Taking Issue – Wayne Sonter

NO to US coup in Venezuela

The US government has decided it is time to get rid of the government the Venezuelan people have chosen for themselves and to stop in its tracks the Bolivarian social revolution that brought great benefits to Venezuela’s working men and women, especially its urban and rural poor, in health, housing and education. This revolution has renewed people’s dignity and promised young Venezuelans a better future.

Conservative politicians and the mass media portray Venezuela as a “socialist catastrophe” and a “socialist wasteland” ruled by a “socialist dictator” whose policies are destroying Venezuela.

They use the example of Venezuela to warn voters against parties and politicians with pro-people policies – whether it is a Bernie Sanders in USA, a Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, or even a Bill Shorten, with his “neo-socialist”, “red Labor” policies in Australia.

Trump has declared war on socialism – in the USA itself and anywhere else in the world – but especially in Latin America!

In a recent speech in Miami, where he gave the Venezuelan military the choice of staging a “peaceful” coup against the Maduro government, or facing direct US military intervention, Trump declared, “To those who would try to impose socialism on the United States, we again deliver a very simple message: America will never be a socialist country,” because while socialism fails to “respect borders” and imposes “government coercion, domination and control” on its people, Americans are “born free and will remain free”.

In reality, it is the United States that has done all it can to undermine Venezuela economically and politically, to devastating effect, through financial manipulation and economic strangulation and by instigating coup attempts (the most recent against the government of Hugo Chávez in 2002) and violent demonstrations, whose outbreaks the western media obligingly attribute to the Bolivarian government.

The US wants Venezuela’s oil – the largest reserves in the world – and its mineral resources, especially gold.

It wants to stop China and Russia (and Europe) gaining an ever stronger economic presence in Latin America – USA’s “backyard.”

Above all, its ruling class fears growing popular discontent in the US and around the world: people may start to reach for “socialism” as a way out of capitalism’s ills, which on an everyday basis have most obviously manifested themselves in “jobless growth”, enduring wage stagnation and increasing wealth disparities.

Venezuela’s elites, those who live the high life, have helped the US prosecute its aggressive policies towards Venezuela’s social revolution.

It is they who actively sabotage the domestic economy, constantly call for US intervention, and have so far failed to gain power through elections against the “Chávistas” of the Bolivarian Revolution and also having failed in a number of coup attempts.

The US-groomed puppet and would-be President Juan Guaidó is a case in point. A member of the extreme right-wing Popular Will party, he is a protégé of its founder and national coordinator, Leopoldo Lopez, “a scion of the Venezuelan elite” and an “experienced schemer” who is also chair of the “monolithic” Empresas Polar company, that controls the majority of flour production and distribution crucial for making cornbread, Venezuela’s staple food. Lopez is associated with the short-lived coup against President Chávez in 2002 and violent protests in 2014. López ensured Guaidó would lead the national assembly, positioning him to declare his “interim presidency”, once the Americans tapped him on the shoulder.

Australia genuflects

Australia’s miserable politicians, both Liberal and Labor go along with every military adventure the US empire pulls on.

They unhesitatingly support US intervention against the people of Venezuela and its anointment of the puppet Guaido as “interim” president, takes place as they mouth words of “human rights”, “democracy” and “respect for rule of law”.

Venezuela’s people are in the US empire’s gunsights at this very moment because they dare to follow a path of self-determination excluding US oil companies and a small comprador elite.

What Venezuelans seek is similar to what a Whitlam Labor government once sought – control of our resources and a fair, equitable and decent livelihood for all Australians.

Since Whitlam’s dismissal Australia has become one of the USA’s most reliable lackeys.

We have increasingly lost ownership and control over our resources to global corporations – the same corporations that operate in Australia virtually tax free, while the financial elites stow away their wealth in off-shore tax havens.

Our public assets, from ports to prisons, from banks to bus services, from energy grids to welfare services, have been privatised, also ending up in the hands of global corporations. Our manufacturing capabilities have been exported, other than for arms manufacturing sub-contracted out from the US arms industry. Laws are made to suit the wealthy, while workers are gradually ground down by anti-worker labour laws; the poor are increasingly marginalised and criminalised.

None of this is news for a political establishment and media that serves the elite.

They, along with the ever collusive corporate-state media, go along with US-directed frame-ups to crush independent, courageous peoples like the Venezuelans and their Bolivarian revolution, and to stifle our own sovereign independence.

We the Australian people, need to show solidarity with Venezuela – because its people are in great danger from the oligarchies and giant corporations who, if we have any respect for ourselves we should see as our common foe.

This destructiveness, greed and profiteering by the forces of global monopoly capitalism, threatens not only Venezuelans, but all mineral-rich nations.

We must change the world! Help us create a better future.