American Imperial Jurisdiction and the Venezuelan Case

The recent announcement of the American State Department to apply sanctions against the Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., under the law of sanctions against Iran and the incorporated law of sanctions, liabilities and disinvestment against Iran, serves to shake –without a doubt — the confidence of the Venezuelan political establishment in regards to the Obama administration’s “good intentions.” This serves as a preamble for more severe actions against the Hugo Chavez government, which is being accused of collaborating with Tehran on its nuclear program.

This is not coincidental, considering Washington’s interest in configuring its hegemony in our America and the Bolivarian route as an obstacle to achieving it. Therefore, those who trusted in the guarantee of Venezuelan oil supplies to the United States and would otherwise soften their interventionist purposes in Venezuela have been “surprised” by its good faith while forgetting that American imperialism only tolerates those regimes that don’t oppose its interests, masking nationalism and revolution in what would be controlled democracies. Outside this framework, nothing would be in harmony with the American imperial jurisdiction, which corresponds with consequential acts that crush any attempt at independence arising south of the Rio Grande.

Perhaps this situation looks to bring Chavez to the negotiating table and thereby achieve a more conciliatory position — one of submission and less confrontation with the United States. However, this should not hesitate to show the unhidden possibilities of exposing him to the same pressures and interventionist strategies employed against other leaders that wanted to get out of line, both in the past and the present.

For those who support the revolutionary movement in Venezuela (and beyond its borders), it is opportune to cite the words of Fabricio Ojeda, who in 1966 predicted what would be the confrontation of our people with American imperialism in our effort to reach the height of national liberation: “Today’s revolutionary struggle — as we need to view it — is a fight of all the world’s progressive forces, of complementary character, that extends and consolidates, like dialectic unity, in a situation of large popular uprising and where the objective conditions of each country constitute the main element.” Therefore, no revolutionary movement can see itself as something isolated. In this case, the revolutionary fight in Venezuela will have to insert itself into a wider spectrum: the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggle that has been waging for two decades at a continental and global level and which cannot dare to approach a tutelary coexistence with American imperialism. That would devalue its socialist and revolutionary essence.

Therefore, Fabricio Ojeda’s assertion takes on full force. “The entire American military today would be insufficient to be distributed as an occupying force in the vast geography shaken by the revolution. Venezuela is an important factor in the camp of global revolution. Its struggle is complementary with that of other peoples in similar circumstances. One is necessarily, whether we want it or not, a continuation of the other. And even though every country, like ours in this case, acts according to its own realities and carries out the type of revolution that historically corresponds to it, it cannot elude, nor would it be correct to do so, its integration with other similar movements. It is not the Venezuelan revolutionaries’ fault that their struggle is primarily against the imperialists. It perfectly matches the identity of the struggles carried out in Vietnam, Angola, the Congo and those that liberated Cuba and Algeria. The blame in this case goes to the imperialists, who haven’t respected borders or continents in extending their exploitation.” This should obligate all revolutionaries to revise the extent of our socialist revolution’s reach, from Venezuela to the rest of America. On the other hand, situations like the one provoked by the Obama administration will have a timid and loose response to what is, in definition, the American imperial jurisdiction, which now extends throughout our world without any counterbalance.