Pirates of the Caribbean

We hereby share an unofficial translation of an article published by Mural Newspaper on the Yankee imperialism intervention against Venezuela.

Trump continues the escalation of aggression against countries of Our America in order to fulfill his political objectives in the preparation for the new inter-imperialist war.

Since September of this year, Yankee imperialism has intensified its aggressions against Venezuela. This new phase began as a “measure against drug trafficking” after declaring drug cartels as terrorist organizations, thus intensifying the military deployment (elite troops, ships, fighter jets, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald, and even a nuclear submarine) that have been present in the Caribbean since August. Afterwards the U.S. Navy attacked civilian vessels, murdering more than 90 people. On December 10, they acted against the oil tanker “Skipper,” which was boarded by armed personnel and its oil confiscated. The United States justifies this act by citing sanctions against the vessel, but the Venezuelan government rightly denounces it as an act of international piracy.

Now Trump has ordered a maritime blockade against the “sanctioned” oil tankers. This step effectively constitutes a complete maritime blockade, as no one wants to risk being captured by the Caribbean pirates (read: the US Navy). The action is supposedly due to Venezuela selling this oil to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, an obvious lie since Iran also has vast oil reserves and has no need for Venezuelan hydrocarbons.

This blockade aims to destabilize the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Maduro government by exacerbating the economic crisis. But the immediate response is a massive mobilization of the Venezuelan people against Trump’s interventionist plans. It’s worth noting that during Hugo Chávez’s presidency, 2,010 companies in the oil sector were expropriated, several of them American companies, which is why Trump wants to reclaim them and settle the score. Furthermore, Venezuela’s oil fields are among the largest in the world, yet little is extracted and not sold to the United States, so Trump wants full access to Venezuelan oil.

Trump’s current rhetoric focuses on the “recovery” of oil, land, and other assets, and he is now threatening a ground invasion of Venezuela. For the time being, a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives has ruled against military operations in the Western Hemisphere.

But it is common knowledge that for decades Yankee imperialism has been preparing a regime change in its favor, and the so-called war on drugs is the proven justification for intensifying aggression against Venezuela. We see this in our country as well, where at the beginning of this year the Trump administration used this same lie to align Claudia Sheinbaum with its interests and thus achieve the militarization of the border. It is clear that this military aggression serves the interests of U.S. imperialism in its objective of securing and expanding its spheres of influence in our continent, and that the hostilities against Venezuela are part of the same Trump policy to achieve its strategic objective: total domination over Our America as the backyard of the United States; a necessary measure in the preparation for a new inter-imperialist war.