For a
moment, to please all those who've fallen in love with the new president of
the United States, let's
forget everything that was said about
Venezuela
during the last two terms of the ex-president George W. Bush, by
spokespeople in his government. And let's also forget about everything Obama
and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during the campaign because,
well, sometimes the things that are said during the campaign are just to
please the voters. So we're just going to analyze what Obama and the new
members of his team have expressed since he was elected to the most powerful
political position in the world.
The new United States
president didn't delay much in repeating the same comments about President
Chavez and Venezuela
that he made during the campaign. During an interview with the US-Hispanic
television channel Univision, January 13, 2009, President Barack Obama,
responding to a question about Latin America and specifically
Venezuela, declared, "Chavez has been a
force that has impeded the progress in the region." Later he commented, "We
must be very firm when we see this news, that
Venezuela
is exporting terrorist activities or backing malicious groups like the FARC.
That creates problems that are unacceptable. That is not the good
international behavior that we would expect from anyone in the hemisphere."
This declaration from President Obama sounds like something coming from the
Bush Administration, just as President Chavez pointed out. (Note: here I
could say yet again that exactly that is true, that there isn't much
difference between Bush and Obama with respect to the imperialist policies
of the United States,
but I promise that I won't say it yet. It's better that I be able to prove
it with his own actions and attitudes.) In that statement, Obama repeated
the two main viewpoints promoted by all the Washington
agencies, including the Congress headed by the Democratic Party, during the
last four years: Chavez is a destabilizing force in the region, and
Venezuela
has ties with terrorism. But let's continue.
Later, the new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, declared during her
confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate, "We have problems in our own
hemisphere with some energy providers, like Hugo Chavez... We have a
challenge in Latin America, and our
challenges have to do with the way we get involved to make a difference. We
should worry less about what Chavez says and more about what we do at the
end of the day." Here it's valid to compare what the then-incoming Secretary
of State Condoleezza said in 2005, when already in her confirmation hearing
she stated that "Hugo Chavez is a negative force in the region." That famous
phrase by Rice put the aggressive, hostile, and bellicose plan against
Venezuela into action, which is obviously being
reinforced by the new administration in
Washington, regardless of color or political
affiliation. In the
United States, be him red or blue,
Republican or Democrat, he is an imperialist regardless. Here it should be
added that with respect to the analysis, what a candidate to the highest
diplomatic position in the
United States
says in her confirmation hearing is a demonstration of her priorities when
she takes the office of Secretary of State. So the fact that two Secretaries
of State have spoke of Venezuela
and President Chavez as a "negative force" or a "problem" has significant
implications for Washington's
foreign policy. Since 2005, Venezuela
has been and continues to be a policy priority for security, defense, and
intelligence in the
United States. It was classified as such in
a July 2008 State Department report which highlighted three global priority
areas in US foreign
policy: Iran's support
for the Iraqi insurgency, the growing presence of Al Qaeda en
Afghanistan, and the "association" of
Venezuela
with "terrorist states." I'll repeat, what I have just detailed in this last
phrase are the three global priorities for the security, defense, and
diplomatic corps of the
United States.
Venezuela is among these three.
But as if this wasn't enough, in his swearing-in speech, the new
United States
president declared, "Each day brings further evidence that the ways we use
energy strengthen our adversaries." Okay, he didn't necessarily name
Venezuela, but there's no doubt that the
South American country with the largest oil reserves in the world was in
mind when he made that comment. Further along in his speech, when President
Obama was alerting the enemies of the United States that his government
would retake and defend its position as world leader (as if it had done
something different in recent years), said "To those who cling to power
through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you
are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are
willing to unclench your fist." Well, here he didn't necessarily direct this
message indirectly to
Venezuela, but still, with everything that
has been said about Chavez's government, it's quite possible.
And then there's James Steinberg, the new number two in the State
Department. This young gentleman's résumé includes positions like recent
chancellor of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the
University of Texas at Austin; Analyst for the RAND Corporation, a business
contracted by the Pentagon to develop its principal strategies; Assistant
National Security Advisor at the White House (1997-2001); and a researcher
at the Brookings Institute, one of the three think tanks that develop the
imperialist policies of Washington. Steinberg already began to throw darts
hard at Venezuela
during his United States Senate confirmation hearing on January 22. In
response to a question regarding Latin America by Senator Robert Menendez of
New Jersey, Steinberg said, "I think that the people
have realized that the offers of Chavez don't lead to a better life or
better success of the peoples... For too much time, we've ceded the playing
field to Chavez, whose actions and vision for the region don't serve the
interests of his citizens nor of the people throughout
Latin America." What? Obviously Senator Menendez is not being
well informed about how much things have improved in
Venezuela over the last ten years. For
example, Venezuela today
enjoys the lowest unemployment rate in its history, lower than the
unemployment rate in the
United States! (In
Venezuela it's at 6 percent while in the
United States the unemployment rate is at
7.2 percent). Not even to mention that in
Venezuela, under the revolutionary policies of
President Chavez, no Venezuelan is without free medical attention at all
levels, while the United
States healthcare system is deplorable.
More than 46 million US
citizens live without access to the healthcare system. And statistics in
education, infant mortality, life expectancy, industrial development,
recovery of cultural traditions, indigenous languages, and the level of
electoral participation that the Bolivarian government has accomplished is
without precedent in Venezuelan history.
But to top off this treatment from Obama's government, their website shows
that they clearly consider
Venezuela
to be their number one enemy. In the section of the site where they
highlight their political agenda related to energy, one finds the following
objective: "Eliminate Our Current Imports from the Middle East and
Venezuela
within 10 Years." And in another part of the agenda the same concept is
articulated this way: "Within 10 years save more oil than we currently
import from the Middle East and
Venezuela
combined." This same objective was repeated January 26, 2009, when he said,
"The United States will not be a hostage to increasingly limited resources
from hostile regimes," during a White House ceremony. Okay, so
Venezuela is considered to be one of the most important
objectives of the Obama administration in the area of energy, which is
considered part of the security and defense strategy of
Washington.
So from everything that's been said and done in less than a month by the new
administration of Barack Obama, is there evidence of any change in the
hostile and aggressive tone against
Venezuela? I think the answer is a
resounding no, unfortunately. What is demonstrated is simply what we've been
saying: the empire is the empire, regardless of its color. Until it stops
viewing itself as the best in the world and the global leader that looks to
impose its vision and model on the rest, the empire will continue being the
same. Meanwhile,
Venezuela, together with other free and
honorable peoples, must continue constructing its future, remaining alert to
the imperial attacks that threaten its prosperity.