Oil, power and precedent

Mar 20, 2026 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The first report from the U.S. was that U.S.$500M of Venezuelan oil has been sold, and the millions deposited in a Qatari bank. It was hailed as a neutral venue. The next development was that the U.S.$500M has been handed over to Venezuela for the benefit of the Venezuelan people, but under the direction of the U.S.

The world watched at this unbelievable situation, where a superpower breaches the norms and restraints of international law, violates 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 and could bully smaller nations in their spheres of influence, and remake the world. Venezuela was the new precedent, now Iran is lined up.

When President Maduro was seized, drug boat bombings slowed. It is now obvious that those 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 U.S.$500M of oil sold. It is the first tranche in a U.S.$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 U.S.$500M handed over, but with humiliating conditions attached. Make way for Chevron and ExxonMobil, and U.S. control of the oil.

The terrible irony is that the world leader in emphasising human rights, democracy, and the law can be so callously dismissive of what is claimed to stand for. A country’s treasure is coveted, then seized, and next sold, with sparse relief for 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, ripped-off.

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, U.S.$2B worth of Venezuelan oil was 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 neighbours assets by brute force? Will the U.S. 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 U.S.’ intervention and extraction by force of Maduro. The concern that we at this publication have, in this country that neighbours 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 U.S. Good behaviour, 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 an exploiter’s 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’s clear that before Venezuela, there was Guyana.

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Controlled, human rights, Qatari bank, ripped-off, sovereignty, the ambitions, Venezuelan

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