Venezuela's colonial Blackmail: How to get a country to give up its natural resources

On November 26, a representative of the Venezuelan government (Jorge Rodríguez) and the opposition (Gerardo Blyde) signed an agreement in Mexico in the presence of dialogue experts from Norway and Mexico (Dan Nylander and Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard). It was called "the second partial agreement on the social protection of the people". A joint commission is to monitor the correct implementation of the agreement.

Two partial agreements stipulate that three billion of the$7.5 billion of Venezuelan state property blocked abroad will be returned to the Venezuelan people.

Under UN supervision, the funds are to be channel led into humanitarian aid projects - medical equipment and medicines, food and infrastructure measures (electricity grid, school buildings). In addition, storms have recently caused severe damage in the country, which is to be repaired with the funds.

Venezuela's almost identical proposal in 2020

The government of Venezuela had already turned to the UN in June 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, with an almost identical proposal.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was supposed to act as an intermediary between Venezuela and the Bank of England. At the time, Nicolás Maduro put forward a proposal drawn up by legal experts that the UN should manage the billion-dollar Venezuelan gold stored in the British bank and use it for vaccines and social aid.

But England refused to return the property of others. At that time, the key element for humanitarian measures desired by the West, which was only provided by the Venezuelan parliament in May 2022, was missing: the renunciation of sovereign control over its own natural resources.

The Hydrocarbons Act

The long road of merciless economic war against Venezuela had one main cause: the law on hydrocarbons. Since 1945, the country has been trying to secure decision-making power over its own resources. Since then, the South American nation has adapted this law in a constantly changing form to the challenges posed by the oil multinationals and the fluctuating prices. The law has constitutional status, it is inseparable from the national security and existence of Venezuela.

To cut a long story short: In 1945, it was assumed that the state and private actors would jointly exploit the gas and oil reserves - half of the profits were to go to both sides.

Over the decades, they switched to joint venture companies with different majorities, up to the complete takeover of foreign production facilities and refineries by the Venezuelan state (Hugo Chávez).

New change in the law is a free ticket

Today, Venezuela is at the other extreme. The version now adopted is a free ticket for the virtually free exploitation of Venezuelan mineral resources by foreign multinationals - above all the US company Chevron.

Thus, the colonial power in the North has finally achieved the goal of its long-standing destabilization and blackmail. In May, the Energy and Petroleum Commission of the National Assembly of Venezuela stated regarding the final draft of the new law on hydrocarbons:

"The sector must be reactivated with the necessary urgency through national and international private investment. To achieve this, the current institutional system must be changed ... The legal structure of the law helps to enable short-, medium- and long-terminvestments for the private sector without borders, from exploration (new oil deposits) to oil extraction to industrialization and commercialization of these products."

And further:

"The municipalities may not tax the delegated activities or the transport and storage activities of hydrocarbons in their natural state or affect the financial sustainability of the economic activities of the companies (!)"

Guarantees for the fulfillment of the agreement?

The question is whether those countries that previously withheld Venezuelan assets will now be willing to hand them over because of this agreement. A sentence by the Norwegian negotiator Dag Nylander refers to the uncertainties about the funds for the humanitarian projects despite the agreement:

"However, they must obtain permits to do so, which are the responsibility of the governments of the countries from which these resources are taken."

In plain language: If London does not release the Venezuelan gold bars worth a billion dollars stored in the Bank of England, then this part of the contract will not be realized. Or new court cases delay the deal.

On July 29, England's Supreme Court ruled that the gold reserves would not be handed over to either the Venezuelan government or the opposition.

The same applies to PDVSA's assets blocked in the USA. What guarantees are there for the fulfilment of the agreements? Has Venezuela been ripped off in this agreement?

In this respect, the process in Mexico is only a first step that can pave the way for some easing of sanctions and urgently needed international investments in the Venezuelan oil industry. From the middle of the year, Washington allowed the Italian energy company Eni and the Spanish company Repsol to transport Venezuelan oil to Europe to compensate for the shortage there due to sanctions against Russia.

Approvals for Chevron

Immediately after the release of the terms of the agreement, the U.S. Treasury Secretary said that Chevron - the second-largest oil company in the United States - could now resume drilling in Venezuela.

Lawyer and activist María Alejandra Díaz Marín tweeted: "Dialogue, agreement and license for Chevron to extract Venezuelan oil, without paying royalties or taxesto the country and without dividends to PDVSA. Chevron operates and markets the oil. The government de facto repeals the law on organic hydrocarbons. So much swimming only to die on the shore!"

The sanctions measures have resulted in cumulative losses of $240 billion for the South American nation at the end of 2021.

The expropriation model of Venezuela and Russia

Venezuela's expropriation model has a historical predecessor: between 1991 and 1999, the West stole the equivalent of today's total household wealth of Russia and transferred it overseas, mainly to London. The blackmail of Venezuela is a blueprint for the planned blackmail of Russia, as a "war aim" of the West.