By: Alfonso Insuasty Rodríguez*
The presidential elections in Venezuela (2024) have acquired significant geopolitical relevance, marked by confrontation, the generation of hatred and disinformation. Why? What is really at stake?
The participation of the extreme right in these elections, where the winner is the re-elected president, Nicolás Maduro, represented a notable change in strategy and negotiation, after nine years of attempts at destabilization, including economic sanctions, negative propaganda and street violence, orchestrated by and from the United States with the aim of destabilizing and overthrowing the current Bolivarian government of Venezuela. This change in strategy driven by US pressure was supposed to seek a negotiated solution to the political crisis in the country, (Boron 2024) but everything indicates that what they gained was time to set up the conditions of possibility to accentuate hatred and sow chaos.
Maria Corina Machado, a prominent figure of the Venezuelan far right and an ally of the United States, ran as a candidate in these elections, however, she was disqualified by the Supreme Court of Justice due to her involvement in coup attempts and corruption. Despite this, she continued to campaign alongside Edmundo Gonzalez, who took her place as presidential candidate. (Novaez Guerrero 2024)
Geopolitical interest in Venezuela
The following factors may well highlight the importance of these elections (2024) in the context of an emerging geopolitical order:
- Rise of China, Russia and IranThese countries, adversaries of the United States, have provided crucial support to Venezuela to resist unilateral sanctions and increased its influence in the region.
- Formation of regional blocks: Venezuela’s possible integration into the BRICS, a bloc of emerging economies that challenges the US-led unipolar world order, increases its strategic importance. (Fazio 2024)
- Amazonia. The special value of Venezuela in containing US interests in the Amazon, a strategic issue, considering the territorial control of Essequibo.
- Wealth in natural resources: Beyond oil, Venezuela has important reserves of strategic resources, including gold, copper, coltan, as well as its biodiversity, making the country a coveted target for world powers. (Vega Cantor 2012)
In this context, these elections represent a crucial turning point due to their implications for the present and future of Latin America.
The deep global energy crisis, the consolidation of a growing influence of China, Russia and India on the world stage challenging the hegemony of the United States, the emergence of a new multipolar order and, of course, the vast oil reserves of Venezuela and other resources that the United States wants to control motivate this special interest.
The northern country then anticipated that the victory of Nicolás Maduro would undoubtedly strengthen progressive movements in the region and the advance of the BRICS+ would be a threat to its interests.
It is worth highlighting that in February 2023, General Laura Richardson, who is in charge of the US Southern Command, frankly and openly expressed the importance of Latin America and within it Venezuela, within the framework of the new multipolar world order. We refer to the statements given at a conference organized by the NGO Atlantic Council, a NATO think tank, there and openly referred to the country’s vast oil and gas reserves, some of the largest in the world, wealth that makes Venezuela a strategic player in a world where fossil energy remains crucial to maintaining the shaky North American hegemony (Vega Cantor 2012)
The General openly emphasized the idea of using any means to maintain control of the region, access its strategic resources and contain the advance of China and Russia (Richardson 2023), from what was said comes the very special interest of the US in a victory, even if invented, dramatized, fictionalized, of the Venezuelan right that they support and promote.
US tactics to destabilize Venezuela
The United States has tried a simultaneity of tactics to try to keep the region aligned with its political and economic interests, including as its objective, to overthrow the government of Nicolás Maduro, a combination of multiple strategies which have been implemented for decades without success, but with serious social consequences, here are some of these methods:
- Coup d’état (2002): Support for an attempted coup against President Hugo Chávez.
- Oil strike: Attempt to paralyze the oil-dependent economy. (Novaez Guerrero 2024)
- Support for opposition groups: Funding and supporting groups that have used violence and terrorism to destabilize the government.
- Economic warfare: Economic sanctions, including asset freezes and bans on transactions with state-owned companies.
- Negative propaganda and disinformation: Propaganda campaigns accusing the government of corruption and human rights violations.
- Assassination attempts: Attempts to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro, including a drone attack.
- Mercenary invasion: Attempt to capture Maduro by a group of mercenaries in 2020, created by the US and Colombia.
- Diplomatic pressure: Attempts to diplomatically isolate the government.
- Resource blockage: Obstacles to accessing medical and financial supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Promotion of electoral abstention: Encouragement of the opposition to boycott the elections. (Novaez Guerrero 2024)
- Recognition of parallel governments: Recognition of Juan Guaidó as interim president in 2019. (Boron 2024)
- Making the OAS a center of regional instability and the execution of US plans and interests.
These tactics have had a devastating impact on the Venezuelan economy and society, but they have failed to overthrow the government or the political project that accompanies it.
Vega Cantor (2012) argues that the US strategy is based on “irregular warfare,” which goes beyond traditional conflicts and includes the destabilization of governments, intervention in internal affairs, and support for opposition groups in countries such as Venezuela.
It is therefore important to highlight that the United States has established a significant military presence in Colombia through Plan Colombia, officially presented as an initiative to combat drug trafficking but which in reality served to attack the armed insurgency, increase the US military presence in the region and also advance its strategic interests in relation to non-aligned neighboring governments such as Ecuador and of course Venezuela. Today this strategy continues now from the Southern Command and NATO.
Induced chaos as a strategy.
The generation of multifunctional chaos, widely used in Haiti, then Ecuador, Peru, aims to establish itself as a trend today, in the rise of a war with urban characteristics (Insuasty Rodríguez 2024)
Rivero (2024) notes that the United States has revitalized its interest in urban warfare, as evidenced by the passage of the “Urban Defense Authorization Act” in 2020 and the publication of the Joint Army-Marine Corps Manual, Urban Operations (ATP 3-06/MCTP 12-10B) in 2022.
Increasing political pressure will then go hand in hand with the creation of a paramilitary network-force that operates in conjunction with organized criminal groups to wage war in the “gray zone.” Venezuela’s main organized criminal groups, with the support of Colombian narco-paramilitaries, are strategically positioning themselves near militarily important sites, such as hydrocarbon production centers, ports, airports, and industrial centers. This strategic location, together with the indications of a device being organized around Caracas, suggests a plan to challenge the political-military control of the country (Rivero 2024).
It is now about the use of a strategy of induced, pre-fabricated chaos, a method of terror orchestrated from the northern country as a tool to undermine stability and political control in Venezuela.
The Role of the Media
The media in this context play a crucial role in shaping the narrative around the political situation in Venezuela. Mass psychological warfare.
This hegemonic media network is often described as actors with specific agendas that influence public opinion (Novaez Guerrero 2024). Right-wing media outlets, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, collaborate with the United States and the interests of large corporations in an attempt to undermine non-aligned governments. In this case, they refine their media matrix against the current Venezuelan government, spreading propaganda and disinformation to seek a violent change in favor of North American corporate interests.
Unfortunately, it is evident that some alternative media have also fallen into this game, using unrealistic standards to analyze the Bolivarian government, which generates greater confusion in the average population. The narrative of electoral fraud has been promoted despite the lack of evidence and the presence of international observers who validate the process. These media give great strength to the voice of the opposition in order to question the legitimacy of the elections without further ado. (Novaez Guerrero 2024)
Undoubtedly, the mass, hegemonic, corporate media display an immense “power of lies and misinformation,” which negatively influences the population, stirring emotions and exacerbating hatred.
Straight.
It is crucial for Latin America to strengthen regional sovereignty, integration and cooperation among countries to navigate this new multipolar world order and resist US interventionism, maintaining a unified and solid stance against any form of foreign interference.
Strengthening alliances to stop and counteract the advance of fascism in Latin America. What we are seeing and seeing, ultimately, is the strengthening of a fascist extreme right, denier of history, of the basic rights of peoples, exclusionary, angry, violent, classist, racist, deceitful. Preventing this trend from taking hold in the region is imperative.
Strengthening diplomacy based on brotherhood between peoples and between neighboring governments will be essential, preventing the United States from using neighboring countries at all costs as a platform to advance its imperialist interest in the region in its quest to secure the flow of natural and energy resources for itself.
The challenge for the social and popular movement in Latin America is great: strengthening autonomous, community, collective and popular training and networks, as well as digital and alternative communication networks to counteract this negative media influence.
Strengthening the popular, communal base, our own economies, defending communal strength, popular power, weaving articulations and struggles from below, this has proven to be central in Bolivia, Ecuador and should be the focus in this new stage in Venezuela and from Venezuela for the region.
The challenge will be to advance in the construction of a solid regional project, strengthen regional blocks, promote networks of popular and territorial struggle, social and environmental justice, insist and insist on regional peace (CELAC, 2014), Latin American integration, good and good living, sovereignty and the dignity of the peoples. The challenge is not minor.
Analyzing, questioning and learning from these events and situations marked by constant attacks but also triumphs, always in a critical and focused manner, will be essential to build a region marked by peace with changes, real sovereignty, defense of the diversity of peoples, enhancing the multicolor of life, knowledge and joy in Our America.
*University researcher teacher, member of the Interuniversity Network for Peace and Kavilando autonomous group.
Source: teleSUR – Alfonso Insuasty Rodriguez
teleSUR is not responsible for the opinions expressed in this section.
