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Green & Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals
What's Happening Inside Venezuela w/ Dr. Rodrigo Acuña (G&R 454)
00:45:07
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Green and Red Scrappy Politics for Scrappy People, a regular podcast on radical environmental and anti capitalist politics. Brought to you by Bob Bozenko and Scott Parkins.
- [00:14]
B
Welcome to the silky smooth sounds of the Green and Red podcast. I'm your co host Scott Parkin in Berkeley, California and as always I'm joined by Bob Bosenko Niles, Ohio and today we're going to be talking. This is our first interview of the year, first episode of the year and there's a lot happening in the news. Most people are familiar with the news from Venezuela about us attacking Venezuela kidnapping President Nicolas Maduro. We're going to we're rejoined today by our friend and frequent guest I feel like you've been on Many times Doc Dr. Rodrigo Acuna, who works as an independent journalist and commentator on Latin America. You can subscribe to his newsletter on Latin America. We'll put that in the show. Notes Rodrigo has been writing about Latin American politics for close to 20 years and then he made a film last year, or actually I guess it was now the year before in 2024 called Venezuela the Cost of Challenging an Empire, which he made with journalist Nicholas Ford. Rodrigo, welcome back to the Green and Red podcast.
- [01:15]
C
Thank you for having me.
- [01:17]
B
And maybe we can just kick off most people in the US which is a largely US Audience are familiar with the US Side even with what's us left media and progressive media is talking about. But you've been on the ground, you've.
- [01:30]
C
Made a film about the people of.
- [01:31]
B
Venezuela and maybe you can just give us some of your impressions and thoughts of it and what you're hearing from what's happened on the ground from Venezuelans.
- [01:39]
C
Well, the first thing is that Venezuelans are scared. They're really scared. The attack of the US Military on multiple military bases and facilities in the country caught them off guard. Despite the fact that the US Navy has been off the coast of Venezuela and it has been building up its forces for several months now, it was still a shock. And the biggest shock I think was that their air defenses failed. They've roundabout from 2009 to about 2013 they bought several SAMs surface to air missile systems from the Russians and they have a very small fleet of fourth generation Russian fighters. Now that was never going to be enough to stop the United States in its tracks in trying to invade the country or carry out serious damage. But the fact that none of those systems were operational and the only fighting that took place was between the Presidential Guard and then the Cubans on the ground when they were trying to kidnap and in fact kidnapped President Maduro and his wife Celia Flores. That was a huge shock because the sky should have lit up. Something should have happened, several things should have happened. So it looks like that has objective of the operation in terms of having a huge psychological impact on Venezuelans. I think that's worked. I think that the Venezuelans that I've been talking to and the ones that I've quoted in a recent truthout article that I've got coming out in the next, the next day or two, they, they are scared, they're in shock. The next thing is obviously they're looking at any potential people within the President's security team that could have provided information to the United states military, the CIA, etc. Etc. In order in terms of his, in terms of his location. So that has led to recriminations and suspicions and the country is very much preparing for any future attack or even a full scale US Invasion. And I can tell you that because the amount of machine guns that are being handed out now to citizens in Venezuela has increased significantly. And I'm told that there are people worried about that as well. Because if you have weapons that are not military weapons that are not in the hands of the military, then that's, you know, possibly going to be a problem in the future. So on the ground in Venezuela, the government hasn't released figures in terms of how many people have been killed. It's estimated that about 75 civilians have been killed and 24 members of the Bolivaro National Guard were killed defending Maduro. And 32 Cubans from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba and the Ministry of Interior were killed as well. Diascanel, the President of Cuba has published their names and their photos and there's a day of several days of mourning in both countries for the members of the armed forces that have been killed. And finally there's just huge outrage. There's huge outrage because the country has not experienced a war since the late 1800s. In fact, the last time the US armada showed up there hasn't been a history of guerrilla warfare or civil war or a conflict with, with another nation. So they are as I said, worried, scared, in shock. But the Chavistas are still certainly in power and have the military, the military is still intact. Delse has now, Delsey Rodriguez, the former Vice President has now been sworn as the acting president. And any claims by Trump that they the United States now controls Venezuela is simply just not true.
- [06:01]
A
That failure of the air of air defense as you mentioned in Venezuela is there like widespread Concern or suspicion that this was also partly an inside job, that there were people who flipped. I think the reports have said that there were CIA moles who had like gotten fairly deeply in.
- [06:18]
C
Yes. And that's the only logical explanation why there was such a complete failure because you can have certain systems deactivated and the military sophistication or the sophistication of the US Military, there should be no doubt about that. The US does have the ability to disable air defense systems and jam air defense systems and take down the Internet and take down the, the power grid. Incidentally, I, I, I asked Clinton Fernandez about this who specializes in military technology and he gave me a very good quote, so I've got him in the article. So that is certainly a reality. But if we're to believe, and you have to remember that this is an ongoing war now, that there's going to be a lot of misinformation so everything has to be cross checked. But according to U.S. officials, yes, they had, they managed to get some moles inside Maduro's inner circle and that's how they managed to get so close and with such stealth to the President and his wife. So there, there's now I've been constantly trying to follow whether there's a, an alleged arrest warrant for a general who was actually in charge of Maduro's security. And I' been told that he has been stepped down, but that there has, that an arrest warrant has not been issued. That's actually not the case as part of information warfare. So I think everything has to basically be cross checked and we have to be very careful. But yes, I think that it's highly likely that certain people around Maduro were providing information because it was just too quick, almost too easy. There's apparently just half a dozen US Soldiers that were injured and one of the helicopters took a, took quite a bit of a hit. But, but there were no aircraft destroyed, there were no losses on the U. S side. But on the Venezuelan and Cuban side the casualties were significant.
- [08:35]
B
And just to talk about Delse Rodriguez because I guess just in the last four or five days she has all of a sudden become this sort of global figure. Could you tell us a little bit about her background? And I know her brother actually also holds a bit of political power, a good bit of political power in Venezuela too.
- [08:50]
C
If you could talk about the family, certainly. So they are, they come from a family of political activists that goes back to the 1970s. Her father actually died under torture and they have deep roots in the Venezuelan political left. So they have a lot of legitimacy for that. Delta was also in charge of the Ministry of Petroleum. And she's actually one of the only ministers who hasn't been fired or arrested or had allegations of corruption against her. She worked as part of Venezuela's foreign diplomatic team as well and got into several battles with and other Latin American leaders. And she handled herself quite well. She's quite sharp and she's very quick to respond. So in that regard, there was already, she was already being positioned inside the leadership to eventually run as the next presidential candidate. And she's certainly popular within, within, within the Chavistas. The comment that Marco Rubio, or I think Trump said that Marco Rubio had already called her and told her, now we've captured Maduro and now you better start toeing the line. I think that's just simply that has, that has been done to create division within the Chavistas. I haven't seen any indication that she has participated in the, in the kidnapping, in the military, in the military strikes. And she quickly was one of the first voices that came out and said, yes, we have been attacked and we don't actually know what the status of the President is. So if the President has been taken hostage by the United States, can we please see a guarantee that he's actually alive? Can we see any proof of life? So that statement by Trump to state that a phone call had been put through and Marco Rubio had talked to her, and then this sort of LC is now going to be willing to negotiate to sell Venezuela's petroleum to, to the United States. Again, I think that's just being said to create divisions. The Venezuelan government has never said that they're not willing to sell oil to the United States. In fact, Chevron is operating there. It's always been about the conditions in which those sales will take place and will Venezuela accept, and it won't accept unless it's completely subjugated an independent foreign policy, domestic policies, are they going to continue to be able to invest the resources of the oil industry in programs in health, in education, in sports? Are they going to be able to continue to push the line of creating regional institutions that are going to bring south and Central American countries together and try and develop a unified position in terms of foreign policy? I think that's always been the real issue that numerous administrations in Washington have had with Venezuela. It has to do with their domestic politics. It doesn't necessarily have to do with a particular political player. I think that, and if I were to speculate, wrap it up on this point, if I were to speculate, then I think attacks could possibly occur in the future. And Trump already said she's going to find out that we can do a lot, a lot worse. And what's going to happen to her is a lot worse. Well, a lot worse is going to mean that she's probably going to be killed.
- [12:16]
A
A lot of that information misinformation seems to be working though. You have even well known kind of lefties now and in the US questioning Del Rodriguez. But every, even most of the lefties even like people, some people who call themselves socialists begin every statement with yes, Maduro was a brutal dictator, tyrant. His people hated him. They were eating dogs and cats. And that's just become almost accepted. And then, and then in the US much of the critique as well. He should have gone to Congress and asked for permission. How would you describe the typical Venezuelan prior to this with regard to Maduro and their feelings toward Maduro?
- [12:54]
C
The typical. The country's been split for a very long time. That's the reality. The country has been split since Chavez carried out a referendum to change the constitution. And then middle class Venezuelans that voted for him because he actually was voted by a large section of Venezuelan middle class Venezuelans when they realized that his loyalty or his government was going to try and serve the interest of the average working class Venezuelans and the, the poorest sections of Venezuela. That's when they became increasingly upset and started to mobilize against him. But historically it was actually the middle class in Venezuela that voted him, that voted Chavez into office on an anti corruption ticket. Now since then the country has been split basically 50, 50, 50. Those percentages shift, fluctuate according to a political crisis. So in 2006, when Chavez obtained his greatest electoral victory, he won the elections by 56% of the vote, which was a huge, which was a landslide victory. But the average Venezuelan, even the average Venezuelan who has long opposed the policies of the Bolivaran Revolution, first under President Hugo Chavez and then under Nicolas Maduro, they are I think again shocked and opposed. The polls that I've seen are very high in opposition to a US military attack or a foreign invasion. This is a matter of national sovereignty. It doesn't matter what you think about Nicolas Maduro. Now to answer the question, what you said about the American left and their assessment of Maduro, there's long been a campaign of disinformation and propaganda. Are there things to Critique? Yes, yes, 100%. There are things to critique. And we can, we should take note that the elections, the last presidential elections in 2024, a full breakdown of the results were not released, despite the Supreme Court ordering Nicolas Maduro to do that or the government to do that. But having taken taking the criticisms into consideration, you have to understand that this is a government that has been suffering, a country that's been suffering harsh economic sanctions, but also the leadership of the Chavistas has come under attack to the point where it is almost untenable for them to leave office because they are going to be persecuted and they're going to be even killed. So it's a become a personal risk for them. So if there were, if anything occurred in terms of the 2024 elections, it has to be put in that context. There were numerous attempts against Nicolas Maduro. The economic warfare has been going on for a long time, but now it's increased to the point where oil tankers are being seized. And then the final point is that there was a military strike on the country and Maduro himself was kidnapped. What more evidence do you need that the governments in Washington have been exclusively dedicated to trying to overthrow you and wipe you off the political map? And once they go after the leadership, once they successfully decapitate the leadership, they're going to go after everyone else.
- [16:20]
A
Yeah, well, this is something that we in the US Left, we have to deal with all the time, where the bad guy, Castro was a bad guy, the Sandinistas were bad. And so this is just kind of part of our life here. You mentioned sanctions with, I think, important, because even again, even like in the US we're not really hearing much about that. Right. The focus and the White House has done a great job in the media laser focus on Maduro's bad. That's really all. But Scott and I probably follow this a little more than most Americans do. So we're aware of the sanctions, but not to the level you are. Do you want to just describe the sanctions regime and what it's actually meant in Venezuela for the past, what, over a decade now?
- [16:58]
C
Los Angeles commenced when the Clinton administration refused to sell spare parts for the F14s, the fleet of F14s that Venezuela bought in the 1980s. And then it, it increased and I think the full impact of the sanctions. So then it moved as it started with the replacement of F14s, but then it impacted certain areas of trade and then the oil sector and then targeting certain ministers, they alleged corruption, they can't fly overseas, etc. Etc. But the sanctions really picked up when Obama declared Venezuela to be an extraordinary threat. To the national security of the United States. And then in 2000 and about 2017-2021, the sanctions really hit hard. And that had made it, that made it particularly difficult for Venezuelans to purchase basic consumer goods. And the Venezuelan state started to suffer in its ability to generate revenue. So Citgo, for example, which is a petroleum refinery company and distributor in the south of the US that company was just seized from Venezuela. That was just seized and then sold for a far lower price to a billionaire in the United States. Gold reserves in London were just seized by the bank of England when the United States recognized Huang Guaido as the true legitimate leader of, of Venezuela. So the country has had and, and what this means on the ground is, for example, that insulin has become a real problem and many people have just simply died. People that with diabetes have just died because they can no longer get a hold of insulin. Now, to their credit, because one of the criticisms that was made as well between the years of, or the initial years of Maduro's government was the handling of the economy, that there were mistakes made and in terms of what the, how the dollar was being traded, et cetera, et cetera. But the fact still remains that the impact of the sanctions just happened to have really hit the government of Nicolas Maduro as opposed to having hit the government of Hugo Chavez. The impact of the sanctions, the timeline resulted in the president that had to handle the worst of the sanctions was Nicolas Maduro. It wasn't Ugo, it wasn't Hugo Chavez.
- [19:26]
A
The US Policy was going to take place no matter.
- [19:29]
C
Exactly.
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A
And I think a lot of leftists are pining. Oh, Chavez was this and Maduro's that when ignoring that larger part of it.
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B
But that billionaire also, I mean, he, I think sicko was valued at something like 18 or 19 billion and he was able to buy it for 5. He also made a lot of money this week where in Stanley.
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A
Paul Singer. Right.
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B
Paul Singer. Yeah, it was also a big trauma.
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A
Big Trump donor and I believe a big Zionist as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [19:57]
B
To the Trump people are.
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C
That's also.
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B
We don't have to get into this, but the Trump people stand to make a lot of money from efforts like this.
- [20:05]
C
Of course, of course.
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A
To go back to. Actually, let me go back. One of the arguments made until a couple weeks ago when Trump basically just came out and said it was auto. It was about drugs, right? This kind of smokescreen about drugs and the Cartel de los Solas is that what's the reality of drugs in Venezuela as near As I can tell, it is really not right.
- [20:27]
C
I think the U.S. department of justice has recently conceded, I posted it on my social media, that there is no Cartel de los Solis, that the reference was to a badge that Venezuelan drug enforcement used to have or the elite section of the military used to have that dealt with drug enforcement and certain levels of corruption. But this goes back to the 1990s. This was pre the government of Hugo Chavez and then Nicolas Maduro, both governments. First of all, Venice is a small transit point for drugs internationally. According to the United nations, it's always been about just 10%. It's very small in comparison to fentanyl coming in from Mexico and then all the cocaine that comes out of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador.
- [21:14]
A
So it's through Miami.
- [21:15]
C
Yeah, and then to Miami. Exactly, exactly. And so it's never been a producer of illegal narcotics or even a major transit point. It's never, it's not, it's not, it hasn't been any of those. So the, the charges of being head of a criminal cartel and having access to or the purchase of weapons, of sophisticated weapons, is just absolutely ridiculous. When you're the third or the fourth largest oil state in the world, you're getting plenty of revenues from the oil sector. And as the arrest and the incarceration, the trials of several former oil ministers, all they have to do is just skim a little bit of the top of the oil and they're set. It's just about making the getaway. The charges are bogus, the charges are fake. If the defense of Maduro is able to work, they're giving the platform. It's not just a Stalinist trial. But if they're given a platform, they're going to be embarrassed. US Prosecutors are going to be, are going to be embarrassed because there is no serious evidence to indicate that Maduro is, that a Cartel de los Solis exists and B, that Maduro's the head of it. It's a joke.
- [22:28]
A
The charges are on like weapons possession or something. Anyway.
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B
There'S one, there's one drug charge I think.
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A
Is there.
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C
There's four charges. There's, I think one or two drug charges and the other ones is weapons possession. But any head of state is going to have a security team around him that's going to have sophisticated small hand weapons and maybe a couple of surface day missiles. So that's just again, ridiculous.
- [22:57]
B
One, one thing that has been in the media a lot comes from Trump, which is this allegation that Venezuela stole our oil, which goes back to the Nationalization of oil companies. I'm wondering if you could just talk about that a little bit. Trump's obviously referring to something even though he's has a deranged mind. But just if you can talk a little bit about that history which to try to hearken back to.
- [23:24]
C
Venezuelan oil was discovered at the beginning of the 1900s and the British, Dutch and American companies were welcomed into the country under the military regime of Marcos General Gomez. And he was in power for about 20 years. And that relationship continued even though eventually Venezuela establishes a two party political system, the Punto Fico system, where they're sharing power and excluding the political left. But in the 19, by 1976, the calls for the nationalization are so large that Venezuela nationalizes its oil now because of the close relationship to the United States. James Petras and my old professor Morris Morley, they actually wrote a very good book on this called on the, on the Nationalization of Venezuelan Oil. And what they argued in the book was that nationalization, in contrast to the way Mexico nationalized its oil, did not, did not have any serious economic retributions from the United States because they basically did everything in such a manner that US Capital would not be hurt. They started shifting money around and they started positioning everything. So it was going to be a low impact nationalization. It was a nationalization, but it wasn't going to be large expropriations and the, the payments that were going to be made, the compensation that was going to be made was going to be low or it could be disputed. No, it was a very smooth and soft transition. So that occurred in 1976. And that relationship continues all the way to the late 1980s when Venezuela takes out a lot of loans in the 1970s and runs into problems with these loans in their pay. By the late 1980s, there's a caracazo, there's this huge uprising in Venezuela. And this brings the country into the political turmoil which saw Hugo Chavez attempt to carry out a coup d' etat in 1992. And there was another attempted coup d' etat in 1992. But what Chavez does when he's in power is he simply just increases the, he renegotiates the contracts for the part of the Petroleum Venezuela, which is a state oil company. So at no point were the major expropriations that took place on the Chavez they simply renegotiated or attempted to renegotiate. And the backlash from some of the international oil companies was so huge that they just decided to leave and said we're not just we're not going to do business with you or we're not going to accept having to pay X amount of tax on our royalties. That's the background of the oil industry. But again, for Trump to say that they stole our oil, they stole our infrastructure, this is just rubbish and it should be dismissed as just rubbish.
- [26:21]
A
A lot of the talk about oil also revolves around the massive oil reserves that Venezuela has. But I remember some time ago talking to somebody in the industry who said that the real problem was actually infrastructure, that a lot of the equipment was sold and outdated. It really wasn't working anymore. And I know, I believe Halliburton either had contracts or was trying to get contracts for that purpose. Is that still the case? That that oil right now isn't really accessible because the infrastructure around it isn't really up to date?
- [26:49]
C
That's true. The infrastructure has been collapsing and having serious problems because it was so tied into the US economy that to get replacements, if the US places sanctions on you, you can't get replacements. So that's a problem. And pardon. The other thing is that sections of the Venezuelan middle class that were a part of the oil industry, they started to leave. So they've had a brain drain that's been taking place and the brain drain has affected them in terms of the number of doctors that they have, in terms of the number of scientists. There's a huge chunk of the Venezuelan middle class that have left because of the impact of US Economic sanctions and the political turmoil. So yes, the Venezuelan oil industry is no longer producing what it used to. But there are very real reasons why that's the case.
- [27:42]
A
There was a study, was it Jeffrey Sachs, that the sanctions have killed over 40,000 Venezuelans?
- [27:48]
C
I believe so that that study was done by the center for Economic Policy Research, I think Mark Westbrook's center.
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A
Oh, okay. Yeah.
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C
But there's another.
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A
Yeah. Because I've heard Sachs invoke it quite a bit.
- [28:02]
C
Yeah. So it was the figure that was given was 40,000 Venezuelans, but that's going back a few years. Now there's another study by, I think it was Alfred, a former high ranking United nations official and he put the figure at 100,000 Venezuelans.
- [28:17]
B
Just to shift the topic. My next question is about the opposition. It's also been in the news about Maria Karina Machado and Trump has said that he doesn't think she's the person to be the president of Venezuela. And there's a lot of salacious reasons around that. There's other reasons where the even The US Intelligence community doesn't think she really has the respect or support. But I'd be curious, what is the. How is. What is the opposition doing in this moment after this attack? I've been seeing, I've been seeing like video of a lot of rallies of support of the. Of Maduro and Rodriguez. How much is the opposition also hitting the street?
- [28:55]
C
The opposition has been. Was already split before the 2024 elections between the political parties that participated in the elections and those that have long abstained from participating the in the elections because Marina Corina Machado's involvement in the 2002 coup d' etat and the fact that she's been tied to receiving money from the United States, that's why she was banned from participating in the 2024 elections. But she put a front man and he did manage to gain a certain percentage of the vote. That support has completely collapsed once the Marina Corina Machal started making calls for or repeated course she had done them before but now she just went took the calls to another level for a US Military intervention. That position has been rejected by Accion Democratica, which was one of the long founding sort of political parties of the modern democratic era. And even they've made calls that look, if there's going to be an American invasion, everyone needs to join the militias has to fight. So she has lost support for her, has lost literally completely capitulated. And the fact that Trump said that, the fact that Trump. That's one of the only good things about Trump is that he speaks his mind, just makes these statements and just doesn't filter them, doesn't even think about what the consequences are going to be. And the fact that he said no, she doesn't have, she really doesn't have much support. Yeah, she's a nice lady. She wouldn't be able to run things down there highlights that even her calls that the 2024 elections were robbed, you have to put that into question. If she had such a significant amount of support, then try and come back into the country or get your supporters to take to the street. But when you've got the US Navy off the coast and you've got people that are still burying their dead, very hard to come out and be supportive of those actions. So the Venezuelan opposition is going to continue collapsing and having a very hard time under the the current climate of US military aggression.
- [31:04]
A
Marco Rubio even said Machado would plunge the country into destruction. Basically. I've been curious because when Machado was given the Nobel Prize, which I think stunned most of us. Right. It seemed at that point like that was the global community being in on what Trump was trying to do. What do you think the kind of the global response to this has been? You're not seeing a whole lot of denunciations from that kind of main. The main countries, sorry, the. Well, like, including like the Europeans or. No one's really saying a whole lot about this. Did. And we'll get to China and Russia in a minute. But did Venezuela have any kind of decent relationship with any of these major powers prior to this?
- [31:44]
C
The major powers have been on board the U.S. project of Economic sanctions. Europe, the European Union has long done whatever the United States says. Both of you would be well aware of that. So the European Union got on board the sanctions as well. And despite the fact that Venezuela similarly has reached out to the European Community, they've long been on board of the US Government trying to overthrow Chovismo in Venezuela. Venezuela has excellent diplomatic relations with many countries around the world, and to the point where, when I think it was the first Trump administration did not recognize the government of Nicolas Maduro. There were still more countries of the United nations that recognized Venezuela, in contrast with countries that did not. Even Australia refused to expel Venezuelan diplomats and request for the shutting down of the embassy. They just toed along with the US Line of we don't recognize the government of Venezuela. But at no point did they ask for the embassy staff to leave. They just, they were very pragmatic in that regard. So why is there not a unified international outrage over what has happened? Where the head of a sovereign nation has been kidnapped under the most sort of brutal fashion is really a reflection of the world that we're in and the continuing power of the United States and how unwilling its allies are to try and hold it to any accountability, to the point where what is next? Is Trump going to send troops into Greenland? Is it going to start firing cruise missiles into Juarez in the north of Mexico? This is just an absolute outrage. Trump is. We thought that the Bush 2 administration was probably the lowest of the lowest, but we've reached an absolute new low with the Trump administration.
- [33:42]
B
There's the geostrategic context, which we'll ask about in a moment, but there's also the regional context. Trump has made now overt threats against Cuba, Colombia. I'm just wondering particular is this almost seems like a step for the Trump Rubio administration to go for Venezuela in order to further weaken Cuba. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on that.
- [34:08]
C
Cubans have been doing it really tough for many decades. And the only relief that they got was under the Obama administration when Obama met with, with Raul Castro and there was some lifting of sanctions and restrictions and even certain American tourists started to fly down to, to Cuba and stimulate the economy. Since the Trump administration came to power and tightened the economic sanctions, Cubans have been doing it really tough where, to the point where the immigration numbers or people that have sort of migrated from Cuba have increased significantly and the power shortages have seen people take to the streets and protest. They're doing it really tough, really tough. And as the older generations have been just not naturally just dying, the support for the revolution has started to erode. The older generations could remember what it was like living under the dictatorship, the American backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. That generation could remember the sporting triumphs and all the things that Cuba achieved in the 1970s and 80s. The current generations, the only thing they know is hardship, just absolute hardship, grinding hardship. U.S. officials would be be observing that. They would be watching that and I think they are well aware that should they be able to overthrow the Bolivar revolution in Venezuela, then they're going straight for Cuba. That's, I have absolutely no doubt about that. They're going for Cuba. Marco Rubio wants Cuba. This is the US political establishment wanting to destroy the left in Latin America similar to the coup d' etats and the military dictatorship of the 1960s and 70s. And yes, without a doubt that they anything could happen after this if Trump is able to successfully remove the Chavistas from power in Caracas.
- [36:08]
A
Well, in the 60s and 70s, one of the key reason that we were able to develop, that they were able to develop a Latin left was the presence of the Soviet Union, which whether you like them or not, they were this massive presence there. And obviously since the late 80s that's disappeared. Is there any role like that today for China or Russia to come in and at the very least provide oil and provide resources to some of these countries?
- [36:32]
C
The only reason why Cuba's around is because of Soviet trade and subsidies during the Cold War. If the figure that was often thrown around was about $6 billion a year in trade and subsidies. And if that hadn't occurred, I think that the Cuban revolution would have ended in the 1960s or even early 1970s. They could not have survived because of the expense and because of the Cuban missile crisis and how close the world came to annihilating itself during that period. The Russians took the position of just backing away, backing off from Latin America. So they were able to or they were willing to continue trading and supporting Cuba economically, but the rest of the countries in the region, they stayed well away from. And even when Allende came to power in 1970 and towards the end, he was constantly requesting loans from Moscow, Moscow gave his administration very little economic support, a lot of diplomatic support, but economic support, which is what really matters, there was very little. And now, as we know, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, so Yin had major contradictions and economic problems. They were seriously in trouble economically themselves. Now, part of the reason why the Trump administration is, I think, acting the way it's acting is because China has successfully been able to penetrate Latin American markets and present themselves as an alternative to US Capital. The difference is that while China has been willing and has done that successfully, for China to come along and say, we're now going to replace the Soviet Union and we're going to start providing Cuba with $6 billion worth of aid and trade a year or whatever the appropriate figure would be for, nowadays, that's just not the case. China has not been willing to do that. They have provided important trade and investments in Venezuela, and I think successful investments to the point where the Venezuelans were starting to get around the US Trading bargo, because they were then able to take those revenues and invest it in their own economy and start producing far more products internally than before. Being able to feed themselves, essentially. But in terms of a power being able to step in and help Venezuela like Russia did with the Cuban revolution, that's just not the case.
- [38:56]
B
It seems one of the goals of the Trump administration is to keep China out of Venezuela's seasoned oil tankers. The rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration in the last few days is how we're a superpower and we don't need our adversaries in our hemisphere thing. And so I feel like it's. Some of this is like a direct, an indirect sort of challenge to China.
- [39:21]
C
Oh, of course. The. They managed to scare away the Chinese. Chinese investment from Panama. Panama was basically given the option, you better start redrawing those Panama Canal contracts with Chinese companies or we're going to replay 1989 again and invade your country. Country. And. And it worked. China, those contracts were redrawn. So if the United States government is able to again overthrow the Bolivar revolution in Venezuela, then that's going to send a clear message to everyone else. Watch out. Do business with China and you could end up like Venezuela being. Being bombed or being invaded or having.
- [39:59]
B
Had a state kidnapped.
- [40:01]
C
You'll have your head as they kidnapped.
- [40:03]
A
I Only have one more, which is. Which kind of builds on that. Obviously, Trump's ultimate goal is to get rid of all these Latin American governments. And you mentioned earlier that currently the, the Chavistas are getting weapons. They're the governments. What's the structure there in Cuba? You have the kind of community defense forces, the civil defense forces. I'm assuming there's some kind of structure like that in Venezuela where there are kind of community groups or local groups. And are they in the streets right now? Are they prepared, are they organized, prepared to deploy? If. And I don't think there will be an American ground presence there. You never know. What would that look like?
- [40:40]
C
If you guys can just give me a second, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna pull up a message from one of my friends. If I can read it, because I've just forgotten the, the name. That's it. It's. They call the collectivos. So the collectivos are community groups that have become the backbone supporters of the government in the barrios. And they're armed. They're armed. So their job is to take care of the criminals. And their job is to make sure that not the opposition are not organizing to try and destabilize the economy and carry out the sort of economic and political sabotage that they did in the past. They organized to be able to deal with, with, with those events. But of course, if the Trump administration decides to unleash hell, they are going to. What have we just witnessed? We've witnessed the head of state being kidnapped and the deactivation of all of their air defense systems. So, so maybe that won't occur. The next US Strike, they'll be able to fight back more effectively. But if it's a systematic, relentless attack, they, they will lose. But having citizens armed means that if boots on the ground are placed, then there's going to be fighting. There's going to be a lot of fighting. And that fighting could continue for 10 years, who knows how long? And the military, the factor of the military is, is overlooked. The military. Hugo Chavez came from the military. And Hugo Chavez educated and organized together with other key figures. Of course, it wasn't just him, but they organized a progressive movement inside the military. And they viewed Venezuela as a country that was far too corrupt and had far too much poverty. And that was unacceptable to them given the huge oil wealth. So when they failed in 1992, and then they became a political party and they allied themselves with other progressive and leftist parties in Venezuela, that, that thinking still remained. And when the 2002 US backed, the Bush administration backed coup occurred. The previous members of the military that had conservative or right wing thinking, they were removed. They were removed. And it is, it is a. The Venezuelan military is very much like the Cuban military. They are highly ideological. So they. Even if they. The US manages to. To split them, as long as certain factions remain loyal to the original political thinking of the Bolivar revolution, they're going to fight back. So again, you're probably going to see a civil war occur in Venezuela. I think the Chavistas are aware that once the game is over, they're going to be liquidated, they're going to be rounded up and taken to stadiums of shock. So if they can fight back, why wouldn't you fight back? It makes complete sense.
- [43:25]
A
Look what happened to the FARC in Colombia. They laid weapons down and they all got. They got killed.
- [43:30]
C
Exactly, exactly. There's a long history of that betrayal, Sandino. In Nicaragua, in Mexico. Yeah, yeah.
- [43:41]
A
Thanks so much. We could obviously talk about this for hours and hours. I appreciate. I know how busy you are. For those folks out there, check out Venezuela, the Cost of Challenging an Empire and your newsletter and you can, before you go, you can tell us how to find that as well. But thanks so much, Rodrigo.
- [43:57]
C
Yeah, that's okay. Just google my name. Rodrigo Acuna. I've got a website. You can see my link to the documentary, my newsletter, my articles and the press interviews that I give.
- [44:06]
B
Put your website in the show notes as we always do.
- [44:09]
C
Thank you very much.
- [44:10]
A
Thank you. Really appreciate A difficult time. Hopefully you can get some sleep and. Yeah, hope. Hope for a. A better world.
- [44:17]
C
Yeah, will do. Thanks a lot guys.
- [44:19]
B
It's been great talking with you.
- [44:20]
A
Thanks folks.
- [44:22]
B
If you like this, please check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Blue Sky. If you're watching this on YouTube, hit the subscribe button. If you really like us, go to green red podcast.org and hit the support button or become a patron@patreon.com green podcast and until then, everybody make trouble and misbehave. We'll talk to you again soon.
- [45:00]
A
Sat.