For once we can wholeheartedly agree with the capitalist press – the farcical ‘interim presidency’ of Juan Guaido in Venezuela has been, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, a ‘spectacular failure’. Rocketing from obscurity in January 2019 by swearing himself in as ‘president’ on a street corner, Guaido was instantly recognised by the US, Britain and the imperialist West as the rightful leader of Venezuela. Guaido has never stood in an election. His make-believe ‘presidency’ was always predicated on the US refusal to recognise Venezuela’s 2018 elections in which Socialist Party (PSUV) President Nicolas Maduro won 67% of the vote. Devoid of any real power, all Guaido has presided over is a string of ludicrous coup attempts; from snapping selfies with Colombian narco-traffickers and attempting to manufacture a USAID invasion of Venezuela at the border, to a failed military putsch with a handful of treacherous officers, to the infamous ‘bay of piglets’ flop of a mercenary invasion. Each time Guaido’s antics have been extinguished by Venezuela’s revolutionary working class and poor – organised, disciplined and ready to defend their sovereignty.
Guaido has always been a cardboard cut-out, a fact humiliatingly confirmed in November 2021 when the ‘presidential shield’ at his press conference fell down, revealing it to be a prop. Yet it took the opposition groups in Guaido’s ‘2015 National Assembly’ until December 2022 to wheel him away for good; booting him out via a virtual vote held online as members connected from their kitchens, with their maids clearly visible cleaning in the background. No wonder the shame-faced Guardian has remained silent, too embarrassed to report Guaido’s downfall after lauding him as its poster boy in article after article attacking Venezuela’s 20-year struggle for socialism. The Venezuelan opposition and US continue to ‘extend the mandate’ of the 2015 National Assembly because it was the last one to secure an opposition majority. No matter that it now exists only in their imaginations, its five-year term having expired in 2020 when the Venezuelan people elected a new assembly. Guaido’s post as National Assembly president has now been filled by Dinorah Figuera, an opposition figure who resides in Spain and holds down a day job. As Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro points out, ‘[it is] ridiculous that at this point they still lend themselves to farce, to lies’. There is only one National Assembly which wields power and fulfils its functions. ‘The rest is Narnia… a farce created in the midst of an aggression and a threat to recolonise Venezuela’.
This charade would be funny if it were not for the serious damage caused. Venezuela now suffers under 928 illegal unilateral coercive measures imposed by the US and backed by Guaido. These sanctions have blockaded oil exports, cutting Venezuela off from international loans and credit, preventing imports of crucial food and medicines, fuelling hyperinflation and slashing GDP. Approximately $24bn is frozen in overseas accounts, alongside $30bn in liquidities. The imperialist ‘recognition’ of Guaido’s ‘interim government’ has enabled the wholescale theft of Venezuela’s assets abroad. Its state oil subsidiary CITGO (worth $8bn) is frozen in the US as mining multinationals seek to tear chunks off it in ‘compensation’ for past nationalisations. They are aided by Guaido’s incompetent ‘board of directors’ who fail to even attend International Court of Justice hearings. Meanwhile, $1.4bn of gold bullion is withheld in the Bank of England. Britain’s Supreme Court recognised Guaido as the President of Venezuela, ignoring the reality that the Maduro government has an embassy less than three miles away. Shamefully, the court rejected Venezuela’s requests to hand the gold over to the UN for imports of much needed medical supplies. The health of the Venezuelan people has never been a concern for Guaido or his imperialist puppet-masters. As seized documents from 2020 reveal, $8,500 was being stolen every six months from the Simon Bolivar foundation, a fund for cancer patients to access life-saving treatments in other countries. Whilst four opposition parties benefited from this cash, the foundation has been blocked by sanctions since 2017. Fourteen children have since died awaiting transplants and 190 cancer patients, including 53 children, are stranded abroad.
Driven by the need to secure hydrocarbons in the wake of the war in Ukraine, the US is now hedging its bets. Negotiations with the PSUV government have resulted in sanctions waivers to allow US oil company Chevron to restart some operations in Venezuela. Yet on 16 December 2022 the US Senate unanimously passed the sinister BOLIVAR Act, extending sanctions and approving spending to the tune of $50m for ‘democracy programmes’ in Venezuela. Despite their euphemistic titles, such programmes produce coup leaders and their plots – Guaido himself received training through Serbia’s Centre for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies, funded by the US’s National Endowment for Democracy. Responding to developments, the nefarious US Office of Foreign Assets Control extended License 31, rewording it to enable the ‘2015 National Assembly’ to negotiate with US citizens and entities and dropping all reference to Guaido. This provides a fig leaf for the continued theft of Venezuela’s frozen assets, channelling funds to Venezuelan opposition politicians seeking to bolster their campaigns in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. On 12 January, the British government stated clearly that, while ‘respecting’ the decision to remove Guaido and dissolve the interim government, it continued to recognise the 2015 National Assembly as the only democratically elected Venezuelan body, and denounced the presidency of Nicolas Maduro as ‘illegitimate’.
Nevertheless, the demise of Guaido is to be celebrated, especially as, despite crushing sanctions, Venezuela registered GDP growth of 18% in 2022, fuelled by crucial growth in the non-oil economy. In his annual address, Maduro reported that Venezuela now produces 94% of its food, an impressive feat for an oil-exporting nation previously dependent on food imports. Over 79% of 2022’s budget was allocated to social programmes and the Great Housing Mission delivered its 4.4 millionth unit of social housing in January 2023. Though this economic recovery is uneven, and workers across multiple sectors are demanding wage increases to recover from the devastation of hyperinflation, Venezuela’s resilience is undeniable.
So long, Guaido, and good riddance.
Sam McGill
No sanctions – No coup
Return Venezuela’s gold!
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 292, February/March 2023
