United States vs the Bolivarian Revolution

by Carlos Ron, former Venezuelan Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America

In 1829, a year before his death, Simón Bolívar, the leader of the South American independence movement and the inspiration for today’s Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, wrote a prophetic phrase: “The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of Liberty.” Bolívar had dealt with a treacherous government in Washington which, despite stating their neutrality, had taken actions that favored the Spaniards. This is not surprising, considering it was always in the interest of the US that the independence movement didn’t succeed. As early as 1786, Thomas Jefferson had written:

Our confederacy must be viewed as the nest from which all America, North and South, is to be peopled. We should take care, too, not to think it for the interest of that great continent to press too soon on the Spaniards. Those countries cannot be in better hands. My fear is that they are too feeble to hold them till our population can be sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by piece.

This means that since the time of the founding of the two countries, the United States and Venezuela have had a tense relationship marked by two different projects for the same territory. The US project, as a neocolonial project based on the tradition of the Manifest Destiny, trying to expand its influence over South America; versus the Bolivarian project, as a project of political and social emancipation for its people. This tension has reached different highs and lows in a complex history of two hundred years, but it has never quite subsided.

The United States became a superpower after World War II, in part, with the help of Venezuelan oil. It helped install a fascist, anti-communist dictatorship in the 1950s until the victory of the Cuban Revolution pushed the US government to shift from its strategies of supporting brutal dictatorships to ones of establishing controlled democratic projects that would continue to ban the left’s participation in politics. Venezuela became a role model for US allies—it was one of the countries visited by US President John F. Kennedy during his Alliance for Progress plan. As neoliberalism spread throughout Latin America, however, Venezuela reacted forcefully: first in 1989, with the popular uprising known as the Caracazo where the masses took the streets against the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) structural adjustment program, and later in 1992, with two military rebellions led by Hugo Chávez which showed that the liberal democracy model for Latin America had been shattered. By 1998, popular rejection of neoliberalism and the idea that democracy could be exercised by people and not just by elites, led to the election of Hugo Chávez as president and the writing of a new constitution that transformed the country into a participatory democracy.

CHÁVEZ CHARTS A NEW PATH OF SOVEREIGNTY

The United States initially reacted by underestimating Chávez and what he represented. The Clinton Administration even tried to co-opt him but soon realized that the new Venezuelan government was willing to stand up for its sovereignty and reject any type of tutelage from the United States—a fact they recognized as early as the Vargas Tragedy, the large mudslide that left a toll of nearly twenty-five thousand in 1999. By the time George W. Bush came to power in the United States, Chávez had rekindled relations with China, strengthened Venezuela’s ties to Cuba, and embarked on a world tour to visit the heads of state of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which the United States frowned upon. In this tour, he visited places such as Iran, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. Chávez was convinced that the world needed to shift from the unipolarity that resulted from the end of the Cold War to a new multipolar world where diverse views and regional powers could emerge to give a new balance to international relations. Chávez had broken with years of Venezuelan deference to the guidance of the US State Department and began crafting his own foreign policy in terms more suitable for Venezuela’s own interests.

In October 2001, after George W. Bush had divided the world between the United States and “the terrorists,” Chávez spoke out against the US retaliation on Afghanistan by using the phrase: “You can’t fight terrorism with more terror.” Less than a year later, the United States had embarked on a regime change operation and supported a military coup against Hugo Chávez in April 2002. A coordinated effort between large Venezuelan media outlets, the business sector, parasitic labor union leaders, and disaffected sectors of the military carried out a coup against Chávez with the blessing and support of US Ambassador Charles Shapiro. This attempt only lasted forty-seven hours, only to be astonishingly overturned by a constitutionalist military and large crowds of people demanding respect for their elected leader. Later that year, an oil lockout, also backed by the US, failed to produce Chávez’s ouster, only lasting two months. Rather than weaken or threaten Chávez, these attempts to undermine his government radicalized the Bolivarian Revolution, and it embarked on major transformations that included land reform, a renationalization of the oil industry towards more favorable terms for Venezuela, and the crafting of different regional integration projects with the absence of the United States.

By 2004, the United States flooded Venezuela with funds from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), aimed at promoting and winning a recall referendum against Hugo Chávez.

Among the main recipients of US political funding was Súmate, an organization led by María Corina Machado, that since then has (unsuccessfully) been engaged in discrediting the Venezuelan electoral system. The New York Times reported that the NED “stepped up its assistance, quadrupling its budget for Venezuela to more than $877,000.” In a landslide victory and with a flawless electoral system that was even praised as “the best in the world” by former US President Jimmy Carter, the people voted for President Hugo Chávez to remain in office.

In December of that same year, he launched what would be his most audacious regional project. Together with Cuba’s Fidel Castro, they created the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), a project that rejected the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA, or ALCA in Spanish) promoted by the United States. The defeat of this regional free trade project came as early as 2005, when in the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina, leaders like Chávez and Nestor Kirchner of Argentina rejected the deal in Bush’s own presence. Not only had Venezuela changed, so had the region.

By August 2004, US Ambassador William Brownfield outlined the five-point strategy for the United States Embassy’s activities in Venezuela: “(1) Strengthening democratic institutions, (2) Penetrating Chávez’ political base, (3) Dividing Chavismo, (4) Protecting vital US business, and (5) Isolating Chávez internationally.” This would become the strategy employed against Presi- dent Chávez until his passing in 2013.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, President Chávez offered help to the hurricane victims in an unprecedented show of solidarity. The United States rejected the assistance, but Venezuela-owned Citgo Oil Corporation, an oil subsidiary with three large refineries in the United States, began to carry out its social responsibility policy of providing discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the US in places like Baltimore, Boston, the South Bronx, and even Alaska. Other social projects such as community programs and urban agriculture were also supported by Citgo’s Simón Bolívar Foundation.

Chávez continued to denounce the negative role of the United States in promoting regime change operations, and in 2006 during the United Nations General Assembly, he gave a memorable speech where he called Bush, “the Devil.” Later in a Time magazine interview, Chávez stated that it wasn’t an attack on Bush but rather a counterattack: “Bush has been attacking the world, and not only with words, but with bombs.” He claimed to react against “the threat of a US empire that uses the UN to justify its aggression against half of the world” and added that his intention was to “awaken US and world public opinion.”

For the later part of the 2000s, President Chávez continued to decrease Venezuela’s dependency on Washington. By 2007, Venezuela canceled its debt to the IMF. Meanwhile, it also began taking important measures for nationalizing key sectors of the economy, some of which had been under the control of US corporations. The electricity sector was nationalized with the acquisition of Seneca and most of the shares of Electricidad de Caracas, both previously controlled by US capital. Likewise, there is currently a process of renationalization in the oil industry and as a result, Venezuela’s revenue and control of the oil projects increases. The Venezuelan government invited corporations to join oil production through joint ventures but corporations such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhilips refused, ending their participation in Venezuela. By 2009, the government expropriated rice processing plants from Cargill because they violated national legislation controlling product prices. Then, in 2010 it nationalized eleven oil drills which had belonged to Helmerich & Payne and expropriated the bottle and glass product manufacturing plants of Owen Illinois.

US interventionism and animosity towards Chávez continued until his passing in 2013. Chávez took daring stands against US interests in his foreign policy. In December of 2008, after Bolivia had expelled the US ambassador for interference in that country’s internal affairs, Chávez announced he was also expelling the US Ambassador from Venezuela in solidarity with Bolivia. Several weeks later in January 2009, Chávez announced he was breaking relations with Israel, the top US ally in Western Asia, after the Gaza Massacre. Ever since, the Zionist lobby at the US Congress has significantly increased its attacks and campaign to discredit the Bolivarian Revolution.

At the same time, the US government continued to intervene in Venezuela supporting the opposition politically and financially, as well as promoting each point of the agenda outlined by US Ambassador William Brownfield in 2004. Chávez met personally with Obama at the fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago in April of 2009, and in a reply to his “let’s forget the past and move on” approach, gifted him a copy of Eduardo Galeano’s The Open Veins of Latin America, as a reminder that to really turn the page, the United States needed to recognize what it had done to the region and make amends. The recommendation was ignored when in June of that same year, President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, a member of ALBA, was ousted with the support of then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Obama Administration sought to recover the regional influence and respect that Bush had lost, and in a couple of instances signaled willingness for a new exchange of ambassadors with Venezuela. Towards the end of his tenure, he made some pragmatic policy shifts to try to change the correlation of forces, including reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Venezuela, however, became a common bargaining chip for US politicians, and as the US moved forward with restoring Cuba relations and signing the Iran nuclear deal, interests in US Congress asked in return for the Obama Administration to open the door to US sanctions against Venezuela. The context had changed. Nicolás Maduro by now had been elected as Chávez’s successor and misreading how profoundly committed the Venezuelan people were to the continuation of the revolutionary process, the US underestimated President Maduro’s popularity and resolve.

MADURO DEEPENS THE REVOLUTION AMID ATTACKS

On March 9, 2015, Obama signed an Executive Order classifying Venezuela as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” This opened the door to a new series of unilateral coercive measures—which the United States wrongfully labels as “sanctions,” when in fact it lacks the authority to sanction other countries. The first measures were targeting government officials announcing visa cancellations (if they had one), bank account closings (if they owned one), but above all, restraints on US persons dealing with or speaking to sanctioned individuals. This has an effect on their responsibilities in Venezuela, impacting all of the population, not just the individual. The possibility of exchanging ambassadors once again was lost, and tensions continued even though Obama even admitted in an interview that he did not consider Venezuela to be a “threat” to US national security. Meanwhile, the opposition managed to win parliamentary elections. President Maduro recognized the defeat of the revolutionary forces in those elections, and until today, the United States only formally recognizes that National Assembly elected in 2015, as Venezuela’s only legitimate and democratic authority.

Donald Trump was elected in 2016, and days before leaving office, Obama renewed the executive order that allowed for sanctions on Venezuela, opening the door for Trump and his anti-Venezuelan and anti-Cuban allies to promote a “maximum pressure” campaign, a comprehensive US sanction policy that would eventually weaken Venezuelan economy, impair social transformations, co-opt the Venezuelan armed forces, and generate so much stress and suffering that the population would eventually retrieve its support from the Chavismo to achieve regime change. By this time, the leadership of the most extremist opposition in Venezuela decided not only to get support from the United States, but to directly take on the confrontation against the government.

From measures against key government figures, Trump expanded the attack to blockade Venezuela’s oil industry, its vessels, its gold trade, its national airline, and so on. Most of the 931 measures against Venezuela to date came under the Trump Administration. His representative for the “transition” in Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, told us in a 2019 meeting that everything from food to gasoline was going to run out unless President Maduro decided to leave. A country that had an average yearly income of nearly $60 billion in 2013 could only count on an income of $710 million by 2020. Furthermore, the US-led regime change operation included the unprecedented recognition of a self-proclaimed president, Juan Guaidó, and the nonrecognition of President Maduro and the rest of Venezuela’s institutions as legitimate.

Recognizing Guaidó allowed for Venezuela’s foreign accounts to be frozen, Citgo Petroleum Corporation to be taken away from Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA, a state-owned company), and thirty-one tons of Venezuelan gold to be taken by the Bank of England. None of these assets, together with Venezuela’s $5 billion of special IMF drawing rights, were made available to the Venezuelan people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Inflation was induced by foreign distortions on the exchange rate, and migration was stimulated by a campaign in which professionals were lured to leave the country and become part of the workforce of other countries in the region. However, when the working class also started to migrate, deeper controls were established, and many Venezuelans were exposed to xenophobia and human trafficking and became victims of criminal gangs.

Both in 2014 and in 2017, street violence in the style of Color Revolutions was promoted but were eventually subdued. On August 4, 2018, explosives carried by drones almost took President Maduro’s life and that of the highest-ranking officials of the Venezuelan government. Within a year of that event, there was an attempted invasion in February 2019 when dissidents disguised as humanitarian aid workers and invoking the Western concept of “Right to Protect,” attempted to bring in weapons through the border with Colombia. In 2020, a group of mercenaries trained in Colombia by two US Green Berets also launched a failed military invasion; in March 2019, a sophisticated hacking operation knocked out Venezuela’s power grid for several days; a military coup was attempted by Guaidó in April 2019 but lacked sufficient popular support; and in March 2020, just weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic, a $15 million reward was placed on President Maduro’s head.

The US also incorporated the border controversy with Guyana, a debate which contests nearly one hundred thousand miles of territory and dates back to the times of British colonialism, into its attacks. Both countries address the territorial dispute following the Geneva Accord of 1966, which called for a peaceful and mutually satisfying solution. Although still unresolved, diplomatic contacts and attempts at solutions were put in place for decades until 2015, when ExxonMobil began to seek concessions in disputed waters. ExxonMobil’s former CEO-turned- secretary of state then pressured the UN to support Guyana’s unilateral decision to take the case to the International Court of Justice. Today, not only is ExxonMobil lurking in the area, but security forces linked to the Southern Command and to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have also established bases, turning into another threat to Venezuelan sovereignty and regional peace.

President Maduro has fought back. Food shortages were countered with organized food distribution and subsidies through the Local Committees of Planning and Supply (CLAP) which guaranteed basic food for seven million families. An Anti-Blockade Law was designed by the Constituent Assembly to ease processes through which oil could be exported and revenues could be channeled towards social investment amidst the blockade. Actions were taken in the economic sphere to fight induced inflation and finally overcome hyperinflation and the damage done to public salaries by low state income. Nearly a million migrants were helped to return to Venezuela through the Return to the Homeland program with the state-owned (and later sanctioned!) airline, Conviasa. Food imports even managed to be substituted by national production.

The epic of the Venezuelan people and its revolutionary government during the past ten years is testament of resistance and commitment to maintaining its own independent political, social, and economic path. Despite shortcomings and difficulties, most of the Venezuelan people could point to President Maduro’s government as the guarantee that people-focused policies would remain in place. Comparisons with the extreme-right debacles of the region reinforce this view. Instead, in Venezuela, the last two years have shown steady growth—the largest in Latin America according to the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)— together with social peace and stability. The promise of positive social transformations despite current attacks was the basis for President Maduro’s reelection.

When looking at the Venezuelan election of July 28, 2024, we must see it in the context of a regime change campaign of over two decades. It has never been about democracy, and it was never about the votes. Running María Corina Machado in unverifiable primaries despite knowledge of her legal prohibition to hold office was enough proof that the strategy was never electoral, but rather insurrectional. After Machado chose Edmundo González as her surrogate, it was she who did the campaigning and who remained the main figure of the extreme opposition. They needed her to carry out a manual-type fraud claim that seeks now to gather international support and generate enough internal pressure so that part of the military and parts of the working-class population would turn against the government and overthrow it. But once again, this strategy underestimated the Venezuelan people.

The insurrectional strategy required not only the narrative of alternate results giving the victory to the González–Machado candidacy, but also, the irruption of fascist violence that would terrorize Chavismo into accepting this false narrative. During the two days after the election, fascist shock groups took the streets of Venezuela and targeted thousands of United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) grassroot leaders, the military barracks and security posts, monuments, and public works built under the revolution, eventually producing twenty-five victims. This violence was in large part committed by paid criminals, of whom over 80 percent did not even vote during the election. Once the crime operation was disbanded by Venezuelan authorities, it has become evident that there is no public support for this strategy, but rather that most Venezuelans are committed to maintaining national peace. The most significant result of the violent protests of 2014 and 2017 was precisely a rejection by the majority of the Venezuelan people, regardless of their ideological positions, of any type of violence.

In November, a new president will be elected in the United States and there will be another opportunity for both countries to engage. The outlook, however, is not that hopeful. On the one hand, if the current administration’s position is any indication of what a Harris government would be and she chooses to follow a Guaidó 2.0 strategy, tensions will continue for an undetermined amount of time. If, on the other hand, Trump returns to the White House without a significant change in his national security and foreign policy teams dealing with Latin America, then we can expect a new edition of the maximum pressure campaign. Venezuela, in any case, will continue its path towards socialism and a prosperous future. If ever there is a government in the White House willing to coexist with its socialist path, to engage in diplomacy, and to abandon its senseless regime change strategy, that government will find a Bolivarian Revolution willing to reestablish relations based on shared interests and mutual respect. Otherwise, it will always find Venezuela’s willingness to struggle and resist, fighting to guarantee its sovereignty and life with dignity for its population.