‘It is theft … the most famous pirates in the 18th century were the English privateers, they all followed the British Crown … The UK violates international law and intends to steal Venezuelan resources.’
Venezuela foreign minister
Jorge Arreaza
On 2 July, in contravention of international law but in keeping with Britain’s piratical imperialism, London’s High Court of Justice ruled against the repatriation of 31 tonnes of gold to Venezuela. The Central Bank of Venezuela had requested the return of £820m worth of bullion held in the vaults of the Bank of England in order to fund emergency Covid-19 provisions. The lawsuit brought by Venezuela’s United Socialist Party (PSUV) government stipulated that the funds would be transferred to the United Nations Development Programme for the direct import of food, medicine and healthcare materials’ – yet coverage by the mainstream British press such as the BBC and The Guardian instead insinuated it was to be laundered by a ‘corrupt and crumbling regime’ (The Guardian, 25 June). The Bank of England, while purportedly ‘free from political influence’, acted directly in the service of the British government. The arch-reactionary former US security adviser, John Bolton, has written approvingly about the help given by Britain to US imperialism’s attempts to strangle the Venezuelan economy, specifically citing the former Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, as ‘delighted to cooperate on steps [the UK] could take, for example freezing Venezuelan gold deposits’.
The case turned on who was recognised as the true leader of Venezuela: the socialist President Nicolas Maduro, democratically elected in 2018; or Juan Guaido, who as an obscure opposition politician, swore himself in as president in January 2019. Heavily backed by the US, Guaido has launched repeated failed violent coup attempts, including contracting out a thwarted coastal invasion in May (see FRFI 276). Dogged by scandal and increasingly shunned even by Venezuela’s opposition, Guaido has never stood as a presidential candidate, and now cannot even claim to be head of the opposition-dominated National Assembly.
However, Britain, the US and around 50 other western-aligned nations continue to recognise this puppet as ‘interim president’ of Venezuela – although the vast majority of the world’s countries do not. This was grounds enough for the High Court judge, Nigel Teare, to rule the court ‘bound’ by the government’s ‘unequivocal recognition [of] opposition leader Juan Guaido as president’. The reality is that Maduro’s government has diplomatic representation in the Venezuelan embassy in Britain and, as economist Pasqualina Curcio Curcio points out, ‘The whole world knows that it is not Guaido who sits in the General Assembly, nor in the Human Rights Council, nor in the UN Security Council, nor in the OPEC meetings … Is it Guaido who is dealing with Covid-19 in Venezuela and coordinating with the World Health Organization the protocols and reception of health aid?’
The Bank of England has actually been witholding Venezuela’s gold since 2018, before Guaido had even burst onto the political scene. Indeed, the move was likely cooked up by the secret ‘reconstruction of Venezuela’ unit within the Foreign Office, headed by former British ambassador to Venezuela John Saville, which was exposed by The Canary in May. Its aim is to starve Venezuela of its own funds to manufacture economic collapse and regime change. Guaido’s parallel ‘Bank of Venezuela’ board – none of whom live in Venezuela – are now filing for access to the gold.
London’s ruling is another turn of the screw in the imperialist strangulation of Venezuela. The US blockade has seen shipping companies blacklisted, sending freight rates sky-high and undermining oil exports and crucial food, fuel and medicine imports. The five Iranian captains who successfully docked fuel tankers in Venezuela in May have been sanctioned, whilst Chinese companies plan to decommission any tankers that have transported Venezuelan crude over the last year in a bid to avoid sanctions. In June, tankers due to transport Venezuelan crude to Malaysia and Singapore turned back whilst others have left to anchor in the Caribbean. Over 2% of the world’s global shipping fleet is at risk of US sanctions. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the threat clear ‘Mariners who are considering work with Iran and Venezuela should understand that aiding these oppressive regimes is simply not worth the risk.’ Meanwhile the EU sanctioned another tranche of politicians, judiciary and officials, prompting the Venezuelan government to expel the EU ambassador at the end of June.
The multi-faceted economic war on Venezuela is having the desired devastating effect. Curcio calculates that this collective punishment has cost Venezuela $194bn between 2016 and 2019, equivalent to approximately 16 months of national production. ‘With that money, we could have paid off the entire external debt, which according to the BCV [Venezuelan Central Bank] is $110bn. Or we would have enough resources to import food and medicine for 45 years’. Though PSUV management of the economy has been criticised by socialists and right-wing opposition alike, US Republican sentator Richard Black openly confessed: ‘We have demonetised its currency and, through the international banking system, we made the Venezuelan currency worthless and then we go and say: “Look how bad this government is, your currency is worth nothing.” Well, it wasn’t them, it was us who made their currency useless’. The result is scarcity, shortages and inflation for the majority of the population. UN human rights expert Alfred de Zayas estimates the sanctions, deemed illegal by the UN, are responsible for 100,000 deaths.
Despite this economic war and the challenges presented by 70,000 migrants returning home from Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, Venezuela has so far managed to deal effectively with Covid-19. Through a combination of international cooperation, lock-down, systematic testing and treatment, registered deaths stood at 134 at the end of July, significantly lower than the hellish death tolls of Brazil and other neighbours. If Venezuela is to emerge victorious from the pandemic it is crucial that anti-imperialists around the globe step up the pressure against these illegal sanctions.
Sam McGill
Hands off Venezuela – No sanctions! no coup!
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 277 August/September 2020
