Nicolas Maduro was re-elected as President
of Venezuela on May 20, 2018, with an
outstanding majority - 68% of the ballots
cast. President Maduro was far ahead of
any other candidate, with Henri Falcon
receiving just 21% of the vote, and the
other two candidates following far behind.
This election is a great victory and stepforward
for the people of Venezuela and the
Bolivarian revolutionary process.
The governments of the U.S., Canada
and the European Union (E.U.) were
quick to respond to the re-election of
President Maduro. As they had already
declared the election to be “illegitimate”
and “antidemocratic” – their statements
condemning the people of Venezuela
for their democratic decision were of no
surprise. Also, of no surprise were the threats
to further sanctions and continued meddling
in the internal affairs of Venezuela that these
same statements contained.
“The United States condemns the fraudulent
election that took place in Venezuela
on May 20… Until the Maduro regime
restores a democratic path in Venezuela
through free, fair, and transparent elections,
the government faces isolation from the
international community.” – U.S. Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo
“Yesterday’s presidential elections in
Venezuela are illegitimate and antidemocratic…
the Maduro regime has shown
itself unwilling to make any serious attempt
to ensure the elections meet international
democratic standards of freedom and
fairness.” – Chrystia Freeland, Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Canada
“…the EU calls for the holding of fresh
presidential elections in accordance with
internationally recognized democratic
standards and the Venezuelan constitutional
order…the EU will act swiftly, according
to established procedures, with the aim of
imposing additional targeted and reversible
restrictive measures.” – European Council
resolution, May 28, 2018
In one fell swoop, the U.S. government
and their allies have unanimously refused
to recognize the legitimacy of the election,
called for further sanctions and “measures”
against Venezuela, and offered aid to the
people of Venezuela (who, by the way, are
suffering due to a brutal U.S.-led sanctions
regime).
The day after such a clear electoral victory
for President Maduro, the headline should
have been, “Venezuela Re-Elects President
Maduro.” However, this was not the case at
all. Instead, major media was right in lockstep
with the U.S. government and their
allies, calling into question the validity of
the May 20 election in a well-coordinated
chorus of headlines. As reported by Fairness
& Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), “Amid”
was the buzzword used across the board:
“Venezuela’s Maduro Re-elected Amid
Outcry Over Vote” (Reuters, 5/20/18)
“Venezuela Election Won by Maduro Amid
Widespread Disillusionment” (New York
Times, 5/20/18)
“Venezuela Election: Maduro Wins Second
Term Amid Claims of Vote Rigging” (BBC
(5/21/18)
“Venezuela’s Maduro Wins Re-election
Amid Opposition Boycott” (Wall Street
Journal, 5/21/18)
“Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro
Wins Re-election Amid Charges of
Irregularities” (Chicago Tribune, 5/20/18)
Perhaps, as with the statements from the U.S.
governments and their allies, this unanimity
is possible because their headlines are also
pre-written?
Among others, there is one major “Amid”
that all the mainstream media headlines are
missing – Over 6 million Venezuelans elect
President Nicas Maduro to a second term
Amid a brutal U.S.-led sanctions regime
and threats from the U.S. and their allies
to increase sanctions and intervention in
Venezuela if Maduro is re-elected.
Given the escalating campaign of sanctions
and intervention, the people of Venezuela
had every reason to believe that the U.S.,
Canada and the E.U. would make good
on their pre-election threats. If President
Maduro won the election, Venezuelans knew
that more imperialist attacks and hardship
would be coming.
But, of course, mainstream media isn’t
presenting any of that perspective at all, as
Human Rights lawyer, and international
observer to the May 20 election Daniel
Kovalik wrote in the article, “The Real
Venezuela Is Not What You Think”,
“Grateful for a government on their side and
flouting U.S. extortion, the poor came out
to vote in large numbers for Mr. Maduro.
These are the same poor, by the way, who
came down from the mountains in 2002
to demand the return of Hugo Chavez to
power after he was overthrown in a U.S.-
backed coup and kidnapped.
But you never hear the voices of these poor
people in the U.S. press. You never hear their
side of the story, how they have benefitted
from the Bolivarian Revolution and how
desperately they do not want to go back to
how things were before.”
More Elections = More Sanctions &
Attacks
The May 20 Presidential election in
Venezuela was the fourth election to take
place in Venezuela since the election of the
National Constituent Assembly (ANC) in
July 2017. In each of these elections, the
ANC, elections for state governors, and
elections for mayors, revolutionary forces
have triumphed overwhelmingly. In due
turn, with each election, has also come
increasing sanctions from the U.S., Canada
and the European Union.
On May 21, U.S. President Trump
immediately issued an Executive Order
further preventing Venezuela from having
normal relations with the world market,
including severely restricting their ability
to pay off and re-structure debts, sell assets,
or to receive any profits or dividends from
the U.S.-based Citgo oil company that is
owned by the government of Venezuela.
This has also led to a decrease in imports to
Venezuela, including shipments of food and
medicines which are withheld or trapped
offshore due to the financial restrictions of
the sanctions.
At every opportunity, the U.S. government
is working to strangle the Venezuelan
economy and bring the people of Venezuela
to their knees – a vital part of their campaign
to overthrow the government of Venezuela
and turn back the gains of the Bolivarian
revolutionary process. As the economist
Mark Weisbrot stated, “By starving the
economy of foreign exchange, this action will
harm the private sector, most Venezuelans,
the poor and the vulnerable.” (The Hill,
August 2017)
The government of Canada also moved
quickly to implement diplomatic and
financial measures against Venezuela. As
a leader in the so-called Lima Group, a
coalition of 14 right-wing Latin American
governments and Canada, the government
of Canada immediately announced that it
would “downgrade the
level of their diplomatic
relations with Venezuela.”
Although, downgrading
relations further would
be difficult for Canada,
because, in December,
Venezuela stripped
Canada’s Charge
d’Affaires in Caracas
of their credentials for
meddling in their internal
affairs.
The Foreign Minister
of Canada, Chrystia
Freeland also announced
that the government of
Canada was adding 14 more Venezuelans to
their list of sanctions. This included the First
Lady of Venezuela, who is also an elected
representative in the National Constituent
Assembly, Cilia Flores. This means that
Canada now sanctions 54 Venezuelan
individuals.
These illegal sanctions are dangerous because
they demonstrate the extreme hostility of
the government of Canada to the sovereign
government of Venezuela and violate the
human rights of those that they target, but
they are also in a way ridiculous.
Take, for example, one of the people to
appear on the newest list Carolyn Helena
Pérez González, a revolutionary, Afro-
Venezuelan who is the Assistant Secretary
of the National Constituent Assembly. The
government of Canada has sanctioned her by
closing her accounts in Canada and taking
away her possibility for getting a visa to
Canada, but she doesn’t have any Canadian
accounts and has no need or desire for a visa
to Canada.
Democracy for Who?
The governments of the U.S., Canada and the
European Union have weaponized the
word “democracy,” thrown it around
and changed it’s meaning to achieve
their imperialist objectives. They have
done the same with principles such as
“freedom” and “fairness.”
The only form of “democracy” that
these governments support is one in
which they come out on the side of
the victors. In Venezuela, this means
that the U.S. government and their
allies had nothing bad to say about the
2015 elections in Venezuela, where-in
a right-wing majority was voted into
the National Assembly. Their allies,
the violent, counter-revolutionary
opposition in Venezuela had won,
therefore the election was democratic.
This is the same reason that imperialist
governments and the mainstream
media have been silent regarding the election
at the end of May in Colombia. Their ally,
right-wing Ivan Duque, is set to win in the
run-off election, so it doesn’t matter to them
that “democratic elections” in Colombia
mean widespread accounts of voter-fraud, or
that one social leader murdered in Colombia
every three days (Atlantic Magazine).
The U.S. and Canada have also been silent
about the impossibility of a “free and fair”
election in Mexico, where Reuters reported
that 82 candidates and elected officials have
been murdered since September.
There are numerous examples of this
deliberate bias, where the response of
the U.S. government and their allies has
ranged from a refusal to recognize the
democratically elected government to bloody
military intervention to overthrow them:
Hamas, Palestine (2006); Islamic Salvation
Front, Algeria (1991); Salvador Allende,
Chile (1970); Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran
(1951), and many more.
It is audacious for the government of
Canada to even open their mouths to claim
that the May 20 election in Venezuela was
“anti-democratic.” Canada prevented the
over 6,000 Venezuelans living in Canada
from voting in the election at all.
The U.S. government and their allies can’t
even get their heads straight about whether
elections in Venezuela are a good thing for
the people of Venezuela that they claim to
care so much about. Again, following the
same logic as their definition of “democracy,”
elections are only acceptable if their counterrevolutionary
allies are sure to win.
Less than a year ago Western government
statements and their mass media mouthpiece
were on a continuous loop of demanding
that the government of Venezuela call
immediate Presidential elections. The
website Investigaction.net
compiled demands from releases
of the U.S. State Department, a
few of them were:
“President Maduro […] should
hold elections as soon as
possible.” (March 29)
“We […] echo the Venezuelan
people’s calls for prompt
elections” (April 10)
“We call again upon the
Government of Venezuela to
[…] hold prompt elections”
(April 18)
“It’s the Venezuelan people who
should decide Venezuela’s future,
which is why we once again call
on the Venezuelan authorities
to promptly hold free, fair, and transparent
elections.” (May 2)
Now that Venezuela has held Presidential
elections, the U.S. government seems to have
forgotten all about their previous demands.
What is the End Game?
The U.S. government and their allies
have one goal in mind: to overthrow the
government of President Maduro, reversing
the gains made by poor, working and
oppressed people under the last 20 years of
the Bolivarian revolutionary process, and
returning Venezuela to their control.
Over the last 20 years since the election
of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, the people
of Venezuela have taken a stand for their
sovereignty and self-determination. The
Bolivarian revolutionary process has vastly
improved the lives of the majority of
the people of Venezuela. Together with
revolutionary Cuba, Venezuela has led the
way in building a new Latin America based
on solidarity, and independent from U.S.-
led, imperialist and colonial policies and
organizations.
Building Solidarity Is a Must!
U.S.-led threats against Venezuela are
increasing: from the preposterous claim
that the government of Venezuela has
committed “crimes against humanity”
submitted by the U.S.-based and funded
Organization of American States (OAS)
to the International Criminal Court; to
Colombia’s recent admission into the coldwar
Western military alliance NATO, a
direct threat not only to Venezuela, but to
any movement fighting against imperialism
in Latin America. The people of Venezuela
and the Bolivarian revolutionary process are
under a ceaseless and brutal assault, where as
U.S. President Trump has said the “military
option is on the table.
However, the May 20 elections have shown
the world that the people of Venezuela
will not be blackmailed or starved into
following the orders of the United States.
The people have voted to continue building
the Bolivarian revolutionary process – and
with it, they have voted in defense of their
sovereignty and self-determination. With
the victory of President Maduro, they have
told the world that will continue to stand
up against the most powerful military force
in the world and their dangerous allies –
shouting loud and clear “Venceremos! - We
will win!”
As people living in Canada, the U.S.
and beyond we must stand with them
in their struggle to end the criminal
sanctions and all imperialist intervention
in Venezuela. We have no option but to
echo their demands and work to build a
consistent, creative and united movement
in solidarity with Venezuela. This means
educating, organizing and mobilizing
people in Canada and around the world
in defense of Venezuela and against U.S./
Canada/E.U. threats and sanctions. We
also must look for allies in our struggle, in
labour unions, community groups, students
and poor and oppressed communities. We
must do this because, for poor, working
and oppressed people, Venezuela is an
example of what it means to struggle, and
to win. If the government of Venezuela
and the Bolivarian revolutionary process is
overthrown, it will be a huge set-back for
all of us.
The government of Canada, the U.S. and
the E.U. are increasing their attacks on
Venezuela because they know that the
people of Venezuela are only becoming
more resolute in their determination to
build a different future then one dictated to
them from the north. It is our responsibility
as people living in North America to do
everything that we can to weaken the
hands that are attempting to strangle them
into submission. United we will win.
Follow Alison on Twitter: @Alisoncolette
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