripheral” nature of these countries in the global economy and did little to enhance the quality of democracy, protect the environment, or defend rights of indigenous people, women, and Afro descendants. This record, the argument goes, overshadows any positive impacts claimed by Pink Tide governments and their supporters.


Steve Ellner and his contributors take issue with this “pessimist view.” While they recognize that Pink Tide governments have a poor record in transforming the extractive development model and attempting to change their countries’ “peripheral” position in the global economy, they point also to the undeniable harm that the extractive model has had on the environment and local communities. The authors recognize how Pink Tide government policies toward the extractive sector allowed greater resources to be allocated to social spending to mitigate poverty and ask that we pay closer attention to some of the positive outcomes of legislation and policies toward foreign capital under different Pink Tide governments. The book analyzes several cases of policies and legislation which varied from country to country and produced distinct results in different contexts.


Ellner emphasizes the importance of context in analyzing the record of Pink Tide governments in the introduction. He writes that “…this context includes the full range of policies associated with extractivism, Latin America’s historical condition of underdevelopment, and the aggressiveness of the domestic and foreign opposition to progressive governments.” Failing to recognize context, Ellner argues, has had “unintended consequences.” In several countries “recent cases of instability and regime change” can be traced back to neoliberal political leaders that, with U.S. support, “have used illicit means and repression in an attempt to roll back reforms initiated by Pink Tide governments.” No doubt that when analyzed in context one understands that the experience of different Pink Tide governments cannot be painted with the same brush, let alone compared with the experience of how conservative governments dealt with the extractive sector—and opposition to it—in the first two decades of this century.


Latin American Extractivism is organized in a way that is easy to read and ideal for classroom use. In the introduction, Ellner provides a comprehensive summary and critique of neo-extractivism and successfully places it in a broader context using evidence from the cases analyzed in the following chapters. In Part I (The Global Focus) the authors examine Colombia, Bolivia, and Venezuela to show the relationship between key aspects of globalization and its impact on extractivism at the national level. The next two sections are dedicated to the experience of different Pink Tide governments (Part II) and Conservative and Right-Wing governments (Part III). In Part II, the authors present evidence from Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico, Ecuador, and Argentina, that shows how different governments increased their control of extractive industries and how they dealt with the environment, protest movements, and the territorial rights of local and indigenous communities. The chapters in Part III on El Salvador and Honduras, Peru and Colombia show how resource nationalism and the management of environmental and opposition movements in these countries differed from the cases in Part II. The variety of practices and outcomes make it clear that it is necessary to look at the specific context to understand the extractive development model in Latin America over the past two decades.


The petroleum giant Venezuela, in particular, illustrates the importance of examining the experience of the Pink Tide in context. This was implicitly acknowledged by Chávez on January 16, 2003 at the United Nations. He said at the time that “…the only sin we have committed in Venezuela is to dare, for the first time in a hundred years, to face the gross privileges of a senseless and insensitive oligarchy that has carried a people that lives on top of gold and oil…to a degree of poverty that surpasses 80 percent of our population. That has been our sin.” This statement came after an attempted coup d’etat in April 2002 and a devastating petroleum strike in late 2002 and early 2003 by the state oil and gas (PDVSA) workers and technocrats that cost the nation billions of dollars. Both actions were supported by foreign interests that opposed the administration’s extractive development model that reverted efforts to privatize PDVSA and, in turn, reverted the neoliberal process in that South American country.


As the past few years have shown, “resource nationalism” and the the Chávez administration’s distributive policies cannot be understood in isolation from the structure of the world economy, the national and foreign interests in the extractive sector, the Venezuelan economy’s dependency on petroleum, and the geopolitical powerplay around this natural resource. Ellner and his contributors argue that this also applies to other Pink Tide governments and should be considered when analyzing their extractive development models and redistributive policies.


Ellner’s book is another successful publication of the Latin American Perspective in the Classroom series. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the complexities of the relationship between the extractive sector and development in Latin America in the age of globalization.


Angelo Rivero Santos is Teaching Associate Professor and Director of Academic Affairs at the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University.


Review originally published here: https://nacla.org/latin-american-extractivism-dependency-resource-nationalism-and-resistance-broad

Get a copy here!

This book explores different aspects of Latin America’s extractivist economies and argues that on issues such as legislation and policies toward foreign capital and small-scale mining, economic ties with China, environmental destruction and indigenous rights, Latin American governments had different records. In doing so, the book takes issue with a school of writers referred to as “neo-extractivism,” who tend to minimize the importance of differences between Pink Tide progressive governments, conservative ones and those on the right on grounds that all of them have submitted themselves to the dictates of global capital. Several chapters look at cultural patterns involving gender, ethnicity and class that lay behind protests in opposition to extractivist projects as well as the contrast in responses from state actors to those movements. The book also compares the impact of strategies toward economic development as they relate to extractivism and analyzes the role of the state in promoting economic growth and its theoretical implications. In emphasizing resource nationalism, the book attempts to refute a basic precept of neo-extractivism writers that a “consensus” existed among Latin American governments on extractivism. The book argues that there may have been a consensus regarding the beneficial nature of extractivist industries, but not on how to maximize the revenue derived from extractivism, and how to put it to good use.

Steve Ellner is a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente, Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, and is currently associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives. His books include Rethinking Venezuelan Politics and his edited Latin America’s Pink Tide, Latin America’s Radical Left, and (coedited) Venezuela: Hugo Chavez and the Decline of an “Exceptional Democracy.”

Political Report #1462 - Can an Article on Jair Bolsonaro be “Politically Neutral”?

by Steve Ellner 

LAP’s Political Report 1459 titled “The Washington Consensus Arrives in Brazil,” takes an uncritical look at Jair Bolsonaro and his policies. At first glance, the article appears to be neutral and the authors, Marc Castillo and Sírio Sapper, impartial analysts. Neither of these initial impressions are the case and indeed elsewhere both authors have defended the policies of the Bolsonaro government. A careful reading of Political Report 1459 reveals that the article, albeit for the most part subtly, justifies Bolsonaro’s policies and his presidency. At the same time, there is absolutely nothing in it that is at all critical of the Brazilian president. Below I provide quotes from the article which demonstrate the point I am making.

Latin American Perspectives correctly does not adhere to a specific political line or ideology, but we are nevertheless on the left. I also believe it is acceptable that we publish articles that fall outside of the left side of the political spectrum or ones that are politically neutral (if such a thing exists). At the same time, we have not over the years published articles that even remotely support the positions of the political right. 

“Political neutrality” may or may not exist for certain types of subject matter, but it certainly doesn’t exist for heavily charged issues like those related to the Bolsonaro government. To take a much more extreme example to help illustrate my point (but without the intention of casting aspersions on Castillo and Sapper in this regard), an article on Hitler that didn’t say anything good or bad about him could be interpreted as a justification of his actions. The same with an article on a mafia kingpin.

The following statements from the article may at first glance appear to be politically neutral, but in fact serve to enhance Bolsonaro’s highly questioned political legitimacy.

Here the authors point to the alleged success of the Bolsonaro in the fight against crime: 

"Brazil's population is exhausted from the high crime rate. Wanting to arrest the out- of-control crime rate Michel Temer´s administration was noticeably successful in containing crimes in general and specifically property crimes.”

“Bolsonaro’s election victory was partially related to public safety concerns.… Through his presidency Jair Bolsonaro has pushed forth many new initiatives to deal with the grave issue of security in Brazil.”

“All these measures were aimed to shore up public safety in the face of calamitous crime and insecurity that have been and continue to be prevalent in Brazil. Comparing year to year crime statistics published by the National Security Information System (Sinesp) from the Ministry of Justice and Public Security for the years 2019 and 2018 crime fell across the board with homicides experiencing a 20.3% decline, homicides involving robbery fell by 23.8% and robberies of financial institutions fell by 41.5% (March 17, 2021)…. Bolsonaro’s approval rating is largely attributed to Public Safety measures (Venagilia, 2019).”

The article also uncritically discusses the privatization that took place under Temer and has been reinforced by Bolsonaro: “Brazil´s complex political system has inhibited Paulo Guedes and his economic team from making the progress that some expected; nevertheless there has been pension reform, the recent autonomy of the Brazilian Central Bank and the Law of Economic Liberty.”

“The mere presence and continuation of Paulo Guedes in Bolsonaro´s cabinet portends vast credibility and political capital to ease investor worries."

The article then turns to Bolsonaro’s verbal aggression: “To popular media Bolsonaro´s presidency seems to be in a perpetual state of balance regarding his governance, however, there is no better even keel to the tumultuous president´s rhetoric than his agenda for free-market reform that serves to counter any notion of dictatorial perceptions.” The wording leaves the impression that his rhetoric is somewhat innocuous. No mention of Bolsonaro’s notoriously racist, misogynist, homophobic, and anti-immigrant statements.

The article ends on a positive note about Bolsonaro’s legacy: “A robust transformational process has taken hold in Brazil in terms of economic and financial progress with a distinct capitalist bent. Irrespective of who wins the presidency in 2022 the neoliberal economic groundwork has been laid and it is extremely doubtful that there will be any regression as the largest South American country attempts to become a more open and less protectionist.”

Bolsonaro can count on the commercial media to discuss his allegedly positive accomplishments. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal endorsed his presidential candidacy. Latin American Perspectives – as has always been our policy in other contexts – should refrain from publishing articles that fail to underline Bolsonaro’s criminal actions and behavior and those of his ilk. 

Political Report #1457 Pedro Castillo’s victory raises hopes beyond Peru

 by Steve Ellner Posted by Canadian Dimension

Peru's long-standing polarity between a large extension of coastal region, where the nation’s wealth is concentrated, and the much-neglected interior was on full display in the June 6 presidential election. But the polarity was not just geographical. It wasn't just that the winning candidate Pedro Castillo received the lion's share of his votes from the interior, known as the "Other Peru." Nor that Lima and other coastal cities favored Keiko Fujimori, particularly in middle class districts. The election also pitted two candidates with very dissimilar backgrounds against each other: Fujimori, a former First Lady and three-time presidential candidate with the solid support of the nation’s elite, against Castillo, who is the epitome of an outsider. Castillo, a primary school teacher since the age of 25, has never held an elected office.


Castillo’s platform included a second agrarian reform (the first was passed by a nationalistic government in 1969), the possible nationalization of the nation’s gas reserves (second in quantity in Latin America), creation of a state-owned national airlines, and a constituent assembly to replace the constitution promulgated under Fujimori’s father Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s. In contrast, Keiko Fujimori, like her father, champions neoliberalism.


Castillo won with a razor thin margin of less than half a percentage point. Following in Trump's footsteps, Fujimori claimed fraud and demanded a recount of approximately two hundred thousand votes, undoubtedly in order to save face and rally her supporters.
A smear campaign against Castillo for being an ally for Cuba, Russia and Venezuela as well as for terrorists found an echo chamber in the nation’s mainstream media. Castillo was accused of having ties with the Shining Path guerrillas, even though he had belonged to the Rondas Campesinas, a rural civilian patrol group which vigorously and effectively combatted the guerrilla group. Lima’s influential daily El Comercio ran an investigative article replete with documents purporting to show that a Shining Path front group had infiltrated Castillo’s union and the party “Peru Libre” that backed him. The aim of the subversives was (in the words of an ex-Minister of the Interior) “to find spaces to proceed with the only thing they know how to do: radical politics.”


Castillo’s status as an outsider is of utmost significance. Like Brazil's Lula and Bolivia's Evo Morales, but unlike other Latin American left-leaning presidents such as Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Argentina's Alberto Fernández and Mexico's Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Castillo emerged as a social movement leader and, most important, as the head of a dissident teachers’ union. Castillo was thrust onto the national stage in 2017 when he led an historic 70-day nation-wide teachers strike, which attempted to halt school privatizations and rescind legislation that submitted public teachers to obligatory performance reviews.


Fujimori’s unfounded claims of fraud, like those of Trump in 2020, serve a hidden purpose. Fujimori’s outcry of foul play undermines Castillo’s legitimacy as president and places him on the defensive. This tactic didn’t work in the case of Trump because Biden had a majority in congress and was as mainstream as you can get. Peru Libre, on the other hand, has merely 37 of the 130 seats in congress. To make matters worse, financial markets were shaken by Castillo’s triumph and Peru’s currency the sol hit a historic low vis-à-vis the dollar.


Castillo also faces threats from retired top military officers some who were aligned with Fujimori’s father. The group includes 1970s dictator Francisco Morales Bermúdez prosecuted and found guilty for forced disappearances in the framework of the infamous Plan Condor. In a not so veiled threat against Castillo's supporters, the retired officers called for strict measures against the “crime committed by the apologists of terrorism” who in the media and social networks refuse to recognize Fujimori’s triumph.


Elites who are resistant to change are also banking on a rift between Castillo and the Peru Libre party. Castillo is not a member of Peru Libre, which calls itself Marxist-Leninist as well as an adherent to the homegrown style of socialism of 1920s Communist ideologue José Carlos Mariátegui. Following the first round of the presidential election held in April, Castillo moderated some positions and distanced himself somewhat from the party. Thus he discarded the possibility of widespread nationalization supported by some Peru Libre leaders, though not the demand that mining multinationals pay the state 70 percent of their profits. He also pledged to respect the autonomy of the Central Bank and ruled out exchange controls.


AP and The Economist predict that Castillo will have limited options. Foreign Policy argued the same, at least for the short run, stating that the newly elected president “will have to deal with a fractured Congress eager to disrupt the path of any new legislation.” If Castillo ends up buckling under, he will be following in the footsteps of military officer Ollanta Humala who was elected president in 2011 as a staunch anti-neoliberal only to embrace neoliberalism.


Indeed, there is a sorry history of betrayals and turnabouts of this nature in Peru and Latin America. Alberto Fujimori, originally an anti-neoliberal, went the same route after defeating the renowned writer and neoliberal diehard Mario Vargas Llosa in the 1990 presidential elections. (Ironically, Vargas Llosa in the 2011 elections, was to say “to choose between Keiko Fujimori and Humala is to choose between cancer and AIDS.” For the 2021 elections, Vargas Llosa enthusiastically supported Keiko.)


Yet there is reason to believe that Castillo will not betray the Peruvians of humble origin who elected him. One favorable sign is the mobilization of tens of thousands of his followers summoned by Indigenous and ronda campesina leaders to defend his victory in the face of Fujimori's refusal to recognize defeat.


In another encouraging sign, Veronica Mendoza who was the presidential candidate representing the more traditional left in the first round in April as well as in the previous 2016 presidential election, signed an agreement with Castillo in which they committed themselves to “go beyond the economic model imposed by the [Alberto] Fujimori dictatorship that has only favored the privileged few.”


One problem area in the alliance between the two, however, is Castillo’s conservative positions on social issues including reproductive rights, gay marriage and immigration, which resemble Fujimori’s stands. Mendoza has diametrically opposed positions on gender and LGBT issues, but has expressed faith that Castillo is a “person of dialogue” who has indicated that he will submit the issue of abortion to the will of the people in the form of a constituent assembly.


Another sign that Castillo will remain on the left side of the political spectrum is the Latin American response to Castillo's triumph in the face of Fujimori's demand for a vote recount. In the first ten days after the elections, only progressive “Pink Tide” governments and leaders including Argentine president Alberto Fernández and former presidents José Pepe Mujica of Uruguay and Rafael Correa of Ecuador publicly congratulated Castillo. So did the “Puebla Group” consisting of 32 prominent political figures mostly on the left. One of its members, ex-president Evo Morales, tweeted “on the basis of my personal experience, I suggest to compañero Castillo not to trust the Organization of American States nor [its secretary general] Luis Almagro.”


A broader look at recent developments in Latin America provides an additional cause for optimism. After facing a series of defeats beginning with the presidential election in Argentina in 2015 and then Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment in Brazil, the “Pink Tide” left and moderate left have made an impressive comeback, beginning with the election of López Obrador in Mexico in 2018 and then electoral triumphs in Argentina and Bolivia. To these electoral victories has to be added the ability of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro to hold onto power in spite of crippling sanctions and Washington-supported destabilization against his government. In addition, progressive candidates have a fair chance of emerging triumphant in upcoming elections in Chile, Colombia, Brazil and Honduras.
Castillo’s election is especially noteworthy because the “Group of Lima” with its seat in the nation’s capital was an organization of hemispheric governments intent on bringing about regime change in Venezuela. Peru Libre’s program calls the OAS an “organism of geopolitical control” by the U.S. and praises the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and other similar organizational initiatives for creating “a bloc that facilitates the resolution of our regional conflicts on the basis of autonomy.”
Castillo’s triumph is significant for another reason. Increased polarization in Latin America has largely left Washington with the support only of right-wing and largely repressive governments in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Honduras. In contrast, Peru since the overthrow of Fujimori in 2000 tended to be more centrist than rightist and at the same time aligned with the U.S. The new political correlation throughout the region in which the pro-U.S. governments are mostly right-wing calls for reflection in both Washington and Ottawa. More specifically, both countries need to abandon regime change tactics and hostility toward governments that refuse to tow the prescribed line. If such a change in policy is not forthcoming, a consolidation of Latin American progressive governments in the name of regional unity may leave the U.S. and Canada on the sidelines.


Steve Ellner is a retired professor of the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela and currently an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives. He has published over a dozen books on Latin American politics and history, his latest being his edited Latin American Extractivism: Dependency, Resource Nationalism and Resistance in Broad Perspective (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021). He has published on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.



This piece was originally published (here).
URL: https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/pedro-castillos-victory-raises-hopes-beyond-peru

Political Report #1448 Long Overdue For Latin America: A New “Good Neighbor Policy” by Medea Benjamin and Steve Ellner posted by Counterpounch

U.S. policy towards Venezuela has been a fiasco. Try as it might, the Trump regime-change team has been unable to depose President Maduro and finds itself stuck with a self-proclaimed president, Juan Guaidó, who President Trump was reported to have called "a kid" who "doesn't have what it takes." The Venezuelan people have paid a heavy price for Trump's debacle, which has included crippling economic sanctions and coup attempts. So has U.S. prestige internationally, as both the UN and the EU have urged lifting sanctions during the pandemic but the U.S. has refused.

Political Report #1446

Trump’s Second Thoughts on Juan Guaido are Not Enough by Steve Ellner Consortium News

After nearly a year and a half of all-out efforts at regime change in Venezuela which took a major toll on the Venezuelan people, Trump now tells the world he was never big on the strategy in the first place. On Friday, Trump appeared to shove the blame onto advisors, and added “I think that I wasn’t necessarily in favor” of the policy of recognizing Juan Guaidó as president, but “I was OK with it.” Trump’s statements made it seem as if Guaidó's only sin was that he did not manage to seize power. This might-makes-right mindset belies what is happening on the ground in Venezuela which is much more complicated than just one leader’s approval rating. It also ignores the horrendous suffering of the Venezuelan people due to crippling sanctions imposed in August 2019, the result of a foreign policy decision that Trump now brushes off as a simple mistake. A price is being paid even by those in Washington who are singularly concerned with U.S. prestige. The real story is that Washington placed all its faith in an untested leader of a radical, somewhat fringe, party, that strong resentment against the U.S. is now being expressed among Venezuelan leaders and voters who previously thought differently, and that with Trump’s recent statements, U.S. credibility sinks to an all-time low. The latest news on Trump’s change of heart requires an analysis of the sea of change that has occurred politically in Venezuela. Such an analysis is much needed because Trump's statement is unexplainable for those whose only source of information on Venezuela is the mainstream media. The analysis is also urgent because this week the White House is walking back Trump’s statement at the same time that Joe Biden is opposing any change in policy. In spite of these words in favor of staying the course, events have shown that our man in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, has proved to be adept at (in the words of Bloomberg) “diplomatic grandstanding” but completely lacking in political realism.

Political Report, DIRECTV’s Pullout From Venezuela: Associated Press Got It Wrong

by Steve Ellner, LAP Editor Posted in Consortium News

The Associated Press' Miami-based Latin America correspondent, as early as January, pushed the Venezuelan opposition's line that the TV channel Globovisión was a tool of Nicolás Maduro's government and that DirecTV should take it off the air. The report helped prepare the groundwork for subsequent events in which the Trump administration pressured DirecTV to do just that, after which the broadcasting company simply pulled out of the country last week.  Joshua Goodman, the AP correspondent, legitimized the State Department's pressure on AT&T to "pull the plug on Maduro's propaganda machine" and cease transmission of Globovisión.  The pressure paid off. DirecTV said it pulled out of Venezuela because of U.S. sanctions. On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote on Twitter: "Why can't Venezuelans watch Fútbol Total? Because Nicolás Maduro drove DirecTV out. Protecting his cronies and their money is more important than allowing ten million citizens access to uncensored information." Pompeo was blaming Maduro for not acceding to State Department demands that DirecTV rid itself of Globovisión. Now members of the opposition are echoing Pompeo's claim by circulating a petition that calls on DirecTV's owner AT&T to return to Venezuela in the form of a "Free DirecTV." The petition would have DirecTV broadcast in Venezuela by defying and ignoring government regulations while accepting the State Department's power to blacklist Venezuelan channels. As of Wednesday the petition had over 100,000 signatures.

Political Report # 1438 Why The Mainstream Media Suggests Lifting Sanctions Against Iran While Not Saying Anything About Venezuela - Exclusive Commentary by Steve Ellner

by Steve Ellner LAP Associate Managing Editor

No other country in the world is being subjected to the type of regime change strategy that the Trump administration is applying to Venezuela. Only in the case of Venezuela has Washington done so much to promote international support in favor of a parallel government. Meanwhile, the mainstream media fails to take up in any way the arguments that expose the fallaciousness and inhumanity of the sanctions imposed against Venezuela. At a recent press conference on April 2, a reporter told Trump he has a moral responsibility to help Iran as it is hit by the coronavirus. No mention was made about Venezuela. Why Iran and not Venezuela? Five factors stand out: 1. The conflict with Iran is a partisan issue. The 2015 nuclear arms agreement with Iran was engineered by the Obama administration, the same that imposed sanctions against Venezuela by calling it an "extraordinary and unusual threat" to U.S. national security. It is thus not surprising that the Democratic Party leadership is critical, though mildly so, of U.S. policy toward Iran, while throwing support toward Trump's regime change efforts in Venezuela. 2.  The Iranian government has a military capacity in the Middle East that threatens U. S. presence in the region. Iran's militia allies such as Hezbollah serve as a dissuasive force. This is a reality that the Pentagon and Washington policy makers are very aware of. In contrast, Venezuela represents no military threat at all to the United States.  The Trump administration's claim that Venezuela is allied with dissident FARC Colombian guerrillas intent on creating disruptions is a bogus charge. Venezuela has no equivalent to Hezbollah operating in the region. 3. Venezuelan democracy allows for the existence of a legal opposition whose right-wing factions represented by Juan Guaidó, among others, are Washington surrogates. There is no equivalent movement operating within Iran. This situation strengthens the U.S. position in Venezuela, while weakening it in Iran. Ironically, democracy, which is supposedly what Washington is attempting to promote, disadvantages the Maduro government, while the lack of it strengthens the position of Iran. 4. Democrats and Republicans both have their eyes set on Florida which is a swing state and a decisive one in the upcoming presidential elections, as it has been in past ones. In the context of our highly undemocratic electoral college system, changing a few votes among Cuban and Venezuelan residents there (along with their campaign contributions) may determine the 2020 electoral outcome. Stirring up the issue of Venezuela may go a long way. 5. Washington policy makers have long considered Latin America to be our back yard. Trump explicitly embraces the notion at the same time that his neo-con advisors vindicate the Monroe Doctrine. Others are less upfront about the notion, but it has always underpinned U.S. actions in the hemisphere. The mainstream media, rather than address these five key issues, accepts, or refrains from questioning, the Trump administration's current justification for singling out Venezuela to achieve regime change: that Venezuela is a narco-state. The media holds back from pointing to the obvious fallacies of Trump's claims. a. that according to official statistics 84 per cent of the drug trafficking from South America uses Pacific routes while only 7 percent pass through Venezuela and other eastern Caribbean areas b. why is the Southern Command lining up navy ships along the Venezuelan coast on grounds that drug traffickers will use the coronavirus to inundate U.S. markets, instead of surveilling the Pacific coast? and c. Why doesn’t the Trump administration take its drug charges against Maduro to an international tribunal? At this point Venezuela is receiving belligerent treatment from the U.S. largely without precedent in peace time situations. In just one week, the Trump administration announced a 15 million dollar award for help in capturing Maduro, among other members of his government. Then it unveiled a plan of transition to achieve democracy beginning with Maduro's resignation. Then it announced that it was sending Navy ships to the Venezuelan coast ostensibly to beef up counter-narcotics operations. In short, Venezuela is being ganged up on while the Democratic Party, the mainstream media, some alternative media, most U.S. liberals and much of the world are just standing by. Steve Ellner is a retired professor from Venezuela’s Universidad de Oriente and currently an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives. He is the editor of the recently released “Latin America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings.” Original article can be found in the LAP Blog (here). URL:      https://heartlandradical.blogspot.com/2020/03/radical-individualisn-anbd-profit-vs.html

Exclusive, New York Times Hails Nicolas Maduro’s Economic Pragmatism by Steve Ellner, LAP Editor

New York Times Hails Nicolas Maduro’s Economic Pragmatism commentary written by Steve Ellner The New York Times on February 8 published an article titled “To Survive, Venezuela’s Leader Gives Up Decades of Control Over Oil.” This is the second article in two weeks to describe Nicolás Maduro’s pragmatic economic policies which includes privatization and an opening up to foreign capital in the oil industry. The articles attribute the recent modest pickup of the Venezuelan economy to these pragmatic policies and are quick to point out that they go counter to Hugo Chávez’s strategy of asserting greater state control of the economy in the name of achieving socialism by gradual means. Actually, the articles aren’t bad, if you compare them with the coverage of the rest of the commercial media (including the New York Times in general) on Venezuela. But the authors fail to connect the dots. They talk about how Washington’s secondary boycott has made it difficult for Venezuela’s PDVSA to enter into commercial relations with intermediaries (insurance companies, shipping companies, etc.) to export crude and then they wonder why Maduro is privatizing exports. They also talk about Trump’s special permission to Chevron and 4 oil service companies (Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger and Weatherfield) without pointing to the obvious favoritism toward U.S. capital in the name of fighting for democracy. In fact, it is a throwback to the inter-imperialist rivalry of the pre-World War I era given the fact that these are U.S. companies (Schlumberger is half U.S.) and that Washington is closing the doors on companies (such as the Spain’s Repsol) which are being threatened with a secondary boycott. There is opposition to Maduro’s pragmatism from within the pro-government Chavista movement (as opposed to those leftists such as Marea Socialista who make no distinction between Maduro and Juan Guaidó). This dissidence is heavily represented in the Chavista peasant movement that has opposed the privatization of state land (such as rice production) and has received backing from one of the top Chavista historical leaders, Elias Jaua. In this conflict between Maduro’s pragmatism and Madurista critics on the left, there may not be any “correct” answer as to who is correct. This conflict may be a manifestation of the “creative tensions” that Alvaro Garcia Linera alludes to in reference to the popular protests in Bolivia under Evo Morales or Mao’s “contradictions among the people.” A comparison may also be made with Lenin’s New Economic Policy in the Soviet Union in the 20s that gave rise to the Kulak class, which ended up resisting socialism. Thus a “correct” strategy at a given moment may lead to undesirable consequences. In any case, these developments have to be understood in the context of a crippling economic, political and cultural war on Venezuela led from Washington, which has limited the options for the Chavista government. New York Times' article: To Survive, Venezuela’s Leader Gives Up Decades of Control Over Oil By Anatoly Kurmanaev and Clifford Krauss Faced with a severe economic crisis, the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, is letting foreign firms take over daily operations of its oil fields. It’s a break with core tenets of his socialist revolution. CARACAS, Venezuela - After decades of dominating its oil industry, the Venezuelan government is quietly surrendering control to foreign companies in a desperate bid to keep the economy afloat and hold on to power. The opening is a startling reversal for Venezuela, breaking decades of state command over its crude reserves, the world’s biggest. The government’s power and legitimacy have always rested on its ability to control its oil fields - the backbone of the country’s economy - and use their profits for the benefit of its people. But the nation’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, in his struggle to retain his grip over a country in its seventh year of a crippling economic crisis, is giving up policies that once were central to its socialist-inspired revolution. Under Venezuelan law, the state-run oil company must be the principal stakeholder in all major oil projects. But as that company, Petróleos de Venezuela, or Pdvsa, unravels - under the weight of American sanctions, years of gross mismanagement and corruption - the work is unofficially being picked up by its foreign partners. Private companies are pumping crude, arranging exports, paying workers, buying equipment and even hiring security squads to protect their operations in a collapsing countryside, according to managers and oil consultants working on the country’s energy projects. In effect, a stealth privatization is taking place, said Rafael Ramírez, who ran Venezuela’s oil industry for more than a decade before breaking with Mr. Maduro in 2017, in a video address this week. “Today, Pdvsa doesn’t manage our oil industry, Venezuelans don’t manage it,” said Mr. Ramírez. “In the middle of the chaos generated by the worst economic crisis suffered by the country in its history, Maduro is taking actions to cede, transfer and hand over oil operations to private capital.” Pdvsa did not respond to requests for comment on its recent concessions to private partners. The haphazard changes to the oil sector, which have accelerated in recent months, are remaking the oil industry in a nation whose assertive energy policies had, since the 1950s, served as an example to developing countries of how to take control of natural resources. And they are a stark retreat from the vision of Hugo Chávez, who was Mr. Maduro’s mentor and predecessor. Mr. Chávez nationalized in 2007 the giant holdings of Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips and packed Pdvsa’s leadership ranks with political allies dedicated to his socialist-inspired “Bolivarian revolution.” But Mr. Maduro’s transformation of Venezuela’s oil industry has stemmed the collapse triggered by an American embargo. Sanctions imposed in January 2019 had wiped out about a third of Venezuela’s oil production, bringing it down at one point to the lowest level since the 1940s, according to data from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Oil production now is still less than a third of the total in 1998, when Mr. Chávez took power. By late 2019, Venezuela had stabilized exports at about a million barrels per day, according to Bloomberg’s tanker tracking data. The dribble of oil exports has provided Mr. Maduro with foreign revenue at the most critical moment of the country’s economic crisis, allowing him to adjust to sanctions and consolidate his rule. In the country’s main oil export hub, José, key processing plants and piers are slowly coming to life after near total paralysis in the summer, when Pdvsa was cut off from the global financial system and struggling to cope without its biggest market, the United States, according to shipping agents and oil managers. The unofficial, partial privatizations of the past year have been led by an unlikely reformer: Manuel Quevedo, a National Guard general with no known oil experience who was appointed by Mr. Maduro to head Pdvsa. General Quevedo broke with the nationalist rhetoric of his predecessors to hand over operational control of joint oil projects to partners that include Chevron, Russia’s state-run company, Rosneft, some European and Chinese companies and groups of Venezuelan magnates. “With Pdvsa in crisis mode, they are increasingly handing operational responsibilities and decisions over to the partners,” said Lisa Viscidi, a specialist in Latin American energy issues at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based research group. The concessions are gradually reducing Pdvsa to little more than a holding company collecting the state’s share of oil field revenues, with most of financial and strategic decisions taken by private partners. This is a startling decline from just a decade ago, when Pdvsa was the pride of Venezuela and the cornerstone of its economy. Until the start of the economic crisis in 2013, the company was the source of virtually all of Venezuela’s hard currency. It was also its biggest employer and penetrated all aspects of life in the country, running everything from supermarkets to parks. Today, oil fields wholly owned by Pdvsa account for less than half of the nation’s remaining oil production, and their output continues to plummet. Chevron has become the single largest foreign producer of oil in Venezuela, and a crucial part of the country’s stabilization over the past few months. Its four joint ventures in the country are pumping a gross total of about 160,000 barrels per day, according to two industry sources familiar with the company’s projects, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. Chevron quickly responded to the impact of American sanctions - such as the loss of American light oil that was used to blend with heavy Venezuelan crude to help it move through pipelines - by switching to Venezuelan light oil. By September, the company was able to restart its Petropiar heavy oil processing plant, which has formed the backbone of Venezuela’s oil export recovery. A senior official with the Trump administration said the activities of Chevron and other foreign oil companies in Venezuela “are clearly of concern.” But the U.S. government has given Chevron exemptions from sanctions, as recently as last month. “If Chevron is forced to leave Venezuela, non-United States companies will fill the void and oil production will continue,” said Ray Fohr, a company spokesman. On the export side, Pdvsa’s biggest ally has been Russia’s Rosneft, which over the past year has grown to sell about two-thirds of Venezuela’s oil. Rosneft has quickly replaced Pdvsa’s American sales routes by diverting its oil to Asia, often obscuring the cargo’s source and destination to bypass sanctions, according to companies that monitor tanker traffic. Barred from the global financial system, Pdvsa has also been forced to cede control to foreign partners in organizing exports, which goes against the country’s energy laws. Over the past few months, Chevron, Rosneft and Italy’s Eni have all directly exported Venezuelan crude. Pdvsa’s opening of exports - oil cargoes worth millions of dollars - to anyone who can bypass sanctions to line up a vessel, insurance and a customer for the crude has even created a small cottage industry among Venezuela’s elite. Now, the only thing that matters is that oil continues to flow, said one partner at a joint oil venture, as he scanned his phone, viewing the state company’s cargo offers. “The historical struggle for resource sovereignty is being sacrificed for operational expediency,” said Antero Alvarado, an energy consultant in Caracas. Venezuela’s new oil production has allowed the country to import essentials like food, medicine and fuel to keep the country running. And there are indications that Mr. Maduro’s government wants to take the underhand liberalization further, even rolling back the watershed nationalization of the oil industry that took place in the 1970s. A group of lawmakers installed at the head of the National Assembly by Mr. Maduro in January - amid an international outcry - has proposed changing energy laws to allow greater private investment. “In these times of declining output, we have to give space to a national proposal that, first of all, shall give private capital greater participation in exploration, production and marketing of oil,” Leandro Domínguez, a lawmaker, said in a statement. Mr. Domínguez’s proposal is not recognized by the United States and most European and Latin American countries, who continue to support a rival, opposition-led congressional leadership. The opposition lawmakers oppose any changes to energy laws under Mr. Maduro, creating a legal limbo for foreign oil companies. Despite the recent changes, there are many reasons to believe Venezuela’s best days as an oil superpower are over, according to Amy Myers Jaffe, an oil expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, and other experts. Venezuela could gradually recover production to 2.6 million barrels a day over 10 years, but only with investments of over $200 billion, according to projections by IPD Latin America, a consulting firm. At a time when many oil companies are struggling with declining profits, executives are looking for cheaper and cleaner sources of oil. Even if a political settlement eventually lifts sanctions, Venezuela’s dirty oil, laden with sulfur and other impurities, may find far fewer investors. Published in LAP website (here). URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/08/world/americas/venezuela-oil-maduro.html