Note to readers: I penned this piece a few days ago before departing for a week’s holiday with my wife, her parents and friends of theirs in a small, remote fishing village south of Acapulco. However, the hotel we’re staying in is pretty rustic and does not have wi-fi, which means that: a) I should be able to properly disconnect from my work, and b) there will be no way of updating the article in the days before it goes live. In the interim, new developments may have occurred. I invite well-informed readers on the region to fill in any gaps. I also wish you all a very Happy New Year. Let’s hope (against hope) that it’s not as bad as 2024.
Will Trump take a more pragmatic approach to US relations with Caracas this time round? Or will he double down on an (until-now) failed strategy of sanctions escalation and attempted regime change?
“La madre de todas las investiduras!” (The mother of all investitures!)
That is how El País is describing the signing in of Nicolás Maduro for another presidential term on January 10, just 10 days before Donald J. Trump’s investiture.
As some are saying, there is a tense calm in the air in Venezuela. Just before Christmas, Venezuela’s de facto opposition leader (and long-time CIA stooge), María Corina Machado, published a curious audio message on X/Twitter. In it, she called on all Venezuelan families, in particular “relatives of Venezuelan soldiers and police officers”, to do their bit to ensure that Nicolás Maduro does not serve another presidential term.
In a hushed, insistent voice, Machado exhorted the mothers, sisters, wives and daughters of Venezuela’s military and police officers to speak to their sons, brothers, husbands and fathers and tell them to “serve the nation with loyalty and courage,” and help put an end to the Bolivarian revolution:
“[I ask] you to tell him that he is not alone and that there is an entire country that needs him today, a country that has given everything for a change towards the future of union and prosperity that we, as a people, deserve…
She then gave this message to Venezuela’s police and security forces:
We are one step… away from completing this long and arduous road that takes us back home, where we will finally hug each other again. The only wall that separates us from that longed-for end is that you, a soldier, and you, a policeman, lose all fear of doing the right thing — that which you, in the bottom of your heart, know you must do.”
Venezuela’s (CIA-Sponsored) Iron Lady
Machado is the de facto leader of Venezuela’s main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unitary Platform (or PUD, for its Spanish initials), which claims to have won July’s elections. Unlike the PUD’s official candidate, Edmundo González Urritia, she is still in Venezuela, albeit in hiding. Often referred to by her supporters as “Venezuela’s Iron Lady”, she is also the CIA’s lady in Caracas. Her volunteer civil association, Sumate, founded in 2002, is directly funded and supported by the CIA, through the US’ soft-power arm, the National Endowment for Democracy.
As is common knowledge, González Urritia, whom the US government frecognised as Venezuela’s president elect in November, is a mere place-holder for Machado. As Alan Macleod of Mint Press News notes, Machado was barred from standing for election due to corruption charges and because, for years, she has toured the world, attempting to organize a US-led invasion of Venezuela:
In 2018, she also tried to convince Benjamin Netanyahu to greenlight an Israeli invasion of her country.
She supported the 2002 coup against Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, and led waves of terroristic violence across Venezuela, that targeted schools, hospitals, universities, public housing, and any other symbol of the collectivist society the chavistas are trying to build. The violence killed huge numbers of people and done billions of dollars of damage to the country.
In any other country, she would have spent the rest of her life in prison, if not have been executed. But in Venezuela, her primary punishment is that she can’t hold office for a certain time period.
It is fairly clear what a González-Machado ticket will mean for Venezuela: a government in thrall to the US and Israel and at the service of Western banks and corporations. Like Milei’s government in Argentina, it will:
- Privatise state-owned companies and assets, including the jewel of the crown, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), and its vast oil fields;
- Rapidly cool relations with the US’ main strategic rivals, China and Russia;
- Lend its full support to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and wider territorial aspirations in the Middle East, as well as the US’ strategic interests in Latin America. Like Milei, González and Machado may even ask to join NATO as a global partner while no doubt supporting the military alliance’s operations in Ukraine.
Winning the Hearts and Minds of Venezuela’s Soldiers
It’s not hard to see why Machado is trying to win the hearts and minds of Venezuela’s security forces. Without substantial support from the rank and file of Venezuela’s police and military, her chances of toppling the Maduro government are wafer thin. And securing that support is not going to be easy: Maduro has been able to command the support of Venezuela’s armed forces throughout the vicissitudes of his 11 year-presidency, including the guarimbas (pitched street battles) of 2014 and 2017 and the Juan Guaidó-led coup attempt in 2019.
That trend looks likely to continue. In fact, one opposition figure, Andres Velasquez, recently lashed out at Venezuela’s military for continuing to stand by Maduro. Venezuela’s Minister of Defence, Vladimir Padrino López, has reiterated his loyalty to the government in recent months, stating before Christmas that the army will accompany Nicolás Maduro on January 10 in the inauguration for the next presidential term.
“We soldiers,” he said, “are aware of the great responsibility that means taking care of the decrees of popular sovereignty”.
In the meantime, González Urritia insists he will be back in Venezuela on January 10 to take the reins of power. After fleeing to Spain on a Spanish Air Force Jet in early September, it is unclear how he will pull this off. Since arriving in Europe, he has been feted by Spain’s conservative opposition parties. Both the US government and the European Parliament have recognised him as Venezuela’s true “president elect.” A week before Christmas, the European Parliament awarded González Urrutia and Machado with the Sakharov Prize 2024 for Freedom of Thought 2024.
The European Commission is hedging it bets, not recognising Maduro or González Urritia. But it has announced a fresh round of sanctions against senior Venezuelan politicians due to the country’s lack of “democratic transition.” Having tried, so far unsuccessfully, to overturn election results in Georgia, a country that is not even an EU member, and having successfully annulled elections in EU member state Romania because the wrong man won the first round, the EU is still trying to give lessons to the world’s uncivilised jungle on democracy…
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Nick Corbishley 