On 3 January, Juan Guaido’s sham ‘interim presidency’ and its expired National Assembly voted to extend its own term for another year. Behind this puppet show lies a sinister plot to carve up Venezuela’s lucrative foreign assets. US interests are pulling the strings.
In 2019, little-known opposition politician Guaido swore himself in as ‘interim president’, rejecting the inauguration of Socialist Party (PSUV) President Nicolas Maduro, elected with 67% of the vote in 2018. Within minutes, Guaido was recognised as the legitimate head of state by the US, followed by Britain, the EU and around 50 other nations. Three years of failed coups, botched invasions, corruption scandals and support for crippling economic sanctions has left Guaido isolated, feeble and shunned by the majority of the opposition. The steadfast resistance of the Venezuelan working class and poor has ensured his US-backed interventionist strategy has been thwarted at every turn. In November 2021 the opposition broke their four-year electoral boycott and returned to the ballot box. Over 111 parties competed for over 3,000 regional and municipal posts, accompanied by official electoral observers from the UN and European Union, the first in over a decade. This international recognition of Venezuela’s electoral process was followed by a UN General Assembly vote on 6 December, where 177 nations recognised Nicolas Maduro as the only legitimate representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Despite this, the US State Department refuses to pull the plug on Guaido, rejecting November’s elections and announcing, ‘We welcome the agreement reached to extend the authority of the National Assembly elected in 2015 and of interim President Guaido as its president.’ (The 2015 opposition-controlled National Assembly ended its five-year term in 2020 when parliamentary elections returned a PSUV majority. Guaido refused to recognise the elections and his administration relies on the defunct 2015 Assembly)
In the background, US multi-nationals are positioning themselves to seize Venezuela’s most valuable overseas asset, the CITGO oil subsidiary. The US, EU and Britain have frozen Venezuela’s foreign bank accounts and assets, claiming they belong to the ‘interim government’. This is the basis of the dispute over $1.8 billion of gold withheld in the Bank of England. Some expropriated funds are used for Guaido’s $10m a month ‘budget’, despite the fact his sham administration has no responsibilities or power other than a handful of redundant ‘interim diplomats’. Now, all eyes are on CITGO, the subject of a financial battle since 2016 when its shares were pledged as collateral for deferring debt repayments of Venezuela’s national oil company PDVSA following the oil price crash. This opened the door for a raft of lawsuits against CITGO, seeking compensation for unrelated nationalisations undertaken years prior. US oil giant ConocoPhillips seeks $9bn citing Venezuela’s 2007 restructuring of oil investments to ensure 60% PDVSA control. Back then, ConocoPhillips rejected the restructured deal, pulled out of Venezuela and filed a lawsuit. Similarly, Canada’s Crystallex wants $2bn citing Venezuela’s 2011 termination of its gold mining rights.
CITGO’s assets have been controlled by the US Treasury Department since former President Trump launched an oil embargo, banning CITGO’s operation unless it deposited its income into a US account. Any payouts need to be approved by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Last year OFAC pledged to consider Crystallex’s court mandated sale of CITGO shares once the ‘interim government expired’ at the end of 2021. The extension of Guaido’s sham administration means this decision will be delayed, however, the US government is lining up its ducks to ensure the preferred multi-nationals and political actors profit from the looming carve up. In addition, US President Biden has one eye on 2022 midterm elections and Florida, a swing state where Guaido has more support than in the whole of Venezuela.
As Ricardo Vaz (VenezuelAnalysis, 11 January 2022) details, Guaido’s team has jeopardised Venezuela’s chances of recovering CITGO. In September 2021, a US court document claimed his team had struck a $1.3bn settlement with ConocoPhillips. Facing public outrage, Guaido denied this and the deal was removed from the document. Days later his legal team was declared in default after failing to appear for a separate ConocoPhillips ICSID (International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes) claim. Shortly afterwards, an appeal was suspended by the World Bank because Guaido’s administration again failed to meet responsibilities. As Vaz highlights, this stinks of corruption. Guaido’s former ‘special prosecutor’ Jose Ignacio Hernandez, provided consultancy services for Crystallex in its Venezuela lawsuit whilst ConocoPhillips’ lead counsel is Alberto Ravell, the son of Guaido’s communications director!
When the time is right the US Treasury department looks set to bring the curtain down on Guaido’s interim government, carving up CITGO amongst other assets. Backhanders and cushy positions for Guaido and his bandits will surely follow.
Hands off Venezuela! Hands off CITGO! No sanctions, no coup!
Sam McGill
