From the Writing
Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, March 14, 2022, p. 4
America has been absolutely brutal
first with the late President Hugo Chávez and much more still
with his successor, Nicolás Maduro, said Tariq Ali, a British activist, writer and filmmaker in the second part of his interview with Democracy Now!
He indicated that the only reason for this is that Washington has failed in its attempts to control the Bolivarian Republic and overthrow said Venezuelan governments.
Interviewer Amy Goodman asked Ali if the United States could unfreeze its relations with Venezuela because it will have to give up Russian oil to comply with the sanctions that the West has imposed on Moscow. Goodman referred to the release of two US citizens in Venezuela a week ago as a possible sign of rapprochement between Washington and Caracas.
Ali pointed out that the support against Russia for the condemnation resolution in the United Nations General Assembly for the invasion of Ukraine was not enormous
as very large countries abstained, such as China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, small nations in Africa, along with many South Americans, including Cuba and Venezuela. It is not that they voted in favor of Putin, but that they expressed their rejection of this style of doing politics
.
What we are seeing is perhaps an attempt to repair the gap, not for moral or political reasons, but for oil
he claimed.
Venezuela is the largest oil producer in the Americas and emphasized how the people of that country have suffered for a long time from food shortages and in many other ways due to the sanctions imposed by the United States, which, he said, could now need Venezuelan hydrocarbons. He indicated that the release of prisoners is a pretext, which could have been negotiated at any time, so it is important show goodwill
.
Maduro is obviously not going to look a gift horse in the teeth
and he has always said that his country will sell oil to anyone, because they do not impose sanctions, he said. He added that It is not impossible
that the United States also try to repair the gap with Iran, for its oil.
He reiterated that, although it is not obvious, Washington’s position is isolated from much of the world, even though the Europeans are on its side, he pointed out that there were demonstrations in Serbia against the United States after the invasion of Ukraine, because there they remember the bombings launched by NATO decades ago
.
When asked about China, he pointed out that the Asian giant remains neutral. But they are not blind. They closely follow what happens in Washington and the US media
and they know that many in the leadership of Washington assure that we should direct our efforts against China
.
I doubt that Chinese President Xi Jinping has agreed to the invasion of Ukraine, but he will not accept the US demand to impose sanctions on Russia either because the decision is linked to US interests.
said.
The interview can be seen at: https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/9/ they_need_the_oil_venezuelan_pres.
