Author: Richard Barnes

They That Hate You Shall Rule Over You

Richard Barnes

The title of this post is directly from Leviticus 26:17, a verse right smack in the middle of an extended passage wherein God promises blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. The passage also speaks of repentance accompanied by forgiveness and future blessings once again.

When I read this as a child and later as a young man, I assumed it referred to foreign powers or strangers who would rule over a rebellious or disobedient people, either nationally or personally.

However, as one decade dissolved into another, I came to see that this passage need not speak only of foreigners or strangers, but of anyone who held godless or antithetical views to God’s covenant. In other words, judgment would be seen in the disobedient or rebellious — those who have forsaken the God of their fathers — being ruled by those who are outright antithetical to God, let alone to His law.

Have you ever paused for a moment to consider that the men who spilled the rivers of blood from the veins of Frenchmen in the Reign of Terror in France were also Frenchmen?

Or that the men who tortured and slaughtered — by sword, gun, or mass starvation — the millions and millions of Chinese in Mao’s Great Leap Forward and later his Cultural Revolution were also Chinese?

Or that the men who bayoneted and butchered Russians and Eastern Europeans by the tens of millions — millions!; we often subconsciously affirm the quote attributed to Josef Stalin: “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic”; millions! — were also Russian and Eastern Europeans?

Throughout history, murderous tyrants were often men blood related to the people they hated; their own peoples and nations. 

This truth, helps us understand how in November, 2024, a high ranking Venezuelan official ordered the expropriation of Grupo Lamar, Venezuela’s largest shrimp producer, representing 70% of its shrimp production and over 80% of exports to Europe. And on Easter Sunday this year, its most productive processing plant, Antártica C.A. in San Francisco del Zulia, was in flames and likely reduced to ashes. 

The reasons for the expropriation are so common and mundane as to be boring: “plotting a coup” basically summarizes them.

The results are predictable: production has stalled and output has collapsed with exports to Europe falling 52% and the in country prices of shrimp have skyrocketed adding yet another blow to the strapped Venezuelan peoples.

It’s looking like another Mao-sized failure with a Mao-sounding name, only instead of a Great Leap or a Cultural Revolution, we have the Maduro Seven Transformations. 

Don’t ask.

Readers might recall that expropriations in Venezuela did not start with Chavez; but, initially, they were justified by the fomenting of envy of the foreign, primarily American, companies who were accused of exploiting the Venezuelan populace. 

In the dire straits the country now finds itself, her people can be forgiven if they do not see that the companies now being expropriated are not foreign, let alone American, but local. The men being displaced are not the ugly Gringos, but their own families, neighbors, and friends. 

I understand the founders and leadership of the Lamar Group have left the country. I do not know how many of its 10,000 employees are still on the job.

And who is doing all this damage to the beautiful land of my birth? Who hates the country so much that they are willing to shut down one of its most successful homegrown enterprises? 

A stranger? A foreign enemy? Why no! Those who now hate Venezuela and her people are fellow Venezuelans with a godless ideology of envy and hate.

A “counterrevolution” will not rectify this lamentable situation. But there is a God on His throne and He calls us to repentance. That will do far more than any machinations that man can muster.

Lamar Group owned over 13,000 hectares in the states of Zulia and Falcón

Presentación – Grupo Lamar

A YouTube presentation of the Lamar Group, pre-expropriation

Photo taken in 2023. This was a family founded business. 

Tikal, Teotihuacán, and Human Sacrifice

Richard Barnes

The April 9, 2025, CBS headline summarized it nicely: “Ancient altar found in Guatemala jungle apparently used for sacrifices, ‘especially of children’, archaeologists say”.

It is indeed a spectacular discovery of an aspect of an ancient Central American culture, and its religion, that was long gone before the arrival of Cortés in the 16th Century. The Mayan civilization has long been recognized as technologically advanced and, like the Aztec, is usually compared favorably against the “motley crew” of Spaniards who arrived after the former and in the midst of the latter.

This particular altar was from the Teotihuacán religion and culture. It was in a dwelling place in Tikal, the ancient center of the Mayas. The reason this is striking is that Teotihuacán is about 800 miles away, to the north, in what is now Mexico. 

This tells us that both civilizations interacted with each other and that distances back then were not so formidable but were likely as little of a barrier as they are today.

In a similar vein, scholars who have studied, and continue to study, the Middle Ages tell us that travel and international commerce were extensive and, although the distances took time to traverse, little was thought about it. As is the case today.

Apparently the same can be said of the ancient peoples of North and Central America. 

Therefore, we have the apparent anomaly of a house in Tikal, the center of the Mayas, with a sacrificial altar linked to Teotihuacán.

“Lorena Paiz, the archaeologist who led the discovery, said that the Teotihuacán altar [in Tikal] was believed to have been used for sacrifices, ‘especially of children…. The remains of three children not older than 4 years were found on three sides of the altar,’ Paiz told the Associated Press.”

Another archaeologist, Edwin Román, said that this “discovery reinforces the idea that Tikal was a cosmopolitan center at that time, a place where people visited from other cultures, affirming its importance as a center of cultural convergence.”

Yet another archaeologist, María Belén Méndez, gushed, “We see how the issue of sacrifice exists in both cultures. It was a practice; it’s not that they were violent, it was their way of connecting with the celestial bodies.” 

The peak of both Mayan and Teotihuacán empires coincided between 100 and 600 AD, with the Mayan having thrived before and after the Teotihuacán, and both having disappeared by the time of the rise of other empires with the same unique way of “connecting with the celestial bodies”: the Aztec and the Inca.

Why is it that human sacrifice, including the ritual sacrifice of children, is so blithely minimized if not dismissed by our moderns? We no longer deny that the Aztecs had sacrificed thousands in the years preceding the arrival of the Spaniards. John Eidsmoe writes that in 1487 “Ahuitzotl, Montezuma’s immediate predecessor, dedicated the great temple to Huitzilopochtli, the sun-god, and sacrificed twenty thousand victims; they stood in four lines stretching between three and four miles long, and the ceremony lasted four days and was conducted by eight teams of priests.” 

Sacrifices exceeded 50,000 each year.

Jon M. White, in Cortez and the Downfall of the Aztec Empire, writes, “When we visit or study photographs of Aztec temples, we should picture to ourselves those tall staircases as they frequently appeared: covered from top to bottom with a tacky, crimson sheath of blood.”

I’ll skip Aztec cannibalism and their several methods of exquisite, torturous, execution, including skinning alive, as was also done by the savage Caribs in Venezuela and the Caribbean islands.

Alfonso Caso, perhaps the premier scholar of the Aztec religion in the 20th Century, is a good representative of our modern sages when, after documenting what can only be objectively described as bizarre, heinous, and savage practices, he goes on to write about the Spanish conquest, “a sad event, for the Aztecs’ way of life was no longer to impose its views upon these peoples and their civilization.” 

That is how many of our intelligentsia describe what we deplorables rightly see as a cult of savagery, debauchery, and death. 

In other posts I’ve written about the voluminous dishonesty of Bartolomé de Las Casas and the deleterious impact he had not only in his lifetime but to this very day.

One of the bitter fruits of his propagandistic endeavors was the indigenismo (“Indianism”) that took hold, not only in Latin America, but also in our own continent. This is the cult which emphasizes Indian America over our European heritage, accompanied by bitter denunciation of the latter. And, of course, the propagators of this condemnation are very careful to blacken “Spanish” or “European” culture, not “Christian” culture, although their target is very obviously Christianity. 

This poison has been running through the educational systems of the Americas for generations now. Its fruits are manifest and it is not a pretty sight.

Therefore, when evidence was discovered of high altitude sacrifices of children by the Incas, an avalanche of words poured forth from our betters explaining the lofty significance of such bloody rites, but no word was uttered in gratitude to our European Christian forebears for having put a stop to this vile death cult.

Instead, we have scholarly encomiums such as that by the aforementioned Alfonso Caso, lamenting that the elimination of such practices was “a sad event” or the assurances of archaeologist María Belén Méndez that Teotihuacanes ritually murdering 4-year olds does not mean “that they were violent”; it was their way of communicating with “celestial bodies”. 

We may respect the archaeological digs of such people, but we must not honor their sorry lack of wisdom, which is hypocritically and intellectually dishonest. All they prove to us is that scholarship is by no means synonymous with wisdom. On the contrary, scholarship unmoored from fixed moral codes and divine laws only serves to inexorably return us to barbarism and tyranny.

I visited Teotihuacán in 1986. A resident guide assured me that the Teotihuacanes did not practice human sacrifice; that the stairs up and down the impressive pyramids, unlike those of the Aztecs, were for approaching the sun and moon, not for the spilling of blood. But now, with such practices more and more evident, such sages no longer seek to hide but to blatantly glory in them.

Ours is a wonderful and truly glorious Christian heritage. But it must be defended and it must be taught.

View of Teotihuacán’s sun and moon pyramids.

Atop the Sun Pyramid with friends and colleagues, Doug and Jerry, November, 1, 1986

Tikal, Guatemala

Ancient Teotihuacán altar found in a residence in Tikal. Humans, including children, were ritually sacrificed by both Teotihuacanes as well as Mayans.

“The frozen body of the 13-year-old-Maiden [sacrificed by the Incas] was entombed in a small chamber 1.5 metres underground near the summit of Volcán Llullaillaco in Argentina, together with the bodies of two 4 or 5-year-olds. With the blood still visible in their hearts and their lungs inflated, the three are probably the best-preserved mummies anywhere in the world….” — New Scientist, 29 July, 2013.

Essequibo Update

Richard Barnes

For background on the tensions between Venezuela and Guyana, see Essequibo. 

In a nutshell, over a century ago, in 1899, Venezuela requested the United States arbitrate a dispute between Venezuela and England. Both countries agreed to abide by the outcome. As it turned out, volumes of documentation were available and the dispute was settled.

However, over half a century later, in 1962, under the administration of her celebrated first democratically elected president, Venezuela repudiated the agreement and began announcing her 19th Century claim in official maps and documents.

But it was under Chavismo that the dispute’s temperature shot up.

In February of this year, six Guyanese soldiers were fired upon from the Venezuelan side of the Cuyuní River, the river which for about 60 miles marks the current, internationally recognized border. Guyana filed formal protests which were promptly ignored.

This past Thursday, May 17, Guyanese soldiers were fired upon at least three times from the Venezuelan side by armed men dressed in civilian clothes. This has caused Guyana to “intensify” its military presence along the Cuyuní.

More ominously is the backdrop to all this: the Maduro regime has announced legislative “elections” for the area claimed by Venezuela. Those elections are scheduled to take place next Sunday, May 25. Guyana has forcefully denounced this brazen provocation, although how elections can take place in a foreign country on behalf of another country is a mystery to most. Nevertheless, we have learned not to  underestimate the uses of power when it comes to Socialism.

After Thursday’s incident, Maduro’s vice-president, Delcy Rodriguez, who is also the “Minister of Hydrocarbons”, further escalated the provocations by reaffirming the “transcendental” regional elections wherein a governor and legislators for the region will be named and went on to further rhapsodize on this “political opportunity … for the defense … of an energetic political sovereignty over the resources” of Venezuela. 

The area in question is about 62,000 square miles, close to twice the size of the Orinoco Mining Arc and well over half the size of Guyana. 

It would mean the expansion and strengthening of criminal enterprises such as the Aragua Train (Tren de Aragua) and others and their partnership with the Socialist regime in Venezuela. 

And it would mean even more pollution in these and other South American rivers. In fact, there is already terrible pollution in along the banks of the Cuyuní; but no one is very sure if this is due to illegal mining by Venezuelans or Guyanese or both. Guyanese officials have sounded the alarm for years that not energetically intercepting such operations, not only endangers waters, fish, and other sustenance, but also their territorial integrity. 

I believe those officials have been right all along and are now being proved so.

To say tensions are at explosive levels is to put it mildly.

The critical and urgent nature of the major trouble spots in Eastern Europe and Western Asia require our attention and understandably so, given our close to century-long involvements. A righteous nation extricates itself from such with diplomacy and honor and I hope we do so.

However, we must at the least recognize that South America is in our own neighborhood and our commonality with such is far stronger than with the other side of the oceans. We ought to exercise powerful diplomacy to at the least seek to reduce the stresses that have been allowed to surge in the recent generation or two.

I pray we do this well for what happens in our own neighborhood will impact us in the short and in the long run. Alas, it is already affecting us greatly.

View of the Cuyuní River in Guyana

Guyanese patrol boat on the Cuyuní. These patrols have intensified; however, Venezuela’s military buildup is massive

Grave pollution follows illegal mining on the Cuyuní. Guyanese officials plead for intervention to stop this activity as it not only pollutes the rivers but also increases the threat to Guyanese border integrity.

Most official maps now reflect the “Zona en Reclamación”. This area “reclaimed” by the Venezuelan authorities comprises well over half of Guyana and is almost twice the size of the Orinoco Mining Arc.

Fallout

Richard Barnes

By now the actions of the Maduro regime belie both their denials of a rescue as well as their assertions that the 5 political hostages in the Argentine embassy had been released pursuant to negotiations between Venezuela and the United States. 

By their deeds — which clearly speak louder than words — the regime reflects the actions of an angry, abusive, and rabid suitor whose advances have been rebuffed. They certainly are not congruent with the results of a “negotiated settlement” but rather those of a utterly outwitted, losing party.

Although the rescue was made known to the world on Tuesday, May 6, it appears to have taken place (or become known to the regime) at least a day earlier (or more). On Monday night, May 5, Rafael Antonio Torres, professor and also political secretary of one of the allied opposition parties, was seen being violently removed from his house and beaten before being forced into a government vehicle. His whereabouts are unknown.

Again, this particular arrest took place on Monday night, the 5th of May, before the world knew anything about the rescue; however, the government functionaries and enforcers obviously did.

But Tuesday, the 6th, marked the furious escalation by the Maduro crime syndicate. In Carabobo, his associates detained journalist Mario Chávez Cohen as well as his mother. Although she was released several hours later, he remains as one of the disappeared.

Also on the 6th, Magallí Meda, one of the 5 who was extracted from the embassy, denounced on X the breaking and entering of her mother’s home in Caracas. She wrote, “At this hour, agents of the regime are violating the doors of my mother’s house…. I condemn this new crime and ask for your support for the protection of my family….”

On Saturday, May 10, the home of Humberto Villalobos, one of the five, was also broken into by hooded, masked, booted, and heavily armed officials. 

These actions have been captured by security or other cameras and images and clips have been published throughout the country.

Coincidentally, on May 1, Human Rights Watch published a detailed report on political detentions and disappearances in Venezuela, noting that the majority of the documented abuses occurred after the fraudulent elections last July. The report also excruciatingly details the deaths of 9 young people, a few of whom had nothing to do with protesting the elections.

Truly we are witnessing the actions of a criminal enterprise. 

In addition to individuals and their families, entire groups or voluntary organizations have been threatened and acted upon. Spokesmen for The Committee For the Liberty of Our Political Prisoners, one of the associations formed to denounce what has befallen family members has denounced threats against them. However, they affirm their determination to continue to bring to light the loss or disappearances of their loved ones.

In sum, diverse areas of the country have been reporting the disappearances or detentions of political leaders or social activists, including family members in some cases. These include journalists, professors, medical doctors, in addition to unremitting pressure on organizations not deemed friendly to Maduro.

So, given all this activity, I now have to believe this indeed did catch the dictatorship off guard. Very off guard. Not only that, they must be thinking that if these well-guarded, high visibility persons were successfully extracted from what was perhaps the most heavily guarded site in Venezuela (apart from Maduro’s residence), then could there be a Noriega moment in someone’s future?

María Machado certainly is rejoicing along with many in the country, despite the increased repression: “The most surprised of all, and I can guarantee this, are [the regime]. This is an enormous victory, and it moves me deeply because I believe that every Venezuelan feels it like a personal victory.” She was visibly moved as she said this.

“[Operation Macaw] was distinguished by its precision and complexity; it was executed to perfection.” She would say no more in order to protect all involved. 

“There is a plan, a very complex and integral operation, to advance the weakening of what is left of support for this regime,” she said, referring to the international cooperation necessary for the success of Operation Macaw.

She went on to express her gratitude: “With a certainty, Venezuela will soon be free, and after hours of tireless effort, we can announce that, in the framework of a rescue operation coordinated with the governments of the United States and other democratic allies, our colleagues … are now safe and sound on United States soil,” she went on to say.

“We extend a special acknowledgement to the administration of President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, as well as to the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, for their unbreakable support in these crucial hours. Their leadership has been a beacon of hope for our colleagues and for the entire Venezuelan nation who yearns for justice and dignity.”

Government enforcers entering the property of Magallí Meda’s mother (Tuesday, May 6, the day after the rescue)

Inside the house of Magallí Meda’s mother (Tuesday, May 6; the day after the rescue)

I have pasted only 4 photographs below. I do so to remind us that we are talking about real flesh and blood people like you and me. These are brave individuals who have not been accused of violence à la 2020 riots in the United States or the violent protests in more recent years. 

These folk oppose the dictatorial regime and have sought to do so by constitutional means. But we must always remember: those for whom the state is God, will not tolerate blasphemy against it. Therefore opposition to the state, or to the policies thereof, will pay a heavy price — up to their very lives.

Pray for Venezuela.

Attorney Merlina Carrero, among the many who have “disappeared” since the dramatic rescue.

Physiatrist Angel Lugo, among the disappeared.

Journalist, Mario Chávez Cohen, among the disappeared. His mother was also arrested and released hours later.

Rafael Antonio Torres, professor, was seen to be forcefully extracted from his home and “beaten violently” before being taken away. He is among the disappeared.

Note: For recent events I have found Infobae to be a reliable source and less tendentious than others. I do not vouch for them in general; however, for these recent days, they have been accurate.

About That Rescue

Richard Barnes

The Argentina embassy saga began months before the July, 2024 Venezuela elections. In a nutshell, the Venezuela state regime, headed by Nicolás Maduro, well aware of its deep unpopularity with the Venezuelan people, began arrests and disappearances, and issued arrest warrants against the key players of the united opposition who in turn sought asylum in the embassy. 

Arrests began with a frenzy, including Dignora Hernández, 56-year-old political secretary of an opposition party, violently taken from her home as she cried for help and roughly pushed by goons into a state vehicle. This was caught on video surreptitiously and went viral. She is still detained, 413 days later.

Six remaining opposition leaders sought asylum from Argentina, which was granted the same day as the aforementioned arrest, in March, 2024. From that embassy, surrounded by Venezuelan military and intelligence forces, which at times would cut off water and power and even food, these six were still able, not only to mobilize millions to vote in July, but also to get election monitors to access official vote tallies which demonstrated a landslide victory for the opposition.

Therefore, when the regime announced its “victory”, the evidence loudly belied it and various countries found themselves obligated to not recognize the regime or to “pretty please” ask them to publish the actual tallies. Such polite requests still await replies.

Massive multitudes protested after the farce of an election, but the state’s response was brutal. And effective. The opposition candidate, Edmundo González, fled to Spain, having been granted safe passage, loudly and with state-approved photos.

Parenthetically, it is important to remember that the opposition candidate was Corina Machado originally. However, the state declared her too popular inelegible and struck her off the ballot; she therefore convinced the 75-year-old González to run instead.

The months slipped by; the Venezuelan state broke diplomatic relations with Argentina whose personnel evacuated; Brazil “took charge” of the embassy, whatever that means; and the asylum seekers remained.

In December (2024), one of the six, Fernando Martínez, agreed to evacuate; eventually leaving the embassy in a Swiss diplomatic automobile. He died two months later.

Yesterday, after 412 days of captivity, the world learned that the remaining 5, along with Ms Machado’s infirm mother, had been “extracted” from Venezuela, ending the ordeal for them, but not for the stricken land.

As usual, the folks on the ground, in this case, local (Venezuela), independent sources, are perhaps more accurate, although we cannot be sure until more details are made available.

With that caveat, what we are hearing is that this was a USA operation, which took place while Maduro was in Moscow where he received a call at 3 AM, Moscow time. The message was, “Estados Unidos liberó a todos los que estaban en la embajada argentina. [The United States has freed all who were in the Argentina embassy].”

If that report is accurate, it certainly was not happy news for the strongman who is now no doubt intent on finding out who betrayed him. There will be scapegoats for sure and it won’t be pretty.

Few details are known, other than what a local said, “Fue de película [It was an action movie — rough translation].”

A word of caution, however. The apparatchiks are insisting that this was a negotiated release long in the works. Although I tend to discount such pronouncements, I am intrigued as to how such an operation could have taken place in the heart of Caracas, next to other embassies, including the Russian, and surrounded by Venezuelan security.

On the other hand, when Mr. González left the country for Spain, the state made it a great propaganda coup. Why not this “negotiated” action? 

Could it have been an “extraction” over time — one per week or day?

I hope I am wrong, but I believe this event caught the state by surprise, during the absence of the “duly elected president”, no less. If I am correct, then we will see retaliations which will make those which followed last July’s elections seem like child play.

So, again, I do hope I am wrong.

Meanwhile, Ms Machado, although very happy for the successful extraction, is still in hiding in Venezuela. 

And inflation is in triple digits.

Pray for Venezuela.

Edmundo González, photo published in local media upon his having been granted safe passage to Spain where he sought asylum in September, 2024. This event was widely published by the state.

The five hostages: Magalli Meda, Claudia Macero, Pedro Urruchurtu, Humberto Villalobos, and Omar González

The original six. Fernando Martínez, bottom row, center, evacuated the embassy in December and died two months later.