The torture death of US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique (“Kiki”) Camarena near Guadalajara in the western Mexican state of Jalisco in February 1985 was linked to drug running by the US-backed “contra” rebels seeking to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua, according to two former DEA agents and a former pilot for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Camarena was kidnapped by criminals working for Rafael Caro Quintero, a founder of the so-called Guadalajara Cartel, and was executed at one of Caro Quintero’s ranches. According to the US, the cartel targeted Camarena because he had uncovered Caro Quintero’s marijuana growing and processing operation. Under pressure from the US, the Mexican government eventually captured Caro Quintero and sentenced him to 60 years in prison for Camarena’s murder.
The new allegations appeared on an Oct. 10 broadcast by the rightwing US-based Fox television network and in an Oct. 12 article published by the left-leaning Mexican weekly Proceso. Both reports were based on interviews with Phil Jordan, an ex-director of the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC); former DEA agent Héctor Berrellez, who said he directed the investigation of Camarena’s death; and Tosh Plumlee, who worked as a pilot for SETCO, a CIA-linked airline that flew military supplies to the contras. It isn’t clear why Fox chose to air the allegations now, but attention on the Camarena murder increased after a Mexican judge released Caro Quintero from prison on a technicality on Aug. 9 of this year.
According to the Fox and Proceso reports, CIA operatives had infiltrated Mexico’s now-defunct Federal Security Directorate (DFS), many of whose agents provided protection for Caro Quintero’s criminal activities in the 1980s, including the Camarena kidnapping and murder. CIA infiltrators were present when the DEA agent was killed, the reports allege. “I was told by Mexican authorities… that CIA operatives were in there,” Jordan said to Fox News. “Actually conducting the interrogation. Actually taping Kiki.” Ex-DEA agent Berrellez gave Proceso the name of at least one CIA operative he claimed was involved. “Two witnesses identified Félix Ismael Rodríguez,” he said.
The Cuban-born Rodríguez was a long-time US agent who was active in the Bay of Pigs invasion, in the Vietnam war and in the October 1967 execution of Argentine revolutionary Ernesto (“Che”) Guevara in Bolivia. In the middle 1980s Rodríguez was in El Salvador working with another Cuban-born agent, Luis Posada Carriles, supplying contra operations [see Update #1185]. According to the Proceso report, Rodríguez introduced the Honduran drug trafficker Juan Matta Ballesteros to the Guadalajara cartel. Matta allegedly used his Colombian connections to supply cocaine to the cartel, with the complicity of the CIA, which received part of the money and used it to supply arms and other military equipment to the contras. The reason for Camarena’s murder, according to Proceso, was that Camarena had “discovered that his own government was collaborating with Mexican narco trafficking in its illicit business.”
The CIA denies the accusations. “[I]t’s ridiculous to suggest that the CIA had anything to do with the murder of a US federal agent or the escape of his killer,” a CIA spokesperson told Fox News on Oct. 10.
A number of sources reported in the 1980s and early 1990s that the contras were funded in part through drug sales with the help or complicity of the CIA. In 1998 CIA Inspector General Fred Hitz told Congress that the CIA “worked with a variety of … assets [and] pilots who ferried supplies to the contras, who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking activity.” The “CIA had an operational interest” in the contras and “did nothing to stop” the drug trafficking, Hitz said. Mainstream US media generally avoided the subject. In 1996 the Mercury News of San Jose, California, ran a series linking the contras to the sale of crack in South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s, but the paper later repudiated the articles. The reporter, Gary Webb, lost his job at the Mercury News and was never employed by a major newspaper again. He died in December 2004, an apparent suicide [see Update #777]. (Fox News 10/10/13; Proceso10/12/13; El País(Madrid) 10/15/13)
The latest analysis of Snowden leaks from the German magazine Der Spiegel is a bombshell for Mexico.
“The NSA has been systematically eavesdropping on the Mexican government for years,” reads the opening line in the Oct. 20 issue.
The article goes on to detail three major programs that together constitute a massive espionage operation against Mexico. No one seems to have been immune from its intrusions, including two presidents.
The presidential computer network was infiltrated since 2010 when Felipe Calderon was still president. The ever-zealous National Security Agency (NSA) was apparently very proud of itself for hacking the private communications of the leader and cabinet members of an allied nation.
In a “top secret” report, its “Tailored Access Operations” division (TAO) crows:
“TAO successfully exploited a key mail server in the Mexican Presidencia domain within the Mexican Presidential network to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon’s public email account”, calling it a “lucrative source” to gauge Mexican “political system and internal stability”. The leaked operation was code named “Flatliquid”.
Mexicans first found out that their nation, along with Brazil and other Latin American countries, was a major target back in September, when Brazil’s O Globo published an article by Glenn Greenwald, Roberto Kaz and Jose Casado on tapping Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s phone and other communications. The article noted that the NSA had Mexico in its sights too.
A specially designed NSA program spied on then-presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto to find out who he was planning to appoint to his cabinet and how he’d handle the volatile drug war—the cornerstone of US policy in Mexico.
That caused a stir and the Peña Nieto administration sent a diplomatic note and demanded a U.S. investigation.
Sunday’s revelations add details to the previous information and show a far vaster and more insidious operation than was first imagined. Text messages from Peña Nieto’s cell phone—85,489 to be exact, according to the Der Speigel-Snowden report– were harvested and organized into data bases, identifying nine close associates for surveillance and analysis.
A third program called “White Tamale” dates back to 2009, when the NSA managed to hack into the emails of high-level officials in the now-defunct Public Security Ministry.
“In the space of a single year, according to the internal documents, this operation produced 260 classified reports that allowed US politicians to conduct successful talks on political issues and to plan international investments.”
The documents note that the spy operation allowed the NSA to gain access to “diplomatic talking points”.
What does this mean? Wouldn’t using ill-begotten private communications in negotiations be something akin to blackmail?
In any case, it seems to have fulfilled its purpose because during the subsequent period U.S. intelligence, military, police and drug enforcement agencies achieved an unprecedented margin to operate in-country, effectively breaking down any remaining resistance to their activities on Mexican soil.
The Der Speigel article states that in spy operations in Mexico, “the drug trade” was given top priority level, while the country’s “political leadership”, “economic stability” and “international investment relations” received number-three priority rankings on a scale of five.
This latter category gives credence to charges from Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff that the NSA used its apparatus for industrial spying, seeking advantages. Her charges are borne out by documents that show that Brazilian oil company, PETROBRAS, was a target of U.S. espionage. The Mexico revelations were more general but also indicate economic espionage.
The NSA, as reflected in its own documents, seems to have no sense of boundaries—it qualifies its invasions as unqualified “successes”. Der Spiegel quotes another document that reads,
“These TAO accesses into several Mexican government agencies are just the beginning — we intend to go much further against this important target.”
It goes on to state that the divisions responsible for this surveillance are “poised for future successes.”
Mexico’s Muted Response
The response from NSA to questions was predictable,
“We are not going to comment publicly on every specific alleged intelligence activity, and as a matter of policy we have made clear that the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations.”
So far, no enterprising journalists have asked the Mexican government if it has 85 thousand text messages off of Obama’s phone.
Since September the Mexican government has known it was massively spied on by the United States. After the revelations regarding Peña Nieto’s communications and contacts with US diplomats, Mexico says President Obama agreed to carry out an investigation.
But what exactly does the Mexican government expect of this investigation? No one has questioned the authenticity of the documents. Everyone knows Snowden has them, otherwise why would the U.S. be trying to force his extradition and threatening countries offering asylum. And it seems that asking the U.S. government to investigate NSA be an exercise in futility, especially since the Der Speigel article states explicitly that the programs had presidential authorization.
Not surprisingly, Mexico’s response was widely considered weak.
So far, the response to this latest round of revelations hasn’t shown much more backbone. The foreign relations ministry called the practice “unacceptable, illegitimate and against the law”—and said it would be sending another diplomatic note.
“In a relationship between neighbors and partners, there is no room for the practices alleged to have taken place,” the ministry said.
When Der Speigel asked for a comment from Felipe Calderon, Harvard University, apparently the spokesperson for the beleaguered ex-president since it took him under its ivied wings as a Global Leaders Fellow at the Kennedy School, said it would give him the message.
A senior U.S. State Department official told CNN that the Mexican government reached out about the report, and that the two governments will be discussing it via diplomatic channels.
Peña Nieto has to react now. Brazil is taking specific steps to protect privacy from the long ear of the NSA. Rousseff has been outspoken in its indignation, taking it to the floor of the United Nations General Assembly and cancelling a state visit to Washington.
Mexico’s economic dependence on the United States under NAFTA puts the Peña administration in a tougher bind. Big business will put pressure on Peña to let it slide. The PRI is likely to be seriously annoyed, but it also knows an important part of its power base rests on its relationship with the U.S. government and economic elite, almost a tautology, as shown again in the fact that taxpayer-supported NSA spying was directed at industrial spying to give U.S. companies an edge in bidding, investing and competing.
Whatever the response, the revelations are a blow to a somewhat shaky relationship. Peña Nieto has made it clear it will not allow the same carte-blanche treatment U.S. agencies were given under former president Calderon, but he has also continued security integration and U.S. expansion under the guise of the war on drugs.
Calling into question the terms of the bi-national security relationship should not necessarily be viewed negatively. Demands for a more transparent and less military-oriented relationship between the U.S. and Mexico have been growing. The NSA documents reveal a global security doctrine that has spun dangerously out of control, with what Greenwald calls “the construction of a worldwide, ubiquitous electronic surveillance apparatus” that apparently has no qualms regarding the right to privacy or national sovereignty. Neither the Mexican nor the U.S. Congress has sufficient knowledge of what’s going on to provide reasonable oversight, and the Mexican government apparently has little knowledge of the realm of shadowy U.S. intelligence activity in its own country.
When you add in the private contractors hired under the $2 billion-dollar Merida aid package, it makes for a vast and murky world of post-Cold War conniving.
That can’t be good for diplomacy, or democracy.
Laura Carlsen is director of the Mexico City-based CIP Americas Program.
On August 15, Horacio Cartes, a millionaire, businessman, and alleged drug-trafficker assumed the presidency in Paraguay, leading the Colorado Party back into power after a four-year interruption from its 61-year rule by Fernando Lugo, who was deposed last year in a “parliamentary coup.” Cartes has been investigated by the U.S. government for money laundering and drug trafficking, according to this 2010 U.S. diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks.
Since Cartes started his term eight weeks ago, several announcements have been made regarding Paraguay’s social and economic policy that are worth noting.
Militarization
Only a week after having taken office, Paraguay’s Congress –in which the Colorado Party has a majority in both houses– granted the president the power to deploy the military within the country to carry out policing activities. Despite opposition from human rights organizations who fear a return to dictatorship-era military operations, three days later Cartes ordered 400 military personnel to areas in which disputes over land tenure are ongoing. On August 28th the military entered an elementary school with demands to interview children on the whereabouts of suspected rebels and arrested several land rights activists and peasant leaders in the area.
The military powers granted to Cartes are especially alarming in a country that spent most of the 20th century either in political turmoil or under brutal dictatorship. The increased militarization of the Cartes regime is occurring in a context of growing discontent over public sector layoffs and privatization plans.
Austerity
Paraguay lacks an adequate system for collecting taxes and has a hard time financing social spending. With few mechanisms for distributing wealth and increasing what little there is of social services to the population, any gains from high economic growth rates that Paraguay has been experiencing this year and last are likely to benefit mostly the wealthy.
Seventy-seven percent of Paraguay’s land is still owned by 1 percent of the population and poverty reduction has been slower in Paraguay than in other countries in the region. The UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and Paraguayan government’s estimates for poverty in 2011 and 2012 have differed, with figures ranging between 32-50 percent, but showing a significant reduction during Fernando Lugo’s unfinished presidency. Cartes claims that his government’s “obsession” will also be to fight poverty and increase social spending.
But a little over 10 days ago Cartes announced a massive layoff of 4,000 government workers. This week he announced that another 15,000 layoffs are expected by December. Cartes says that the government lacks the funds necessary to pay the salaries of all 258,000 government employees. Despite accusations from at least one opposition senator who insists that layoffs are being used to strengthen the power of the Colorado Party, the Cartes government maintains that there is no persecution involved in the layoffs, and that it is implementing a system based on meritocracy. Additionally, according to this Associated Press interview with Treasury Minister Germán Rojas, public workers’ salaries will cease to be adjusted to keep up with inflation.
Privatization
Cartes’ government has used the argument of budget shortfalls to defend a move toward privatization. A bill introduced in mid-September and currently waiting for approval from congress would open Paraguay up to the privatization of infrastructure services in the transport, electric and sanitation sectors, including the dredging of the Paraguay River; construction of, and tolls for, roads, railroad and electric services. Cartes has framed his bill as a “public-private alliance,” but five of the largest unions in the country and the center-left opposition Frente Guasú insist on the “privatizing” nature of the bill, also criticizing it for granting the executive complete decision-making power over concessions, and the guarantee that losses will be covered by the state, not the company. The first three days of October have been met with protests and roadblocks throughout the country in response to mounting anxieties over privatization and one-time cuts to teacher’s salaries following their month-long strike.
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The last eight weeks in Paraguay have stirred up controversies, anxieties and memories of an unpleasant past. While it is impossible to know what the outcomes of Cartes’ policies will be, militarization, massive layoffs, and privatization have often been followed by increased inequality, greater poverty, and major discontent among the populace in other countries where governments have pursued a similar path. It is these types of neoliberal policies that coincided with a collapse in economic growth throughout Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s, and it is the rejection of these policies that has led to the repeated election of center-left governments in much of Latin America since the end of the ‘90s, (including Paraguay’s own recently-ousted president Fernando Lugo) that gives us some notion about what could be in store for Paraguay’s future.
Argentine President Cristina Kirchner with Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa. (Presidencia de la República del Ecuador / Flickr)
As political attention has shifted from a potential U.S. military strike against Syria to a potential agreement on the dismantling of Syria’s chemical weapons arbitrated by Russia, all eyes are on the United States, the Middle East, and key actors in Europe.
But what has been the reaction in other parts of the world?
In Latin America at least, which holds two rotating seats on the UN Security Council, the reaction reflects the wariness of a region long beset with U.S. interventions of its own.
By and large, Latin American nations have opposed a military operation against Damascus. Regional blocs like the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have passed resolutions calling for negotiations and a cessation of hostilities.
A leading opponent of the “military option” is Argentina, which along with Guatemala currently represents the region at the Security Council.
Throughout the years of conflict in Syria, Argentina has maintained an anti-intervention and anti-military approach regarding the international community’s involvement. Specifically, the Argentine government has pushed for dialogue between the warring parties within Syria. Hector Timerman, the Argentine minister of foreign affairs, notes that his country has proposed initiatives such as “a weapons embargo, humanitarian assistance, and an emergency meeting of the General Assembly” to address the ongoing violence.
Allegations that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against civilians did not sway Buenos Aires’ stance. In August, Timerman declared that “Argentina will never propose or support a foreign military intervention. The Argentine people will not be complicit in new deaths.” An August communiqué released by his ministry emphasized that “for the Republic of Argentina, the conditions are not present for a foreign military intervention since in spite of the time that has passed and the hundreds of thousands of victims, all the mechanisms established by international law have not been utilized.”
In early September, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon during the G-20 summit in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She reportedly proposed to the UN leader that the chancellors of the 15 member states on the Security Council travel to Syria to see if a ceasefire could be achieved. At the time of this writing, no further development has been reported on this proposal.
Argentina’s opposition to military intervention in Syria fits with its previous history of keeping out of foreign conflicts. Ariel Gonzalez Levaggi, executive director of the Centro Argentino de Estudios Internacionales (CAEI), a foreign policy think tank in Buenos Aires, explained that “Argentina has a tradition of neutrality that was modified in the 1990s but has continued during the era of Kirchner rule. The Argentine government was against the invasion of Iraq, the attack against Libya, and now Syria.”
It is worth noting that some Syrian expatriates in Argentina occupy positions in governmental offices. The extent to which this Syrian community is influential enough to affect Argentine foreign policy is under debate. In early September around 50 members of the Syrian community in Buenos Aires protested against U.S. military intervention outside the Syrian embassy.
Some Argentine analysts have declared that escalating the war in Syria could have detrimental effects for Argentina, particularly in terms of energy. In a September 7 article published in the Argentine daily La Nación, experts explained that an expanded war could increase the price of oil, which would hurt the South American state’s already dire economy. One analyst explained how, since 2009, Argentine exports to the Arab world have grown by 20 percent, and prolonged warfare could hurt Arab countries’ demand for Argentine exports.
Argentina’s anti-intervention stance is in line with the positions of most other South American governments. At a UNASUR summit in Suriname on August 30, they signed a declaration condemning “external interventions” in Syria and calling for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. CARICOM’s Secretariat passed a similar resolution in early September, condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria but also urging the international community not to engage in military actions against the Assad regime.
Not all Latin American nations share this view, however. Guatemala, which holds the region’s other Security Council seat, has openly expressed its support for U.S. intervention in Syria. “We clearly and definitely support the decision that the U.S. president has taken so that chemical weapons, which cause mass deaths, will not be utilized again,” said President Otto Perez Molina on September 1. “That is Guatemala’s position.”
It is unsurprising that Guatemala is siding with Washington, as the country’s government has long had close relations with the United States. Guatemala receives significant amounts of aid from Washington ($110 million in 2011 and an estimated $95 million in 2012) and wants to see this kind of assistance continue. Agreeing with Washington’s foreign policy decisions is an easy way for the country’s right-wing government to maintain ties based on security initiatives (like Operación Martillo) and trade (CAFTA).
As a representative on the UNSC, therefore, Argentina has been accurately reflecting the stance against military intervention held by other South American and Caribbean governments. This fits with the country’s drive to forge a regional politics more independent of Washington. Guatemala’s stance, by contrast, harkens back to an earlier era when Washington’s dictates largely set the tone for the hemisphere.
Nevertheless, the final point that needs to be addressed is whether Argentina, or even a united South America and Caribbean, have had any relevance in the decision making process in Washington, Beijing, London, Paris, or Moscow regarding intervention in Syria. The short answer is no.
In Syria, Buenos Aires, Lima, Montevideo, and Kingston have had little influence (or none at all) in what the powers-that-be have decided. While the aversion of Western military strikes on Syria may be considered a relief, the way it was achieved exemplifies how little weight agencies like the United Nations—and particularly the non-permanent members of the Security Council and the Global South in general—continue to have in global security affairs.
W. Alejandro Sanchez is a Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Follow Alejandro via Twitter.
US relations with Venezuela illustrate the specific mechanisms with which an imperial power seeks to sustain client states and overthrow independent nationalist governments. By examining US strategic goals and its tactical measures, we can set forth several propositions about (1) the nature and instruments of imperial politics, (2) the shifting context and contingencies which influence the successes and failures of specific policies and (3) the importance of regional and global political alignments and priorities.
Method of Analysis
A comparative historical approach highlights the different policies, contexts and outcomes of imperial policies during two distinct Presidential periods: the ascendancy of neo-liberal client regimes (Perez and Caldera) of the late 1980’s to 1998; and the rise and consolidation of a nationalist populist government under President Chavez (1999-2012).
During the 1980’s and 1990’s US successes in securing policies favorable to US economic and foreign policy interests under client rulership fixed, in the mind of Washington, the optimal and only acceptable model and criteria for responding (negatively) to the subsequent Chavez nationalist government.
US policy to Venezuela in the 1990’s and its successes, were part and parcel of a general embrace of neo-liberal electoral regimes in Latin America. Washington and its allies in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) promoted and supported regimes throughout Latin America which privatized and de-nationalized over five thousand public enterprises in the most lucrative economic sectors. These quasi-public monopolies included natural resources, energy, finance, trade, transport and telecommunications. Neo-liberal client regimes reversed 50 years of economic and social policy, concentrated wealth, deregulated the economy, and laid the basis for profound crises, which discredited neo-liberalism. Continent-wide popular uprisings and regime changes, led to nationalist populist governments.
The historical-comparative approach allows us to analyze Washington’s response to the rise and demise of neo-liberal clients and the subsequent ascendency of populist-nationalism and how regional patterns and changes influence the capacity of an imperial power to intervene and attempt to re-establish its dominance.
Conceptual Framework
The key to understanding the mode and means of imposing and sustaining imperial dominance is to recognize that Washington combines multiple forms of struggle, depending on resources, available collaborators, opportunities and contingencies.
In approaching client regimes, Washington combines military and economic aid to repress opposition and buttress economic allies by cushioning crises. Imperial propaganda via the mass media provide political legitimacy and diplomatic backing, especially when client regimes engage in gross human rights violations and high level corruption.
Conversely when attempting to weaken or overthrow a nationalist-populist regime, the empire will resort to multiple forms of attack including (1) corruption (buying off government backers) (2) funding and organizing opposition media, parties, business and trade union organizations, (3) organizing and backing disloyal military officials to violently overthrow the elected government (4) support employers’ lockouts to paralyze strategic sectors of the economy (oil)(5) financing referendums and other ‘legal mechanisms’ to revoke democratic mandates, (6) promoting paramilitary groups to destabilize civil society and sow public insecurity and undermine agrarian reforms; (7) finance electoral parties and non-governmental organizations to compete in and delegitimize elections; (8) engage in diplomatic warfare and efforts to prejudice regional relations; (9) establish military bases in neighboring countries, as a platform for joint military invasions.
The multi-prong, multi-track policies occur in sequence or are combined, depending on the opportunities and results of earlier tactical outcomes. For example, while financing the electoral campaign of Capriles Radonski in April 2013, Washington also backed violent post-election assaults by rightist thugs attempting to destabilize the government.
Secretary of State Kerry while pursuing an apparent effort to re-open diplomatic relations via negotiations simultaneously backed a highly inflammatory declaration by Samantha Power, US United Nations representative, vowing aggressive intrusion in Venezuela’s domestic politics.
US-Venezuelan relations provide us with a case study that illustrates how efforts to restore hegemonic politics can become an obstacle to the development of normal relations with an independent country. In particular, the ascendancy of Washington during the “Golden Age” of neoliberalism in the 1990’s, established a fixed ‘mind set’, which was incapable of adapting to the changed circumstances, of the 2000’s, a period witnessing the demise and discredit of ‘free market’ client politics. The rigidity derived from past success led Washington to pursue a ‘restoration politics’ under very unfavorable circumstances, involving military, clandestine and other illicit policies with very improbable possibilities of success.
The unfavorable outcome of US efforts to destabilize a democratically elected nationalist popular regime in Venezuela occurred when Washington was heavily engaged in multiple, prolonged wars and conflicts in several countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Libya). This validates the hypothesis that even a global power is incapable of waging warfare in multiple locations at the same time.
Given the shift in world market conditions, including the increase in commodity prices, (especially energy), the relative economic decline of the US and rise of Asia, Washington lost a strategic economic lever – market power – in the 2000’s, a resource which it possessed during the previous decade.
Given the shift in political power in the region, the rise of popular-nationalist governments in most of Latin America, Washington lost regional leverage to ‘encircle’, ‘boycott’ and intervene in Venezuela. Even among its few clients, like Colombia, Washington could do no more than create ‘border tensions’ rather than a joint military attack.
Comparative historical analysis of the strategic changes in international and regional politics, economies, markets and alignments provides a useful framework for interpreting US-Venezuelan relations, especially the successes of the 1990’s and the failures of the 2000’s.
US-Venezuela Patron-Client Relations 1960’s -1998
During the 40 year period following the overthrow of the Dictator Perez Jimenez (1958) and prior to the election of President Hugo Chavez (1998) Venezuela’s politics were marked with conformity to US political and economic interests on all strategic issues. Venezuelan regimes followed Washington’s lead in ousting Cuba from the Organization of American States, breaking relations with Havana and promoting a hemispheric blockade. Caracas followed Washington’s lead during the cold War, backed its counter-insurgency policies in Latin America. It opposed the democratic leftist regime in Chile under President Allende, the nationalist governments of Brazil (1961-64) and Peru (1967-73), Bolivia (1968-71) and Ecuador (in the 1970’s). It supported the US invasions of the Dominican Republic, Panama and Grenada. Venezuela’s nationalization of oil (1976) provided lucrative compensation and generous service contracts with US oil companies, a settlement far more generous than any comparable arrangement in the Middle East or Latin America.
During the decade from the late 1980’s to 1998, Venezuela signed off on draconian International Monetary Fund programs, including privatizations of natural resources, devaluations and austerity programs which enriched the Multinational Corporation (MNC), emptied the Treasury and impoverished the majority of wage and salary earners. In foreign policy Venezuela aligned with the US, ignored new trade openings in Latin America and Asia and moved to re-privatize its oil, bauxite and other primary resources. President Perez was indicted in a massive corruption scandal. Implementation of a US-IMF austerity program led to a massive popular uprising and the massacre of over a thousand protestors. The subsequent Caldera regime presided over the triple scourge of triple digit inflation, 50% poverty rates and double digit unemployment.
Venezuela touched bottom at the peak of US hegemony in the region. The inverse relation was not casual, as Venezuela under Caldera followed austerity, open markets and US centered policies which undermined any public policies to revive the economy. Moreover, world market conditions were unfavorable, as oil prices were low and China was not yet a world market power.
US and the Rise of Chavez: 1998-2001
The US viewed the Venezuelan elections of 1998 as a continuation of the previous decade despite significant political signs of changes. The two parties, which dominated and alternated in power, the Christian Democratic COPEI, and the social democratic Democratic Action Party, were soundly defeated by a new political formation headed by a former military officer, Hugo Chavez, who led an armed uprising six years earlier and who had engaged in a massive grass roots campaign, attracting radicals, revolutionaries, opportunists and defectors from the two major parties.
Washington’s successes over the previous decade, the entrenched ascendancy of neo-liberalism and the advance of a regional US free trade agreement blinded the Clinton regime from seeing (1) the economic crisis and discredit of the neo-liberal model; (2) the deepening social and economic polarization and hostility to the IMF-USA among broad sectors of the class structure; (3) the decay and discredit of its client political parties and regimes. Washington tended to write-off Chavez’s promises of a new constitutional order and new “Bolivarian” foreign and domestic policies which included promises of nationalist-populist reforms, as typical Latin campaign rhetoric. The general thinking in the State Department was that Chavez was engaging in electoral demagogy and that he would “come to his senses” after taking office. Moreover Washington’s Latin Americanists believed that the mix of traditional politicians and technocrats in his motley coalition would undermine any consequential push for leftist radical changes.
Hence Washington under Clinton did not adapt a hostile position during the first months of the Chavez government. The watchword among the Clintonites was “wait and see” and count on long-standing ties to the major business associations, friendly military officials, and corrupt trade union bosses and oil executives, to check or block any new radical initiatives emanating from Congress or the Executive. In other words Washington counted on using the permanent state apparatus to counter the electoral regime.
Chavez recognized the institutional obstacles to nationalist socio-economic reforms and immediately called for constitutional changes, convoked elections for a constituent assembly, which he won handily. Washington’s growing concerns over the possible consequences of new elections were tempered by two factors: (1) the mixed composition of the elected assembly (old line politicians, moderate leftists, radicals and ‘unknowns’); (2) the ‘moderate’ appointments to the Central Bank and the orthodox economic policies pursued by the finance and economic ministry. Prudent budgets, fiscal deficits and balance of payments were at the top of the agenda.
The new constitution, included clauses favoring a radical social and nationalist agenda, and led to the defection of some of the more conservative early supporters aligned with Washington which in turn signaled the first overt signs of US opposition. Veteran State Department officials debated whether the new radical constitution would form the bases of a leftist government or whether it was standard symbolic fare, rhetorical flourishes to be heavily discounted, merely symbolic changes by a populist president to satisfy the Latin temperament in hard times but not likely to be followed by substantive reforms. The hard liners linked to the exile Cuba lobby argued that Chavez was a “closet” radical, who was preparing the way for more radical ‘communist’ measures. In fact Chavez policies were both moderate and radical. His political zig-zags, reflected his efforts to navigate a moderate reform agenda without alienating the US and the business community on the one hand, and on the other hand he sought to retain and respond to his mass base among the impoverished slum dwellers (rancheros’) who voted for him.
Strategically Chavez succeeded in creating a strong political institutional base in the legislature, civil administration and military which could (or would) approve and implement his national-populist agenda. Unlike Chilean Socialist President Allende, Chavez first consolidated his political and military base and then proceeded to socio-economic changes.
By the end of 2000, Washington moved to regroup its internal client political forces into a formidable political opposition. Chavez was too independent, not easily controlled, and most important moving in the “wrong direction”, away from a blind embrace of neo-liberalism and US centered regional integration. In other words while Chavez was still well within the parameters of US hegemony, the direction he was taking portended a possible break.
The Turning Point: Chavez Defies the ‘War on Terror’ 2000-2001
The decade beginning the new millennium was a tumultuous period which played a major role in defining US-Venezuelan relations. Several inter-related events polarized the hemisphere, weakened Washington’s influence, undermined collaborator client regimes and led to a major confrontation with Venezuela.
First, the neo-liberal model fell into deep crises throughout the region; discrediting the US backed clients in Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil and elsewhere. Secondly, repeated major popular uprisings occurred during the crises and populist-nationalist politicians came to power, rejecting US-IMF tutelage and US centered regional trade agreements. Thirdly, Washington launched a global “war on terror”, essentially an offensive military strategy, designed to overthrow adversaries to US domination and Israeli supremacy in the Middle East. In Latin America, Washington’s launch of the “war on terror” occurred precisely at the high point of crises and popular rebellion, undermining any regional support. Fourthly, beginning in 2003, commodity prices skyrocketed, as China’s economy took off, creating lucrative markets stimulating high growth for the new left of center regimes.
In this vortex of change, President Chavez rejected Washington’s “War on Terror”, arguing against “fighting terror with terror”. By the end of 2001, Washington dispatched a top State Department official, Marc Grossman, to Caracas where he bluntly threatened dire reprisals – thinly veiled destabilization measures – if Caracas failed to fall-in with Washington’s attempt to reimpose global hegemony. Chavez dismissed Grossman and realigned with the emerging Latin American nationalist populist consensus. In other words Washington’s aggressive militarist posture polarized relations, increased tensions and, to a degree, radicalized Venezuela’s foreign policy.
Washington’s interventionary machinery went into high gear: Ambassador Shapiro held several meetings with FEDECAMARAS (the business association) and the trade union bosses of the CTV. The Pentagon and the Southern Command met with client military officials. The State Department increased contacts and funding for opposition NGO’s and right-wing street gangs. The date of the coup was set for April 11, 2002. Meanwhile, the Chavez government began to assess its resources. Loyalist military groups especially in the armored battalions and paratroops were contacted.
Local neighborhood committees emerged and set out to mobilize the poor around a more radical social agenda and to defend the government, as the US backed opposition escalated street fighting. The coup was welcomed and openly supported by Washington and its semi-official mouthpiece the New York Times, and the rightwing Spanish Prime Minister Aznar. The illicit regime moved quickly to arrest President Chavez, dismiss Congress, dissolve political parties and declare a state of emergency. The masses and leading sectors of the military quickly and massively responded: millions of poor Venezuelans descended from the ranchos and amassed before Miraflores, the Presidential Palace, demanding the return of their elected President and repudiating the coup. The constitutionalist military led by an elite paratroop battalion threatened a full scale military assault. The coup makers, politically isolated and militarily outgunned, surrendered. Chavez returned to power. The US policy of regime change to restore hegemony was defeated; important assets were forced into exile and purged from the military. Washington played a risky card and lost on several fronts. First of all US support for the coup, strengthened the Bolivarian anti-imperialist sectors of Chavez’s movement. Chavez discarded illusions of “reaching an accommodation” with Washington. Secondly, the loss of key military assets weakened the possibility of Washington launching a future coup. Thirdly, the complicity of the business groups weakened their role in influencing Chavez’s economic policies, forcing him toward a more statist economic strategy. Fourthly, the mass mobilization of the poor to restore democracy pressured the government to increase social spending on welfare programs. Anti-imperialism, social welfare and national security concerns led Chavez toward strategic ties with Cuba, as a natural ally.
Washington’s escalation of aggression and overt commitment to regime change altered the entire relationship to one of permanent hostility. Spurred on by its backing of a failed coup, Washington resorted once again to ‘direct action’, backing a “boss’s lockout” of the strategic oil industry led by “client assets” among the executives and sectors of the petroleum workers union.
Washington put into practice in Venezuela the global militarization of US foreign policy. Under the subterfuge “War on Terror” formula for global intervention, (which included the invasion of Afghanistan, 2001) and later the war against Iraq (2003) imperial policymakers plunged ahead with new aggressive policies.
The pretext for aggression against Venezuela was not directly linked to oil or Chavez’s appeal for Latin American integration. The trigger was Chavez’s rejection of Bush’s world view of global empire conquered by force of arms and sustained by collaborator vassal states. The oil conflicts – Chavez nationalization of US oil concessions and his appeal for regional integration excluding the US and Canada, were a result of and in response to US overt aggression. Prior to the US backed April 2002 coup and the oil-executives lockout of December 2002 – February 2003, there were no major conflicts between Chavez and US petroleum companies; Chavez’s conception of Bolivarian unity of all Latin American states was a “vision” not a concrete program for action. Chavez’s takeover of US oil concessions was a defensive political move to eliminate a political adversary controlling the strategic export and revenue sectors. He did not intervene against European oil companies. Likewise, Chavez’s move to promote regional organizations flowed from his perception that Venezuela required closer ties and supportive relations in Latin America to counter US imperial aggression.
In other words US empire builders used (and sacrificed) economic assets to restore hegemony via military means. The military and strategic dimensions of the US Empire took precedence over Big Oil. A pattern evident in all of its subsequent imperial endeavors in Iraq, Libya and Syria and its severe economic sanctions against Iran. The same hegemonic priorities were evident in Washington’s intervention in Venezuela.
Contrary to some theorists of imperialism, who argue that imperialism expands via economic “dispossession”, recent history of US Venezuela relations demonstrates that 21st century US imperialism grows via political intervention, military coups and by converting economic collaborators into political agents willing to sacrifice corporate wealth to secure imperial military-political domination.
The decision by imperial policymakers to overthrow Chavez was based on his opposition to Washington’s global military strategy. The White House thought it had strong assets in Venezuela: the mass media, two major opposition parties, the principle business federation (FEDECAMARAS), the official trade union bureaucracy, sectors of the military and the church hierarchy … Washington did not count on the unorganized masses and popular movements with powerful loyalty and affection for President Chavez. Nor did imperial strategists recognize that strategic military units like the paratroops retained national, personal and political ties with the democratically elected President.
The rapid restoration of Chavez to power (48 hours) was the first blow to Washington’s restorationist pretentions. The second was the defeat of the US backed oil executives lockout. Washington counted on its close ties with the senior executives of the state oil company (PDVS) and the heads of the oil workers union. Washington failed to take account of the minority of executives and close to half of the oil workers who opposed the lockout and the fact that Latin American oil producers would supply Chavez and break the lockout.
The twin defeats, the military-business coup and the bosses’ lockout had a profound impact on US-Venezuelan relations. The US lost strategic internal assets – business and trade union elites fled to exile or resigned. Pro-US oil executives were replaced by nationalists. Moreover, Washington’s direct imperial intervention radicalized the Chavez government, which moved decisively from conciliation to confrontation and opposition. Venezuela adapted to the new active radical mood of the country by launching a nationalist, populist agenda and actively promoting Latin American integration. Venezuela launched UNASUR, ALBA, PetroCaribe and scuttled a US centered free trade treaty.
The loss of key assets undermined Washington’s direct action military strategy. The White House turned to is remaining political and social assets channeling funds to the electoral parties and especially to so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Washington via the National Endowment for Democracy and other “front groups” bankrolled a recall referendum which was decisively defeated, demoralizing the right-wing electorate and weakening remaining US assets.
Having lost on the military, economic and electoral front, Washington sought to delegitimize the government by boycotting Congressional elections, leading to the final debacle. Pro-Chavez parties swept the election, gained an overwhelming majority, and proceeded to approve all of the government’s nationalist-social reform agenda. The US backed opposition lost all institutional leverage.
The US imperial failures between 2002-2005 did not merely reflect mistaken policies but had a deeper cause: the incapacity to make a proper estimate of the correlation of forces. This strategic failure led it to continue to throw its shrinking domestic assets into conflict with less resources and backing. Despite repeated defeats, Washington failed to realize that popular power and nationalist allegiances within the military could successfully counter US business-military intervention. Political hubris informed by military-driven imperialist ideology blinded Washington to the on-the ground realities that Chavez possessed popular support and was backed by nationalist military officers. Acting under increasingly unfavorable conditions, but desperate for some political ‘victory’, Washington plunged from one adventure to another, without reflecting on lost assets or declining opportunities. It failed to take account of decisive political shifts in Latin America and favorable conditions in the world economy for petrol exporters. To support a recall referendum in the face of double-digit growth, a radicalized mass public and booming commodity prices, was the height of imperial imbecility.
Imperial Policy During the Commodity Boom 2004-2008
With virtual no active assets of consequence, Washington turned toward an ‘external strategy’ linked to its only loyal collaborator, the death squad narco-President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia. Washington secured seven military bases, airfields, Special Forces missions and a platform for cross border intrusions. The strategy was to launch a joint intervention based on the pretext of Venezuelan links to the FARC guerillas.
However, full scale imperial warfare in Iraq, a prolonged war in Afghanistan, threatened conflicts with Iran, low intensity warfare in Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan, weakened Washington’s capacity to engage in a new prolonged war in Venezuela. US intervention would be opposed by every country in the region. Colombia was not willing to go it alone especially with a full-scale guerrilla war internally.
Because of Venezuela’s trade surplus and high export revenues traditional Washington financial levers like the IMF and World Bank were inoperative. Likewise Venezuela signed multi-billion dollar military trade agreements with Russia, undermining a US arms sales boycott. Trade agreements with Brazil and Argentina lessened Venezuela’s dependence on US food imports.
All non-US MNC in the petroleum sector continued operations, ignoring the conflicts with US companies. The government’s selective nationalization program and moderate increases in taxes and royalty payments weakened EU support for the US, given the high price of oil (exceeding $100 dollars a barrel). Chavez’s left-turn was well funded. The massive allocation of oil revenues for a wide-range of social programs, ranging from subsidized food, housing and welfare, and free health and educational programs, led to the massive reduction of poverty and unemployment and secured an electoral majority. Washington’s “pivot to the Middle East” led to the US becoming bogged down in a series of prolonged wars, eroding Washington’s quest for regional power.
More significantly, the State Department and Pentagon’s Latin Americanists remained tied to the 1990’s paradigm of free markets and vassal states at a time when the most important countries in the region were moving toward greater independence in trade, greater intra-regional integration and social inclusion. Unable to adapt to the new regional realities, Washington witnessed the region’s rejection of US centered free trade accords. China displaced, the US as the regions’ main trading partner. The loss of collaborator military elites as coup-makers for empire, further eroded imperial reach. Coup efforts in Bolivia and Ecuador failed and radicalized political relations toward the US.
However, Washington was not without partners: bilateral trade agreements were signed with Chile, Panama, Colombia and Mexico. The Pentagon engineered a coup in Honduras. The National Security Agency engaged in major cyber spying operations in Brazil, Mexico and the rest of the continent. The White House poured over six billions into Colombia’s armed forces as a proxy for the US military. These “gains” had little impact. US support for the Honduran military coup displaced a Venezuelan ally in ALBA but led to Washington’s diplomatic isolation and discredit throughout Latin America. Even Colombia, its closest client, opposed the coup. US military support for Colombia temporarily contributed to border tensions with Venezuela but with the election of a new President (Santos), Colombia moved toward reconciliation and peaceful coexistence with Venezuela. Under President Uribe trade fell to less than $2 billion; with Santos’ conciliatory policy it rose to nearly $10 billion.
Washington’s external strategy was in shambles. Cyber spying by the NSA was exposed by Edward Snowden and resulted in greater animosity toward Washington, especially from Brazil, which cancelled a White House visit and allocated $10 billion to fund a nationally controlled IT system. Imperial policy makers relied exclusively on interventionist strategies which depended on military-intelligence operations, an approach which was out of touch with the new configuration of power in Latin America. In contrast, Venezuela deepened its economic ties with the new regional and global economic power centers, as the foundations for its independent policies.
Chavez and President Maduro’s regional strategy was seen in Washington as a security threat rather than an economic challenge to US hegemony. Venezuela’s success in promoting bilateral ties, even with US clients like Colombia and Mexico, and several English-speaking Caribbean islands, undermined efforts to ‘encircle and isolate’ Venezuela. Caracas success in financing and backing multi-lateral regional economic and political organizations – that exclude the US– in South America and the Caribbean reflects the power of oil diplomacy over saber rattling. Venezuela’s promotion of PetroCaribe, aligned a number of neo-liberal and center-left regimes in the Carribbean, previously under US hegemony, with Venezuela. In exchange for subsidized oil prices, medical aid and interest free loans, they rejected US intrusions. ALBA brought together several center-left governments, including Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua into a common political bloc opposing US interventionism.
ALBA firmly rejected coups in Latin America and Washington’s overseas wars in Libya, Syria and elsewhere. Venezuela successfully joined the powerful economic bloc, MERCOSUR, enhancing its trade with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. Venezuela’s strategic alliance with Cuba (oil for medical aid) enormously improved Caracas capacity to implement its free health program, an important welfare reform which solidified Chavez and Maduros’ electoral base among the poor and undermined Washington’s funding of NGO “grassroots” subversion in poor neighborhoods. Venezuela successfully undercut Bush and Obama’s efforts to use Colombia as a “military proxy” through a historic peace and reconciliation agreement with President Santos. Colombia agreed to end its cross-border paramilitary and military incursions and support for US destabilization operations in exchange for Venezuela closing guerrilla sanctuaries, reopening trade relations and encouraging the FARC to enter into peace negotiations with the Santos regime. Santos’ embrace of Venezuela’s trade and diplomatic ties, eroded Washington’s ‘outside military strategy’ and forced imperial policy-makers to emphasize relying on internal clients engaged in electoral politics and ‘direct action’ (sabotage of electoral power grids, hoarding of essential foodstuff).
While Washington’s imperial rhetoric emphasizes Venezuela as a “security threat” to the Hemisphere, no other country subscribes to that doctrine. Latin America sees Caracas as a partner in integration and a lucrative market. Moreover, US diplomacy does not follow trade: only Mexico is more dependent on the US oil market than Venezuela. Venezuela’s dependence on the US market for oil is in the process of changing. In 2013 Venezuela signed off on a $20 billion dollar investment and trade deal with China to exploit “heavy oil” in the Orinoco Basin. Venezuela’s trade ties to the US contrast with the hostile diplomatic relations which have led to the mutual withdrawal of ambassadors and continuing US gross interference in Venezuela’s electoral process. For example in March 2013, two US military attaches were expelled for attempting to recruit Venezuelan military officials. Later the same year in September, three Embassy officials were expelled for plotting destabilization activity with members of the far right opposition.
Imperialism’s Multi-Track Opposition
US hostility toward Venezuela is based on three levels of conflict. At the country-level, Venezuela marks out a new development paradigm which features public ownership over the free market, social welfare over multi-national oil profits, and popular power over elite rule. At the regional level, Venezuela promotes Latin American integration over US centered Latin American Free Trade Agreements; anti-imperialism over “pan-Americanism”; foreign aid based on reciprocal economic interests; and non-intervention as opposed to US military pacts, narco-military intrusions and military bases.
At the global-level Venezuela has rejected the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, ignored US trade sanctions toward Iran, opposed Washington and NATO’s bombing of Libya and proxy invasion of Syria. Venezuela condemns Israeli colonization and annexation of Palestine. In other words Venezuela upholds national self-determination against US military driven imperialism.
Chavez and Maduro pose a successful alternative to neo-liberalism. Venezuela demonstrates that a highly globalized, trade dependent economy is compatible with an advanced welfare program. The US, on the other hand, as it “globalizes”, is eliminating welfare programs to finance imperial wars. Venezuela is telling the US public that a market economy and large social welfare budget are not incompatible. This paradigm conflicts with the message from the White House. Moreover, US Empire builders have no economic initiatives to counter Venezuela’s regional and global alliances. Unlike the 1960’s when President Kennedy proposed the “Alliance for Progress” involving trade, aid and reforms to counter the revolutionary appeal of the Cuban revolution. In contrast Bush and Obama “offer” costly military and police co-operation and warmed over neo-liberal clichés accompanied by market constraints.
Despite severe diplomatic setbacks, regional isolation, the loss of a military platform, and a commodity driven economic boom in Venezuela, Washington persisted in its efforts to destabilize Venezuela. Beginning in 2007, imperial strategy re-focused on electoral processes and destabilization. The first success was the defeat by less than 1% of Chavez constitutional amendments in December 2007 right after a substantial Presidential victory. Apparently the overtly socialist constitution was too radical for a sector of the Venezuelan electorate.
From 2008 onward Washington pumped large sums into a variety of political assets including NGOs and middle class university students’ organizations engaged in agitation and street demonstrations. The goal was to exploit local grievances. US funding of proxies promoted extra-parliamentary, destabilization activity, disrupting the economy while blaming the government for public insecurity and covering up opposition violence.
Business owners were encouraged to engage in hoarding in order to provoke shortages and popular discontent; the media blamed state “inefficiency”. Opposition political parties received financial backing, on condition that they unified and ran on a single slate in contesting elections and questioned the legitimacy of elections (claiming ‘fraud’) after their defeat.
In summary US efforts to restore hegemony relied on surrogates, which ran the gamut from violent paramilitary groups, NGO’s, political parties, elected officials and manufacturing and commercial executives, linked to the production and distribution of essential consumer goods.
Washington’s shifts in policies, from internal violence (coup of 2002, oil lockout of 2002-03), and external military threats (2004-2006), to a return to internal electoral politics and business destabilization campaigns reflects attempts to overcome failed policies without surrendering the strategic objective of restoring hegemony via overthrowing the elected government (“regime change” in the imperial lexicon).
Seven Keys to Imperial Politics: An Overview
Washington’s decade and a half efforts to restore hegemony and reimpose a client regime revolve around imperial capacities to secure seven strategic goals.
1) Imperial capacity to successfully overthrow a nationalist government revolves around possessing a unified client military command. Chavez ensured that he retained loyal strategic military sectors able to counter the imperial proxies.
2) Imperial capacity to militarily intervene depends on not being tied down in ongoing serial wars and on securing regional partners willing to jointly engage. Neither condition was present. US imperial policy concentrated its military forces in the Middle East and South Asia, in prolonged wars which created public antipathy to launching another war in Venezuela. The attempt to convert Colombia into an active ally in war failed because of the economic trade losses incurred by the Colombian business elite in the run-up to border skirmishes. Washington offered little or nothing in economic compensation or alternative markets for Colombian exporters since most of US “aid” (Plan Colombia) involved military transfers and sales.
3) The imperial destabilization campaign ran through strategic assets because of premature, ill-calculated and high risk operations in which one failure led to even higher risk interventions in an effort to cover-up a bankrupt strategy. The US backed coup of 2002 was clearly based on poor intelligence and underestimation of President Chavez’s support. Washington failed to appreciate Chavez’s astute institutional changes, in particular the promotion of loyalist sectors of the armed forces. Blinded by ideological blinders, Washington counted on its business allies and trade union bureaucrats to “turn-out the crowds” to back the junta and provide a legal cover. In the face of serious losses resulting from the subsequent purging of client elites in the military and business associations, Washington unleashed its client oil executives and trade union officials to mount an oil lockout, which lacked backing among the loyalist military. Over time the shutdown of oil production and delivery, alienated wide swathes of the business community and consumers, suffering from the absence of transport and distribution of commodities. The defeat of the oil lockout resulted in the purge of over ten thousand US clients among senior and middle management and the reorientation of the PDVSA (the state oil company) into a formidable political instrument funding Venezuela’s comprehensive social welfare programs.
Increases in social spending in turn provided a powerful boost in Chavez’s electoral support and consolidated his mass base among the vast majority of the poor. Imperial strategists then converted their extra-parliamentary defeats into an electoral rout by launching a referendum in the face of the Chavez offensive and suffered a decisive and demoralizing defeat. To make a virtue of multiple disasters, Washington backed a boycott of Congressional elections which resulted in near unanimous Chavista control of Congress and a mandate to legally approved Chavez executive prerogatives. Chavez used executive decrees to promote an anti-imperialist foreign policy without even minimum opposition.
4) Imperial ‘neo-liberal’ and ‘war on terror’ ideological warfare was launched in Latin America against Venezuela (2001 onward) at the precise moment of widespread revolts, uprisings and client regime changes throughout the region. The continental rebellion against US centered free-market regimes, resonated with Chavez’s nationalist-populism. As a result Washington’s ideological appeals fell on arid soil. The dogmatic embrace of a failed development strategy and the continued embrace of hated clients ensured that Washington’s ideological war against Venezuela would boomerang: instead of isolating and encircling Venezuela, it led to greater Latin American regional solidarity and the isolation of the US. Instead of dumping discredited clients and attempting to adapt to the changing anti-neo-liberal climate, Washington, for internal reasons (the ascent of Wall Street), persisted in pursuing a self-defeating propaganda war.
5) Imperial efforts at the restoration of hegemony required an economic crises, including low world market prices and weak demand for commodities, declining incomes and employment, severe balance of payment problems and fiscal deficits to provide leverage to destabilize targeted regimes. None of these conditions were present in Venezuela. On the contrary commodity demand and prices boomed. Venezuela grew by double-digits. Unemployment and poverty sharply declined. Easy and available consumer credit and increased public spending greatly expanded the domestic market. Free health and education and public housing programs grew exponentially. In other words global macro-economic and local social conditions favored the anti-hegemonic perspectives of the government. US and clients’ efforts to demonize Chavez failed. Instead of embracing popular programs and focusing on problems of implementation and mismanagement, Washington embraced local political clients associated with the deep socio-economic crises of the ‘lost decade’ (1989-1999) prior to Chavez assent to power. Imperial critics in Latin America easily refuted Washington’s attacks on the Chavez development model by citing favorable employment, income, purchasing power and living standards compared to the previous neoliberal period
6) Imperial policy makers emphasized global ideological-military confrontation at a moment when leaders and public opinion in Latin America were thinking and pursuing market opportunities. The “War on Terror”, Washington’s hobby horse for global supremacy, had minimum support; China’s demand for Latin America commodities led to the Asian country displacing the US as the major market for Latin exports. Global militarism was not conducive to restoring hegemony when the Latin consensus pivoted around markets, poverty reduction, democracy and citizen participation. During past decades US global militarism resonated in Latin America when it was ruled by military regimes. Washington’s attempt to resort to the earlier period of military rule by backing a military coup in Honduras was soundly denounced throughout the continent, not only by center-left governments but even by conservative civilian regimes, fearful of a return to military rule at their expense.
7) The change from a Republican to a Democratic regime in Washington, did not result in any substantive change in imperial policy toward Venezuela or Latin America. It only led to the entrée of the “double discourse”. Obama spoke of a “new beginning”, ‘new overtures’ and ‘shared values’. In practice Washington proceeded to military provocations from its bases in Colombia, backed the Honduras military coup, supported a violent destabilization campaign in April 2013 following the defeat of its Presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski by the Chavista, Nicholas Maduro. The Obama regime was the only one in the hemisphere (and the OECD) which failed to recognize the legitimacy of the Presidential election results. Political changes in imperial countries, from a liberal to a conservative president (or vice versa), does not in any way affect the deep imperial state, its military interests or strategies. President Obama’s resort to the double discourse, to talk diplomatically and act militarily, as a mode of hegemonic rule, quickly lost its attraction and effectiveness even among centrist-post-neo-liberal leaders.
Imperialism is not simply a ‘policy’ it is a structure, with a powerful military aid financial component which depends on strategically placed collaborators and supporters in targeted countries, operating in favorable (crises ridden) environments. Imperialism flourishes when its military and diplomatic approach serves economic interests which benefit the ‘home market’ and rewards local collaborators. In the second decade of the 21st century, the predominance of ‘military driven imperialism’ bleeds the home economy, impoverishes the targeted society and depresses living standards. Destructive wars even weaken client elites.
Latin American and Venezuelan development oriented leaders look elsewhere, to newly emerging economic powers with growing markets. They pursue economic ties which are not accompanied by military and security threats of intervention. Chinese investments are not accompanied by military missions and massive spy networks like the CIA, DEA and NSA posing armed threats to national sovereignty.
The Imperial Dynamic and the Radicalization of Venezuelan Politics
Imperial intervention can have multiple and contrasting effects. It can intimidate a nationalist government and force it to renege on its electoral promises and revert to a liberal agenda. It can lead to an accommodation to imperial foreign policies and force a progressive government to moderate domestic reforms. It can lead to concessions to imperial interests, including military bases, concessions to extractive capital including the dispossession of local producers to facilitate capital accumulation. Covert or overt intervention can also radicalize a moderate reformist government and force it to adopt anti-imperialist and socialist measures as defensive strategy. Over time incremental changes can become the bases for a pro-active radical leftist agenda.
The range of systemic responses illustrates the analytical weakness of the so-called “center-periphery” framework, which lumps together (a) disparate political, social and economic internal configurations, (b) opposing strategies and responses to imperialism and (c) complex international relations between imperial and nationalist regimes. The polar opposite responses and political-economic configurations of the US and China (so-called “centers”) to Venezuela further illustrates the lack of analytical utility of the so called “world system” approach in comparison with a class anchored framework.
The imperial dynamic, the drive by Washington to reassert hegemony in Venezuela by overthrowing the nationalist regime, had the unintended consequence of radicalizing its policies, consolidating its power and furthering the spread of anti—imperialist programs throughout the region. In the first years of the Chavez government, roughly between 1999-2001, Venezuela pursued largely orthodox policies, friendly relations with Washington, while espousing a Bolivarian vision. In practice Chavez did not put into practice his vision, nor provide any resources to fund a regional organization that excluded the US.
Washington, at this time, retained ties to its clients in the opposition. It sought to influence a motley collection of opportunist politicos who jumped on the Chavez bandwagon, to counter the left political sectors of the coalition government.
The first break in peaceful co-existence was precipitated by Washington’s big push for global power via the so-called “War on Terror” doctrine. Its ultimatum that Chavez support its military offensives targeting Afghanistan and Iraq or face retaliation provoked the break. Chavez resisted and adopted the position that the “War on Terror” violates international law. In other words, Venezuela upheld traditional international norms at a moment of Washington’s embrace of global military extremism. Washington perceived Chavez’s policy as setting an example or precedent for other “recalcitrant” states within Latin America and across the globe. As a result beginning with an overt State Department warning that “he (Chavez) would pay a price” for not submitting to the US global military offensive, Washington rapidly proceeded to put into operation plans to overthrow the ‘government via the coup of April 2002. If the trigger to US imperial intervention was Chavez lawful opposition to the global military strategy, the defeat of the coup and his restoration to power, led a redefinition of Venezuelan-US relations. Bilateral relations went from co-existence to confrontation. Venezuela began the search for regional allies, actively supporting left and nationalist movements and governments in Latin America. Simultaneously it pursued relations with imperial rivals and adversaries including Russia, China, Belarus and Iran.
Washington launched a second effort to unseat Chavez by backing the oil executives lockout – severely damaging the lifeblood of the economy. The defeat and purge of the US backed PDVS oil executives, led to the radicalization of social policy – vast reallocation of oil revenues to working class based social programs. Chavez appointed nationalists to key economic ministries selectively nationalized some enterprises and decreed a radical agrarian reform involving the expropriation of fallow landholdings. In part the radical policies were ‘pragmatic’, defensive measures in pursuit of national security. They also were a positive response (payback for support) to the newly mobilized urban and rural poor. Radicalization was also a response to pressure from the nationalist and socialist sectors of the newly formed Socialist Party and trade union confederations. US imperial efforts to isolate Venezuela in the Hemisphere, in the same fashion that it accomplished this policy with regard to Cuba in the 1960’s failed. The region was moving in line with Venezuela: nationalist populist and leftist movements and electoral alliances were replacing US client regimes. Washington’s policy backfired by regionalizing the conflict under unfavorable conditions, Venezuela gained popularity and support while Washington exposed its isolation and witnessed the demise of its effort to secure a regional free trade agreement.
The threat from the US pushed Chavez to redefine the nature of the political process from ‘reform’ to ‘revolution’; from moderate nationalism to 21st century socialism; from a bilateral conflict to a regional confrontation. Venezuela sponsored and promoted several key alliances including ALBA and PetroCaribe; Chavez later broadened Venezuela’s regional ties to include UNASUR and MERCOSUR.
Venezuela’s radical rejection of US hegemony was, however, tempered by structural limitations which provided US empire builders and internal clients with access points to power. The ‘socialization’ program did not affect 80% of the economy. Banking, foreign trade, manufacturing and agriculture remained under private ownership. Over 80% of the mass media remained in the hands of US backed private owners. Transport, food distributors and supermarkets remained privately owned. Electoral processes remained vulnerable to foreign funding by the National Endowment for Democracy and other US conduits. While the mixed economy and open electoral system, secured approval from Latin America’s center-left regimes and neutralized hostile US propaganda, they also allowed the empire through its clients to engage in sabotage and hoarding of vital consumer goods, violent electoral confrontations and permitted the mass media to issue open calls for insurrectionist activity.
The dialectic confrontation between US imperial aggression and Venezuelan nationalism deepened the revolution and spread its appeal overseas. Venezuela’s successful defiance of US imperialism became the defining reality in Latin America.
Imperialism based on militarism and regime destabilization led Venezuela to begin a process of transition to a post neo-liberal, post capitalist economy rooted in regional organizations. Yet this process continued to reflect economic realities from the capitalist past. The US remained Venezuela’s most important petroleum market. The US, caught up in Middle-East wars and sanctions against oil producers (Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria) was not willing to jeopardize its Venezuelan petrol suppliers via a boycott. Necessity imposed constraints on imperial aggression and Venezuela’s anti-imperialism.
Conclusion
US-Venezuela relations is a casebook study of the complex, structural and contingent dimensions of imperialism and anti-imperialism. Contemporary US empire building, with its global engagement in prolonged serial wars and deteriorating domestic economy, has witnessed a sharp decline in its capacity to intervene and restore hegemonic influence in Latin America. Latin America, in particular Venezuela’s success in resisting imperial threats, demonstrates how much imperial power is contingent on local client regimes and collaborator military elites to sustain imperial hegemony. The entire process of imperial capital accumulation through direct exploitation and ‘dispossession’ is based on securing control over the state which in turn is contingent on defeating anti-imperialist and nationalist governments and movements. Imperialist hegemony can be based on either electoral processes (“democracy”) or result from coups, lockouts and other anti-democratic, authoritarian mechanisms. While historically, economic interests are an important consideration of imperial policymakers, contemporary US imperialism has confronted emerging nationalist governments because of their rejection of “global war” ideology. In other words Venezuela’s rejection of the ideology and practice of offensive wars and violations of international law is the trigger that set in motion imperial intervention. Subsequent conflicts between Washington and Caracas over petrol expropriations and compensation were derived from the larger conflict resulting from the practice of imperial militarism. US oil companies became economic pawns not the subjects of imperialist policymakers.
US imperialist relations to Latin America have changed dramatically in line with the internal changes in class relations. US financial and militarist elites, not industrial-manufacturers dictate policy. The relocation of US manufacturers to Asia and elsewhere is accompanied by the ascendancy of a power configuration whose political pivot is in the Middle East and in particular, in their own words, “securing Israeli superiority in the region”. This has had two opposing effects: on the one hand it has led imperial policymakers to pursue non-economic military agendas in Latin ‘America and on the other to “neglect” or allocate few resources, investments and attention to cultivating ties in Latin America. Inadvertently, the “mid-East pivot” and the militarist definition of reality has allowed Latin America to secure a far greater degree of independence and greater scope for cultivating diverse economic partners in the 21st century than was the case for the greater part of the 20th century.
Have US-Latin American relations permanently changed? Has Venezuela consolidated its independence and achieved the definitive defeat of imperial intervention? It would be premature to draw firm conclusions despite the substantial victories which have been achieved during the first decade and a half of the 21st century.
Pro-US regimes and elites still wield influence throughout Latin America. As was evident in the Presidential elections in Venezuela in April 2013, the US funded opposition candidate Henrique Capriles came within 2% of winning the election. And Washington, true to its destabilizing vocation, refused to recognize the legitimacy of the outcome. Since those elections, several members of the Embassy have been implicated in plots to overthrow the elected government. The ongoing intrusive imperial cyber spying system run by the US National Security Agency is a new element in colonial intervention reaching into the highest spheres of the political and economic systems of the entire region including Venezuela and Brazil the largest country in Latin America. On exposure, Washington affirmed its right to colonize and dominate Brazilian and Venezuelan cyber-space and control all communications between strategic elites.
Obama’s affirmation of the “right to spy” prompted new anti-imperialist measures, including proposals to end ties to US based and controlled information networks. In other words new imperial methods of colonization based on new technologies trigger new anti-imperial responses, at least for independent states.
The anti-neoliberal governments in Latin America heading up the struggle against US hegemony, face serious challenges resulting from the continuing presence of private banking and finance groups, US based multi-nationals and their local collaborators in electoral parties. Except for Venezuela and Bolivia, on-going US-Latin American joint military programs provide opportunities for imperial penetration and recruitment.
The high dependence of Venezuela and the other center-left countries (Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, etc.) on commodity exports (agriculture, minerals and energy) subjects their finances, and development and social welfare programs to fluctuations and sharp downturns in revenues.
So far world demand for Latin commodities has fueled growth and independence and weakened domestic support for military coups. But can the mega-cycles continue for another decade? This is especially important for Venezuela which has not succeeded in diversifying its economy, oil accounting for over 80% of its export earnings. The China trade, which is growing geometrically, has been based on exports of raw materials and imports of finished goods. This reinforces neocolonial economic tendencies within Latin America.
Intra- Latin American trade (greater integration) is growing and internal markets are expanding. But without changes in class relations, domestic and regional consumer demand cannot become the motor force for a definitive break with imperialist dominated markets. In the face of a second world economic crisis, the US may be forced to lessen its global military incursions but will it return to hemispheric dominance? If commodity demand lessens and the Chinese economy slows, do the post-neoliberal regimes have alternative economic strategies to sustain their independence?
Imperial power in Latin America, and in Venezuela in particular, has suffered serious setbacks but the private property power structures are intact and imperial strategies remain. If the past half-century offers any lessons, it is that imperialism can adapt different political strategies but never surrenders its drive for political, military and economic domination.
Political Chronology of Venezuela
December 1998: Chavez elected
1999: Three referendums all successful: to establish constituent assembly to draft new constitution; to elect membership of constituent assembly; to approve new constitution.
July 2000: ‘Mega-election’: to elect President, national legislators and state and municipal officials. Chavez wins 6 year term with approx. 60% of the popular vote, his Patriotic Pole coalition wins 14 of 23 governorships and majority of seats in National Assembly
April 2002: Failed US backed military-civilian coup
December2, 2002 – Feb. 4, 2003: Failed oil executive and businessmen lockout to topple Chavez government.
August 2004: Recall referendum which Chavez wins by substantial margin
December 2005: Legislative elections: opposition boycotts, results in Chavez supporters dominating the National Assembly.
December 2006: Chavez re-elected with approx. 63% of the popular vote
December 2007: Chavez constitutional amendment package (‘socialism in the 21st century’) narrowly defeated in national referendum
2008: Chavez moves to unite supporters into a single party – the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)
November 2008: State and municipal elections: pro-Chavez candidates won 17 of 22 governors’ races and 80% of more than 300 mayoral races
January 2009: National Assembly votes to hold referendum on constitutional amendment to abolish terms limits for all elected government officials.
February 2009: Referendum approved 55% to 45%.
September 2010: National Assembly elections, Chavez supporters won 98 seats (94 for PSUV candidates) versus 87 seats for opposition parties (65 won by 10 opposition parties known as Democratic United Platform/MUD). But the Government failed to win enough seats to enact various part of government agenda such as approving constitutional reforms.
October 2012 Presidential elections: Chavez wins with approx. 55% of popular vote.
December 2012: State and municipal elections, PSUV sweeps to victory.
April 2013: Chavez successor Nicholas Maduro wins election by 51% to 49%.
On the Saturday Sept. 28th, disgraced Gen. Odlanier Mena shot himself in the head in a stairwell outside his home in Santiago, Chile. Convicted in 2007 and sentenced to six years for ordering the murder of Oscar Codoceo, Manuel Donoso, and Julio Valenzuela in 1973, a media firestorm over the conditions of his military prison, replete with nutritionist and tennis court, had forced conservative Pres. Piñera to approve his transfer to general population. Rather than face prison life, Gen. Mena made a choice he never offered the thousands whose torture he oversaw as head of the CNI (Chile’s secret police), years of suffering or a painless death. He chose the latter.
Such a sensational story rightly found traction in media outlets across the Hemisphere, but most, like the New York Times, failed to mention Mena’s training at the School of the Americas (SOA), a U.S. Army training facility for Latin American soldiers, as well the broader involvement of the Nixon Administration in fomenting the 1973 coup. That Gen. Mena was able to commit suicide on weekend leave to his comfortable home while technically a prisoner of the state is indication enough of Chile’s agonizing struggle for justice; that mainstream media outlets across the Hemisphere failed to link Mena to the policies of Kissinger and Nixon– policies that continue to the present even as the SOA has been rebranded WHINSEC (Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation)– lays plain that Chilean generals are not the only ones who walk among us, blood on their hands, with impunity.
The New York Times, of course, is not the only publication to focus on the drama of Mena’s death without probing the accomplices who trained, funded, and protected him along the way. The Times, like others, stuck to descriptions of his death, limited the scope of his crimes, and devoted one of eight paragraphs to a sympathy plea from Mena’s lawyer while offering no voice to the family members of his countless thousands of victims. In order to understand this carnal mess, we must expand the timeline beyond that offered by the Times, which in their article begins in 1973, when Gen. Mena had recently transferred from the “Caravan of Death” unit of the Chilean Army to commander of the Rancagua Regiment in Arica Province. Without forgetting his eventual conviction for the murders of the civilians he ordered that year, it’s necessary to turn back the clock three years to 1970, when Mena attended a 9 month Command and General Staff Officer Course at Ft. Benning, GA, home of the School of the Americas. In doing so, the precise type of officers produced at the SOA will come into focus, and allow us a contemporary, domestic point of reference for both the 9/11/73 coup that bore Gen. Pinochet’s dictatorship and the implementation of “Operations Other Than War (OOTW)” that Mena became familiar with at Ft. Benning.
The SOA/WHINSEC has a long and gruesome history. Originally opened in the Panama Canal Zone in 1946, it relocated to Georgia in 1984 after the Panamanians finally achieved sovereignty over their Canal. Notorious graduates include Guatemalan Pres. Gen. Rios Montt (convicted this year, and subsequently released, of genocide), Argentine Pres. Gen. Roberto Viola (convicted in 1985 of murder, kidnapping, and torture) and Honduran Police Chief Juan Carlos “the Tiger” Bonilla (whose police force has murdered and repressed Hondurans so successfully since the 2009 coup that the U.S. State Department has rerouted military aide to his subordinates, an Orwellian maneuver necessitated by Congress’s disapproval of human rights abuses in Honduras). That is to say that the impact of SOA grads across the Hemisphere continues not only in the historical memories of Latin Americans and the nightmares of disgraced generals, but in the mundane standard operating procedures of lethal military bureaucracies from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego.
Chile alone has sent more than 5,200 soldiers to be trained at the SOA in counterinsurgency, sniper fire, and interrogation techniques. Gen. Mena, high enough in rank in 1970 to forgo those courses, instead enrolled in Command and General Staff Officer Course (O-3), reserved for majors and above. According to the 1996 U.S. Army Course Catalog from the SOA, the stated purpose of the course was to train Latin American officers to “be able to command battalions, brigades and equivalent-sized units in peace or war…” and “efficiently manage manpower, equipment, money and time.” Certainly, his U.S. Army instructors would have been pleased with how efficiently Mena ran the Center for National Intelligence from 1977-80, renamed, like the SOA, after its previous moniker, DINA, had become too toxic.
During a time when the Chilean state faced no credible external threats, of all the course objectives listed in the SOA catalog, it must have been the Operations Other Than War (OOTW) training that Gen. Mena drew upon most frequently. The seemingly vague description, “To develop awareness of U.S. OOTW doctrine and of specific Latin American problems in a (sic) OOTW environment,” tells all when we trace the trajectories of SOA stars like Mena to the craters where they are currently crashing and burning all across Latin America. Among the “specific Latin American problems” Mena developed an awareness of during his time at the SOA most surely was the ascendance of the political left, a process now more than a half century old that manifested itself in Chile by the election of the Popular Unity coalition’s Salvador Allende Gossens to the presidency on Sept. 4th, 1970, six months after Mena’s enrollment at Ft. Benning. We can only imagine what must have been discussed by Mena and his Chilean colleagues in the portion of their course devoted to the objective of “Officer Preparation”, designed to familiarize them “with basic organization and doctrinal concepts”, but the outcome was tattooed in red across Chile during the 17-year Pinochet dictatorship.
Beyond the glaring omission of Mena’s training at the SOA, the New York Times and other mainstream outlets also ignored the larger story of U.S. direct involvement in the ’73 coup and complicity in all that followed. That story has been told by truth seeking independent journalists many times (for a great account of the mainstream media’s whitewashing of Latin American state violence, see Keane Bhatt’s article from July 29). Suffice it to say that Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has for many years been unable to travel freely abroad for fear that foreign courts will hold him accountable for his crimes against humanity. While the Times tries to relegate Mena’s suicide to the realms of history and pulp, we must remember that crimes like Mena’s are ongoing, and that the SOA/WHINSEC continues to export anti-democratic human rights abusers around the Hemisphere. Who says we don’t produce anything here anymore?
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff lambasted US spying on her country at Tuesday’s UN summit, calling it a “breach of international law.” She further warned that the NSA surveillance, revealed since June, threatened freedom of speech and democracy.
“Meddling in such a manner in the lives and affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and as such it is an affront to the principles that should otherwise govern relations among countries, especially among friendly nations,” Rousseff said.
“Without the right to privacy, there is no real freedom of speech or freedom of opinion,” Rousseff told the gathering of world leaders. “And therefore, there is no actual democracy,” she added, criticizing the fact that Brazil had been targeted by the US.
“A country’s sovereignty can never affirm itself to the detriment of another country’s sovereignty,” she added.
Rousseff went on to propose a multilateral, international governance framework to monitor US surveillance activity. “We must establish multilateral mechanisms for the world wide web,” she said.
Rousseff said that the US’s arguments for spying on Brazil and other UN member states were “untenable”, adding that “Brazil knows how to protect itself” and that the country has been “living in peace with our neighbors for more than 140 years.”
Brazil’s specific targeting in US surveillance practices prompted Rousseff’s government to announce that it intends to adopt both legislation and technology aimed at protecting itself and its businesses from the illegal interception of communications.
A week ago, Rousseff canceled an impending state visit to Washington, scheduled to take place in October, because of indignation over spying revelations. Rousseff has stated she wants an apology from Obama and the United States.
The revelations that the US National Security Agency has been intercepting Rouseff’s own phone calls and e-mails, in addition to those of her aides and officials at state-controlled oil and gas firm Petrobras, have prompted an outcry in Brazil.
Rousseff’s predecessor as Brazilian President, Lula da Silva, said earlier this month that Obama should “personally apologize to the world.” Lula accused the US of “thinking that it can control global communications and ignore the sovereignty of other countries” in an interview with India’s English-language daily The Hindu, published Sept. 10.
Latin America voices widespread indignation at US activities
US relations with all of Latin America have recently soured. In addition to Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia and Venezuela have all voiced anger with the US over the NSA’s surveillance of their countries this year. Bolivia has been especially bitter.
“I would like to announce that we are preparing a lawsuit against Barack Obama to condemn him for crimes against humanity,” President Morales told reporters Friday in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz. He branded the US president as a “criminal” who had violated international law.
In early July, a plane carrying Morales from Moscow to the Bolivian capital, La Paz, was grounded for 13 hours in Austria after it was banned from European airspace because of US suspicions it was carrying fugitive Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who has been responsible for the majority of leaks regarding NSA spying practices since June.
Venezuela wrote to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the end of last week, requesting that he take action in response to the apparent denial of US visas to some members of the Venezuelan delegation who were scheduled to attend the UN General Assembly in New York.
President Nicolas Maduro said that the denial seemed intended to “create logistical obstacles to impede” the visit, and further requested that the UN “demand that the government of the US abide by its international obligations” as host of the 68th UN General Assembly.
Tension between Venezuela and the US rose Thursday when Venezuela’s foreign minister, Elias Jaua, told media outlets that the US had denied a plane carrying Maduro entrance into its airspace. The aircraft was en route to China. Washington later granted the approval, stating that Venezuela’s request had not been properly submitted. Jaua denounced the move as “an act of aggression.”
Bolivia’s General Prosecutor Ramiro Guerrero has requested the extradition of former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada from the US, so he can be brought to justice for crimes against humanity in his country.
Guerrero is also calling for the extradition of two former ministers, Carlos Sánchez Berzaín and Jorge Berindoague. They have been in the US since October 2003.
All three men are being charged with genocide, homicide, humiliation and torture, inflicting injuries of varying degrees, deprivation of freedom, and forcefully raiding homes.
Guerrero presented the case for the ex-president’s extradition for the second time on Friday. The first time, in 2012, his case was rejected. However this time he expects that the 1,900-page document will convince US authorities of granting extradition based on the gravity of the charges against the defendants.
The document will be analysed by the Supreme Court of Bolivia in Sucre. The Court’s members will be tasked with deciding whether the extradition is viable or not.
The request for extradition comes almost ten years after ‘Black October’, as the revolt that caused the resignation and escape of Sánchez de Lozada is known. The ‘Black October’ protests took place in 2003, sparked by the people’s opposition to exporting Bolivian gas to Mexico and the US at very low prices through a Chilean port. The state’s repression left 65 people dead and hundreds injured. As a result, Sánchez de Lozada was forced to resign and fled to the US.
Mérida – Venezuela has rejected the United States’ version of events in the dispute over President Nicolas Maduro’s passage through U.S. airspace last night.
The diplomatic fallout reached media attention when Venezuelan foreign minister Elias Jaua told reporters yesterday that President Maduro had been denied permission to fly through U.S. airspace.
According to Venezuelan officials, the presidential flight was prohibited from passing over Puerto Rico, with President Maduro considering changing the flight path to reach Paris, France. However after hurried diplomatic talks permission was eventually granted for the flight to pass through U.S. airspace.
The flight’s final destination is Beijing, China, where Maduro will conduct a state visit.
U.S. statement
In a diplomatic statement emitted today by the United States Embassy in Caracas, the U.S. denied prohibiting the Venezuelan president’s passage through its airspace, and blamed any delays in granting passage on the Venezuelan government for not “properly submitting” the flight request.
The statement said that Venezuela had only submitted the international flight request with one day’s notice, when three are required. Further, the U.S. diplomats argued that approval was delayed because “the [presidential] plane in question was not a state aircraft, which is required for diplomatic clearance”.
“We advised Venezuela on the correct way to get the clearance and notified their authorities last night that permission was granted,” the statement read.
Response
Venezuela’s top diplomat in Washington, Calixto Ortega, rejected the U.S. version of events, affirming in a call to state channel VTV that the U.S. had indeed denied Maduro’s passage through its airspace.
“The permission was denied. I have the denial in writing. We had to have a series of conversations [to gain clearance for the flight],” he said.
Ortega also disagreed with the arguments put forward for the delay in granting permission to enter U.S. airspace, explaining that the plane, route and flight request were exactly the same as in June when Maduro passed over Puerto Rico en route to Italy for a diplomatic tour of Europe.
“It’s the same plane, with the same crew, and exactly the same route made, [and in June] a permission request [was] immediately approved,” he explained.
The Venezuelan diplomat argued that Venezuela would need to keep “very aware” of the possibility such moves by the U.S. in the future, saying that “they took us by surprise”. He also criticised press in Europe for favouring the U.S. version of events in the dispute.
In addition, Ortega voiced concerns that the U.S. would repeat last night’s action next Wednesday 25 September, when Maduro will travel to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly meeting.
Venezuela has further accused the U.S. of denying visas to members of its delegation to the U.N. gathering.
Samuel Moncada, Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.N., today wrote a letter to U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki Moon requesting that the U.N. ensure that the U.S. “strictly fulfills its international obligations”.
In the letter, Moncada accused the U.S. government of “deliberately delaying the approval of entry permits” to members of Maduro’s diplomatic team, and of trying to “create logistical barriers…to his [Maduro’s] visit”.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Marie Harf denied the accusation, stating to journalists, “No visa has been denied to the Venezuelan delegation to the United Nations General Assembly this year”.
International concern
The apparent denial of President Maduro’s request to fly through U.S. airspace has generated criticism from Venezuela’s regional allies.
Bolivian president Evo Morales requested an “emergency meeting” of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), saying that he would propose that all member states of the bloc withdraw their ambassadors from the U.S. in protest. CELAC brings together every state in the Western Hemisphere with the exception of the U.S. and Canada.
“If it’s with Maduro, it’s with everyone. The United States must know that if it messes with Maduro, it messes with the whole Latin American people…because this is about the unity and sovereignty of our peoples,” he said.
Meanwhile, Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez called U.S. conduct “unjustifiable, arbitrary and unfriendly, which offends the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean”.
Rodriguez said that CELAC member states were discussing the issue, and would bring it up at the U.N. General Assembly meeting. Cuba is currently the pro tempore president of the CELAC.
The fallout comes after Evo Morales’ presidential plane was denied airspace access by four European countries in July, under supposed suspicions that the flight harboured ex-NSA intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.
Further, this week Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff cancelled her scheduled state visit to the U.S. in October, apparently due to concerns over the U.S. spying activities toward Brazil revealed by Snowden’s leaks.
Venezuelan relations with the U.S. have remained distant, and the two countries have not had an exchange of ambassadors since 2010. The brief attempt to improve relations following Maduro’s election in April was brought to a close by Venezuela in July, after the U.S.’s new ambassador to the U.N. made “unacceptable and unfounded” comments about the Venezuelan government.
Earlier this week, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Lisa Kubiske gave a talk at the Institute of the Americas in San Diego. During the Q and A, audience member Aaron Montenegro asked her about the May 11, 2012 DEA-related shooting incident in Ahuas, in Honduras’ Mosquitia region in which four local, unarmed villagers were killed and several others wounded. (As Americas Blog readers know, CEPR has co-authored two in-depth reports on the incident with Rights Action, based on evidence and interviews with survivors, witnesses, and various U.S. and Honduran officials; and on a review of official investigations. And we have blogged about ongoing developments regarding the case as well.)
A recording of the revealing exchange is posted here, and a full transcript follows:
Question: I’d like to mention something that you didn’t talk about, and that’s the Ahuas case in Mosquitia and the lack of cooperation coming from the U.S. Embassy. For those of you who don’t know, in indigenous territory, the Mosquitia, there was a massacre that took place in the name of fighting narcotráfico, and this was taking place with U.S. State Department helicopters, with DEA agents and subcontracted Guatemalan pilots. And there has been a refusal to participate within this investigation as far as the ballistic tests are concerned. So I would just like for you to maybe address that and why there hasn’t been so much forward participation with that if you are talking about impunity. And then, another question I would like to
Moderator: Wait a minute, let’s do that one…
Question: OK.
Kubiske: OK, Ahuas. I don’t share that characterization that you just gave. There was a program. It ran for a very short period of time, called “Operation Anvil” or yunque in Spanish, and it was, it was part of a regional aviation air interdiction program – so drug interdiction program by air. In that program, which was basically a program that was lending U.S. helicopters to Hondurans as they learned to do aerial interdiction — so it was a capacity building thing — they had one incident in Ahuas in which the Honduran people on board, Honduran police, in self-defense, shot at people on the ground. And in that back and forth four people — they didn’t shoot from the air, they shot down on the ground — when people were coming at them in a way that looked like the people were trying to recover drugs that had been delivered illegally into Honduran airspace and down into Ahuas. The goal was not to have anybody killed, obviously. People were killed, and it was a tragedy. And in looking at that program there are lessons learned about how to do that program if it were to happen in the future so that it would be safer, but it was a case in which there were investigations both in Honduras and in the United States. Those reports– at least one of those reports, is circulating in Washington, and it should be available from your congressman, probably. It’s not a case of impunity. It was a case in which there was a perceived threat.
There was — I’m going to go a little further and say it was not at all clear what was going on with the people. There was a boat coming at the boat that had the authorities. It was not at all clear that the people in the other boat were innocent or not innocent — still not clear — and it was very unfortunate. It happened in a community that was well armed, which people can see from the videos that exist of the event. So it was actually quite a dangerous interdiction as it happened.
And so one thing we learned is that when those drugs arrive in Gracias a Diós, which is a relatively unpopulated place — Ahuas has about 60…600 people I think — that these are not innocent communities. These are communities in which a lot of people find it not dangerous, perhaps, to help the drug traffickers who live there. And afterwards I think we know that many more people began to think that it was dangerous. We’ve seen some changes in behavior. That’s not to justify what happened. It’s a tragedy that four people died.
Ambassador Kubiske’s comments are disturbing for several reasons. Despite interviews with survivors and deceased victims’ relatives in The New York Times, the Associated Press, The Real News and other outlets – and despite several reports on the incident (including ours), she again presents a version of the events first made by U.S. officials immediately after the shootings, but the veracity of which has been called into question by both official and unofficial investigations. As we have described previously, these accounts have been contradicted by the National Commission of Human Rights (a Honduran government agency), by the Honduran officers involved, and even by DEA and other U.S. officials.
Kubiske states that “Honduran police, in self-defense, shot at people on the ground,” but then adds the qualification that “they didn’t shoot from the air, they shot down on the ground…” Yet the forensic evidence – bullet holes in the villager’s boat and gunshot wounds suffered by victims – is consistent not with a horizontal (and two-sided) fire-fight, but with shots fired from above. The survivors and other witnesses as well as the Honduran police officers, former DEA chief in Honduras Jim Kenney, and an unnamed U.S. official (speaking to the New York Times just days after the incident) have said that the boat passengers were also fired on from the helicopter.
To bolster her version of what happened, Kubiske cites secret evidence – a video, supposedly taken by a Customs and Border Protection P-3 surveillance plane (also previously described in our “Collateral Damage of a Drug War” report). Although she says that “people can see from the videos that exist of the event” that the “community [was] well armed” and that it was “a dangerous interdiction,” in fact “people” have been unable to see this supposed video evidence. It has, to our knowledge, been seen by few outside of certain congressional offices and a few journalists. (Other journalists – from major media outlets – who have requested to see the video have had their requests denied.)
Kubiske’s description of a “well-armed” community is part of what is most disturbing about her response to the question: she again blames the victims, people who the evidence suggests have nothing to do with drug trafficking but who were returning home that night along a major traffic route in the area – the Patuca river – as is common. She comes back to this theme, to reiterate that the shooting victims may have been partly to blame, at least: “It was not at all clear that the people in the other boat were innocent or not innocent — still not clear,” and even more chillingly says
…these are not innocent communities. These are communities in which a lot of people find it not dangerous, perhaps, to help the drug traffickers who live there. And afterwards I think we know that many more people began to think that it was dangerous. We’ve seen some changes in behavior. That’s not to justify what happened.
Kubiske never notes, of course, that one of those shot dead in the operation was Juana Jackson, who was pregnant, and that another was Hasked Brooks Wood, a 14-year-old boy, and whether, therefore, the State Department and/or DEA wouldn’t find it strange for pregnant women and children to be involved in the drug trade. Kubiske has previously denied that any of the shooting victims were pregnant, even though a doctor’s report and statements by numerous individuals in the community – as well as eyewitnesses to her (unprofessional and insensitive) open-air autopsy — attest to the fact that Jackson was pregnant.
As we have previously noted, in addition to obstructing Honduran investigations into the incident, the U.S. government has failed to provide any assistance to the surviving victims of the incident — some of whom needed significant medical attention – nor the families of the deceased victims.
Kubiske also states that this “was a case in which there were investigations both in Honduras and in the United States. Those reports– at least one of those reports, is circulating in Washington, and it should be available from your congressman, probably.” But as we have previously demonstrated, these reports themselves contain inconsistencies, and were based on improper investigations (as some authorities involved in the investigations have come forward to reveal). The public report to which Kubiske is referring is probably the Honduran Attorney General’s report, which has been sent to the U.S. State Department and congressional offices. It is this investigation that was the focus of our “Still Waiting for Justice” report released earlier this year, co-authored with Rights Action, and which we found had “serious flaws including major omissions of key testimony and forensic exams, a one-sided description and analysis of events, and ‘observations’ (in lieu of conclusions) that aren’t supported by the evidence that is cited.”
The U.S. report that Kubiske mentions is likely the DEA’s internal report on the incident, which has not been made public, and which has not been shared with Congress. Unfortunately, this remains the only U.S. probe into the shootings to have been conducted, as the State and Justice departments have refused to conduct an independent investigation despite calls from members of Congress for them to do so.
It is also worth noting that Kubiske never addressed Montenegro’s actual question regarding the reports that the U.S. didn’t cooperate with Honduran Public Ministry officials who carried out the official investigation of the Ahuas killings. Indeed, though Kubiske cites the Honduran investigation to support her version of events, the U.S. government hasn’t allowed the Public Ministry to question the ten DEA agents and various State Department contractors involved in the Ahuas operation, nor allowed them to perform ballistic tests on these agents’ firearms. The irony would be laughable if four lives hadn’t been lost: the State Department and the DEA have themselves severely undermined the very investigation that they rely on to defend their deadly operation in Ahuas.
Indigenous people and farmers from the canton of Talamanca rejected their mayor’s demand to allow incursions by the United States Southern Command within the Bribri Indigenous Territory.
In a letter to Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, Talamanca’s mayor Melvin Cordero asked for the establishment of a “humanitarian air bridge” with the US organisation to facilitate access to the territory by institutions such as the Social Welfare Fund, the Ministry of Education, the Institute of Rural Development, the National Production Council, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the municipality.
Cordero stated that this request is intended as a means to provide essential services to the communities of Alto Telire. However, Bribri indigenous leader Leonardo Buitrago declared that this argument is questionable as there is no extreme poverty in Talamanca, the main reason quoted by the mayor.
According to Buitrago, this operation would put the population in danger and would facilitate the entry of military troops into indigenous territory without consulting the concerned communities.
Farmer Wilbert Gomez from Sixaola also considered that these proposed incursions are unjustified, stating that humanitarian missions could be carried out by the communities themselves along with the institutions in charge of protecting the population. “Military power is used to suppress the people, and to impose power over the people. But we love our sovereignty and freedom, and we believe that we ourselves have the ability to decide what we want.”
The US Southern Command, which aim is to protect US interests in Latin America -such as its access to the Panama Canal- is in charge of security, surveillance, and counter-narcotics operations in more than 31 countries. Its estimated number of soldiers is 24,000.
Despite earlier US assurances that its Department of Defense does not “engage in economic espionage in any domain,” a new report suggests that the intelligence agency NSA spied on Brazilian state-run oil giant Petrobras.
Brazil’s biggest television network Globo TV reported that the information about the NSA spying on Petroleo Brasileiro SA came from Glenn Greenwald, the American journalist who first published secrets leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Globo TV aired slides from an NSA presentation from 2012 that revealed the agency’s ability to gain access to private networks of companies such as Petrobras and Google Inc.
One slide specified an ‘economic’ motive for spying, along with diplomatic and political reasons.
This seems to contradict a statement made by an NSA spokesman to the Washington Post on August 30, which said that the US Department of Defense “does not engage in economic espionage in any domain, including cyber.”
An official from the NSA told Globo that the agency gathers economic information not to steal secrets, but to watch for financial instability.
Petrobras is known to have discovered some of the world’s biggest offshore oil reserves in recent years.
Some of the new reserves are estimated to be around as 100 billion barrels of oil, according to Rio de Janeiro State University.
None of the leaked slides went into the reasons behind the NSA spying on the Brazilian firm.
The US spy agency then reportedly shared the gathered information with the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The new report about US spying on Brazil could intensify the already existing tensions between Brazil and US.
The relationship between the two countries became tense as Globo reported about allegations that NSA has intercepted private communications of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff and her Mexican counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto.
Brazil responded by canceling preparations for the presidential visit to the United States and beginning a probe into telecommunications companies to see if they illegally shared data with the NSA. Also, Brazil has asked for a formal apology.
During the G20 summit US tried to address the issue by US President Barack Obama pledging to work with Brazil and Mexico to address their concerns over US spying revealed in recent NSA leaks.
By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | April 20, 2026
In 2025, Alex Karp, the CEO of government and military tech contractor Palantir, published The New York Times best-seller, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West. The Wall Street Journalpraised the book as a cri de coeur, a passionate appeal “that takes aim at the tech industry for abandoning its history of helping America and its allies,” while Wired praised the book as a “readable polemic that skewers Silicon Valley for insufficient patriotism.”
On April 18, 2026, Palantir posted twenty-two points to social media summarizing the book. In addition to taking Silicon Valley to task for insufficient patriotism, advocating a role for AI in forever war, and denouncing the “psychologization of modern politics,” the Palantir post on X declares: “National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.”
National conscription, a form of involuntary servitude, and the wars it portends, is good for business, especially for corporations within the orbit of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the national security state. Palantir fits comfortably within this amalgamation. … continue
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