How the Bolivarian Revolution is Challenging US Dominance in Latin America

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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which took place in March (Photo: Prensa Presidential)

According to Carlos Ron, Venezuela’s Deputy Foreign Minister and head of the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and Solidarity Amongst Peoples, the Chavista movement is far from being in decline. In fact, “this movement is strong precisely because [the right-wing opposition feels] the need to terrorize us,” Ron says, citing the elaborate right-wing campaign to tear down the results of the latest Venezuelan presidential election.

In this interview with Zoe Alexandra from the People’s Dispatch, Ron describes the political aspirations of the far-right opposition in Venezuela, Venezuela’s foreign policy that seeks to end dependence on the US, and the resiliency of Chavismo.

Read the full interview below, which has been lightly edited for clarity:

ZA: The US government has engaged in negotiations with the government of Nicolas Maduro. But at the same time, it can’t let go of its recognition of Juan Guaidó, because then that would give the rightful government control over the government assets. And the same thing with England, there was a very drawn out lawsuit, in order for Venezuela to get control of their gold reserves, to use these gold reserves to fund their pandemic effort.

The thing holding these gold reserves hostage was the UK’s insistence in continuing to recognize Juan Guaidó as the rightful president.

It’s this Catch-22, where they recognize that a government has the ability to organize elections, which then they’re going to say are fraudulent. They’re constantly dancing back and forth between what’s acceptable to them and what’s not.

The Edmundo Gonzálezes, the Maria Corina Machados, the Juan Guaidós are puppets of what the US wants to impose in the region. But what actually is their political project for Venezuela? Who do they represent and what are they trying to create in the country?

CR: The platform that President Maduro presented was something that we have been working on since the beginning of the year.

And when I say we, as I mean it was open for the population to gather in assemblies. We discussed seven transformations, which is what President Maduro was running on. Out of those assemblies, there was a drafted program. And that program is what President Maduro ran on.

When you try to look for the program that Edmundo González is running on, first of all, you can only find an English version. And second of all, when you read between the lines, it’s very clear that they’re proposing the privatization of the oil industry. Which is not a small thing when you think about the largest oil reserves in the world.

And when you think about the needs of war, when you think about such a hyper militarized global situation, you still have a conflict in Ukraine, you have the genocide in Palestine, and who knows what other things may arise soon. You have to remember, there’s no warplanes that fly on solar energy. You need oil for that. And that’s why you want to get your hands on large oil reserves.

[González’s] program was basically a program of privatization, cutting back social programs. It’s the neoliberal fantasy that they tried to sell to people as a solution to problems.

But the thing is that nobody in Venezuela, at least in the last 20 years, has been able to successfully run on a neoliberal platform. Once you see the difference that it makes when a government actually invests in social programs, and how that actually transforms society, you realize that nobody’s going to openly and knowingly support a neoliberal platform.

And that’s exactly what they haven’t been able to sell to the Venezuelan people.

ZA: Can you talk about Bolivarian foreign policy? What role has Venezuela played in the region?

CR: The first problem that the United States has with Venezuela’s foreign policy actually starts as early as the year 2000. And it was because the Bolivarian Revolution came to power with the idea that we have to find ways to make Venezuela more independent, more self-reliant, rather than just continuing to sign agreements with the United States.

The early 2000s were years of free trade agreements that the US was promoting heavily. There was a project for the whole region, the Free Trade Area of the Americas. This was basically small individual trade agreements, where you generate dependency, because obviously the United States is much larger.

A way to counter that was to try to find ways to cooperate with other countries, but in a more equal setting. The first thing in the year 2000 that Venezuela does is try to revive OPEC.

Of course, this generated tension with the United States. When President Chavez got to power, the oil barrel price was at USD 7 per barrel. And after reuniting OPEC, which hadn’t met in over 20 years, didn’t have a common plan, and where President Chávez actually had to visit leaders such as Muammar Gadhafi, Saddam Hussein and so forth, we managed to together draft a policy to revalue the price of oil. It even reached USD 100 a barrel, from seven to 100, which was then used in Venezuela for precisely those social programs that had not been put in place before in the country.

Then there was the idea that we needed to connect regionally. Venezuela promoted different types of organizations. First, to give a stronger power to those organizations already existing, such as Mercosur, which was an economic bloc within South America. But also by creating other institutions. We helped build UNASUR, which is a union of South American nations. We helped create ALBA, which was more of a political space. Under ALBA, we examined a different logic from free trade agreements. We were actually trying to find how our economies can complement each other, how we can exercise solidarity.

Petrocaribe also emerged, which is an agreement in which Venezuela would provide oil to many of the countries in the Caribbean basin at a favorable price, eliminating the middlemen and investing in the future of the Caribbean.

Before, these Caribbean countries, whose economies are not that large, had to focus on obtaining dollars so they could pay for fuel. If you can pay at different times, or if you can pay with supplies that you have, like food products, and you could grow from your agriculture, that allows those governments to also invest in social programs and development. Unless you do that, you generate complete dependence. So Petrocaribe was a way for many of these countries to develop and grow.

We see the results even in something as wonderful as the Olympics. There are several members of ALBA nations in the Caribbean which, for the first time, were winning gold and silver medals. This is a product of cooperation.

Venezuela always tried to create the space of cooperation within the region, and also looked outside the region, because now we have a multipolar world that’s growing. Overall, it’s this idea of creating multiple partners around the world, creating policies that will allow Venezuela to be sovereign and not to be dependent.

Of course, this clashes with a country that thrives on having others be dependent on them, their market, and their products and so forth.

ZA: What is chavismo? Who is chavismo today? Who does it represent? What are the multiple spaces and movements that compose chavismo? And is it true that this movement is allegedly in decline?

CR: I don’t think it’s in decline. I think Chavismo is actually experiencing expansions, transformations.

When you look at what has been historically the formation of Chavismo, you see now different generations. You had a generation from the 1970s and 80s that fought in the middle of the Cold War to promote socialism. And that was part of Chavismo. And then the generation that actually took over the government in ‘99, that rebelled in ‘92, to try to change neoliberal policies, that’s also part of Chavismo.

Now you also see other generations of youth, the youth who have experienced progress during the revolution, but also the youth who have been struggling with the sanctions. And the future generation that is now in the schools, and the youth that know and understand all the gains and the achievements that we have reached is because we have a revolutionary path to cross.

Chavismo has its roots in human rights defenders, in nationalist military that opposed imperialism, it has roots in the old left and the socialists and communists of the 20th century that also want a new vision. It also has its roots in social movements that are building the communes right now, movements for land reform, movements for housing projects, movements for technological advances. Even some faith based movements, some movements that defend a clean planet, in the sense that as an oil producing country, we have a responsibility to transform our system and promote a clean future for the planet as well. Rarely, even in Venezuelan history, do we see such a diverse group.

This movement is not falling apart or dwindling, but actually growing. This election has been accompanied by a massive terror campaign on behalf of the opposition to intimidate social leaders, precisely members of the diverse aspects of this movement.

Right after the election, there was the extreme persecution of leaders. Not leaders such as me as a deputy minister, not as the President, but grassroots leaders, mostly women. Two of our leaders, strong women leaders, that were reference points for the communities, have been murdered during this spree of fascist attacks.

They attacked party centers, they attacked schools, They attacked everything that can be labeled as something that was achieved during the revolution. They attacked statues, they attacked our symbols, the statues of President Chavez. They attacked statues of Bolivar. They attacked even religious symbols, because part of this fascist group is also on that wave of extreme conservative religious actors that are there to promote a theology of prosperity, but not a popular view of religion.

You have this combination of attacks because you want to intimidate the movement, because you want to scare and terrorize the movement so that it doesn’t grow, so it doesn’t take office, it doesn’t continue. This is not only affecting Venezuela, this is a reality that is tied to trends around the world. We see the growth of fascism everywhere, in Europe, in the United States.

So what you’re seeing in Venezuela is not just a simple election, it is the battleground between progressive, revolutionary left forces that are trying to build social justice against fascism, that hyper-imperialism is trying to defend.

This movement is strong precisely because they feel the need to terrorize us.

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