Anti-imperialist photography

The Agencia Venezolana de Noticias reports on the opening of a photography exhibit at the Ministry of Electric Energy titled “In the Face of the Aggression by the Empire, We are a People of Peace.” The exhibit is an answer, according AVN, to the “meddling (injerencista) actions of the United States Government against Venezuela’s sovereignty.”

One of the photographers, whose work is featured in the exhibit, Wendys Olivo, declared “We want to show that we are facing a constant terrorist agenda, but that against that terrorist agenda we are a people of peace that stems from the stock of Bolívar [la estirpe de Bolívar], with the legacy of Chávez, and that we are very firm in the defense of the fatherland.”

AVN comments that “the exhibit offers a tour through the ravages the imperialist meddling has caused to our people, through coups d’état promoted by the White House.”

Featured prominently in the exhibit are images of opposition leaders Maria Corina Machado and Henrique Capriles Radonski. 

Maduro’s agenda for Panama: Anti-imperialism

For the meeting of heads of states to be held in Panamá this weekend, president Maduro will take only one agenda: anti-imperialism.

According to Maduro the meeting will demonstrate that “America is in a new historical stage, where the will and desire for peace of the people will finally have to be recognized by the United States.”

According to Maduro, his agenda will concentrate on the “egalitarian development of our societies, a new economic agenda to allow for the energize of a new productive economy, a new political agenda to stablish respect between countries, based on international law, on the self determination of the people, a new diplomacy of peace.”

In the language game of Anti-imperialism all conspiracies are one conspiracy

How many conspiracies has the Venezuelan government claimed to have revealed in the past 15 years? If every single claim made by each public official and public media outlet is counted, then dozens of conspiracies have been discovered every year.

However, one legitimate move in the language game of the conspiracy rhetoric played by the government is to claim that all conspiracies are part of a single Grand Imperial Conspiracy plot, which reveals itself in successive and often overlapping sub-plots.

Coup d’état attempts, magnicidios (attempts to kill the president or other government officials), economic, psychological, media, and cultural wars, are all part of a gigantic international plot with extended connections over long distances, and control over vast resources.

This unified conspiracy can be summarized as a grand plot by “The Empire”, usually meaning the United States government, controlled by the “industrial-military complex”. The rules of the language game allow for a wide variety of sub-conspiracies and conspirators to be moved and linked in complex plots, which may represent successive phases of the development of the main plot.

Local opposition leaders and critical persons and groups lose their independence and are turned into mere lackeys of foreigner and powerful puppet masters. In this language game only two legitimate moves are allowed for persons: either they unconditionally and loyally support the Leader in his struggle against the all-powerful imperial conspirator, or they become traitors in cahoots with a foreign power. No middle ground remains for a possible move and politics ceases to be the field of negotiation and agreement to become the polarized stage of a constant conflict for survival.

Far from an emancipatory language game, anti-imperialism becomes the tool for de-politicization and repression. Persons no longer have control over the discussion of their day-to-day problems and their possible solutions, and instead are asked to “temporarily” suspend their criticism of the authorities and the Revolution. The people or the government is not responsible for those problems and solutions; the Empire is the real and external source of all evils.

In the conflict played out by this rhetoric, extreme internal measures become necessary to protect the people from the external threat. Fifth columns have to be neutralized, internal discussion silenced, and politics suspended. All is to be left in the hands of the protecting Leader.

The language game of anti-imperialist hysteria is not played with the grammar of politics: it’s played under the rules of war. This is not the time for the squeamish, says the rule stablished by the Revolution, but the time for definitions.

(Read a good example of the “unified” conspiracy theory of imperialism in El conflict Estados Unidos-Venezuela y la VII Combre de las Americas by Carlos Fazio, published by the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias.)

Signing up for anti-imperialism

President Maduro is calling on all Venezuelans to sign an anti-imperialist document against the sanctions recently announced by the U.S. government.

It is unclear what document supporters will sign. A series of links in government web pages asking for signed support leads to the document issued by UNASUR rejecting the sanctions, but a link in the Telesur web page leads to this second document in Spanish and English (copy and pasted below), which is a letter directly addressed to president Obama.

President Maduro in person started the gathering of signatures in a street “hotspot” (esquina caliente) set up by the government. Maduro said that he hopes to collect 10 million signatures.

The signature collection campaign has four levels: the first level includes the parties of the pro-government umbrella organization “Gran Polo Patriótico” which will collect signatures among their militants; the second is the work place “so that in an organized way the working class, the professionals and workers, sign in their own working centers,” explained Maduro; third is the network of pro-government street hotspots (Red de Esquinas Calientes), which would also serve, according to Maduro, “to educate the population;” and a fourth level will cover telephone services and social networks.

“Each person who signs should know that he is signing for peace and sovereignty. I am asking for a signature for Venezuela. I am asking for a vote of confidence and conscience on the country,” declared Maduro.

Minister of communications and information Jacqueline Faria also called on the people to sign: “We will continue our struggle, working in order to keep on living, because the empire will continue to attack us through its puppets and lackeys. But because they [puppets and lackeys] have failed this time, they [the empire] has decided to attack us directly,” said the minister.

The signature drive is part of a broader anti-imperialist campaign called “Obama, Venezuela is not a threat.” The campaign will be coordinated by the Mayor of Libertador municipality Jorge Rodriguez as “Chief of the Special Command for the National Campaign against the U.S. Decree.”

President Maduro stressed that the campaign should have a strong educational component in order to “explain to the people the truth about the conspiracy by the government of the United States and the right against Venezuela.” According to the president this will not be campaign only to gather signatures, but also to organize “forums and debates to inform of the constant attacks of the U.S. government, and the Venezuelan right, against the Bolivarian people and government.”

The president seems aware that, despite the attention given to the sanctions announced by Obama against Venezuelan officials, the deteriorating economy could still pose a problem for his support levels. However Maduro has also adjusted for this in his conspiracy narrative: during a rally this Wednesday he told supporters that “the government of the U.S., allied with the national [Venezuelan] bourgeoisie has given the order to a group of bourgeois that they should do everything in their hands to sabotage the Venezuelan economy and to deviate attention from the huge problem [problemón] the U.S. has provoked with the international indignation aroused by the infamous Obama decree against Venezuela.”

Maduro revealed that according to the latest information he has received form “U.S. allies”, “they [the U.S.] have ordered from their embassy that bourgeois, form CAVIDEA, FEDEAGRO, and CONINDUSTRIA [business unions], always the same people that spend their time at the gringa [U.S.] embassy, should take to street to create problems [bochinche], they should do something scandalous, so that the people forget that people has been slandered by Obama.”

He also said that he is not really facing the local opposition because there is no opposition in Venezuela: “we don’t have an opposition, what we have is a right wing kneeling in front the embassy of the United States.”

Here is the complete text of the letter linked by Telesur: 

   

OBAMA, VENEZUELA NO ES UNA AMENAZA 

         Nosotros, amantes de la paz, hacemos un llamado al gobierno de EEUU para que asuma sus obligaciones internacionales en cuanto al respeto a la autodeterminación de los pueblos y el derecho de los mismos a decidir libremente su camino.

         El día 9 de marzo fuimos sorprendidos con la Orden Ejecutiva dictada por el presidente Obama a través de la cual se “declara una emergencia nacional con respecto a la amenaza inusual y extraordinaria para  la seguridad nacional y la política exterior de Estados Unidos representada por la situación en Venezuela.”

         Sorprende aún más que esta declaración se haga 2 días después de que la Unión de Naciones del Sur, órgano de integración regional, estuviera en Venezuela y se reuniera con todos los poderes públicos de ese país y con varios representantes de los diversos partidos que componen la oposición venezolana, y que significó un espaldarazo a la democracia de Venezuela y a las elecciones parlamentarias previstas para finales del año.

         Destacamos, además, que la presencia del Secretario General de la UNASUR y de los Cancilleres de Ecuador, Colombia, Brasil y Uruguay, se produce por iniciativa del propio Presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, quien desde comienzos del año ha pedido la participación de este organismo para que facilite un diálogo con el gobierno de EEUU.

         Ni las sanciones, ni los bloqueos, ni las agresiones armadas son los caminos para un diálogo verdadero. La historia ha demostrado, como lo admitiera el gobierno de Obama el pasado 17 de diciembre en relación con Cuba, que esas son políticas ineficientes que sólo causan daños a los pueblos. 

         Nosotros, amantes de la PAZ y acérrimos enemigos de la GUERRA, nos oponemos a estas acciones y hacemos un llamado a que el Presidente Barack Obama retire la Orden Ejecutiva contra Venezuela y normalice las relaciones diplomáticas con el gobierno legítimamente electo del Presidente Nicolás Maduro, con base en el respeto mutuo y el principio de no injerencia en los asuntos internos de los países.

_____________

OBAMA, VENEZUELA IS NOT A THREAT

Venezuela, a peace-loving nation, calls on the U.S. government to fulfill its international obligations regarding the respect for a country’s self-determination and the right of its people to freely choose their own path.

On March 9, we were surprised by the Executive Order issued by President Obama in which he declares "a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States represented by the situation in Venezuela."

Even more surprising is the fact that this statement was made two days after a delegation from the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a regional integration body, visited Venezuela and met with the Venezuelan authorities as well as several representatives from the various parties that comprise the Venezuelan opposition. UNASUR showed great support for democracy in Venezuela and for the parliamentary elections scheduled for later this year.

It is important to highlight that the visit of the Secretary General of UNASUR and the Foreign Ministers of Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil and Uruguay, took place at the invitation of the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, who earlier this year requested the participation of this body to facilitate a dialogue with the US government.

Sanctions, blockades and armed aggressions are no substitute for genuine dialogue. History has shown, as the Obama administration admitted last December 17 with regard to Cuba, that these are ineffective measures that succeed only in causing harm to innocent people.

Venezuela, a peace-loving and anti-war nation, rejects these actions and calls on President Barack Obama to repeal the Executive Order against Venezuela and normalize diplomatic relations with the legitimately elected government of President Nicolás Maduro and reaffirm the principles of mutual respect and non-interference in the internal affairs of countries.

CARTA A

Presidente de EE.UU. Barack Obama

Retiro inmediato de la Orden Ejecutiva en contra de Venezuela

Defense against saboteurs according to public television

The National Assembly approved yesterday the “Anti-imperialist Enabling Law for Peace” which grants president Maduro extensive especial powers to rule by decree in matters related to national security and sovereignty.

As part the preparations for the imperial invasion the government has started 10 days of “civic-military exercises” called Bolivarian Shield. According to defense minister Vladimir Padrino López these exercises aim at reinforcing the “civic-military union in defense of the Fatherland in the face of any imperial aggression.”

However the civil and military readiness is necessary, not only against the external imperial aggression, but also against internal apátridas saboteurs. 

Here is a video shown by the public television channel Venezolana de Televisión explaining how to deal with this internal threat. In the closing minute of the video vice-president Jorge Arreaza explains that it “is a clear demonstration of how to protect” the Venezuelan oil industry.

In the first part an actor representing a saboteur gains access to the operation center Paraguaná oil refinery. Fortunately, the operator at the control board “is a patriot,” says the narrator, and quickly calls his superior. The superior confirms there is a sabotage attempt -the suspect seems nervous alterado, says the narrator- and calls security.

Enter the Cuerpo Combatiente de PDVSA, including a rifle armed soldier, two corporate security officers, and a militia member. They “proceeded to take the apátrida, saboteur, into custody.”

The video then turns to “situation number 2.” The narrator tells us that thanks to “social intelligence” the Combat Units (Cuerpos Combatientes) of PDVSA, have received information that a group of people have gathered with “the intention of creating a manifestation.”

A small group of protesters wielding sticks and rocks approach the gate of a PDVSA facility. Members of the National Guard and Militias (not allowed by the Constitution to deal with public order situations) arrive at the scene on motorbikes. However, the situation is fortunately diffused by members of the Cuerpo Combatiente who, according to the narrator, “use dialogue and the debate of ideas” to calm down the protesters “as it is usually done in our Fatherland.”

But the danger is far from over. A tank truck driver “intentionally” provokes an accident with an incoming car with the aim, says the narrator, of “blocking the entrance of the refinery and paralyzing its operation.”

Medical personal arrives at the scene to take the injured car driver. The narrator insists for a second time that the situation is “intentional” and not an accident. Nothing is said in the video of what happens to the saboteur truck driver who is not seen again.

“Situation number 3” is similar to the previous one. A second saboteur truck driver parks his tank truck in front to the entrance and refuses to move. This second driver seems to be an open saboteur because he gets down from his trick and violently proclaim he will not move their truck. The National Guard arrives again and arrests the apátrida truck driver.

The narrator explains that these actions “show the understanding and cohesion of the trilogy government, the people, and the Bolivarian Armed Forces.”

The saboteur’s truck is finally moved and a convoy of tank trucks passes the gate, the drivers waving national and PDVSA flags. The narrator ends by celebrating the triumph of the “anti-imperialist, socialist, and profoundly chavista PDVSA workers.”

Using anti-imperialism against the internal enemy

The day before the announcement of recent sanctions and the ensuing anti-imperialist reaction, I made this comment to a question by the Latin American Advisor:

Q: The government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro recently arrested Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma over accusations of involvement in a coup plot and has also sought to remove legislator Julio Borges from his seat, moves critics have said are the latest in a series of illegal attempts to silence opposition leaders. What is the state of the opposition in Venezuela today, and how are the government’s actions affecting its strategy? Will the opposition be able to capitalize on Maduro’s low popularity, which currently sits at about 20 percent, in parliamentary elections that are expected to take place later this year?

A: Hugo Pérez Hernáiz, professor of sociology at the Universidad Central de Venezuela: “If the opposition wants to capitalize on the government’s low popularity and win the next legislative elections, it will have to overcome several hurdles. First, the opposition has to sort out its internal differences between its radical and ‘electoral’ factions. Recent announcements from the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) of successful negotiations for the primaries and designated candidates are a good sign, but not the end of the story, as many opposition supporters could heed abstentionist calls regularly made through social media. Second, the opposition will face a government that will use its hold on most of the local media to frame the elections, not as a struggle between a powerful government and a battered opposition, but rather as an epic battle of a revolutionary nationalist movement against an imperial power and its local lackeys. Anti-imperialism will probably resonate most with the hard-core Chavista base and not among general voters, but the government could use the anti-imperialist rhetoric to justify further crackdowns on the opposition. For example, by politically inhibiting or arresting key opposition leaders, even candidates for the Assembly, the opposition’s electoral bid could be significantly weakened and the radical abstentionist faction strengthened. And last, a pre-elections surprise by the government, such as last year’s dacazo before the regional elections, cannot be ruled out.”

Yesterday the president of the National Assembly Diosdado Cabello had this to say at a political rally:

“We are going to send a message to the Venezuelan opposition: the fatherland [Patria] is being threatened. Any Venezuelan unwilling to defend the fatherland is surely willing to be a traitor, is surely willing to be an enemy, is surely willing to be an evil doer [malinche], and as such, he must be treated. The fatherland must be defended.”

President Maduro declared yesterday that the real objective of the recent sanctions imposed on Venezuelan officials is to force the government to free Leopoldo López, whom he called and agent of the Untied States:

“They declare a whole country as a threat in order to save one of their agents: Leopoldo López. They accuse us because Venezuelan justice has jailed the main agents they have sent in order to destabilize Venezuela. It is because of them [the opposition] that this country has been catalogued by the United States as a threat. (…) If something positive has come out of this juncture, is that the real enemies of the fatherland have come out from their hideouts, that [the fact has come out that] they have waged an economic war against us, a political war, a psychological war, and coup d’état attempts.”

Chavista political leader Juan Barreto also questioned the patriotism of the opposition. He is quoted by AVN:

“The right believes that the fatherland means only business, they ignore the true meaning of being born in this land, because to be Venezuelan is to be revolutionary.”

Anti-imperialist tribune

Here is a small selection of some of the most poetical expressions of anti-imperialist sentiment made in the past few days, taken from pro-government web page Aporrea and the opinion page of the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias (AVN).

Rafael Guillén Beltre writes for Aporrea he fears that president Maduro’s courageous discourse asking congress to grant him especial enabling power to fight imperialism could make him the target of “new” assassinations attempts by the enemies of the revolution. He argues that “the satanic elites that dominate the world under a collective hypnosis of the human race –which for them is but a flock that should always be docile and subordinate,- could not come to terms with the fact that an extraordinary leader such as Hugo Chávez awakened the people as he did, with the infinite force of the greatest love ever poured by a leader on his people.”

Marcos Melendez, in Aporrea, warns that the imperialist invasion in imminent and will be very swift: “any Venezuela who does not own an airplane that can take him out of the country within a period of 25 minutes should be alert and united [cohesionarse] in rejecting this hideous recipe applied by the Obama administration under the pressure of economic groups, who want to see a return for the money they have invested in overthrowing the Venezuelan government, and to put their hands on the biggest oil reserves of the planet.”

Leandro Lev, Aporrea, is concerned that if the government fights the imperial invasion with the same tools it has fought the “economic war”, Venezuela is doomed: “In the economic war we have handed the weapons (dollars) to the enemy. That’s something like, in the face of a supposed invasion, we hand our rifles to the señores gringos.”

UCV professor Franklin González via AVN writes that in the face of the imperial threat, the time has come for the Latin American people to unite in support of the Venezuelan government: “Faced with this new threat, which is serious and has similar characteristics to aggressions rehearsed in the past, it is the time for solidarity and support [resteo] of the Bolivarian revolution by the people and governments of Latin America and the Caribbean, beyond [only] disagreeing with this cynic and meddling [injerencista] policy [they should] commit to its rejection. For patriotic Venezuelans the time has come for convictions, not for hesitation.”

Hernán Mena Cifuentes, AVN, claims that the “extraordinary” development of the United States was achieved by using the raw commodities plundered from Venezuela, “until, through the actions of the Bolivarian Revolution lead by Chávez, whose example was followed by other progressive and revolutionary leaders, they were rescued from their claws.”

(Image Aporrea.org)

Anti-imperialism: imminent invasion of Venezuela

The decree announced yesterday by president Obama declaring that Venezuela is now considered an “extraordinary threat to the national security” of the United States, and imposing sanctions on seven government officials, has sparked a strong reaction by the Venezuelan government.

In the government’s anti-imperialist rhetoric, Obama’s announcements fit well as “evidence” that the United States is behind what it claims are an “economic war” and “on-going” coup conspiracies.

Yesterday several government officials, including president Maduro, declared that Obama’s announcement is part of a broad conspiracy to overthrow the government and that it signals an “imminent” intervention by the US government on Venezuela. Some officials have been calling for a strengthening of the “civic military union” in the face of what they believe is a prelude of an invasion by United States forces.

Maduro announced that he will be asking the National Assembly a new Anti-imperialist enabling law, granting him unspecified special powers to fight the alleged imperialist threat. According to the president, the law will be an “instrument to safeguard the sovereignty and peace of the nation.”

“President Barack Obama, representing the imperialist elite of the United States, has decided to personally assume the task of overthrowing my government and to intervene in Venezuela in order to control it. (…) This is why it has taken this step today,” said Maduro.

Here are several anti-imperialist images shared yesterday via chavista social media:

Anti-imperialism, the highest stage of the Bolivarian Revolution

The III Party Congress of the ruling Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) ended on 31 June with the expected show of unity and support for Maduro’s leadership. The Congress was also an occasion for a display of revolutionary rhetoric, especially around a central issue for the Latin American left: anti-imperialism.

A rich source for this rhetoric is the official preliminary document presented to the Congress by the “Ideological and Programmatic Commission” and published in the PSUV web site.

 

In a classic Leninist analysis of the current world situation, the document claims that Capitalism has “reached its limits of metabolic reproduction,” among other reasons, because of the “internationalization of capital imposes the weakening of the National State.” The world is conceived as a zero sum conflict between the “block of traditionally capitalist countries and the emerging countries.”

This conflict is the result of the need of raw materials by the “capitalist countries” as they have “dematerialized their real economies through financial speculation in the energy sector.” Latin America is at the center stage of this conflict because of its biodiversity and its huge oil reserves.

In the case of Venezuela, Imperialism is closely linked to the country’s internal class structure: the bourgeoisie being little more than the local agents and beneficiary of foreign interests. Venezuela’s oil resources have particular importance in this narrative; in the past the oil rent of the country was “stolen, almost entirely, by international financial circuits,” but Chávez changed all that and accomplished the “re-direction” of the oil rent to benefit the people, mainly through his misiones (social programs).

The outlook for Capitalism if bleak, according to the document, because “in its current imperialist phase, it has reached its structural limits of development, its unfolding generates unsustainable contradictions due to the crisis that corrodes it.”

However, it is precisely because of this internal crisis that Capitalism displays more openly its current imperialist phase: “the logic of the capital (…) forces the empire to resort to war as an anti-crisis mechanism, putting the rest of humanity in danger.” In this context the “Imperialist States” also turn to the establishment of an institutional framework, such as the IMF, World Bank, and the World Commerce Organization, to serve their aim of global expansion and exploitation.

Imperialism is perceived as the biggest threat to the final success of the Bolivarian Revolution. The PSUV therefore considers the Revolution is defined by what it calls its anti-imperialist character: “It is impossible to deploy a development plan directed by the great interests of the Nation, the Venezuelan people, and the Great Fatherland, without first restricting and then abolishing the imperialist domination which is exploiting humanity; the United States, the imperialist corporations, and the local bourgeoisie that depends of imperialism.”

Right after its Congress, the PSUV also published a document numbering the main decisions achieved at the event. The document, titled “Compromise of the Cuartel de la Montaña” (the final resting place of Chávez), also emphasizes in several places the need to stress the anti-imperialist character of the Party and the link between the enemy within and the United States.

For example, it claims that the violent events after the April 2013 presidential elections, and the opposition protests which started in February this year, are the direct result of the actions of a “fascist right” that is acting under the orders of the United States. It therefore urges for a “complete rejection, and continued denunciation and combat, at all places, against the terrorist violence of the fascist right, without fatherland [apátrida], and lackey of the North American imperialism that, through its strategy of On-going Coup and Economic War produced in April 2013 the death of 11 compatriots, and between February and May 2014, under the coupist plan denominated ‘La Salida,’ (…) the loss of 48 human lives…”

As the US imposes visa restrictions on Venezuelan officials, and before it considers other sanctions, it is important to understand that any such actions will be framed by the Venezuelan government as confirmation of imperialism. Sanctions, no matter how specific and targeted, will feed into the conspiracy rhetoric that by now has become the official discourse of the government.