Venezuela arrests Basque internationalist

In a still obscure incident, the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) has arrested German-Basque internationalist activist Walter Wendelin at his arrival to Caracas.

Walter Wendelin, who has German nationality but is member of Basque internationalist movement Askapena (Freedom), arrived to Venezuela from Mexico, where he had taken part in the congress of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). According to Solidaridad Pueblo Vasco (Solidarity Basque People) his journey to Venezuela was meant to explain the new proposals of the Basque Nationalist Left.

Walter Wendelin

According to the Venezuelan Association of Friends of the Basque Country, Wendelin has not been allowed access to an attorney and has been filtered that "he will be returned to Spain", what they protest that make no sense because he has never been charged with any offense in the European kingdom.

A demonstration has been called for tomorrow at the consulate of Venezuela in Bilbao.

Sources: Askapena, Gara, La Haine, Hala Bedi Irratia (live).

This arbitrary arrest may be related to the pressure put by the Spanish regime upon Venezuela, with judges and media attacking the American republic on false grounds of collaboration with ETA and FARC.


PSUV leader resigns

In a mostly unrelated episode, Venezuela Analysis reports that the former vice-president of the ruling Socialist Unified Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Alberto Muller Rojas, has resigned from politics. His advanced age and delicate health partly explain the resignation but Muller also mentioned that in the last three months the revolutionary process in Venezuela has been wretched, "everything that is going on isn't healthy for the revolutionary process". He said that the PSUV is infiltrated by the bourgeoisie and that the government is turning away from internationalism and heading towards "petty bourgeois nationalism".

Alberto Muller said some time ago to Hugo Chávez that he sits on a scorpions' nest.

Are Colombian death squads spreading to Venezuela?

We all know by now (I presume) that Colombia is a narcostate controlled by the USA and the mafias, which are the same as the fascist organizations with a liberal pretext, so-called political parties, and the death squads, and that they kill almost everybody who dares to speak out or create grassroots organizations.

But what is new (at least for me) is that such mafioso fascist death squads operate also in Venezuela. Sadly it seems to be the case with several members of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV by its Spanish acronym) being murdered in the last weeks in the state of Táchira, ruled by a right wing governor.

The first time I read about such murders, I did not pay too much attention (after all, so many sad and brutal things happen in this poor little planet we live in) but as I read of further murders (it's already three politicians I know that have been killed in that state) I began to wonder. So I went to Wikipedia to find out about the geographical location of Táchira, because I had the heartbeat that it was at the border of Colombia. Bingo!

So what do we have: two PSUV politicians killed in the same state bordering Colombia in the last week (Rosalba Molina and Jorge Enrique Medina) and yet another one (Junior Alexander Hermoso) on May 9th 2009. We have a right wing governor (César Pérez Vivas), a long border with hostile Colombia, an terrorist narcostate controlled by fascist mafias at the service of US imperialism.

Some months ago a "liberal" Venezuelan (former?) reader asked me somewhat sarcastically how would the attack against Venezuela happen. I did not have an answer then but now I have the strong feeling that this is how: infiltrating death squads from Colombia, with the support of a right wing governor, in order to de-stabilize the country in the eve of new elections.

Source for some of the data: Rebelión.

Geopolitics of today (or "BRICs are heavy")

I finally made a satisfactory map that reflects as well as possible the imperfect multipolarity of today's geopolitics:

Click to expand

Legend:

• Red shades: The Empire (dark red: USA and dependencies, bright red: other NATO members, other "central" US allies and their colonies, pink: other important US allies/EU members, stripes: under military occupation).
• Turquoise: Russia (stripes: under military occupation), Cyan: main allies
• Blue: China, lighter blue shades: under Chinese influence
• Orange: India, lighter orange shades: under Indian influence
• Green: Brazil, light green: other Mercosur countries, dark green: ALBA
• Dark Grey: other regional powers
• Regular Grey: other countries

Notice that I could not mark all US/NATO allies on risk of almost all the map becoming pink and that way maybe exaggerating the influence of The Empire even more. On the other hand I may have maxed the areas of influence of China (excepting Pakistan) and India. Many countries, of course, play multilateral diplomacy and try to keep a pretense of independence, what makes more difficult to decide what side are they in. The use of similar colors for Brazil/Mercosur and ALBA is somewhat justified but was mostly chosen to underline the differences between the USA/NATO bloc and the "Latin-Americanist" powers in the American continent. Anyhow, the latest developments in Honduras, Colombia and Haiti have clearly pushed Venezuela and Brazil closer in a joint bid to support the independence of Latin American and Caribbean nations, which obviously plays in their interest rather than in that of the USA, as imperialist power.


Overview:

There are two basic elements in the reality reflected in this map: The Empire and the BRIC.

The Empire is incredibly large (even if I tended to reflect only its strongest influence) and is clearly based on naval hegemony, which is supported by proportionally large navies, not just from the USA but also from France, UK, Italy, Spain, Australia and Japan in particular.

BRIC is an acronym that stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China. Even if it's an informal group, it has no other entity that reflect the four major powers that are still independent from The Empire. Each one of them has its own geostrategical interests and also different cultures and political systems. The only thing in common they may have is that they all are more or less confronted with The Empire... with one exception: India.


India:

It seems that India and China perceive each other as most direct rivals. Also India has a large maritime facade and hence clear naval interests in the Indian Ocean specially, which is also the ocean where The Empire has an arguably weaker presence. However India has with good reason distrusted The Empire in the past and instead kept stronger ties with the former USSR. The China-USA entente and the conflicts with Pakistan (an ally of both USA and China) on Kashmir, led the South Asian republic to act that way. However it has played both sides and has always kept major ties with Israel and other members of the Western bloc.

In the current circumstances, India still keeps good relations with Russia but the approach between Moscow and Beijing is pushing the old friend somewhat apart and throwing India in the arms of The Empire.


China and Russia:

But, of course, the most important power of all BRIC countries is nowadays China. And it is the growing conflict between China and the USA what really describes the scene. We can't still talk of a new Cold War, very specially because the Chinese take due care in no pushing the conflict to military but economic and diplomatic terms but, in any case, the conflict is clear and growing stronger, as knows anyone who reads the news.

China however is relatively weak in the military aspect, even if less so than in the past, and hence its growing alliance with the decadent but heavily armed Russia is of crucial importance. The "thirdworldized" Russia with loads of ICBM nukes, offers China an almost ideal ally: China does not dispute Russia its political and military clout on Central Asia but rips many of the economic benefits, not just of Central Asia but also of Siberia. It also offers China a military shield that prevents a direct conflict with The Empire.

On its side Russia also feels threatened by The Empire, which has been growing towards its borders and even threatens it with new missile deployments. The latest developments (defeat of Georgia, pro-Russian government in Ukraine, restive Turkey) may imply that Russia is scoring some goals but still it does feel threatened by NATO and siding with China is the best alternative it has (as together they control most of non-tropical Asia, while divided they would only play in the hands of their common rival).

China's worries are mostly a fear of being blockaded out of the oil supplies from the Middle East. Hence it's following two parallel strategies: on one side, cooperation with Russia to keep The Empire out of Central Asia (and as much as possible of The Middle East as well, for example protecting Iran) and, on the other side, securing as much as possible the shipping lines to West Asia (for which it has recently obtained bases in Bangladesh and Sri-Lanka).

In parallel, China is painfully working to weaken the imperial bloc in its immediate area of East Asia itself (seducing South Korea and even Japan and Taiwan as much as possible, supporting little Cambodia against Thailand, etc.), as well as gaining random friends in Polynesia and Africa and, specially, making business even where The Empire makes military alliances.


Brazil:

The other BRIC power is Brazil, whose confrontation with the USA has been growing hot in the last year. Brazil has been playing, even more than China, a soft diplomatic game, gradually strengthening its position both internally and internationally. While it has got its bad moments with the Bolivarian bloc led by Venezuela, the crisis of Honduras seems to have eventually opened its eyes. And if that did not, the growing US military presence in Colombia and the unbelievable massive invasion of Haiti have put things clear for Brazil: there's no room for two powers in America... unless they fight each other. Surely Brazil would like to grow in power more gradually and without conflicts but it seems that those days are now gone and The Empire is striking back. That situation obviously pushes the Bolivarian bloc (the ALBA) and the Brazilian-led bloc (Mercosur) into each other's arms.

The latest growing tensions around the Falklands/Malvinas disputed archipelago, as well as the repeated protests of Venezuela against the US-Colombia-Netherlands siege, show that the issue is serious.

However Brazil in comparison with the Asian BRIC countries has three disadvantages:

• Like India, it is a naval oriented country with a large maritime facade. Hence it's potentially more exposed to the Imperial naval hegemony. But, unlike India it's much closer to the USA and its area of immediate interests.
  
• It competes with the largest global power for Latin America, which the USA still considers its "backyard".
  
• It is the only BRIC power that has no nuclear weapons. It might develop them (as did India not long ago) but that would mean breaching international agreements (NPT) and giving hence a pretext to the USA to behave even more aggressively.
  

On the other hand it has some major advantages:

• Latin America in general is fed up with the USA and is clearly willing to try something new. Brazil has the potential of playing a leading role in this aspect and the recent formation of a distinct Latin American and Caribbean association without the USA nor Spain is a clear step in this direction.
  
• Not only Latin America but eventually even large parts of Africa, very specially South Africa (particularly sympathetic to Brazil and India, and leader of a large bloc, not represented in the map) and the former Portuguese colonies, could be interested in some sort of cooperation with Brazil and other Latin American nations with common goals of emancipation and development.
• The legitimacy of the people: unlike the other US rivals (China and Russia) and unlike most US allies (vassals) in the region, Brazil and its allies (excepting Cuba) are clear democracies, with more or less "progressive" leaning. Machiavelli himself would applaud that as a great asset.
• Oil: Venezuela seems to have become the largest oil reserve in the World, replacing Saudi Arabia in this position. Brazil itself has discovered large deposits offshore and there are others in Cuba, Haiti and the Falklands, fueling the confrontation with the USA and Britain. But also allowing for some decent bargaining as well.
  

The Empire:

The Imperial bloc lead by the USA has clear advantages: the largest share by far of the global GDP, a huge military, presence almost anywhere on Earth, lots of nukes, total naval hegemony... But it has also some disadvantages, namely: overextension, huge debt (largely caused by military overexpending), being dominated by a small oligarchy with very peculiar interests, often conflicting with those of the people and even The Empire itself (particularly Zionism), and now a brutal overproduction crisis that might well seal its fate once for all.

Overgrowth crisis are not alien to large empires. Rome itself faced one after consolidation and languished for centuries in it, while the British Empire decayed largely because it was too large to be defended against its own peoples. But the closest parallel is surely the Habsburgian Empire of Charles V and Philip II, who similarly were forced to overexpend in military adventures, often ill fated, almost everywhere (Germany, the Mediterranean, Britain...). At the time there was no larger empire and the Habsburgs thought they had no rival... but soon they had to experience a harsh reality check and declare bankrupticy, as well as making huge concessions to their rivals.

This is in fact what The Empire is facing today: the crisis is, as we all know, far from over and it is affecting severely both major pillars of the bloc: the USA and EU. It is primarily an structural overproduction crisis but it's also a debt crisis (with China getting rid of less and less solid US bonds) and an overextension crisis as well.

Just count the unfinished major wars The Empire is involved in: Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia-plus, Yemen, Somalia. Not to mention the never accoplished threat of attacking Iran, the extreme instability of most US vassals in Latin America (Colombia, Mexico, Honduras and poor occupied Haiti at least), which can any day turn against their master by popular acclamation, and those of other regions (Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, Thailand and even some European countries like Greece).

And then count the cost: the nominal US public debt is of almost 8 trillion USD but, in fact, more than 5 trillion are excluded from these accounts. Only counting the nominal fraction, the US public debt has never been so high since the late 1950s (as percentage of GDP, c. 70%) and, when we count all the real debt, it's as high as at the height of WWII (again as percentage of GDP, c. 115%). This kind of heavy indebtment, paid with the booty of conquest maybe but not without serious economic implications, is again another striking parallel with the Habsburgian Empire of Charles V and successors, very specially as most of it is wasted in both cases in military expenses.

But, of course, The Empire remains as of today as a mighty power, the only real superpower on Earth. Meanwhile, the Frances, Englands and Ottoman Empires of our day (the BRIC and particularly China) bid their time as much as they can avoiding direct confrontation as much as possible.

And this is the scenario we have now. Though admittedly it may well be obsolete in a decade or less.


Addendum: naval might:

Aircraft carriers may well reflect with some approximation the real naval might of each of the powers at play. They are as follows:

NATO and allies:

• USA: 11 ships in use, 1 projected
• Britain: 2 ships in use, 2 projected
• Italy: 2 ships in use
• Spain: 2 ships in use
• France: 1 ship in use
• Australia: 2 ships projected
  
• Japan: 2 ships projected
• Thailand: 1 ship projected

Total Empire: 18 aircraft carriers in use, 9 projected

BRIC:

• India: 1 ship in use, 2 projected
• Russia: 1 ship in use
• Brazil: 1 ship in use
• China: 1 ship projected
  

Total BRIC: 3 aircraft carriers in use, 4 projected


Sources: most data freely adapted from diverse Wikipedia articles and maps. See also this post on the China-US competition, this one on the latest US invasion of Haiti and its geostrategical implications and maybe this one on how Venezuela is being surrounded by US military deployment.

Note: of course, the secondary title is a silly wordplay with the superb record of L7, Bricks Are Heavy.

Spanish Inquisition attacks Chávez now.

Spanish Attorney General, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, has declared that the Spanish government will follow "till the end" with the trial opened at the Audiencia Nacional (aka Neoinquisition) against the Venezuelan government for allegedly promoting cooperation between the Basque armed organization ETA and the Colombian guerrilla FARC.

It must be said that the allegations of collaboration between the two militias pre-date the Bolivarian government in Venezuela.

For the Venezuelan President this trial, along with the accusations by the Interamerican Comission of Human Rights and the visit of Hillary Clinton to several Latin American capitals this week, are the counter-offensive of Washington and Madrid to the formation of the Community of Caribbean and American States, which undermines their role as colonial powers.

I would go further and suggest that it is the first clear attempt to list Venezuela as "terrorist rogue dictatorship" as means to justify an already planned invasion of the rebellious but strictly democratic country.

Source: Gara [es].

Update: See also Venezuela Analysis [en] and this other article at Gara [es]: even members of the undemocratically imposed "Basque government", of the same party as Conde-Pumpido ask to treat this matter "with prudence". Apparently an individual named Arturo Cubillas Fontán (never heard of him before), who has held positions in the Venezuelan government, is accused of being "ETA member", all based on the "magic laptop" of FARC negotiator Raúl Reyes, ambushed and murdered by the Colombian army at Ecuadorean soil in 2008, which has been manipulated by the Colombian Army at whim.

Update (March 4): Also reported at La Haine [es], where we are informed that the said Antonio Cubillas is exiled in Venezuela because of the agreements between Felipe González and Carlos Andrés Pérez in the 1980s (I guess that in the frame of the negotiations of Algiers). Insisting in the lack of credibility of the "magic laptop" that the Colombian Army claims to be of murdered guerrilla negotiator Raúl Reyes.

In a parallel development, you may be interested in knowing about the whereabouts of former star judge of the Neoinquisition, Baltasar Garzón. He is facing a rough trial himself, formally for challenging the Amnesty Law of 1978 and attempting to judge the crimes of fascism but in fact, it seems that this move has been triggered by another even more daring cause opened by Garzón against members of the Bush administration for crimes against Humanity in relation to the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp.

Read more at Voltairenet [en].

US Air Force tries to provoke Venezuela

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has denounced that US military airplanes have crossed twice into Venezuelan air space in a provocative manner, ignoring all the warnings. Chávez denounced that they are trying clearly to provoke Venezuela into a military clash.

I find again important to denounce the responsability of the Netherlands, who is ceding the military base of Curaçao, just offshore of Venezuela. Curaçao was the first colony of the Netherlands in the Caribbean Sea and was then used to attack the Spanish Empire, now it is used against democratic sovereign countries by just another imperialist state.

Source: Gara.

Venezuela denounces again an upcoming aggression by the Washington-Bogotá axis

In fact if you read left-wing press, it has been almost a constant in the last months: first was the expansion of the military concessions in Colombia to the USA, including legal immunity and total access to Colombian bases, then was the rejection by Guyana of allowing a US military base in its territory, then the expansion of US military operations in Dutch and British colonial outposts in the area, notably Curaçao and Aruba, just offshore of Venezuela... and also some border tensions, evaluations of the overgrown Colombian narco-army, almost as large as that of Brazil, rumors of coup in Paraguay, effective coup in Honduras, followed by US recognition after farce elections.

Even if there is no incoming war, the situation is clearly very tense.

Now President Chávez has declared that Caracas really expect an invasion at any moment. In fact they expect an intelligence maneouvre to create a "false positive", killing some Colombian peasants, dressing them in military fatigues so the appear FARC members and moving them into Venezuelan territory in order to create a pretext for further escalation or even outright war by pretending to have destroyed a guerrilla base in Venezuela.

The Venezuelan government has also denounced the mediatic criminalization of the Bolivarian Republic, by means of repeated false accusations of sponsoring terrorism and drug trafficking, creating the propagandistic impression that Venezuela would be some sort of enemy of humankind, when in fact it's just a regular democratic republic with socialist tendencies (and that's what they really fear and want to destroy: Socialism).

Source: Prensa Latina (found via Rebelión).

As European I believe that is particularly important to denounce the complicity in particular of the Dutch government, which is behaving as a total lackey of the USA. And I would call for a boycott of Dutch products in case that Venezuela is ever attacked from the Dutch colonial remnants.

It is also important to emphasize that the only narco-state in the area is Colombia and that the main drug-trafficking cartel is the DEA. So if the USA would truly like to declare a war on drug trafficking, they would have to attack Colombia and their own police forces.

Colombia plans to attack Venzuelan territory

This is what the former Venzuelan vice-president, José Vicente Rangel, has denounced to Venezuelan media. The plan would be an operation similar in design as the one executed in Ecuador last year against a diplomatic camp of the FARC, fabricated presence of guerrillas in Venezuelan soil would be the pretext for this intervention, that would of course count with US support.

Rangel also denounced the presence of seven thousand Comlombian paramilitaries in Venzuela working to destabilize the republic.

Source: Rebelión.

Liberal International attempts coup in Nicaragua

The President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, has denounced that European MP and President of the Liberal International, Hans van Baalen, attempted to seduce Nicaraguan military officers into organizing a coup in the Central American country. However, according to Ortega, the reaction of the officers was patriotic and instead of joining such an anti-democratic plot, they reported the conspiration attempt.

Van Baalen, member of the Dutch VVD party, also managed to appoint recently Honduran coup leader, Roberto Micheletti, as one of the many vice-presidents of this global political bloc that sponsors Capitalism and supposedly also democracy and human rights, and that is mostly made up of small European parties.

Source: Tercera Información (found via Rebelión).

So, essentially, this "democrat" is trying to impose military regimes in Central America, surely acting as agent for other powers like the USA, and smash genuine democracy in the continent.

These maneouvers must be understood in the context of increased US-NATO intervention in Latin America, of which the occupation of Haití, the coup in Honduras and what has been called "the annexation of Colombia to the USA" (the new military treaty that gives full operative freedom to US troops and absolute impunity) are just the tip of the iceberg. There is increased tension in the continent and not just anymore between the USA and Venezuela: the interventionist attitude of the USA is also rising tensions with Brazil, which is naturally trying to counter the North American imperialism in its area of interests (for example supporting the legitimate Honduran President Manuel Zelaya).

Watch Latin America closely because I would not be surprised if the rumors of war could become true. However the Latin American peoples are pretty much tired of being treated as a colony and I doubt that these imperialist interventions will anymore have much effectivity.

And, on a side note, the brutal drought in Mexico can bring this crucial country one step further towards a revolution (it has been leaning to it for 15 years now) and shift the power balance in America still more against US hegemony.
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Financial crisis: Venezuela sets example

While Washington and London, for example, are giving away public resources to banks without any clear payback, Caracas instead is not happy with private banks not fulfilling their economic role:

The Associated Press news agency quoted Chavez as saying that banks needed to intervene in the financial system and provide credit to people buying houses or producing food, rather than generate massive earnings for their owners.

Chávez has threatened with sanctions if banks keep draining instead of helping the economy. What seems the way to go rather than massively indebting a whole nation for the benefit of a handful of corrupt greedy bankers.

From Al Jazeera.
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Venezuela, first Western country to do something about Gaza

Venezuela has expelled the Israeli ambassador as well as a good deal of the Zionist diplomatic representation in Caracas. This was done in response to the agression against Gaza, that Chávez decried as a "holocaust".

The Venezuelan foreign minister said that the Israeli attack are "flagrant violations of the international law" and "state terrorism".

On monday, President Chávez accused the USA of poisoning Yasir Arafat in order to further destabilize the region and allow the criminal Zionist plans to go ahead.

An applause for the Venezuelan people and its democratic and socialist institutions. This is the America and the West that we dream of. This is the future, Israel and the still powerful bloc that supports it belong to the past.
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Venezuelan Natives getting back their lands

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is beginning the process of delimitation of indigenous lands in order to legalize native ownership of them. This process is unprecedented in Latin America, where the few shy steps given in this direction have never been implemented properly.

This is the final step in the process that began in 2001 with the approval of the Law of Demarcation and Guarantee of the Habitat and Lands of the Indigenous Peoples and Communities and followed up by the Law of Indigenous Peoples and Communities of 2005.

The comission in charge has already assigned 34 poperty titles to three different ethnicities: Pumé-Jivi, Kariña and Warao, benefitting 8,932 individuals and attributing 905,582.86 hectareas. The comission has recieved so far 67 requests of demarcation but only eight of them with all the bureaucratic requirements. They complain that a major problem that is delaying the process is the lack of qualified personnel in many provinces.

Source: Rebelión: Venezuela reconoce más de 900.000 hectáreas a los pueblos indígenas.

The World perplex at Colombian aggresion.

The situation is getting quite hot around Colombia after this country invaded the territory of ecuador in an anti-guerrilla operation. Both Venezuela and Ecuador has broken diplomatic ties and deployed the army at the border. While Colombia spreads rumors about ties between the FARC and its neighbours, and even uranium traffic by the guerrilla, Ecuador explains that the Colombian assault against the FARC's negotiator was a cowardly masscre, being most bodies in underwear and with shots on their backs.

The situation is hot enough for Brazil to have intervened diplomatically, trying to calm down the escalation. In Europe, France and Italy have expressed their ashtonishment and regret for the Colombian operation, obviously aimed to prevent any sort of negotiation or hostage liberation process.

My bank's president prosecuted in Venezuela

Mr. Irala is accused of fraudulent bankrupticy of the Venezuelan airline Viasa and an Interpol order against him has been issued. He used to be president of Spanish airline Iberia and now he is the president of the public regional bank BBK, where I (as well as so many other people) keep my few euros.

Should I be worried? Not sure but what I am is outraged that such a dubious businessman is being put in charge of such important public institution. Of course, we all know that the rulers of the Basque Autonomous Community, in connivence with Spanish central rulers are just a bunch of corrupt mafiosi that just use the Basque symbols to hide their absolute lack of shame.