Special Bulletin Nº 7 THE WAR AS A FINAL RESOURCE AGAINST VENEZUELA

Bulletin Special

Bolivarian Government Ministry of People’s Embassy of the Bolivarian of Venezuela Power for Foreign Affairs Republic of Venezuela

volume 7, 2019

The war as a final resource against Venezuela SADC leaders demand self-rule, decolonisation of Western Sahara Oil crossroads: The pulse between the US and Venezuela Cyber attack against Venezuela alarms the world 1

Content 1) EDITORIAL 2) ELLIOTT ABRAMS AND THE WEAR OF THE METHODS OF THE EMPIRE 3) THE WAR AS A FINAL RESOURCE AGAINST VENEZUELA 4) AN OPEN LETTER REGARDING THE SITUATION IN VENEZUELA AND THE USE OF FOOD AID AS A POLITICAL WEAPON AGAINST THE PEOPLE 5) SADC LEADERS DEMAND SELF-RULE, DECOLONISATION OF WESTERN SAHARA 6) THE RESURGENCE OF FASCISM AND RESISTANCE IN VENEZUELA 7) CYBER ATTACK AGAINST VENEZUELA ALARMS THE WORLD 8) SECOND BLACKOUT: CHRONICLE OF THE NATIONAL RESISTANCE 9) OIL CROSSROADS: THE PULSE BETWEEN THE US AND VENEZUELA

Editorial The United States imposed new sanctions against Venezuela’s state-owned oil company (PDVSA) in January, further reducing what little remains of the country’s oil income. Prolonged and expanded sanctions, while achieving the goal of depriving the government of cash, would also impose more suffering on the population, with shortages of food and medicine and induced runaway inflation.

The decision by the Trump administration, followed by allied countries, to recognize the opposition leader Juan Guaidó, has marked a dangerous escalation in international intervention and regime change policy which threatens the independence of Venezuela and self-determination of it's people who elected President Maduro as their constitutional president on the 20th of May, 2018. This attack on Venezuelan sovereignty has sparked outrage amongst many throughout the world.

ELLIOTT ABRAMS AND THE WEAR OF THE METHODS OF THE EMPIRE After the special envoy of the United States for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, addressed a group of journalists on Friday, March 15, to talk about the progress in the Venezuelan conflict and try to take advantage of the multidimensional attack suffered by the national electricity system. Several days, attributing it to the internal corruption of the Venezuelan government and disinvestment in the country's electricity infrastructure, he diagnosed: "What is the impact of this situation on the longevity of the regime? Obviously it will shorten the life of the regime (...) We are not making no predictions and, looking back, we see that, in general, neither we nor anyone else has been very good at predicting when regimes fall. "

One of the serious problems facing the Trump Administration at this time is that, despite the support that subordinated countries of the international community lend to the artificial presidency of Juan Guaidó, they do not lead any real power factor within Venezuelan institutions.

It should be noted that while this support is propagated, in practice it is hurt when the most hostile countries end up acceding to the will of the legitimate government of Nicolás Maduro, as was the withdrawal of all US officials from Venezuelan soil immediately after the The president will announce the 72-hour deadline for the US embassy to leave the country.

The reason according to Elliott, does not come to comply with Maduro's order but "is a pragmatic response to a complex situation".

COUNT OF THE "TRIUMPHS" OF THE ANTICHAVISM What is the balance left by the onslaught of Washington on the eve of the first quarter of the year?

Guaidó himself can not hide the poor result when evaluating the road map followed and that now should take him to the presidential palace.

He explains that the victories from the self-proclamation are summarized in the support "of the world" to the interim presidency, referring to the recognition of 60 countries of the 193 that are part of the United Nations Organization.

That uncertainty about how long it may take to materialize the coup goal that officials like Mike Pence, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams and President Donald Trump himself, assumed publicly and in the absence of consensus on the military option by political allies in the Latin American region, reduces the firmness to the attempts of political intimidation warning of the imminence of the fall of Chavismo.

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Also the "rescue of our assets" which is nothing else than the theft of Venezuelan money with the legal consent of the National Assembly in contempt to be administered directly by the US Department of the Treasury and, among other things, finance the actions for the regime change.

Finally mention the "organizational" balance of volunteers who were enlisted in the failed "humanitarian aid" and the defection, following figures handled by the Colombian Chancellery of 700 police and military officials who crossed the Colombian-Venezuelan border to comply with the call of the self-appointed interim president of Venezuela and currently facing, along with the "volunteers" who also stayed on the side of Cúcuta when the clashes ended at the Simón Bolívar bridge, the abandonment of the opposition leadership.

ANOTHER "FINAL MARCH" TO MIRAFLORES Juan Guaidó announced this weekend during a political event in the state of Carabobo, without mentioning a date, a tour of Venezuela to get a national mobilization to the Miraflores Palace.

The maneuver comes in the same "D-Day" format that has been used by anti-Chavez under other vanished leaderships, to regroup after the mistakes in the political siege plan that was inaugurated with the presidential self-proclamation of January 10 made in the U.S. Previous to this, it wanted to take advantage of the chaos caused by the deliberate attack on the Guri Hydroelectric Complex, encouraging street violence by looting local businesses and protests, which did not have the expected outcome.

This time, the so-called "Operation Freedom" proposes the creation of committees to encourage protests and disobedience in the streets, according to the words of Guaidó published in his Twitter account. The strategy includes employees of public institutions, who are called to ignore the Venezuelan state in a "great national strike", supporting regime change.

In addition, it emphasizes continuing to call the FANB, an institution that rejected monolithically the claims to fracture the unity of its components.

An operation that does not promise innovations in its methods of aggression, after the entry of "humanitarian aid" by the borders of Colombia, Brazil and the maritime borders with Curaçao as the strong card of the US political measures towards Venezuela, within the framework of the propaganda of the "humanitarian crisis" that also triggered the increase of financial pressures against the state oil company PDVSA and the Central Bank of Venezuela, did not even end in the access of any of the trucks to the Venezuelan borders.

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ABRAMS AND THE US IMAGINATION CRISIS The mechanical repetition of resources to force the fall of Chavismo shows the lack of creative options in the political terrain. Once again, Venezuela faces another "final march" towards Miraflores and knows very well what to expect: disturbance of public order, provocation to the security forces to generate confrontations and defections of some figures from the public and military sectors that will be exploited by the media. antichavism

CONTRADICTIONS IN THE METHODS TO ADDRESS VENEZUELA Parallel to what happens within the national territory, a meeting takes place between Elliott Abrams and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergey Riabkov, in Italy. According to the State Department of the United States, the reason for the meeting is "the deterioration of the situation in Venezuela."

The meeting is held on March 18 and 19 in the city of Rome and is attended by Italian officials, including Pietro Benassi, the diplomatic adviser to Italy's Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte. The country belongs to the Member States of the European Union that have not established a solid position in support of the creation of a parallel government in Venezuela.

An agenda that includes the financing of paramilitary cells that would act in simultaneity with civil movements, but that also seem to be broken up both by the intelligence work done by Venezuelan organizations and by the very lack of organization of those who command that task.

Despite the insistence to erase Russia, Deputy Foreign Minister Riabkov made clear that it ratifies "the inadmissibility of armed intervention in the affairs of Venezuela

by Washington", while ensuring the maintenance of bilateral relations in the military and energy areas with the Venezuelan nation.

Hardly a scenario similar to that of the guarimbas of 2017 can be recreated with the same effectiveness after the methods used to promote and sustain it were disarticulated. In addition, that this experience left him an unprecedented formation in defense of both the military and the social component of Chavism against irregular warfare. Hence, attempts to return to that point disarm faster and faster. A different result can not be expected if the same format is applied.

In this way, the disorderly steps taken by Washington with respect to Venezuela are presented, understanding that the transitional government loses much strength before capitalizing on real power in the national executive, and military actions do not finish up for lack of a triggering event.

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Meanwhile, time goes by and irregularities are exposed in the false legal arguments fabricated to legitimize the interim presidency of Guaidó, making the Trump Administration easy prey to its own conflict of powers within the United States.

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THE WAR AS A FINAL RESOURCE AGAINST VENEZUELA

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The degradation of nation-states has been since the last century the modality by which the absolutist power of the West and its factual instances to rule have been served.

Armed Force (FANB) with President Maduro. A dismantling that is demonstrated can not happen suddenly, but rather through means of exhaustion and wear in the medium term.

The modalities have been of various kinds: war, the political cooptation of governments, the dominance of multilateral entities, the diplomatic siege, the single communicational discourse and the imposition of corporate sicariato and economic dictatorships.

Despite the coup d'état against Hugo Chávez in 2002 and the employer and oil sabotage of 2003. Despite the violent and pre-war actions of the years 2014 and 2017, the peak moment against Venezuela takes place right now, due to the peculiarity of the events that we have known in just two years.

All these have been multivariable denominations that have been toned with the passage of decades of management in power conglomerates, without there being a single substantial variation to the strategic scheme of imposing hegemony. Systemic metabolism works by adapting old methods to new variants.

The plot of severe blockade to completely break the Venezuelan economy; the attempted assassination of President Maduro, which included the planning of Washington and Bogota; the ascent through artificial routes of Juan Guaidó as "parallel president"; the attempted forced entry of "humanitarian aid" to Venezuela, which was not based on the entry of aid but as an act to fracture the FANB; finally, the cyberattack to the Venezuelan electrical system and its creation as a space for maneuver to fracture the Republic from within.

That said, we must stop in Venezuela. And observe the recent events that have taken place in this country, which we know, count with countless energy resources that are the focus of the interest and object of the strategic projection of the West in the present, and for the future.

They are all these differentiated elements that have a clear common denominator; large-scale events experienced in Venezuela, with the elemental purpose of establishing a new roadmap to adapt old methods through new variants.

THE DEFINITION AND COUNT OF THE ASEDIO TO VENEZUELA The stellar moment of the American recapture on Venezuela has taken place in recent years presenting new cards, new situations.

These acts, then, lie under the designs of the centers of power, in their constant and structured plan of remodeling the planetary power relations, which we know, in the last decades have defined the international relations and the evolution of the countries. Almost always placing entire countries and regions on their knees to the West.

To make a brief account, we have the actions of siege and financial and commercial blockade, the diplomatic siege operated in instances such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and other entities, the criminalization of the country's government through the media narrative, the establishment of the political discourse of the "humanitarian crisis" as an eventual cause of interventions, and other acts of interference and now; the threat of a conflict in its armed expression.

The schemes that are being applied at the moment in Venezuela, some are not entirely new, others take place with evidence in their redesign, others are quite new. All start from the principle of raising the levels of effectiveness in the treatment that the United States gives to target countries, without having to deal with the costs of old-style wars. We saw it in Libya, we see it in Syria.

Recently, the attack on the Venezuelan electricity system by hacking, opened the range to new situations of sabotage on a large scale to propitiate an internal commotion and fracture, sediment, or break the integrity of the country's institutional and military political fabric. It is a component of the hybrid war against Venezuela, which involves the development of a mercenary war with special emphasis on the border corridors with Colombia and Brazil.

The eventuality of a war, because "all options are on the table", - said so from the White House - goes through the indispensable dismantling of the hard lines of defense of the country that lie in the hitherto undisturbed military entity aligned in the Bolivarian National 7

The methods of unconventional war applied in Venezuela have a symptomatology that illustrates a clear evolution that inevitably approaches the development of an open and total violent phase. If we review all the outlined schemes, from the creation of Juan Guaidó to the induced blackout, all these operations are large-scale acts created to germinate a conflict that allows to detonate from that point, new episodes of the hybrid war.

It is essential not to rule out the advent of terrorist actions in the old way, that is, through the use of brutal and open force, against sensitive sectors of the population.

WHAT COULD HAPPEN IN VENEZUELA? In Venezuela there are two possible scenarios in the plot of an attempt to dismantle and subjugate its status as a nation-state. Unless there is room for political detente and the country moves to new spaces of political dialogue, the country will continue in a dizzying race of consistent push to the conflict. For the war, is the last resort to use to overwhelm its status as a nation-state.

For the White House, the Venezuelan case is now a top-level issue in its operational plan for international relations and constant adaptation of its power structure. It is also a political, administrative and pre-electoral issue in US internal politics. That implies that Venezuela will hardly be unharmed. The White House will hardly give up and will pretend all their efforts to capitalize on a victory at least partial in its road map.

Russia, through its spokesperson María Zajárova, has reported that the US is using as informants organized crime groups in Colombia, to identify access routes (trails) in the binational border to give operational status to their regime change actions in Venezuela.

Indicator that the US is creating an operational architecture for the jump to the violent phase.

As a complement, the US will continue accentuating the financial aggressions, which could go from attacks on the finances and purchases of the State to actions against the private sector of Venezuela. They could also be interspersed with actions of cyber attacks to national banking structures. That is, from attacks on payment systems, such as Credicard, to the cancellation of Visa and Mastercard cards in Venezuela, both cases as formulas - hypothetical one and probable the other - to deepen asphyxiation and accentuate the deterioration of the country.

This means that if President Maduro gets the political dialogue he has always requested with the internal opposition, Washington will present such a thing as a "success" of its policy of pressure and suffocation. But Washington aspires to much more. It aspires to the dismantling of the chavism of power and they are going to settle down from and towards several directions.

We must also consider the reading of the "blind spots" of the country's comprehensive security infrastructure. They involve a wide range of areas, from airports for civil use to essential infrastructures such as the Caracas Metro. What does this hypothesis imply? That any space of a core nature, could now be a potential target for having derivations sensitive to Venezuelan life and none would be exempt, in this scenario, from the escalating actions to a war phase.

In Venezuela, acts of sabotage on a large scale could again take place to try to weaken the State and its capacity to respond. As well as trying to fragment social cohesion, propitiate the commotion and feed the untimely reactions of anti-Chavez sectors. They will try to create a chaos threshold.

The actions could point to attacks not only on the electricity system, but also against oil installations, taking advantage of the vulnerabilities created in years of financial blockade to PDVSA and now the commercial boycott of Venezuelan crude, to degrade infrastructures and production capacities to unprecedented levels . Read at this point the sensitive attack that occurred recently in Petro San Felix in the Anzoátegui state, against tanks with diluents essential for the production of extra heavy crude.

To end. All these scenarios, it must be emphasized, could occur and increase, unless there are spaces for political dissent in accordance with the Venezuelan and US governments. Something difficult, but not impossible. In this context, the Venezuelan government, which maintains a clear and solid position in its center of political gravity, sees in time an ally as the "Guaidó" agenda suffers wear and accelerated exhaustion that could increase the political readiness of Chavismo in power .

Another scenario that could take place is the appearance in the short term of armed cells under an open denomination, carrying out attacks in the border areas and garrisons, in order to measure the response capacity of the FANB and at the same time sediment its integrity operative Also with the specific purpose of occupying territories, balkanize the border and impose territorial domain relations. From that point, open the way to a war of attrition through armed functionality.

While the White House, besieged from several sides of its internal front, sees a Trump management that can hardly achieve resources for a border wall and each day deals with greater accusations by an erratic foreign policy that has not given the results they expect. At this point, for them time plays against and an eventual political dialogue could even be a lifesaver for them.

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However, the current time does not give open signals of such eventuality. In Venezuela there is a tense calm.

President Maduro remains imperturbable, the fabric of the government's political directory remains untouched and the coup will settle to open a fledgling conflict that does not end up showing clear signs of consolidation.

And about a war in Venezuela, what is said in the region? According to the current head of the Southern Command in an interview for Reuters, "we have been talking with our partners in the region and nobody, absolutely nobody thinks that the military option is a good idea." From this point it will be marked or not, the level of wisdom or daring of Washington Will they cross the line?

By: Franco Vielma www.misionverdad.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy

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Against the weaponization of food aid and the undermining of food sovereignty in Venezuela

An open le�er regarding the situa�on in Venezuela and the use of food aid as a poli�cal weapon against the people

To international public opinion: As members of the international community concerned about the right to food and food sovereignty, including advocates, practitioners and scholars, we denounce the use of food aid as a political weapon against the Venezuelan people and government at present while standing in solidarity with efforts on the ground in Venezuela focused on feeding communities and supporting communities’ capacity to feed themselves.

At the time of writing, shipments of food provided by USAID are sitting across the Venezuelan border in Colombia, as the US government threatens to force these shipments into the country without authorization of the Venezuelan government, amidst mounting threats of military intervention. Such actions have been criticized by a number of internationally recognized development and aid organizations, including the International Red Cross and the United Nations, both of which are already working in partnership with the Venezuelan government and both of which have refused to collaborate with USAID on this attempted aid delivery due to its overtly political nature.

Venezuela has well-established domestic food distribution networks, as recognized by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as recently as 2015. Any aid coming into the country should serve to complement - and in no way undermine - already existing national food distribution efforts. That this most basic norm of humanitarian 10

aid is being compromised concerns us not only for the impacts upon the Venezuelan population, but also for the dangerous precedent this could set globally.

Signatories: 1. ActionAid USA 2. Actuar 3. Agroecology Research-Action Collective 4. Biowatch South Africa 5. Bolivarian Circle New York City 6. Campaña Guatemala Sin Hambre 7. Centro de Documentación en Derechos Humanos 8. Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism 9. Colectivo de Derechos Humanos 10. Centro Internazionale Crocevia 11. International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) 12. La Fundación de Estudios para la Aplicación del Derecho (FESPAD) 13. FIAN Austria 14. FIAN Brasil 15. FIAN Colombia 16. FIAN Honduras 17. FIAN International 18. FIAN Mexico 19. FIAN Portugal 20. FIAN Uganda 21. Geneva Infant Feeding Association (GIFA) 22. Grassroots Global Justice Alliance 23. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) 24. International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity 25. Justicia Alimentaria 26. Massachusetts Peace Action 27. National Fisheries Solidarity Movement of Sri Lanka 28. Nicaragua Center for Community Action (NICCA) 29. People’s Health Movement 30. Popular Resistance 31. Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC) 32. POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (Anti-POSCO Movement-PPSS) 33. African Network on the Right to Food (RAPDA) 34. Right to Food Network Malawi 35. Task Force on the Americas 36. The MOVE Organization 37. Terra Nuova 38. The international Action Center 39. Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB) 40. Unidad de la Fuerza Indígena y Campesina (UFiC) 41.

United Steelworkers Local 8751, the Boston school bus drivers' union 42. World Fisher Forum (WFF) 43. World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP) 44. WhyHunger 45. Women’s UN Report Network (WUNRN) 46. The Oakland Institute

While there are multiple factors at play in the challenges facing Venezuela at present, the issue of aid cannot be decoupled from the sanctions imposed upon Venezuela by the US government and its allies. According to US National Security Adviser John Bolton, the latest round of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration represent an estimated loss of 11 billion dollars worth of revenue for the Venezuelan government via its state-owned oil company PDVSA over 2019, while blocking access to an additional 7 billion dollars worth of assets. These illegal sanctions, part of a broader financial blockade, directly hamper imports of food, medicines and other necessities into Venezuela, with disastrous effects upon the population, particularly those most vulnerable. Meanwhile, the aid in question pledged by USAID is in the amount of 20 million dollars.

This amount of aid, even if it were to be increased, pales in comparison to the estimated 30 million dollars daily lost in oil revenue due to the sanctions. The sanctions and financial blockade are also making it increasingly difficult for grassroots movements throughout the country to carry out critical food sovereignty efforts, including distributions of food and agricultural supplies such as seeds, although these efforts continue as possible under adverse circumstances. For instance, this past February 23, which had been the designated deadline for the entry of the USAID aid into Venezuela, the Pueblo a Pueblo grassroots food sovereignty effort delivered 30 metric tonnes of fresh produce from small-scale farmers of the Venezuelan countryside to families in need in Caracas.

While we the undersigned may have differing personal opinions regarding the internal politics of Venezuela and how Venezuelans might best resolve their differences, we are united in our concern over the weaponization of food aid and threats to the national sovereignty of Venezuela, as well as united in our solidarity with movements on the ground who continue to work toward food sovereignty against increasingly difficult odds. We call upon the US government and its allies to lift the deadly sanctions as the most immediate and necessary first step toward addressing humanitarian concerns and to stop using food aid as a tool of political maneuvering. We also call to international and regional organizations such as the Organization of American States to monitor the support of their member states in order to ensure their measures are in line with the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man.

www.fian.org The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy

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SADC Leaders Demand Self-Rule, Decolonisa�on of Western Sahara The SADC Ministers Solidarity Conference with Western Sahara will serve to remind the region that Africa will not be truly free until the last colony, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, is decolonised, says International Relations and Cooperation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, he made the remarks while welcoming guests on the first day of the two-day conference in Pretoria.

"Most of us here have attained our freedom, strengthened and assisted by the solidarity of people who cared about our plight. We knew that every country has an inalienable right to independence and self-determination," said Sisulu. The Minister acknowledged the significant role played by the United Nations through the passing of resolutions aimed at raising the plight of the people of Saharawi, including a decision that there must be a referendum in Western Sahara.

The preparatory meeting by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Ministers and participating Ministers from other regions took place ahead of the SADC Solidarity Conference with Western Sahara by Heads of State and Government.

The SADC Solidarity Conference with Western Sahara, said DIRCO, is convened to, among other things, reaffirm the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination in line with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations (UN) and applicable documents of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and African Union (AU).

More than 20 countries are represented at the SADC Solidarity Conference with Western Sahara. The countries include Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Algeria, Uganda, Botswana, Nigeria, United Kingdom, Cuba, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Malawi, Eswatini, Mauritius, Tanzania, Seychelles, Kenya, Venezuela, Sao Tome and Principe, Timo-Leste, as well Western Sahara.

"This conference is a clear demonstration of our international solidarity with the Saharawi people in their quest for self-determination. SADC hopes to come up with concrete steps in which we can strengthen and support the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination. It is this kind of solidarity and support for the people of Western Sahara that must give courage and impetus to their struggle for self-determination.

"We as South Africans are honoured to host this conference as South Africa is itself a product of international solidarity. Let the people of Western Sahara leave this conference with the knowledge that we are fully behind them," she said.

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www.allafrica.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy

THE RESURGENCE OF FASCISM AND RESISTANCE IN VENEZUELA

"We can conceive a world dominated by an invisible tyranny that uses forms of democratic government ..." Kenneth Boulding (Economist, poet and British-American philosopher) There is no doubt that the resurgence of fascism in the world has taken on another face, another mask, far from the atrocious crime of the Fosse Ardeatine in Rome, of the Buchenwald and Auswischt concentration camps, of the "Final Solution" in Nürenberg and the indiscriminate bombings of all Europe. Although the Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) has resurfaced with disturbing similarity and clarity in Yugoslavia, Ukraine and Venezuela. In Yugoslavia a bloody war with bombings broke out in Belgrade, which resulted in the imprisonment and assassination of President Slobodan Milosevic and the subsequent fragmentation of the country; In Ukraine, after the protests of the Maiden Plaza managed from abroad, a coup d'état was provoked and an aggressive Nazi-style government was installed, protected by the US and the EU. In Venezuela, the US, after several attempts to overthrow presidents Chavez and Maduro, has failed, but systematically threatens to repeat the bloody exploit of Belgrade and the bombings in Tripoli.

Wars are not unleashed by the whims of arsonists like Hitler, Mussolini or Trump. They are necessary to maintain the economic power of the nations that cause them. The world within capitalism has been divided between the metropolis and the satellite countries, destined to produce raw materials at low cost without the possibility of development. The metropolis must keep its own inhabitants numb with an overwhelming capacity for consumption, while the towns of the periphery are submerged in hunger and backwardness, providing raw materials and cheap labor to the metropolises. In this way the countries of the periphery are subject not only economically, but politically and culturally. That country that tries to get out of this demonic gear will be punished with economic siege and military intervention as happened with Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala; Juan Bosh in the Dominican Republic and Salvador Allende in Chile, just to mention the most emblematic of the past and as has happened with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, before with Commander Hugo Chávez and now with the Constitutional President, Nicolás Maduro.

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The German economist André Gunder Frank, seconded by the Brazilians Theotonio Dos Santos and Mauro Marini, formulated the Theory of Dependence, where they expose the character of the plundering of the Third World as a prerequisite of the empires in order to sustain its high development and level of life, which brings as a consequence the impossibility of development of the countries of the periphery without first freeing themselves from the bonds of imperialist rapacity. The neoliberal thought clings to an outrageous and racist theory about the backwardness of our countries, attributing it to economic and cultural defects coming from the underdevelopment of the Spanish-Portuguese conquerors and the supposed indigenous cultural atavism.

The shake that shook the foundations of capitalism in 2008 presages another of greater magnitude in the years to come. Some analysts argue that at that time it was a systemic crisis that led the economist and director of the FED at the time, Paul Volcker, to say this sentence: "There is something that does not work in the system ...". And it was not for less, the so-called "toxic or garbage" credits had caused the collapse of the two large American mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which in a domino effect led to the collapse of prestigious American and European banks, such as the Bear Stearns, JP Morgan, Indy Mac Bank, Bank of America, etc. And the most worrying thing was the oldest investment bank in the US: the Lehman Brothers. For the current FED, the recession has already started not for sub prime loans as in 2008, but for auto loans, student loans and mortgages. All unpayable. This new bubble is about to explode and will drag the entire Yankee economy with even more devastating consequences.

After the stalemate of the war in Afghanistan, the defeat in Iraq and Syria, the Yankee Empire turns its attention to Latin America. It is obvious that he is preparing for the apocalypse announced by his own economists and is rushing to get his hands on Venezuela's oil, gold, gas and coltan as a lifeline. The wars undertaken around the world is part of this strategy. The bloody invasion of Libya opened the main gateway to the African continent, which through AFRICOM pretends to be subjugated in its entirety. The false positives of the Twin Towers, according to the French analyst Thierry Meysann, where 3,000 Americans died, gives us an idea of what wild hoax these contemporary maniacs are capable of in order to fulfill their criminal purposes. At the same time, the awakening of the conscience of the peoples has been strengthened since the appearance of the Bolivarian Revolution and the leadership of Commander Hugo Chávez Frías at the end of the last century. The Empire was forced to give

oxygen to right-wing organizations capable of counterbalancing that popular onslaught and sought out the most servile and reactionary political forces in Latin America.

But the return of fascism has its antecedents in the trial in Ukraine, where the US and EU, after the revolts of Maiden Square, provoked a coup d'etat to place a government favorable to the interests of the West knowing their political positions openly philofascistas.

To the astonishment of the world, the US has spontaneously sponsored the government of Petro Poroschenko, in whose bosom conspicuous figures of the neo-Nazi parties participate. But this deployment of neo-fascism has not only occurred in Ukraine, where they have dared to parade in the capital Kiev with placards showing the trident and the swastika known symbols of the Hitlerian SS. Also in Estonia, Latvia and Bulgaria. In 2017 the march of the torches was celebrated in Kiev, in the Nazi way, by the death of Stephan Bandera, collaborator of the Nazis and founder of a Ukrainian far right party. In Estonia the government inaugurated a monument in memory of Nazi SS Hitler troops. In 2005 a demonstration of the Waffen SS was allowed in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, an event that was financed by the US embassy. In Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, a celebration is held annually in memory of the anti-Semitic general and collaborator of the Nazis, Jristo Lukov.

With the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House and his white supremacist speech, he has given a boost to the right-wing organizations in the United States, sheltering an outbreak of racism that we have not seen since the 1960s. The neo-fascist manifestations have proliferated in a remarkable way. the USA and the world. The most obvious sign has been the bloody massacre of March 15 at the Christchurch in New Zealand. But, these events have not arisen by spontaneous generation. They are the result of a fine and planned strategy that prepares the world for a more dangerous leap: the fragmentation and total domination of Latin America, the so-called "haitinization", and the imposition of Western absolutism on the planet. It has become clear that the rise of all these far-right parties has been stimulated by the authorities throughout Europe and the United States. Just to give an example, just a week ago the ex-Palestinian Rasmate Odeh, tried to participate in an act in Berlin, but was banned by the German authorities, while they accepted the demands of the neo-Nazi party AfD (Alternative for Germany), to be revoke his visa.

The participation of this party in anti-Muslim marches and its position denying the Holocaust is notorious. The rise of far-right parties such as Vox in Spain, the 14

Northern League in Italy, the National Front of Marie Le Penn in France, Voluntad Popular, in Venezuela; the National Syndicalist Revolutionary Movement (MRNS) in Chile, the Aryan Nations group in the US, etc. they are a palpable sample of the onslaught of the planetary oligarchy before the advent of the systemic crisis and the inexorable decline of capitalism. In short, it is about rehabilitating Nazism, of reediting the project of "Lebensraum" and "Anschluss" (Living space, Annexation) of the III Reich without the schizophrenic barbarism and the decadent baroque of Hitler and Mussolini to incorporate it into the recolonization of the world whole as predicted by Walter Graziano in his book, "Hitler won the war."

US imperialism has set its sights on Venezuela to make it a beachhead, as they have done in Libya, with the aim of recolonizing all of Latin America. The current siege with coup attempts since its inception in 2002, the terrorist attacks against the oil industry and the electricity system, the assassination attempts against both Commander Hugo Chávez and the attempted attempt in August 2018 against President Nicolás Maduro , the measures of economic and financial harassment, the shameless theft of the national heritage, convert these measures, which aim to strangle the economy of our country, into an undeclared war against the Bolivarian

Republic of Venezuela. The people of Venezuela, their revolutionary government and the civic-military union have faced this fierce attack of Yankee imperialism that has been defeated once and again.

Global solidarity has been aligned with the country attacked. Heads of different countries around the world have expressed their support and recognition to the constitutional president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, in the face of the coup attack of the international right.

The countries that make up the Southern African Development Community (SADC) include Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. They expressed their support for Nicolás Maduro as president of Venezuela through a press release.

Alfredo Lugo.

Venezuelan Intellectual The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy

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CYBER ATTACK AGAINST VENEZUELA ALARMS THE WORLD The two operations of national blackout in Venezuela defined a critical point around the new modalities of the war, an alarm that sounded across the planet after it took more and more body the hypothesis that, indeed, there was a cyber attack against the SCADA system, electronic brain software that controls in a computerized way the functions of the Simón Bolívar Hydroelectric Plant in Guri.

This latest move from Washington reinforces the denunciation of President Nicolás Maduro, since the fact that the new dimensions of the war have already been tested and, from now on, does not fit into the first line of military consideration, is already identified. doubt that they will be used for the benefit of the main players in the world in struggle.

In addition, the Venezuelan government indicated that there was also an impact on some infrastructures of the national electrical system by electromagnetic pulse weapons, another hypothesis that, like the cyberattack, was scorned and ridiculed a priori by most of the corporate media, spokespersons from Washington and of local antichavism.

There is no news of cyber attack any of the magnitude recorded on March 7, 2019 to the Guri Hydroelectric Power Plant, mainly due to the human and economic consequences of the blackout that lasted just over 72 hours. Should any similar action occur in the future in another country (including the United States), it will have Venezuela as a precedent.

VENEZUELA IN THE PRECEDENTS

The indications are demonstrative of the urgency with which this episode of sabotage is being assumed on a global scale. Despite imposing the hegemonic story of the Venezuelan collapse, there is no doubt that more people assume that a new way of implementing interventions is being outlined, including the current president of the United States.

Forbes magazine published an article acknowledging that it is "very realistic" that the cause of blackout was a cyber-attack led by the United States. Ensures that this would be a tactic involved in the acceleration of internal conflicts in a country to force a regime change, as it harms infrastructures and critical services of a society.

For no one is it a coincidence that, days after the impacts were detected by electromagnetic weapon in the Venezuelan electrical system and publicly denounced, the White House issued an executive order in which urges the US military scientific community to strengthen the defensive systems around the "critical technologies and infrastructures" of the United States, to be attacked by electromagnetic pulses that could "interrupt, degrade and damage them" (Russia and China, "existential threats" to the Pentagon, have their own arsenals in the matter ).

On the other hand, we met the testimony of a gringo-Iranian scientist to whom US officials offered money to tear down the electricity grid of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is not the first time we know of a similar intention, because the Nitro Zeus plan had the intention of drastically affecting the Iranian electrical system under different types of sabotage, including cyberwar and operations in the field.

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The risks of a cyber attack on electrical, state or corporate systems are considered not only in the population but also in the economic and national security areas, according to the Davos group. In Venezuela, the cyber-attack to the Guri Hydroelectric Power Plant cost almost 900 million dollars in the almost four days of blackout, in the affectation of the oil industry, the manufacturing industry, services, the paralysis of trade and other vital activities of the circuit economic of the country. The report says:

Moreover, the World Economic Forum, which meets in Davos every year, has since February of this year warning States and corporations to form a strategy of "cybernetic resilience" in common against attacks by hackers (independent, contracted or governmental) to infrastructures. vital as the electrical networks, which could trigger cascade effects to lament.

On March 27, the same Forum published a report that reinforces the above, since, he says, "in the last 10 years the electricity sector has experienced significant cyber attacks", and reproduces the following map of events in relation:

"The electricity sector has always been strongly interconnected with interdependencies along the supply chain, not to mention other critical infrastructure industries, such as telecommunications, ports and sewerage facilities, and this interconnectivity is increasing, as the Secretary of Security said. National of the United States, Kirstjen Nielsen, 'hyper-connectivity means that your risk is now my risk and that an attack on the' weakest link 'can have consequences that affect us all.' "

Who reports it is the Systems of Cyber Resilience: Electricity, a work team created in May 2018 by the World Economic Forum to solve global problems of cybersecurity around the electrical issue. Thus begins his brief report:

Not only are there indications that the blackouts in Venezuela were caused by new modes of war with foreign authorship (specifically US), but also the Venezuelan precedent laid the foundations for organizations of Western descent such as Forbes and the World Economic Forum to warn that they were effectively they are strategically taking weapons of similar caliber against the vital lines of countries and even corporations around the world.

It is a way of intervening in foreign affairs without leaving the minimum of traces and political costs in its path.

GLOBAL ALERT At a press conference in September 2018, National Security Advisor John Bolton pointed out how important cyberspace is to the geopolitical and military deterrence of his opponents. He stated that for that purpose they have "authorized offensive cyber operations (...) to demonstrate that the cost of their participation in operations against us is higher than they want to support."

"A six-hour winter blackout in mainland France could cause damage to homes, businesses and vital institutions for a total of more than 1.5 billion euros." A well-organized cyber attack on a critical electrical infrastructure could have this kind of impact In a country, is this realistic? Officials from the Department of Homeland Security in the United States publicly stated in 2018 that hackers had infiltrated the control rooms of several US electricity companies, as long as they had the ability to interrupt the flow of electricity to customers. "

The arms race around cybernetic strategies is increasingly taken into account, especially if we take into account that behind the curtain of the trade war between China and the Trump Administration is the battlefield of cyberwar and development. of the latest generation technologies.

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In recent years the different actors called to face a Third World War (United States, China, Russia) are preparing in this area. But with the cibergolpe in Venezuela we are witnessing an attitude that includes defending with more zeal for this type of attacks, which produce undesirable cascade effects for any population.

With the White House's request to the scientific-military community to increase defensive efforts in the face of an electromagnetic attack, at the same time that organizations linked to Anglo-American corporatism call for a "cybernetic resilience" strategy, they make it clear that The multifactorial attack against the Venezuelan electrical system was a worldwide event that generated an alert in States and companies that do not take into account scenarios of sabotage under hybrid warfare.

Just as Washington seeks to accumulate political capital around the figure of Juan Guaidó through social and economic discontent involving the sabotage of the Guri and other energy stations and substations, the Russian Federation bids against the intentions of coup and military intervention that from The United States is forged through the new modalities of war, framed within the hybrid formats, and accuses Canada of being involved in the incident.

It is thus evident that the alarm sounds before the threats of varied belligerency that put the old intervention formats in crisis and a deeper vision begins to be assumed around the fields of action that correspond to the cyberwar and the new combat weapons.

www.misionverdad.com

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SECOND BLACKOUT: CHRONICLE OF THE NATIONAL RESISTANCE

Only three weeks after the first and most prolonged interruption of the National Electric System in the history of the country, another major sabotage operation is repeated at the Guri Hydroelectric Plant, this time to its physical facilities, with the intention of extending to the dams of Caruachi and Macagua.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS NEW ELECTRICAL ATTACK The first information provided by the Minister of Communication and Information, Jorge Rodríguez, found that after having gradually replaced the power supply resulting from the first sabotage on Monday, March 25, that same night was perpetrated, another attack on the Central Autotransformer's yard. Hydroelectric Rodriguez said that there was a fire in the area causing serious damage to the infrastructure, which led to failures in different electricity transmission lines, once again affecting the entire national territory.

The AT2 autotransformer of the 765 kV yard (where two other autotransformers operate) was the equipment that received the greatest impact, being totally burned after being in the middle of the fire all morning, until at 9 o'clock on Tuesday morning , the fire was controlled by the PDVSA fire system.

The images shown by Rodriguez show the degree of affectation: in addition to the autotransformer located in the middle, the fire led by oil spilled in the channels, burned the wiring and some boards. The other two 765 kv patio equipment did not receive deep damage from the flames due to the firewalls in place.

On the site of the events, evidence of attack with projectiles was found, strengthening the hypothesis of sabotage as the origin of the fire. A day later this information would be confirmed by President Nicolás Maduro in direct contact with the program Con el Mazo Dando transmitted by the state VTV. The president revealed part of the investigations explaining that the terrorist attack was caused "probably by a mercenary" using a long-range rifle.

Of the thousands of kilometers of electric transmission lines that cross the country, the 765 kV is the most important because it sends 85% of the energy to all regions. The ineffectiveness of the equipment that transmit this type of voltage, produced the blackouts on Monday in 21 of the 24 states of the country.

When attacking this vital area of the National Electric System, the operations to restore energy to the country became more complex, needing both a specialized 19

In the city of Caracas, the blackout was solved in the afternoon of Tuesday, recovering in several areas less than 24 hours after the attack.

human team to stop the ravages of the fire and other professional equipment to repair the damage, as well as the military and intelligence. deployed to protect areas prone to other possible acts of sabotage.

Also in Miranda state, the electric service was restored by 80.38% by 6 pm on Wednesday.

Both states had a relapse past seven o'clock at night.

Some alternative transport services to the Metro system were activated in a contingency plan to attend the routes with the greatest number of people.

This is because the attack was to extend to the reservoirs of Caruachi and Macagua, which are adjacent to the Guri and complete the main electricity generation system in Venezuela. Minister Rodríguez declared that the plan was to disable hydroelectric power stations to extend the aggression for more than ten days "and even weeks to generate a situation of chaos throughout the national territory."

Parallel to the incident in the transformer yard of the Guri, a fire occurred in the Waraira Repano National Park that was controlled by the Forest Fire Department, near the facilities of the Cota Mil electrical substation. Although the minister of Ecosocialism, Heryck Rangel declared that the fact did not reach the infrastructure of the substation, a possible chain effect is not ruled out to extend the range of affect of the electrical system.

The next phase of the attack sought to cause irreversible damage to the electricity infrastructure, which would disqualify all internal economic activities that sustain a financially besieged country, mainly those of the oil area, in addition to the collapse of the most essential services for daily existence.

INTERVALS OF INTERRUPTION AND HOW THE VENEZUELAN STATE RESPONDED

Of the states in the interior of the country, 17 were affected by the blackout on Wednesday morning, including Apure, Portuguesa, Barinas, Mérida, Cojedes, Anzoátegui, Sucre and Nueva Esparta. The state of Bolívar and Delta Amacuro, at the end of this note, still suffer from voltage system failures.

As soon as the fire was controlled, the national government coordinated two joint phases for risk management: the repair of the damages to resume the operation of the autotransformers and the application of alternative electric distribution plans, in order to manage the energy to prevent it from interrupt the communications services and banking systems, and in the same way allow people to have rationalized intervals of electricity during the contingency.

On the other hand, there were states where the intervals without electricity were longer, such is the case of Monagas and Zulia, both areas of oil activity and the last important because of its border with Colombia. In Monagas, where PDVSA's Punta de Mata division operates, there were periods of energy supply only at dawn on Tuesday and Wednesday. At 5 o'clock in the afternoon of March 27, the state reported 58% of restored energy.

The execution of the first phase was carried out by a contingent of workers of the state electricity company Corpoelec who worked dividing in twelve-hour shifts, together with the support of Sidor workers and the military of the FANB. For the second, it was decided to transfer and distribute energy through the 400 kv line, much less stable, an issue that inevitably influenced the need to manage the transmission of energy to the country.

On the other hand, the Zulia state, which in the attack at the beginning of March was the last to restore its service, and which has been failing since 2009 with sabotage and dismantling its infrastructure, did not recover the electricity supply until three days later. of stabilization throughout the country. Likewise, as of the closing date of this note, service interruptions continue in that entity.

In the process of reactivation of the Guri Hydroelectric Plant and the gradual distribution of energy, there were relapses that delayed the process. Tuesday at 5:15 am and Wednesday at 5:04 am. Both left without power to a large part of the national territory after having reached the repocisión of 80% uninterrupted service.

These instabilities were consequences of the first event that occurred in the Guri autotransformers' yard, which left states of the western and eastern parts of the country in intermittence. In the central and southern states, a greater permanence of the electric service was reported.

Taking into account that Zulia was one of the states where weeks ago it was intended to install episodes of general anarchy, using the resort of vandalism to loot shops in specific areas, they received the military support of the Armed Forces with the accompaniment of the head of the Strategic Command Operational, Remigio Ceballos, to perfect the protection mechanisms and maintain internal order.

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There were no reports of violence or looting of commercial premises or damage to public institutions.

The mobilization by sectors of the opposition was practically nil.

Among other things, Ceballos directed the distribution of fuel at service stations and action plans at the entity's substations.

At the end of the night of Wednesday, March 27, Minister Jorge Rodríguez announced the extension of the suspension period of school and work activities for another 24 hours, preventing the existence of difficulties in the stabilization process.

In contrast, routine commercial activities remained moderately active. There were relatively few problems in the digital banking system, so people did not have access to inputs blocked. Premises that had electric generators or during the electricity administrations, could make their sales.

Likewise, Rodriguez presented a new report on the afternoon of Thursday, March 28, as an update, to report unpublished details of the acts of sabotage.

Among other things, the minister stated that in the transformation yard, the equipment has ceramic insulators and between them and the cables there are 90,000 liters of oil. And that in a small nearby hill they placed snipers at 150 meters, with a silencer, which were responsible for firing several times, a fact that generated the fire. He also said that the transmission patio that was in the middle was attacked, so that the fire will affect the other yards and the transmission cables, which would have left the country for months without electric service.

Likewise, the Superintendency of Banking Sector Institutions (SUDEBAN), activated a special schedule for banking operations in agencies and branches immediately after setting a minimum of electricity normalization.

Although the objective of the attack was to affect the physical structures, which caused damage impossible to solve in the medium term, the team of professionals managed to place a phase of the hydroelectric plant operative while reconstituting the rest of the equipment burned.

Compared to the old attack, the response time was reduced, as well as counterattacks to relapses. The military support on this occasion was effective, previous days the military exercises Ana Karina Rote had been developing in the country, integral defense maneuvers to protect the strategic services, handling the scenario of a new possible attack.

EFFECTS AND RESPONSE OF POPULAR AND MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS TO THE ATTACKS In general terms, Wednesday was when the situation was progressively normalized in all regions of the country. President Nicolás Maduro, taking stock of the recovery work deployed, said that by closing on March 27, 80% of the distribution of cargo in the country was working, missing some western sites.

The FANB actively participated in the custody of the electric transmission lines that run throughout the country. In this way they neutralized the development of other blows from the irregular war applied to the national electrical system.

In relation to the previous attack, the population conserved aín more the peace during the activities of repair of the equipment and redistribution of energy.

Periods with electrical energy (even for periods of hours) as a contingency while repairing one of the autotransformers, allowed people to keep abreast of official information, which quickly appeased rumors and speculation.

Finally, once again the organic level of discipline that has been built in the heat of popular participation before extremely rough scenarios was demonstrated.

With a very short time to systematize the experiences 21

of the unprecedented aggression suered between March 7 and 11, the progress in organizational methods was appreciated.

In the mental outline of each community council, CLAP or commune, have been locating schools, comprehensive diagnostic centers, power stations or any other area that should be protected against possible sabotage, in the same way that have dierent commandos of the Armed Forces at a national level.

The implementation of military instruments to resolve contingency situations is an ideal complement for communities that are building a detailed cartography of the area where they live.

That is why the calls from the National Executive to activate the peace gangs to counteract the destabilization operations are pertinent. The threats of frontal warfare, and its surreptitious ways of expressing itself, have only encouraged the formation of Chavism to contain the attacks and stimulate the creative counterattack responses.

The moment was given so that the practices of the Popular Units of Integral Defense (UPDI) integrated with members of the CLAP, for example, could be executed in a real situation of threat and the objectives focused on making connections with public institutions to access and distribute food, domestic gas and drinking water.

www.misionverdad.com

Violent demonstrations and other products of the Guarimberos do not deny ideal scenarios such as the blackout only because of the political opposition of the opposition, but because of the direct control of the territory exercised by the popular organization from the social movements and with the reach to the platforms of the military force.

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OIL CROSSROADS: THE PULSE BETWEEN THE US AND VENEZUELA

Recently the center of financial intelligence and oil market study HFI Research, published a study that outlines the prospects of the energy market with respect to Venezuela, against the commercial boycott actions with which the US government aims to suffocate the oil nation.

HFI Research is emphatic in making several statements: "Venezuela's oil exports are moving down, but there is no collapse," at least in the short term, as US officials have announced.

Contrary to the inflection of the aggressive oil embargo policy applied to Venezuela, there is the progressive diversion of Venezuelan crude to other markets. "The volume of crude is moving to China and India, so it is unlikely that there will be a change of regime in Venezuela," says the financial firm.

THE NEW ROUTE OF VENEZUELAN CRUDE The plot of blockade against Venezuela has generated the search for new markets for Venezuelan crude and it points to the countries of the emerging bloc. But this happens with enormous setbacks.

According to various media, exact pressure from the US government against India, inhibited the extension of the existing agreements between Venezuela and India, an issue that closed the probability raised in mid-February that Venezuela doubled its shipments to the Asian nation. The most recent visit of Mike Pompeo to the Asian nation fulfilled that task.

The Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, PDVSA's main client in that country, contacted the AFP agency and said: "Our subsidiary in the United States has completely stopped all business with the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, and its global parent company has not increased purchases. " Venezuela, a country that has defended the multipolar approach to international relations, has had to use actions to bring from rhetoric to commercial fact the promotion of alternative relationships for the placement of its strategic resource, responsible for 95% of foreign currency income via of exports to the Venezuelan economy.

But building a "counter-hegemonic" trade route or at least avoiding the financial gains of the United States is not easy, since the closing of accounts and the freezing of Venezuelan financial assets is a fact. Even more complex, it is marketing crude at the expense of evading the long arm of US policy, which is ready to sanction any company that does oil business with the Caribbean nation.

In this regard, the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan reported during the most recent OPEC monitoring meeting in Baku that Venezuela would divert its oil 23

shipments to China and Russia, making these countries its main partners. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan minister, Manuel Quevedo, said in that same meeting that Venezuela was on track to diversify its client base.

AFFECTATIONS TO PDVSA Venezuela through its state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) used to import about 100 thousand barrels per day of naphtha from the United States, an indispensable diluent to process, transport and dispatch extra-heavy crude, Venezuela's main export crude. But the actions of the White House have ruined it, which is why Venezuela has seen an impact on its production levels losing about 300 thousand barrels a day just for that factor. A damage of great proportionality to Venezuelan income, because of the boycott that the United States is carrying out not only on US soil, but in other countries simultaneously.

The company India Reliance Industries, in its commercial turn with Venezuela due to US pressures, revealed that "Since the sanctions were imposed and against what some reports say, Reliance has stopped all diluent supplies to PDVSA and will not resume those sales until that sanctions are lifted. " This was referred to by the BBC, in the name of Reliance, owned by Mukash Ambani, the richest man in Asia and who has close ties to the US economy.

On January 29, Venezuela received the last naphtha dispatch from Reliance in the port of Jose, in eastern Venezuela, according to Refinitiv Eikon, an energy company specializing in crude refining. In recent days the Venezuelan joint venture Petro San Felix, also in the east, suffered a sensitive attack on its facilities with the explosion caused by two tanks with diluents, an event that was cataloged by the president of PDVSA, Manuel Quevedo, as an "act terrorist "that would be framed in the road map to destabilize the country.

This element is undoubtedly connected to the statements recently made by US Senator Marco Rubio, who prophetically stated that "the Venezuelan population would suffer a severe shortage of food and gasoline."

SANCTIONS TO THE AMERICAN ECONOMY The actions of suffocating Venezuela by default are also sanctioning the US economy and its circuit of refining companies. According to HFI Research, "the balance of storage of extra heavy crude in the United States will lose a constant 3.5 million barrels per week", which is why the not imminent fall of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is "bad news for US refineries. since the shortage gets worse, "they said.

HFI Reserach emphasizes that the constantly touted damage to the US economy, before the current battery of sanctions, is a fact. In the long run, and unless the United States manages to replace Venezuelan heavy oil, the damage to the sensitive US refining circuit can be serious, as several US refineries are commissioned and modified to process Venezuelan heavy crude.

Both the blockade to the purchase of diluents and the attack on the tanks with diluents in Venezuelan soil, due to their simultaneity, make it extremely probable that the blows will be measured and direct to the Venezuelan economic marrow.

The other major suppliers of that oil, Saudi Arabia and Canada, deal with logistical features, such as the cost of ocean freight and the passage from Alberta (Canada) through oil pipelines, which is limited. However, Venezuelan heavy oil from 8 to 10 degrees API is virtually irreplaceable in several refineries and these would have to be modified to hold up given the zero existence of Venezuelan shipments to the United States since the second week of March, according to the International Energy Agency.

In this sense, Venezuela has had to start mixing light crude with its extra-heavy crude, in order to be able to carry out shipments and avoid a drastic fall in exports.

Light Venezuelan crude oil is increasingly scarce and is the fundamental input of the diet of Venezuelan refineries, which supply the domestic fuel market.

The Trump Administration, which has promised an "immediate" displacement of President Maduro of power, now deals with a race against the time that is being replicated in its oil market, an issue that implies the seriousness of a political "error of calculation" with repercussions economic

The latter assumes that the United States expects to hit the normal flow of gasoline in Venezuela, through a "scissors operation" to the vital processes of PDVSA.

According to Reuters, "the sudden drop in shipments of Venezuelan crude aggravated the global shortage of heavy crude that US refineries in the Gulf of Mexico 24

prefer" and these companies seek to replace Venezuelan crude with small shipments from other Latin American countries that have crude oil grades. According to Ryan Fitzmaurice energy strategist at Rabobank, "sanctions are already generating a paralyzing effect on oil supplies."

If the situation is projected after months, the damage to American refining systems will be disproportionate.

Vicente Nieves analyzed the perspectives of extra-heavy people for the Spanish economy and said that the emphasis of the Venezuelan extra-heavy oil crisis will hit exclusively American refineries. Well, for a long time, conditions have been served.

Extra-heavy crude has a "narrow market", represents 10% of world production and Venezuela, Canada and Saudi Arabia are the leaders of the industry. Neves points out that crude oil "was already scarce before the sanctions against Venezuela and now it will probably be more difficult to obtain". He indicated that more than half of the extra-heavy crude processed in the world is refined on US soil.

by: Franco Vielma www.misionverdad.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy

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THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE IS THE GREATEST OF ALL POWERS, AFTER THE POWER OF GOD -HUGO CHÁVEZ-

EDITORIAL TEAM: Jose Avila, Keyla Castillo, Milka Aweyo, Fredrick Kasuku, CONTACT: UN Crescent, Opposite Diplomatic Police Gigiri, Nairobi Kenya, P. O. Box 2437- 00621, Tel: (+254 - 20) 712 06 . 48 / 712 06 . 49