Tag: Nicolás Maduro

Understanding the Cuba – Venezuela Nexus V: Fidel’s Revenge III

Richard Barnes

“The ‘continuity of the great work of Chávez’ does not rest on Maduro’s shoulders only. A large supporting politico-military cast of Fidel Castro devotees is key to maintaining the Communist regime in place. Above all, these powerful and dangerous functionaries admire and keenly study the Cuban regime’s ability to maintain herd control over the Cuban people while ensuring their perpetual grip on total power, all under the complacent gaze of a great part of the world.” — Diego G. Maldonado (pseudonym)

In this, our final post in the series on the Cuba – Venezuela nexus, we address the question asked in the prior installment: Cuba’s reason for these asymmetrical exchanges and contracts with astronomical profit margins is “to provide the island with needed currency. But what is Venezuela’s reason for them?”

In these posts, we’ve gotten a glimpse of Venezuela’s financial rescue of the bankrupt Cuban fiscal house. Reliable, recent figures are hard to come by and sketchy when obtained; however, most intelligence sources as well as financial publications agree that Venezuela has been Cuba’s principal source of revenue since the turn of this century. And that, at devastating financial and productivity cost to Venezuela.

But, as far as the Venezuelan regime is concerned, this devastation to the country has been well worth the pain because it has enabled the imposition of the Cuban political model onto Venezuela. A model which, above all else, maintains the rulers in perpetual power through electoral fraud, economic and social devastation, and intimidation. 

As noted in other posts, the Venezuelan electoral process is “owned” by the long-dead Chavez, thereby assuring perpetuity to the state. As per Stalin, “It doesn’t matter who votes (or how many people vote), what matters is who counts the votes.” This aphorism has been vindicated time and again in Venezuela, and only cynics and fools discount it or ignore it. The effects of the collapse of Venezuela’s currency, the utter scarcity of foodstuffs, and the frightening level of crime have had the effect of propelling the largest ever emigration in Latin American history. But some have also discerned an incipient silver lining: the regime is actually talking about some electoral reforms. We’ll see.

As for the economic devastation visited on the country, Amherst Professor Javier Corrales well summarizes its purpose: “Maduro prefers economic devastation … because misery destroys civil society, and that in turn destroys all possibility to resist tyranny.” I would add that the terrible crime now rampant in Venezuela also reduces the will to resist tyranny. How effective would you be in promoting opposition to sitting politicians or filing complaints against a corrupt, unjust bureaucracy, when most of your time is focused on keeping vandals away from your front door?

Finally, to mount a truly effective opposition, the Venezuelan people would have to first overthrow a very well rooted, multi-faceted Cuban intelligence apparatus and its control accoutrements that are now pervasive. This domination pervades all civil institutions in Venezuela, even including the issuance of passports and cédulas, the Venezuelan internal passport card, without which a citizen pretty much is barred from everyday life (a powerful argument against anything even approaching this in the United States, by the way).

It betrays ignorance (and insensitivity) to minimize the deleterious impact of the cuban regiment’s experience in corralling (figuratively and literally) and demoralizing dissidence to the administrative state, i.e., the bureaucracy that was spawned with the advent of democracy in the late 40s and early 50s and has been thoroughly co-opted by the Cuba – Venezuela Nexus. Sowing fear and desperation are very valuable tools to those whose raison de e’tre is to perpetuate themselves while accumulating ever increasing power over others.

There is much more to Castro’s interest in Venezuela, an interest which predates his notoriety and which has had nefarious effects on both Cuba and Venezuela, as well as the rest of Latin America. We will touch upon this interesting and ever current subject on occasion.

Banner at Venezuela oil refinery: Alianza Bolivariana Para Los Pueblos de Nuestra América. A Cuba – Venezuela project seeking to integrate all Latin American countries. Other posts will address this age-old dream which actually existed during the Spanish colonial era.

All Within the State: Understanding the Cuba – Venezuela Nexus

Richard Barnes

“All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” — Benito Mussolini

“Revolutions do not measure their success in terms of productivity but in terms of control.” — Diego G. Maldonado

The author of the second quote is a pseudonym for the researcher of a magisterial investigation into the relationship between Venezuela and Cuba. He remains anonymous for obvious reasons.

Venezuela’s first democratically elected president was Rómulo Betancourt, elected in 1958 and inaugurated in 1959. 

In 1958, Venezuela had the 4th highest per capita GDP in the world. Its monetary policy was stable and property rights were respected and honored. To quote a Venezuelan writer: “In 1958, Venezuela became a democracy when the dictatorship was overthrown. With that came all the usual benefits of democracy such as freedom of the press, universal suffrage, and other civil rights. Unfortunately, these reforms came along with … destruction of our economic freedom.”

Fast forward to 2020 and we find Venezuela in 140th place in per capital GDP, poorer than any other Latin American country and than most other countries in the world. And that ranking is based on unreliable numbers. Judging from the massive emigration over the years, I suspect she ranks even lower.

Given the above, would you be surprised to know that Venezuela is Cuba’s principal source of income since the turn of this century? 

Despite (or because of) its collapse of oil production, Venezuela in 2018 (latest available figures) purchased $440 Million of foreign crude and sent it to Cuba at a lower price (at a loss), with flexible credit conditions. According to documents obtained by Reuters, this oil was purchased “at a cost of $12 per barrel more than the price she charged Cuba despite her great need of currency to sustain her own economy and import food and medicine midst a great scarcity.” 

And that has been the case since Chavez’ election.

Why? Is it all ideological? Did Chávez and now Maduro love Cuba so much that they were willing to sacrifice their own country for Cuba’s survival?

It’s a bit more complicated and yet more simple than that: it is all done for control, for power.

Shortly after Betancourt’s inauguration in early 1959, he welcomed Fidel Castro as his first foreign state visitor. From eye witness accounts, the meetings did not go well. Castro believed he had a kindred soul in Betancourt; after all the newly elected president had founded the Communist Party in Costa Rica during his exile there.

However, Betancourt was more moderate than Castro. He knew he had an army that would not look kindly on a civilian president who immediately and radically set about to thrust the country from 4th place GDP to 140th in less than a generation. Also, he rejected Castro’s request for free or heavily subsidized petroleum: “That oil is not mine to give,” Betancourt is reported to have said.

Castro was offended and angered. In the early 60s Cuba supported and fomented Communist guerrilla warfare in Venezuela, uprisings by leftist members of the Venezuelan army, and sabotage of oil pipelines and supplies warehouses. As a child I remember our family car being stopped many times by the National Guard for searches. That was a common sight throughout the country as Betancourt energetically sought to defeat his former allies. He also successfully backed the expulsion of Cuba from the Organization of American States.

Castro never forgave him and, with Chavez, he succeeded where he had failed with Betancourt. 

If, as noted above, it was all done for control and power, what then was the quid pro quo between Chavez, Maduro, and Castro? 

We will be writing more on this in future posts.

Fidel Castro visits Venezuela in early 1959. Relations went downhill from there. Not pictured is Castro’s rifle. Betancourt requested he leave it at the door.
There is much more to these relationships than scarcity, emigration in the millions, extra-judicial executions in the thousands, and more. 

Highest Known Oil Reserves … And People Cannot Buy Gasoline

Richard Barnes

Venezuela is still Number One on the list of countries with the highest known oil reserves. According to WorldAtlas.com (link below), her production has fallen because of the decline in oil prices and because she did not “invest in the renovation of its obsolete oil extraction infrastructure.”

Second on the list is Saudi Arabia, which makes “it a strong ally to the United States, despite many [sic] blatantly problematic aspects of the country. Some of those include human rights violations and many international incidents.”

Readers of this blog know that I love the country of my birth and grieve for what she has been becoming. I have childhood friends there whom I dearly love and hold in the highest esteem, especially the few surviving friends of my own parents. However, I must say that to point out “blatantly problematic aspects” of Saudi Arabia while blithely ignoring the very real “blatantly problematic aspects” of Venezuela is irresponsible and is the type of reporting which has given cover to the catastrophe that has been unfolding there since the 1960’s and which accelerated dramatically since the Chavez regime.

Venezuela continues to be very rich in natural resources: not only is she the richest in oil reserves, but she is also supremely rich in other minerals (see here and also see under “Juan Vicente Gómez here) and yet many of her people are malnourished (I have personal knowledge of this), others have regressed to the use of donkeys because they cannot afford to buy rationed gasoline even at under $0.10 per gallon. Many thousands are now turning to fire for energy in their homes given the ongoing failures of the energy grid, often plunging them into utter darkness. Some reports say that the grid failed over 80,000 times (!) in 2019. Think of the impact on public transportation, hospitals, clinics. On everything needed for modern life.

The situation is so dire that the Venezuela refugee crisis is the largest ever recorded in the Americas.

Let that sink in for a moment. The largest ever recorded in the Americas. We’ve all read and heard about the despotic regimes of Gómez and Pérez Jimenez in Venezuela, Pinochet in Chile, the generals in Argentina, Stroessner in Paraguay, and others in Central America. But none of them — none — caused such magnitudes of peoples to flee their homelands in such massive numbers. None. The only one that comes close, as a proportion of her population, is Castro’s Cuba. The reader can deduce whatever similarities there may be between Cuba and Venezuela that would cause their peoples to leave their homes and head to unknown destinies through even less known, and frightening, seas and jungles.

Latest estimates are that about 6 Million Venezuelans have fled the country. That’s twenty percent of her population. See here.

How is it that a land so rich can be so poor? How is it that a land once hailed as the most stable democracy in South America is now a despotic regime where torture is commonplace (see here)?

As has been seen throughout this blog, the current problems did not begin with Chavez or Maduro.

Venezuela’s initiation into democratic rule took place in 1959, after a half century of unprecedented prosperity, mostly under General Juan Vicente Gómez, who in my childhood, an era of less political correctness, was often referred to as “the father of modern Venezuela.” He was a dictator but was not hailed as Castro was, even though he too was a dictator. The difference? Castro was one of the Socialist Beautiful People; Gómez was not.

Be that as it may, the long years under Gómez (in office from 1908 to 1935) were characterized by unparalleled stability and prosperity. This stability began years before the discovery of the first major oil reserves in Mene Grande (see here). Venezuela had a growing and prosperous middle class by the end of the Pérez Jimenez regime (see here), after which came the election of Rómulo Betancourt, generally acknowledged to be the country’s first democratically elected president.

So, Venezuela’s first democratically elected president was installed 140 years after the country’s declaration of  independence. In sum, during the preceding (19th) century, Venezuela, like her neighbors, had been racked by revolutionary governments and bloodletting, and during the first half of the 20th century she had phenomenal growth and stability under authoritarian governments.

(The unfortunate fact is that South America’s wars for independence were not at all like North America’s. Unlike the North American colonists, the South American Criollos were enthralled by French Revolutionary ideas and sought the positions of power to which they believed they were entitled. This partly explains the long years of despotism and carnage, which is similar to post revolutionary France. If interested, see more on the differences between the United States and the Venezuelan Declarations of Independence here.)

As we have noted before (for example, see here) Betancourt, who had organized the Communist Party in Costa Rica in the 1930’s, but who had since shed his radical outspoken ideology and had migrated to a kinder, gentler democratic socialism, immediately set about to dismantle the structures of economic freedoms and low levels of taxation and regulations that had enabled the country to achieve such heights. In effect, his policies spurred the growth and intrusions of government, including nationalizations of major industries such as oil and iron ore. These  reversals of economic liberties continued up to Chavez and Maduro where such policies did not change. They accelerated.

So the owners of industries in Venezuela are now the people. And, of course, when politicians say “the people,” that  means The State and all those who, along with them, have the right political connections. And that has been catastrophic for Venezuela.

And so the country with the highest known oil reserves in the world is now a financial nightmare suffering shortages under political oppression, with many of her people in distress and, where able, voting with their feet by leaving.

Pray for the people of Venezuela.

For more on the power outages, see here (Spanish language article).

For the WorldAtlas report on oil reserves, see here.

Back to use of donkeys, mules, and horses.
Colombian police stand before a multitude of Venezuelans seeking asylum.
Juan Vicente Gómez (1857-1935), circa 1920
Marcos Pérez Jimenez (1914-2001), circa 1955
Fidel Castro (left), Rómulo Betancourt (center), in Caracas in 1959. Betancourt’s relationship with Castro ended shortly thereafter when Castro sought to foment guerrilla activity in Venezuela.
Once one of the continent’s most prosperous countries, Venezuela is now plagued by frequent blackouts.

Oil Spill Disaster

Richard Barnes

Nicolás Maduro: “Only Socialism can be in balance with nature, it is the only way to the preservation of the environment and the salvation of the human species. Let us save the World!”

There has been a massive oil spill in Venezuela. It happened in early August, 2020.

It has impacted the Morrocoy national park in western Venezuela.

Per the Caracas Chronicles: “There was a new spill in El Palito: the residue pond is full and the experts say that every time it rains, the pond overflows, bringing oil to the sea and accumulating one spill after the other. Up to 40,000 barrels of oil have been spilled into the coasts of Falcón and Carabobo states, causing an ecocide that could be irreversible with how often the spills are happening. There has been no damage control.”

The Environmentalists have said little or nothing. 

No word from Leonardo yet. Or Harrison. Or Al. Etc.

One tweet from Greta. 

Mass media? Crickets.

Since Venezuela is a Socialist regime, oil spills cannot be reported or made too big a deal about. Goes against the narrative.

Above photos taken August/September, 2020
Before the spill(s)

PDVSA Turns a Blind Eye to Oil Spills in Venezuela

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/09/venezuelas_valdez_oil_spill_covers_a_national_park_beach_black_and_where_are_the_global_environmentalists.html

Venezuela Coast Could Take 50 Years To Recover

Nationalization and Military Dissent

Richard Barnes

In the late 1970’s, I took an extended leave to visit the country of my birth. During that most memorable trip, I had the joyful pleasure of meeting countless individuals and families, who, in true Venezuelan fashion were not shy in sharing their opinions about the direction the country was taking at the time. 

That direction was, in a word, “nationalization” or forced divestment, principally of the iron ore and petroleum industries. This phenomenon was worldwide at the time, especially in Africa and Latin America, and it had devastating consequences. 

What I saw — gargantuan enterprises with protean manufacturing plants, power centers, chemical processors, and assorted buildings and dormitories, accompanied by massive hirings of blue and white collar workforces and countless foreign workers, some of whom were housed on cruise ships docked on the Orinoco — did not “pass the sniff test”.

I had a number of vigorous but mostly friendly debates on the merits of government-run versus privately run operations. Already the mining camp where I was born had shown deterioration. One lady expressed sincere surprise at this, “How is it that now that this belongs to us, we haven’t managed to maintain it, let alone improve it?”

“Could it be that when something belongs to ‘us all’ it actually belongs to no one?” was one refrain I found myself repeating throughout the trip. 

At my expressed concern about the immense power and wealth being concentrated in the Venezuelan government, something usually seen in Communist or Socialist regimes, the usual reply by those who disagreed with my concerns, was along the lines of, ‘it’s about time that “our” wealth remained here instead of being transferred to the United States.'”

Conversely, the reply by those who somewhat agreed with my concerns was along the lines of, “the Venezuelan military would never allow the government to devolve into outright Socialism or Communism.”

Interestingly, neither camp was concerned about what all this nationalization activity would lead to. In one heated and less friendly exchange, a more recent acquaintance at the time ridiculed my concerns, expressing disdain that I would question the massive wealth now owned by the Venezuelan people. He mocked my assertion that the people actually “owned” nothing. It was all owned by the state.

According to a scholarly analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in 2013, “Nationalization brought considerable declines in productivity in the oil industries of the sample countries. Productivity fell by more than 70 percent in the Venezuelan oil industry. Despite enormous efforts put into expansion, it took Venezuelan’s nationalized industry about 20 years to return to its early 1960’s productivity levels.”

Sadly, shortly after the 20 years, another, more serious wave of nationalization was launched with even more catastrophic results. To take just one example, the enormous Venezuelan steelworks, Sidor, the crown of Venezuelan heavy industry, saw its production go from 4 million tons of steel in 2007, the year before its nationalization by the Chavez Socialist government, to 1.5 million in 2014, with triple the number of employees. Between late October, 2013 and August 2014, it had operated for only 90 days. I have no access to more recent figures nor would I trust them if I did.

Well, the wealth is gone for the most part; other than the billions in the private foreign bank accounts of a relative handful of Socialists. As for the massive mineral and petroleum reserves, those await the capital and the expertise to extract it. That explains the intense interest and activity in Venezuela on the part of both China and Russia.

As to the military, in later trips, friends were more subdued as they told me of the heavy Cuban influence in the Venezuelan forces. Why was this not being reported, they wondered.

Fidel Castro ruthlessly applied the tactic of buying or otherwise coopting the military. A tactic he taught Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro. Hence, the failure of the Venezuelan military to “never allow the government to devolve into outright Socialism or Communism.”

To read more about the emasculation of the Venezuelan military, refer to the Reuters article linked below, “How Cuba Taught Venezuela to Quash Military Dissent”. The article is appreciated, but why did it not appear a decade ago when it might have made a difference?

https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=CEF2014&paper_id=90
The macroeconomic analysis of the negative impact of nationalization on productivity

https://www.yahoo.com/news/special-report-cuba-taught-venezuela-121454933.html