Jorge Majfud, 28/4/2023
Mr. Ambassador James Story:
I am pleased to learn that the new policy of the United States government includes the possibility of lifting economic sanctions against Venezuela, an old Washington practice since the beginning of the 20th century, which consisted of ruining the economies of countries with independent or non-aligned governments. As was the case in Chile, when the sanctions against the democratic government of Allende were lifted only when the plot of Washington and the CIA succeeded in destroying that democracy in its 9/11 of 1973 to replace it with the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Only then were the sanctions replaced by millions in aid to produce the touted “Chilean Miracle”, which even so did not prevent several economic and social crises. The examples are multiple, but I will not go into more detail. The good thing is that those responsible will never, ever face any national or international court for their crimes against humanity. Justice is for the poor and for the losers.
As you know, in 1989 the Venezuelan population took to the streets to protest against the policies of their government, which was trying to implement what later became known as the Washington Consensus doctrine. Hundreds of people (probably thousands) were massacred by the forces of repression, but President George H. Bush did not block or punish the Venezuelan government with sanctions, but instead came to the rescue of President Carlos Andrés Pérez with multimillion-dollar aid and with the commitment to radicalize the same measures against which the population protested.
According to economists such as Jeffrey Sachs, the current sanctions against the people of Venezuela are responsible for the death of tens of thousands of Venezuelans and, in part, of the millions of emigrants. I understand that the war against Russia and the most recent peace agreements promoted by China between two other large oil producers, Saudi Arabia and Iran, make a reconsideration of the case of Venezuela necessary and urgent.
But let’s talk about democracy, which is what matters. You recently made an official statement urging Venezuelans to register to vote in the upcoming elections. An idea that almost all of us support. But for you to say it and officially represents an old story of two centuries that Latin America has had to suffer due to the interference of the governments and private corporations of the United States.
In the 1940s, one of the countries furthest from the geopolitical influence of the United States and one of the most rebellious and hated for that very reason, according to Washington diplomats at the time, was Argentina. Its independence and its lack of obedience motivated the political interventions of the American ambassador of the time, Spruille Braden. With his involvement in the 1945 electoral campaign, Braden invented anti-Peronism before Peronism was born. We can mention dozens of similar cases and you know it. In geopolitics Newton’s Third Law is fulfilled, although never in the same proportion. Almost always the action crushes the reaction with some colonial dictatorship, but sometimes the opposite happens and it is called revolution.
In your April 27 statement [see video below], you warned Venezuelans that the government of Mr. Maduro will try to convince them not to vote. You also described some representatives of the National Assembly as “scorpions”, who use different political acronyms and names to divide votes.
Can you imagine if the golden rule of international relations is applied, the principle of reciprocity, and the ambassador of some Latin American country addresses the Americans in an official message to favor Republicans or Democrats? Imagine if one of them asked the Americans to democratize the electoral system by eliminating the Electoral College, a legacy of the slave system, like so many other things? Or the disproportionate system that ensures two senators per state, regardless of the fact that some states have forty times the population of others? Or that the US citizens of the colony of Puerto Rico mobilize to claim the right to vote? Or that corporations stop writing laws in Congresses and donate hundreds of millions of dollars to candidates in every election? Can you imagine?
In spite of everything, it would be less serious, considering that there was never a Latin American country that invaded the United States, that took half of its territory, that overthrew several governments and installed military dictatorships to protect Latin American private companies. Do you know any example? No, right? But if that hypothetical case occurred, not only would that ambassador lose his position, but, if he were the ambassador of Bolivia or Venezuela, the world would already be waiting for “a change of regime” or a new blockade.
As if that were not enough, you asked Venezuelans to “talk to their neighbors” because “the elections can be won.” It is not that this is something new in the tragic history of Latin America that, as you know and it is known much better by Latin Americans, whose old and new memory is littered with tragic interference, coups d’état and bloody “friendly dictatorships” supported by Washington and corporations that have more power than you and any other ambassador. Perhaps what is new is that it is no longer even hidden or denied, as Mr. Kissinger, for example, used to do.
When are we going to understand that it is in the interest of the American and Latin American people to stop making enemies with these paternal, arrogant interferences and against elementary principles of international relations?
When are we going to stop representing special interests and think seriously about the common good of free and independent peoples?
When are we going to understand that it is not only fairer and less tragic, but even cheaper to make friends than enemies, that “national security” involves the former, not the latter?
When are we going to stop seeing the world as a movie about Indians against cowboys, superheroes against villains, cops against robbers where we always assume the role of cowboys, policemen and superheroes forgetting the tragic story that originated “bad guys” while the world is leaving us more and more alone?
When are we going to change to make this world a fairer place, with more equitable agreements and less supremacist wars?
When are we going to stop controlling the lives of others in the name of old and beautiful excuses and dedicate ourselves to fixing our own national problems that are more and more serious every day?
Is it that we only accept that the world changes (and, as always, adapts to our demands) and we don’t?
How long will we continue to fail in style while we try to teach the world lessons in freedom, democracy, and human rights, always with the force of economic sanctions, if not well-known bombings?
How long are we going to give lessons on how to live when we don’t even know how to do it?
Sincerely,
Jorge Majfud
