Latest update May 25th, 2026 12:35 AM
Venezuelan oil
(Kaieteur News) – The first report from the US was that US$500M of Venezuelan oil has been sold, and the millions deposited in a Qatari bank. It is hailed as a neutral venue. The latest development is that the US$500M has been handed over to Venezuela for the benefit of the Venezuelan people, but under the direction of the US. The world watches this unbelievable situation where superpower breaches the norms and restraints of international law, violates at will the sanctity of national sovereignty, and dictates to an independent country how to manage the money from its own national patrimony. This is a precedent that doesn’t bode well for the world, as other powerful countries could bully smaller nations in their spheres of influence, and remake the world.
When President Maduro was seized and hurried away, all that claimed drug boat activity came to a halt. It is now obvious that the drug boat bombings were a pretext for the bigger intervention that resulted in the seizure of a sitting president, and the inevitable follow-up of ransom demands in US$500M of oil sold. It is the first tranche in a US$2B oil deal with Venezuelan officials, who were, for all intents and purposes, negotiating with the barrel of a gun pressed against their heads. Cooler heads seem to have triumphed in Washington, with the US$500M handed over, but with humiliating conditions attached.
The telling irony, and it is a tragic one, is that the leader of the world in emphasizing human rights, democratic rights, and legal rights can be so callously dismissive of what is claimed to be stood for. A country’s treasure is coveted, then seized, and next sold, with some relief now coming to distressed Venezuelans. Some of their distress came from crippling sanctions, which in hindsight represented the softening up of a population, so that it could be controlled, manipulated.
Observers now absorb the old ways of imperialism, but with a difference. There is no pretense relative to brazen objectives, no excuses, no apologies, no letup. But pushing ahead calculatingly with a program that is all about wresting control of a tinier, frailer, country’s riches. This has less to do with ideology, and supplies all the evidence of a blatant robbery premeditated, then put in operation. It is less of a leader and his approaches to governance, and the consequences to his country. It is about the ambitions of those who set their greedy eyes on the property of other people, then move with power to grab it for themselves.
Right before the eyes of the world, US$2B worth of Venezuelan oil is sewed up in a deal completed under duress, one that is raw in its underpinnings and bruises the senses. How can such an arrangement, that kind of one-sided deal, ever be looked upon as an acceptable standard of honest commerce between two nations, among different countries of the world? What kind of precedent is set for other powerful countries in different parts of the world, that also have their minds fixed on taking their neighbors assets by brute force? Will the US be seen, now ever accepted, as a trusted peacemaker, in such dangerous circumstances, given its own example of how those who operate outside the law conduct their raids?
The situation is relatively calm in Venezuela in the aftermath of the US’ intervention and extraction by force of Maduro. The concern that we at this publication have, in this country that neighbors Venezuela, is how long will that peace hold? And should it collapse in disarray, what are the consequences for Guyana, which is sure to experience some ripple effects? Like Trinidad, Guyana has been rewarded with visa exception by the US. Good behavior, stooge-like postures, go a long way in today’s Washington. The price that Guyanese will have to pay is still being counted, with this country’s oil also long subject to those who hold the controlling hand in a slave market. The people’s oil inheritance is there, but it is not theirs to decide on or much sharing in. Yet that is broadcast universally as a viable partnership, when this country is being robbed blind. It seems that before Venezuela, there was Guyana.
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