Speaker 1: All Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, and welcome to it could happen here. It's
Speaker 2: a very special round table podcast today where we're going
Speaker 2: to discuss the United States ongoing campaign of bombing small
Speaker 2: boats in the Caribbean. I'm joined by Michael Pahlberg, an
Speaker 2: associate professor of political science at Virginior Commonwealth University and
Speaker 2: a fellow at the Center for National Policy. Hi Michael,
Speaker 2: thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: And Andrew is also here. Listeners of the show will
Speaker 2: be familiar with Andrew's work. He joins very often, but
Speaker 2: in this instance, Andrew is talking as someone who is
Speaker 2: from Trinidad and Tobago, which of course is very much
Speaker 2: being impacted by this.
Speaker 3: Hey, Andy, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Not much? Well, let's talk about what's going on, because
Speaker 2: something quite perfstantial is going on. What's going on is
Speaker 2: that the United States is carrying out a campaign of
Speaker 2: drone strikes against small vessels in the Caribbean. As far
Speaker 2: as we know, there have been seven strikes. At least
Speaker 2: thirty two people have been killed, two people have been
Speaker 2: detained and then repatriated, and a number of vessels have
Speaker 2: been struck. The US it's bringing its war on terrorism
Speaker 2: logic to the Western Hemisphere rate, it's claiming that it's
Speaker 2: fighting narco terrorism, and it's claiming that these boats are
Speaker 2: for the most part carrying Venezuelan nationals coming out of Venezuela.
Speaker 2: We've heard from Colombia that one Colombian national has been killed.
Speaker 2: The two people who had detained were Ecuadorian and Colombian
Speaker 2: to Trinidadian or Trinidad and Tobago nationals have been killed
Speaker 2: as well. And this has sparked something of a and
Speaker 2: what it was a war of words, now it seems
Speaker 2: to be a war of more than that, tariffs and
Speaker 2: sanctions and if Columbia has withdrawn their diplomat from DC
Speaker 2: as of today or yesterday, so it sparks significant political
Speaker 2: turmoil in the Western hemisphere. I think we have a
Speaker 2: really good panel to talk about that. So to begin with,
Speaker 2: I guess we should start Michael. Can you explain their
Speaker 2: accusation here right is that these people are members of trend,
Speaker 2: Deer Ragua or potentially some other cartels that the term
Speaker 2: administration likes to talk about. We've talked about the prevalence
Speaker 2: of those groups, but can you explain very briefly what
Speaker 2: they are, and I suppose the function that they have
Speaker 2: in Venezuela or what they're doing there versus what's been
Speaker 2: claimed that they're doing.
Speaker 4: So sure, I do research on organized crime in Latin America,
Speaker 4: and Rene de Ragua is a real organized criminal group
Speaker 4: in Venezuela and now all over Latin America. It is
Speaker 4: a street gang that started out as a prison gang.
Speaker 4: It does not primarily engage in international drug trafficking, moving
Speaker 4: large quantities of drugs across national borders or across oceans.
Speaker 4: It is primarily engaged in human trafficking.
Speaker 3: And extortion rackets.
Speaker 4: And it primarily follows the Venezuelan and Niascara people who
Speaker 4: have left Venezuela. And at this point it's an incredible
Speaker 4: twenty percent of the population over the last ten years
Speaker 4: of Maduro's presidency, so nearly eight million people. Wherever they
Speaker 4: go and they take advantage of them, They extort them
Speaker 4: for money. They will also take money to move them
Speaker 4: across borders. But they're not a cartel in the way
Speaker 4: that we traditionally think about cartels like the Sinalo cartel
Speaker 4: or some of the Columbian cartels that are engaged in
Speaker 4: international cocaine trafficking, and so it's highly unlikely that if
Speaker 4: the Trump administration is striking boats that they claim to
Speaker 4: be vessels transporting cocaine or vensional, which is not made
Speaker 4: in Venezuela. It's primarily made in Mexico using precursors from China,
Speaker 4: and increasingly it's actually in the United States. Even that
Speaker 4: it's a tilt synthetic drug, that's possible, and Venezuela, of
Speaker 4: course is not one of the countries where coca is
Speaker 4: grown and therefore cocaine comes from. If they are indeed
Speaker 4: striking drug boats, then they probably wouldn't be traded Aaga,
Speaker 4: and if they're striking boats with Brenda Arragua, they would
Speaker 4: be most likely striking migrant smuggling vessels, in which case
Speaker 4: the death account would likely be much higher.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we should talk about the other Caribbean nations now,
Speaker 2: I guess I want to talk about Trindent Tobago, but
Speaker 2: we should probably cover Columbia first, right, because we've seen
Speaker 2: significant pushback from Petro, president of Columbia, and then we've
Speaker 2: recently seen the President of the United States accused Petro,
Speaker 2: who is again president of Columbia, of being a drug
Speaker 2: trafficker himself, which is a fairly ludicrous claim on the
Speaker 2: face of it. But let's talk about Petro because he
Speaker 2: has some background in opposition to organize crime and drug smuggling. Actually, right,
Speaker 2: like he's in this for a while. Can you explain
Speaker 2: a little bit of his career and then his recent stances.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So Petro is a mercurial figure in Columbian politics,
Speaker 4: has been for a long time. He is known for
Speaker 4: starting his career as a gorilla with a minor anti
Speaker 4: government guerrilla movement called the M nineteen movement. Now, this
Speaker 4: is the movement which I don't know, maybe Western audiences
Speaker 4: are familiar with from the Netflix series Narcos, for having
Speaker 4: participated carried out the Palace of Justice siege at the
Speaker 4: Columbian Supreme Court, which was a major disaster in which
Speaker 4: the Columbian military went in guns blazing to rescue hostages,
Speaker 4: Supreme Court justices and other people just employed in the
Speaker 4: Palace of Justice, and most everyone died in a fire
Speaker 4: as a result. Petro was not involved in that operation
Speaker 4: as far as anyone knows. He was not involved in
Speaker 4: eight violent confrontations and this organization, unlike the fark and
Speaker 4: the ln never really got on the cocaine money train
Speaker 4: and therefore didn't last as long as those other organizations did.
Speaker 4: They did demobilize, they did turn to peaceful politics, and
Speaker 4: Petro began his political career at the local level Bogota
Speaker 4: and then eventually reached the presidency. So he is someone
Speaker 4: with a long political career and does have a constituency,
Speaker 4: does have a base, and he is the first truly
Speaker 4: left wing leader of Colombia, country that has been famously
Speaker 4: both ruled by the right and also very closely allied
Speaker 4: to the US.
Speaker 3: It's really the US.
Speaker 4: It is top ally in Latin America, well in South America,
Speaker 4: at least specifically on security, given Plan Colombia and the
Speaker 4: long history of US giving as much as ten billion
Speaker 4: dollars over time to beef up Colombia's counterinsurgency and counter
Speaker 4: narcotics fights on our behalf.
Speaker 2: Get to acuse of president of being a dry kraft
Speaker 2: is fairly ludicrous, Like he's been like even in time
Speaker 2: as a senator, right he was like I think he
Speaker 2: was sharing some like investigations or committees that looked to
Speaker 2: drug smuggling if I remember correctly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so I would say Petro has been very
Speaker 4: critical of the war on drugs approach generally, but he
Speaker 4: does still inherit this long standing, deep relationship with the
Speaker 4: United States, and he's not exactly a full on peacenick
Speaker 4: when it comes to his own internal security. He did
Speaker 4: come it off as promising what he called total peace possibibal,
Speaker 4: a platform that was meant to put an end to
Speaker 4: all armed in certainties in the country by making a
Speaker 4: deal with the remaining combatant groups, namely the ELN, the
Speaker 4: dissident bar guerrillas, those who did not agree to the
Speaker 4: peace deal signed by Santos in twenty sixteen, and what's
Speaker 4: in different terms called the Klandel GORGEPO or the AGC
Speaker 4: the Guy Thomas to self defense Forces, but one of
Speaker 4: the largest national narco paramilitary group that descends from the
Speaker 4: old AUC. And he has failed in that and talks
Speaker 4: have broken off with.
Speaker 3: Those other armed groups.
Speaker 4: Colombia has gone back to war against them. The ELN
Speaker 4: has engaged in some pretty horrific violence, including a suicide
Speaker 4: car bombing the police barracks and the distant FARC as
Speaker 4: well taking down a helicopter and a drone attack. So
Speaker 4: there has been a return to fairly high level, you know,
Speaker 4: armed insurgency in Colombia, even if it's nowhere near the
Speaker 4: level it was from the late nineties and early two thousands.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And all of this is happening in the Caribbean,
Speaker 2: which is not a vast ocean, right, It's not a
Speaker 2: massive area of space. And Sandra and I were talking
Speaker 2: about before we recorded. This has impacted other Caribbean nations,
Speaker 2: nations which are not the target of the Trump administration's aggression,
Speaker 2: but nonetheless are being subjected to it. Do you want
Speaker 2: to talk Andrew, Trinida and Tobago's in a particularly kind
Speaker 2: of interesting the right word. It's not a great situation, right,
Speaker 2: because Trinidadian people are being killed, at least two and
Speaker 2: the government is apparently completely unconcerned with this.
Speaker 5: Yes, I suppose I should provide some context. So there
Speaker 5: have been seven strikes to date, and the fifth strike
Speaker 5: resulted in the deaths of two fishermen from the village
Speaker 5: of Las Guavas in Trinantobago being claimed among the victims.
Speaker 5: The government Transbigo has not made a statement about it,
Speaker 5: and the families have not really been contacted or provide
Speaker 5: any sort of support. Now for those who are listening
Speaker 5: who may not know where Trinaans Bigle is. It is
Speaker 5: an independent Twin Ireland republic the Caribbean, and it's actually
Speaker 5: geographically an extension of South America. There's a gulf that
Speaker 5: separates it, but it's about eleven kilometers away from Venezuela
Speaker 5: itself and our elections. It took place this year led
Speaker 5: to the removal of the incumbent party and the return
Speaker 5: of the United National Congress, the political party led by
Speaker 5: Camera Posa Prossessor, claiming the government in a sweep landslide. Really,
Speaker 5: but despite that landslide, it wasn't really the result of
Speaker 5: popular support for the United National Congress. It was more
Speaker 5: so the lack of support for the previous party, the
Speaker 5: People's National Movement, which lost I believe two hundred thousand
Speaker 5: or so of their usual voters just didn't show up
Speaker 5: to vote for them this election, so the opposition party
Speaker 5: came into power. When the opposition party wasn't the opposition
Speaker 5: They in many ways appeared to just oppose for pose
Speaker 5: and sake. They were in power previously from twenty ten
Speaker 5: to twenty fifteen, but they were voted out due to,
Speaker 5: among other things corruption, and since then the party has
Speaker 5: further evolved into a sort of personality cult centered around
Speaker 5: came proser prosessor, and her politics have also evolved in
Speaker 5: that time to align further and further toward the United
Speaker 5: States position. She's become something of a Trump Stan you know,
Speaker 5: she was kind of touring his line on a lot
Speaker 5: of issues. She supported Guido Juan Guido as the president
Speaker 5: of Venezuela and actually went so far while she was
Speaker 5: a oposition leader to call on the United States to
Speaker 5: sanction Trinan Tobago after the Vice President of Venezuela had
Speaker 5: made a visit to the country to meet with the
Speaker 5: then Prime Minister Keith Rowley. So she has made her
Speaker 5: pro Washington stands clear for a very long time. And
Speaker 5: as she's come into power, she has divuted our alignment
Speaker 5: with our regional bloc, the Caribbean Community cara COM and
Speaker 5: their call for the Caribbean to remain a zone of peace,
Speaker 5: and emphasized her continued endorsement for the US military's deployment
Speaker 5: outside of Venezuela's territorial waters. But still very much belligerent
Speaker 5: in her approach to this issue. You know, we have
Speaker 5: gone from a state that was respected as a non
Speaker 5: aligned entity that was able to approach various diplomatic partners
Speaker 5: from the US to China to the eute in Yale
Speaker 5: to Venezuela as well. And we've gone from that sort
Speaker 5: of diplomatic approach to a very clear pro West stance
Speaker 5: that has really alienated US from the rest of the
Speaker 5: region and really placed US almost in the position of
Speaker 5: being alite state for US policy. You know, she's been
Speaker 5: inviting the US military if they want to base the
Speaker 5: operations Auto Turinaud. She has opened our doors to that.
Speaker 5: She has called for the US to kill them all violently,
Speaker 5: extraditionally and stated that she is quivoctly aligned with what
Speaker 5: the US is doing in the region despite its flagrant
Speaker 5: violations of international law.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you said earlier, right that them in this
Speaker 2: instance includes at least two of her own citizens.
Speaker 5: And I will say that this sort of zone of
Speaker 5: peace designation for the Caribbean, it is something that I
Speaker 5: would this is my personal opinion, and consider more of
Speaker 5: a hopeful ideal rather than the reality. You know, the
Speaker 5: trafficking that takes place in the region does visit a
Speaker 5: lot of violence upon people. Is you know, by no
Speaker 5: means in reality a zone of peace, even before the
Speaker 5: US is in the region. However, though we may not
Speaker 5: fit that postcard perfect perception of tropical paradise, it is
Speaker 5: still necessary, i think, for US to stand in solidarity
Speaker 5: as a region, to speak with one voice when it
Speaker 5: comes to these issues, especially as a continued existence depends
Speaker 5: on the observation of international law. The respect for the
Speaker 5: UN Charter as small islands or safety is really in numbers.
Speaker 5: And for the Prime Minister to deviate from that solidarity
Speaker 5: in such a blatant way, it's it's really quite sad,
Speaker 5: but it shouldn't come as a surprise because there have
Speaker 5: been efforts by the US to divide cara Con in
Speaker 5: the past. During his first term, Trump had pulled some
Speaker 5: cara Con countries into the LIMA Group, which was a
Speaker 5: US promoted coalition of right being governments that was pushing
Speaker 5: for regime change in Venezuela. And he's not doing the
Speaker 5: same thing with trying to get some Caracom governments to
Speaker 5: facilitate his actions towards Venezuela. They approached Grenado recently to
Speaker 5: try and get Grenada's assistance in basing a satellite there
Speaker 5: on the island, and it's really ironic that they would
Speaker 5: approach Grenada, which is also quite close to Venezuela, because
Speaker 5: Grenado is famously one of the countries that the United
Speaker 5: States invaded in October of nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, I know I say this a lot,
Speaker 2: but if you've listened to the song Washington Bullets by
Speaker 2: the Clash, and then you go to the border, you
Speaker 2: can kind of join up all the people from all
Speaker 2: the countries mentioned there and the outcome of US policy
Speaker 2: and what that does to migration over time. We should
Speaker 2: talk about the Venezuelan opposition. I guess, Michael, would you
Speaker 2: give I've done a pretty in depth discussion of Venezuela,
Speaker 2: a place where I have spent a decent amount of time,
Speaker 2: Like I wanted to see that revolution myself when I
Speaker 2: was like nineteen and I was studying political science that
Speaker 2: I wanted to see what this like pink Tide was about.
Speaker 2: And I have reported a lot on Venezuela migrants. People
Speaker 2: who are new to the show, I guess the series
Speaker 2: I did from the Darien Gap would be where I
Speaker 2: would point you for my discussion of Venezuela and Venezuelan people.
Speaker 2: I still speak to people of Venezuela almost every day,
Speaker 2: but I think people could do micro with like a
Speaker 2: like a high level overview of the Venezuelan opposition. I
Speaker 2: guess we can talk about that about prize as well, which,
Speaker 2: despite what Donald Trump is saying, was not awarded to
Speaker 2: him this year.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So the big news is that Maria Quida Machado, who
Speaker 4: is be leader of the Venezuelan opposition as we as
Speaker 4: we know it today, was awarded of the Nobel Prize,
Speaker 4: which was a bit of a surprise and from a
Speaker 4: very US centric analysis. One idea that has been floated
Speaker 4: is that the Nobel Committee didn't want to award Trump
Speaker 4: the prize, but thought that maybe awarding it to an
Speaker 4: ally of Trump, would we be away to modify Trump
Speaker 4: also possibly to encourage him to take a more peaceful
Speaker 4: approach at a time that the US is threatening armed
Speaker 4: intervention in some way in Venezuela, whether that is a
Speaker 4: counter arcotects operation or more likely a regime change operation
Speaker 4: of some kind, even though it's very unclear how they
Speaker 4: would get to regime change from blowing up votes, even
Speaker 4: blowing up people.
Speaker 2: Maybe we should pause and talk about regime change, actually
Speaker 2: because I like it's such a problematic idea, right, we
Speaker 2: have attempted regime changes. My career for the last several
Speaker 2: years has been reporting on the United States failed attempts
Speaker 2: to facilitate regime james all over the world, right, Like,
Speaker 2: it's not something we're very good at. I don't think
Speaker 2: that the United States is going to invade maybe do
Speaker 2: you think differently? But I think we probably agree that
Speaker 2: the United States is sound likely to do it, like
Speaker 2: an Iraq style invasion of Venezuela. Can you explain the couple,
Speaker 2: like why I suppose just just for people who you know,
Speaker 2: think that that's what's happening in the Caribbean at the
Speaker 2: moment with this concentration of forces.
Speaker 4: Well, it's unlikely to happen because well, it's a very
Speaker 4: large country and it would take a lot more troops
Speaker 4: than what are currently deployed, which is approaching ten thousand now.
Speaker 4: But that's actually that includes all sorts of logistical support.
Speaker 4: The actual fighting force, the Marine Expeditionary Unit is actually
Speaker 4: much smaller. I've lived in Panama as a kid, and
Speaker 4: I was not old enough to be there for the
Speaker 4: invasion but I live there some years after that. That's
Speaker 4: probably the closest analog to this, at least the way
Speaker 4: that the Drum administration is promoting this, which is to say,
Speaker 4: a regime change operation that is disguised as a counter
Speaker 4: narcotics operation. Famously, nor Diega, it was not a war.
Speaker 4: It was an arrest of a foreign leader who was
Speaker 4: indeed involved in drug trafficking. And we knew that because
Speaker 4: he was literally a CIA asset whose drug trafficking was
Speaker 4: being protected as long as he was allied with the
Speaker 4: US against Cuban backed rebel groups in Central America. But
Speaker 4: at some point later he became too much of embarrassment
Speaker 4: for the US. Was genuinely a brutal guy, pulled off
Speaker 4: the torture, murder of who was spotifort, all.
Speaker 3: Sorts of nasty things.
Speaker 4: But the big difference is at that time and when
Speaker 4: I lived there, the US had multiple military basis in Panama.
Speaker 4: Panama was the headquarters of the US Southern Command, the
Speaker 4: Western Hemisphere, headquarters of the Pentagon. We had thirteen thousand
Speaker 4: troops already there ready to go. I think they doubled
Speaker 4: that for the invasion, which was officially termed Operation just
Speaker 4: cause usually called Operation Bluespone, but they had to come
Speaker 4: with the sex.
Speaker 3: Of your name.
Speaker 4: And of course Panama is a tiny country and Venezuela
Speaker 4: is twenty times larger than Panama.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fuss, so it's very odd.
Speaker 4: It's obviously they have deployed many more troops and a
Speaker 4: much larger fleet than its necessary for a counter narcotics operation. Incidentally,
Speaker 4: it's the US Coast Guard that carries out counter narcotics
Speaker 4: interdictions and does it very effectively, and incidentally does it
Speaker 4: with the cooperation of other countries which coordinate intelligence or
Speaker 4: just simply surveillance of suspicious ships or boats or planes
Speaker 4: and tip off the US Coast Guard. Even the Cuban
Speaker 4: government does that. In fact, it's the Coast Guard that
Speaker 4: is the US agency that has the best relationships with Cuba.
Speaker 4: It's oftentimes diplomacy kind of starts with the Coast Guard's
Speaker 4: ties with Cuba. But anyway, that aside, it doesn't make
Speaker 4: sense from a counter narcotics standpoint, because look, if you
Speaker 4: actually wanted to break up a cartel, what do you do.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you are a prosecutor investigator, right, you
Speaker 4: capture the smugglers, you seize the cargo, the contraband, which
Speaker 4: is evidence. Then you try to flip them up for
Speaker 4: immunity for whoever your real targets are. Maybe your target
Speaker 4: is Maduro or someone else in the regime. But you
Speaker 4: can't do that when you kill everyone on the boat.
Speaker 3: Ye, right. And I think the fact that in I
Speaker 3: think the.
Speaker 4: Latest boat strike, they didn't manage to kill everyone, and
Speaker 4: a couple of them got away, and then the US,
Speaker 4: rather than charge them with a crime, they just turned
Speaker 4: them back around. And you would think that if the
Speaker 4: US is so certain that the people on those boats
Speaker 4: are drug trafficking terrorists that they want to kill them,
Speaker 4: then you'd think they would have enough evidence to charge
Speaker 4: them to prosecute them of them. Apparently not. So this
Speaker 4: is all to say the idea that this is a
Speaker 4: counternarcotics operation doesn't hold up.
Speaker 3: Clearly.
Speaker 4: It is meant to be more of a regime change operation.
Speaker 4: But again I don't see how the one leads to
Speaker 4: the other. I believe that Trump thinks that if he
Speaker 4: just saber rattles a little bit and possibly tries some
Speaker 4: decapitation strikes the way that the US did on Soleimani
Speaker 4: and Iran, that's somehow the regime is going to collapse,
Speaker 4: and that does not make any sense. Maduro has surrounded
Speaker 4: himself with security, a lot of it, including Recuban advisors.
Speaker 4: He keeps his whereabouts very secret. Even if somehow they
Speaker 4: were to drone strike him, it's not as if the
Speaker 4: regime as a whole would fall because it is an
Speaker 4: extremely militarized regime that is upheld by the armed forces
Speaker 4: who are not going to break with him because they
Speaker 4: have a hand in every lucrative business both legal and illegal,
Speaker 4: in Venezuela. They're not going to be paid off or
Speaker 4: not be swayed by a bounty that is currently what
Speaker 4: something like fifty million dollars. I mean, there are people
Speaker 4: around Madula that have made upwards of a billion dollars
Speaker 4: in oil rents. So it's not like you could pay
Speaker 4: off people.
Speaker 3: To be head either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not Nor is it like a cult
Speaker 2: of personality situation, like certainly not. Now Java's had something
Speaker 2: of a sort of charismatic leadership role, but Madula is
Speaker 2: not that. So let's talk about the opposition in Venezuela
Speaker 2: in so much as, like I guess, if we go
Speaker 2: back to the election, last year. Right, that's start with
Speaker 2: the election and explain to people what happened there and
Speaker 2: the subsequent sort of avenues that are now open for
Speaker 2: the avenues that opposition is now exploring, if that's okay.
Speaker 4: There was an election quote unquote that took place last year.
Speaker 4: It was broken largely by the US. The US under
Speaker 4: the my administration was pushing for some kind of negotiations
Speaker 4: between the opposition of Venezuelan government. They convinced enough people
Speaker 4: in the opposition to stand for elections under what was
Speaker 4: called the Barbados Agreement in twenty twenty three. And this
Speaker 4: was meant to be in exchange of partial lifting the
Speaker 4: sectoral sanctions that have been in place on Venezuela for
Speaker 4: a long time, in which the Trump administration, the first
Speaker 4: Trump administration, really tightened in exchange for the Vaduro government
Speaker 4: agreeing to stand for elections. And those elections happened last year.
Speaker 4: It was pretty clear from pre electoral surveys and from
Speaker 4: exit polls and from the vote returns that were coming
Speaker 4: in at the time, that the opposite you, Canada, was
Speaker 4: going to win by an enormous march about a thirty
Speaker 4: five point margin. The candidate was officially at Mundo Gonzales,
Speaker 4: but he was candidates mostly because Murray Cornea Matado, the
Speaker 4: now Nobel Prize laureate, was barred from running, so she
Speaker 4: for blessing to Gonzales to be basically her proxy, and
Speaker 4: people were more or less voting for both of them,
Speaker 4: so to speak, but both he and her are much
Speaker 4: more popular. Maduro, who by all accounts as an extremely
Speaker 4: unpopular leader, especially in contrast to as you said, Ugu Chavas, who,
Speaker 4: for all his faults, was a genuinely charismatic yeah leader,
Speaker 4: and you know, he did stand for elections and win them,
Speaker 4: you know, pretty convincingly. Incidentally, oil the price of oil
Speaker 4: was about one hundred dollars a barrel when he was president,
Speaker 4: and he was able to spend a lot on social programs.
Speaker 4: But that aside, Yeah, Helpsudo is pretty unpopular. With this point,
Speaker 4: he is pretty widely seen as both a tyrant and
Speaker 4: also quite incompetent at managing basic state services. So he
Speaker 4: was going to lose unless he stole the election, which
Speaker 4: he did. The CNE the Best One Election board announced
Speaker 4: that he had won with just fifty one percent of
Speaker 4: the vote, which is I have to say, I give
Speaker 4: him credit for being subtle. I expected them to announce that.
Speaker 2: He won with like ninety nine percent of the vote, yeah,
Speaker 2: and a sad margin.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No one believed it. And I have to say
Speaker 4: one of my critiques of the Bido administration is that
Speaker 4: I think the whole thing was rather naive. I think
Speaker 4: they character that that somehow Maduro would let himself be
Speaker 4: voted out of office.
Speaker 3: Maduro, is he.
Speaker 4: Talked about under a bounty, has a bounty on his head.
Speaker 4: Many people in the US politics, in the US Republican
Speaker 4: in particular, have promised that they're going to send him
Speaker 4: to jail. So why would someone in that position, you know,
Speaker 4: give up power. I think, you know, he saw what
Speaker 4: happened to Kadafi and he's, you know, he doesn't want
Speaker 4: to be jailed or killed. And at the same time,
Speaker 4: the stick part of the Karen and Stick mechanism was
Speaker 4: that they would simply go back to the sanctions that
Speaker 4: existed before, which was called a snapback. And these are
Speaker 4: sanctions that the Venezuelan government has weathered for for many,
Speaker 4: many years, so it's not really that much of a disincentive.
Speaker 4: So anyway, everyone basically admits at this point that he
Speaker 4: stole the election, but what are you going to do
Speaker 4: about it? The opposition, for its part, has taken different
Speaker 4: approaches to how to confront him and is famously very divided.
Speaker 4: The Venezuelan opposition has never really been on the same page.
Speaker 4: They've never really had an uncontested leader. Mariequrna much is
Speaker 4: about the closest they have had. But she herself really
Speaker 4: represents more one wing of the opposition, the more you
Speaker 4: might say, hard line wing. For a long time there
Speaker 4: was a hard line wing personified by Lopez, and there
Speaker 4: was a more I don't know if you call it
Speaker 4: a soft line or liberal or just more willing to
Speaker 4: talk to the regime wing led by Capriles who ran
Speaker 4: against at the in the first election. And it's even
Speaker 4: within those factions there are there competing personality. It's a
Speaker 4: lot of it really is more personal than ideological. But
Speaker 4: Maricorne Machallo, she is on the right politically. She you know,
Speaker 4: styles herself after Margaret Thatcher. She is also, i will
Speaker 4: give a credit for this, a very good organizer. She
Speaker 4: is famously kind of gone into communities that have historically
Speaker 4: voted with the Chavista left, and convinced many people to
Speaker 4: leave that coalition. And also to her credit, you know,
Speaker 4: I would say she is a very brave person. She
Speaker 4: has remained into the country at a time that many
Speaker 4: most opposition leaders, including Amodo Gonzalez, have plied the country,
Speaker 4: and she's been hiding. She knows that the regime would arrest,
Speaker 4: if not kill her at its soonest opportunity. Yet she
Speaker 4: still shows up unannounced at at events, at rallies and
Speaker 4: and makes speeches. So she has achieved this kind of
Speaker 4: mythic figure and this is something that obviously is only
Speaker 4: going to grow with the Nobel prize. So then the
Speaker 4: question is what will this Nobel do. I think that
Speaker 4: one calculation is that it will simply keep her alive.
Speaker 4: You know, it'll be much harder for the Majoria government
Speaker 4: to kill her, if you know, if they would be
Speaker 4: killing a Nobel laureate, So that may buy her a
Speaker 4: little bit more time.
Speaker 2: Try to best them on the first one to kill
Speaker 2: a Nobel laureate.
Speaker 4: I guess, right, right, yeah, But you know, will it
Speaker 4: bring peace?
Speaker 3: I'm not so sure.
Speaker 4: Because Marie Corny Machaalo has also been very closely allied
Speaker 4: and supportive of the Trunk administration and her side of
Speaker 4: the opposition has been encouraging the military sikes backing sanctions,
Speaker 4: even though the sanctions both have done nothing to dislodge
Speaker 4: Maduro and also contribute to a great deal of suffering
Speaker 4: for the Venezuelan people.
Speaker 3: And I have to.
Speaker 4: Say, look, I'm not Venezuela. I have no right to
Speaker 4: give it the Venezuelan opposition advice. I would say that
Speaker 4: if they have tried multiple elections, you know, at least
Speaker 4: two of which have been stolen. If they have tried,
Speaker 4: you know, I say more democratic means, and nothing has happened.
Speaker 4: I can understand why many people would think that a
Speaker 4: more radical approach is the only option left on the table. However,
Speaker 4: that approach hasn't done anything either. You know, sanctions have
Speaker 4: not to dislodge Maduro. Blowing up boats of possible drug traffickers,
Speaker 4: maybe just fishermen has not done anything. I think that
Speaker 4: nothing appears likely to lead to regime change. But I
Speaker 4: can understand the desperation of people living under what is
Speaker 4: broadly acknowledged to be an extremely repressive regime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just a grinding poverty of everyday life in Venezuela.
Speaker 2: There is so like, I've heard so many stories from
Speaker 2: so many people of such a difficult existence there can
Speaker 2: I can understand people's desperation, Andrew, you know, I've spoken
Speaker 2: about like the gulf between the government of Trnidad and
Speaker 2: Tobago and the people of Trinidad and Tobago right now,
Speaker 2: and obviously the same is true in Venezuela, right Like,
Speaker 2: It's not the opposition figures living in Spain who suffer
Speaker 2: when we have these sanctions, right it's not opposition candidates
Speaker 2: who get blown up when they go fishing. It it's
Speaker 2: regular working class and it's whalen people. So do you
Speaker 2: want to talk about like, I'm not even sure what
Speaker 2: we can do by way of solidarity with these are
Speaker 2: of these nations, but maybe you have some thoughts on that.
Speaker 5: I'm honestly at something of a loss to myself, speaking
Speaker 5: from a small island, I think the US's superpower status
Speaker 5: is almost like into an eltriche horror. It feels like
Speaker 5: it's unfathomable how you could even go about approaching that.
Speaker 5: Other times, you don't try to remind myself that people
Speaker 5: have fought and won, you know, people have resisted and won.
Speaker 5: You know, currently there isn't that much going on. There
Speaker 5: are murmurs. They are momurs of fair of disdain or disagreement,
Speaker 5: of distrust. In terms of grassroots effort, there's a lot
Speaker 5: still to be done. The leader of the move On
Speaker 5: for Social Justice, which is a small progressive political party
Speaker 5: in Tranto Bago, it's a guy named David Abdullah, and
Speaker 5: he has been part of this assembly of Caribbean people
Speaker 5: who have been signing and issuing a declaration reasserting our
Speaker 5: desire for peace, and that has been signed by various
Speaker 5: progressive organizations, social movements and figures across the Caribbean. And
Speaker 5: there was also an effort last week Thursday, that's October sixteenth,
Speaker 5: to organize a region wide day of action in defense
Speaker 5: of the Caribbean, and so different actions were taking place
Speaker 5: all over in fifteen countries. We had press conferences, we
Speaker 5: had state months, and we had pickets that sit in
Speaker 5: US embassy's and complicate demonstrations. It was kind of in
Speaker 5: the middle of the day on a Thursday, so there
Speaker 5: wasn't that big of it out from Barraso when I
Speaker 5: had gone, but it shows that there is and from
Speaker 5: the at least anecdotal experience. There is a desire to
Speaker 5: keep the US out of this situation, you know, despite
Speaker 5: the issues of the Venezuelan government, despite the issues of
Speaker 5: our own governments. We don't want intervention, you know, And
Speaker 5: right now, all we can really levy is our voices,
Speaker 5: you know, our words, and all we can really do.
Speaker 5: I think, besides protest, what is going on is prepare
Speaker 5: for the worst, to ensure that we have, you know,
Speaker 5: sit and support systems in place in case, you know,
Speaker 5: push comes to show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty bleak.
Speaker 3: Michael.
Speaker 2: Do you have anything to add on how people can
Speaker 2: can be in solidarity with the people of Venezuela currently.
Speaker 4: Well, I've been calling for people broadly throughout the world
Speaker 4: to have solidarity more with people than with states, and
Speaker 4: certainly with Venezuelan people as opposed to the Venezuelan state.
Speaker 4: I wrote something for the Center or International Policy about this,
Speaker 4: and listen, you know, it's not my place to police
Speaker 4: the left, so to speak. But you know, as someone
Speaker 4: speaking personally who comes from the labor movement, you know,
Speaker 4: comes from the Bernie allied left so to speak, you know,
Speaker 4: I do think it's been a little bit uncomfortable to
Speaker 4: observe how certain elements of the global left have have
Speaker 4: stood up for the Madu regime or the very least
Speaker 4: been The criticism of it has been taboo, and I
Speaker 4: think a lot of that is a legacy of Tapas
Speaker 4: Chapas having this strong personal charisma, but also that he
Speaker 4: was willing to confront the United States the Bush administration
Speaker 4: at a time of the Iraq War, you know, especially
Speaker 4: low point in the US's global reputation. Also Venezuela's oil
Speaker 4: rants at the time, which we're financing a lot of
Speaker 4: not just social programs Venezuela, but a lot of financial
Speaker 4: largesse to Allied states and movements around around the region.
Speaker 4: So a lot of left parties reflexively defended Maduro even
Speaker 4: as his repression and mismanagement just ramped up. I will
Speaker 4: say that's fading. You know, we were seeing this within
Speaker 4: Latin America. First of all, there's kind of a generational divide,
Speaker 4: and some of the older generational Latin American Left, like
Speaker 4: Lula or like Petro, have not been overwhelmingly anti Maduru,
Speaker 4: but have expressed skepticism about the electoral results. But then
Speaker 4: there's a younger generation such as Borg and Chile at
Speaker 4: Chile and Adebolo and Guatemala who have been openly very
Speaker 4: critical Abouduro and want to just not let him or
Speaker 4: his camp, so to speak, define what it means to
Speaker 4: be on the left. And really the only countries that
Speaker 4: have unquestionably backed him at this point are Bolivia and Cuba,
Speaker 4: but also outside of the region, Russia, Iran, China.
Speaker 3: So I think that.
Speaker 4: We should ask ourselves, like, who do we think is
Speaker 4: a more credible arbiter of progressive values? Is it or
Speaker 4: its in Chile or is it putin you know, even
Speaker 4: not even the commonist part of Venezuela and no longer.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that's one of my favorite facts, you know, like.
Speaker 4: He has he has had their their militants killed, you know,
Speaker 4: allegedly as well. So it's just it's not helpful to
Speaker 4: view the world for in this campus lens.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I think that if people, whether they identify as on
Speaker 4: the left or or whatever, want to show solidarity, I
Speaker 4: think it should be with the Venezuelan people, which means
Speaker 4: listening to voices within civil society in Venezuela. There are
Speaker 4: a lot of there are a lot of labor unions,
Speaker 4: there are a lot of human rights advocates that are
Speaker 4: not opposition parties, that are not running for office. They're
Speaker 4: not necessarily calling for regime change, made them very critical
Speaker 4: of sanctions, but they have tried to push for better changes,
Speaker 4: you know, quality of life, you know, reforms that might
Speaker 4: lead to less repression, open up more space for civil society,
Speaker 4: and you know, those things are necessary when people are
Speaker 4: really living day by day, you know. And I think
Speaker 4: that if people on the left want to play the
Speaker 4: long game and understand care about the prospects of the future,
Speaker 4: they need to understand that the Maduro regime is the
Speaker 4: worst model.
Speaker 3: For them to be associated with, you know.
Speaker 4: And it's already been taking place with campaigns, selectoral campaigns
Speaker 4: around Latin America where Cannon's on the right run against
Speaker 4: the boogeyman of you know, Chabbismo, of like of a
Speaker 4: Maduro model. And it makes sense. And if a lot
Speaker 4: of people on the left are very skeptical of Maria
Speaker 4: Kurgna Machado like I have skin about for policy platforms
Speaker 4: of privatization and and other neoliberal ideas, they also shouldn't
Speaker 4: be surprised if there's been a decade of people being
Speaker 4: told that this model of corruption, authoritarianism, state terror, criminal insecurity.
Speaker 4: That's what socialism is. Then people are gonna believe that,
Speaker 4: and then they're going to then they're vote against whatever
Speaker 4: that is. And this model has provoked the greatest refugee crisis,
Speaker 4: certainly in the region. Eight million people. They're all carrying
Speaker 4: with them stories about why they left right. And so
Speaker 4: if there ever were to be democratic elections in Venezuela,
Speaker 4: it's pretty clear the country would turn to the right.
Speaker 4: And I don't think we should be surprised by that,
Speaker 4: you know, And I think we should also recognize that
Speaker 4: many of the things that Maludor embodies, these strong men politics,
Speaker 4: are things that are embodied by other strong men, not
Speaker 4: just on the left too.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I would just point out that, least accordances some Trump
Speaker 4: has privately expressed a lot of admiration for Madudo. I
Speaker 4: read John Bolton's book, and you know, the former National
Speaker 4: Security advisor. You know, maybe he has a lot of
Speaker 4: reasons to lie, but you know, he did say that
Speaker 4: Trump privately expressed a lot of advertatary for Madodor being,
Speaker 4: in his words, too smart and too tough to be overthrown.
Speaker 4: You know, was really happy to see him surrounded by
Speaker 4: what he called all these good looking generals. He disparaged
Speaker 4: one Guido, calling him the Beto O'Rourke of Venezuela, means
Speaker 4: you know, so, I think that there is there's something
Speaker 4: he said about strong men recognizing strong men, and a
Speaker 4: lot of these authoritarian lessons are not limited to one
Speaker 4: side of the ideological spectrum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, I find that tendency on the American left
Speaker 2: floor and a sort of Internet left to be massively frustrating. Like,
Speaker 2: as someone who went there to see the revolution, who
Speaker 2: like went there to understand it, and who spent masses
Speaker 2: of time with Venezuelan people in the gap at the
Speaker 2: border in Venezuela, I'm very fond of Venezuelan people, and
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, our sort of directory should be with them,
Speaker 2: not with some strong man's state. We saw this in
Speaker 2: Syria as well, right, Like, it is heartbreaking, genuinely heartbreaking
Speaker 2: to explain to people how someone who identifies as a
Speaker 2: leftist is also denying that their children were gased by
Speaker 2: chemical weapons in Syria. Right, This campus graze tendency and
Speaker 2: the American less specifically is incredibly toxic, and anybody who
Speaker 2: seriously considers themselves to be a lestist. It is massively
Speaker 2: undermining any credibility they have when they associate themselves with
Speaker 2: regimes which willingly murder their own people. I would like
Speaker 2: to see people stop doing that. Perhaps both of you
Speaker 2: could finish up by suggesting US coverage of this has
Speaker 2: not been great, right like, it tends to focus on
Speaker 2: the United States very much, and Venezuela kind of appears
Speaker 2: as a and lithic entity. Turning down Tobago rarely gets
Speaker 2: any coverage in the US media. I did see I
Speaker 2: think Reuter's or AP had done a piece about how
Speaker 2: fishermen were relucted to go out. I would like to
Speaker 2: see more of that kind of reporting. Perhaps both of
Speaker 2: you could suggest a couple of sources where people could
Speaker 2: read about this.
Speaker 5: Sure, at least on my end, I suggest looking into
Speaker 5: all local news. Now, it's not the best source in
Speaker 5: terms of actual interrogation of the issues and the ways
Speaker 5: in which some of the narratives just kind of get
Speaker 5: repeated uncritically, but you do get at least the occasional interview,
Speaker 5: occasional quote from a non US state apartment source. I
Speaker 5: would also suggest on Instagram there are a couple of
Speaker 5: pages that bring a more radical progressive voice from the Caribbean.
Speaker 5: There's a page called Vintage Caribbean and there's another page
Speaker 5: called Trinbago for Palestine. Both of those have been doing
Speaker 5: a lot of coverage on this particular incident lately, so
Speaker 5: you can look through those as well if you want
Speaker 5: to get us sort of a grassroots steak on the situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't really have any go to sources on this.
Speaker 4: I would say that it's enough of an international incident
Speaker 4: that all the major news sources are covering it. So
Speaker 4: you can read really any news source in Latin America
Speaker 4: if you speak Spanish Portuguese and see how that reporting
Speaker 4: is different. Also, incidentally, and by use in Spain, you
Speaker 4: know Coono's on the side, they do pretty good reporting. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and they've haven't been doing pretty good reporting. And there's
Speaker 4: lots of blogs as well, and you know, newsletters that
Speaker 4: you can check out. I will say just made this
Speaker 4: I'm biased because I focus a lot on crime. The
Speaker 4: site Insight Crime is pretty good in terms of looking
Speaker 4: into specific criminal groups like Bindeagua and calling a question
Speaker 4: if you know, if this really is a you know,
Speaker 4: it's something that is controlled by the puppet master from
Speaker 4: you afore as you know, like Lido and some of
Speaker 4: these some of these narratives that are justifying this, I'd
Speaker 4: also just as a recommendation, I would say, you know,
Speaker 4: maybe it should be a little bit skeptical too about
Speaker 4: the timing and the purposes of these things. I did
Speaker 4: point out in a piece that I wrote for the
Speaker 4: Center Financial Policy. Then the first boat strike happened on
Speaker 4: the same day to the House Judiciary Committee was releasing
Speaker 4: a redacted number of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Speaker 4: You know, and I think that there are many reasons
Speaker 4: why this administration would like to use this confrontation as
Speaker 4: a conmane distraction from from other things that they would
Speaker 4: rather not be talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Leak, I think it's probably a reasonable conclusion given
Speaker 2: where we're at. Where can people find both of you
Speaker 2: on if they want to follow you online on social
Speaker 2: media or find more of your writing. We'll start with you,
Speaker 2: Andrew Shure.
Speaker 5: Well, you can find me on my YouTube channel YouTube
Speaker 5: dot com, slash Andrew's own, or you could just call
Speaker 5: my website for all my other links, Andrew Siege dot org.
Speaker 4: You, Michael, I do have a website. You can look
Speaker 4: up my name and that should come up. I haven't
Speaker 4: updated it recently, I probably should. I'm also on Twitter
Speaker 4: x blue Sky as my name M.
Speaker 3: P A A R L B B r G, so
Speaker 3: you can look me up there.
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, thank you.
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