Hands off Venezuela!
- Independent Ink
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
In Venezuela, with mass resistance of tens of thousands on the streets, Trump's gangster methods might fail.
By Aditya Nigam
The kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by the United States military and the bombing of the capital city of Caracas, leading to the reported murder of 40 people, including Cuban security for the president, must be unequivocally condemned. Reactions from Europe and the UK to this flagrant violation of international (and even US) law has been mealy-mouthed, reflecting their own complicit histories of colonial plunder.
The silence of the Indian government is deplorable, to say the least, but is of a piece with its alignment with imperialism and Zionism, notwithstanding its ‘decolonization’ rhetoric.
Characteristically, soon after this open banditry in a bid to recapture Venezuelan oil, Donald Trump went on to militarily threaten Iran, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico and Greenland. There seems to be just no shame left and it is almost as if we are back to the time of unrestrained plunder. Trump, however, is only a particularly grotesque manifestation of the more widely shared US mindset of imperialist plunder of the resources across the world.
The history of the twentieth century is dotted with almost a hundred instances of US-backed overthrow of non-pliant and often, democratically elected, governments across Asia, Africa and Latin America. Most of these were in the form of military coups d’état and have been widely documented.
Exactly how widespread and ‘normal’ this kind of mindset is in the US establishment is evident from the casual admission by John Bolton, a former United States ambassador to the United Nations and ex-White House national security adviser, that he had helped plan coups in foreign countries.
In Venezuela’s case, from the early twentieth century itself, it was US and British oil companies like Shell and ExxonMobil that had been draining its oil resources for the benefit of the USA and other Western powers. The pattern of resource extraction has been the same as in Africa, where all the wealth from these resources goes into super profits for the West while the inhabitants of those countries live in utter poverty.
Everything changed in 2000 with the advent of Hugo Chavez, who initiated a new Constitution – one that made the people of Venezuela the masters of their resources.
To that end, he nationalized oil and declared that the revenue from oil, thenceforth, be used for redistributive purposes for the Venezuelan people. That is where the roots of the current Trump madness lie.
The United States simply lost its bearings with Chavez coming to power and with its complicity, a coup d’état was engineered in April 2002. Chavez was taken prisoner. The massive resistance and backlash to that coup, however defeated the attempt and forced his return.
The USA has never reconciled itself to that defeat of its puppet regime that would have restored its control over Venezuela’s oil. That is the real question here – not the US’ supposed ‘love for democracy’, as many liberals and even Leftists in the United States seem to be suggesting when they talk of the opposition as the ‘forces of democracy’. Everything that the US alleges against Maduro are a replica of the charges against Chavez as far as democracy and elections go. Precisely for that reason their propaganda against Maduro is suspect.
In a build-up to this blatant aggression, the Trump administration had been drone-bombing Venezuelan boats, including fishing boats, from September onwards, presenting it as a ‘campaign against drug smugglers’. No evidence was ever provided, as is their practice.
Recall how the huge global campaign was conducted against Iraq and its supposed ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (WMDs), misleading the whole world, destroying much of that country in the bargain. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found but it gave the ‘coalition of evil’ an excuse to invade Iraq.
Thankfully, there is one difference this time. The world has not only seen their lies through the livestreamed genocide in Gaza, it has also been made more aware after the Iraq war, that they are actually war criminals heading states. That all their talk about democracy and the ‘free world’ is sham.
With Trump, even the misleading fig leaf of that language isn’t used anymore. His statements after the kidnapping of Maduro are clear: You have oil and I want it; I will make sure I have it.
The time has come to therefore say things in brutally clear terms – imperial plunder must be rejected in the strongest terms possible. The relentless, mass protests in Venezuela (also in Cuba etc,) against Trump’s attack and the kidnapping of their elected president and his wife, the firm position of the woman vice president, Delcy Rodrigues, and the strong solidarity displayed by other countries in the neighbourhood, especially Columbia, Cuba, Mexico and Bolivia, proves that it is not going to be hunky dory for Trump and his gang this time.
Professor Aditya Nigam is a political theorist, formerly with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi. Long associated with the Left movement, he has had an abiding interest in social and political movements and theoretical and philosophical questions related to social transformation. His recent work has been concerned with the decolonization of social and political theory. Nigam is one of the founder-members of the political blog, Kafila.online where he writes on contemporary issues.
He is the author of The Insurrection of Little Selves: The Crisis of Secular Nationalism in India (2006), Power and Contestation: India Since 1989, with Nivedita Menon (2007), After Utopia: Modernity, Socialism and the Postcolony (2010), and Desire Named Development (2011), Decolonizing Theory: Thinking Across Traditions (2020), Aasman aur Bhi Hain (in Hindi, Setu Prakashan, Delhi), Border-Marxisms and Historical Materialism: Untimely Encounters (2023), Protyashar Ishtehar: Degrowth o Poonjibader Porer Jeebon (in Bengali, Gronthik, Dhaka, forthcoming).