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Dr. Paola Romero teaches philosophy at the London School of Economics.
As I write this, a number of political prisoners have been released in Venezuela. The unofficial list shows Jesús Armas, a former Institute of Economic Affairs intern [ [link removed] ], who was captured by Maduro’s police, short after Venezuela’s presidential election in July 2024. I hope that by the time you read this, Jesús will be reunited with his family.
Events have been unfolding rapidly in Venezuela since the capture of Maduro on 3 January by the ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ of the United States. Does the welcoming yet piecemeal liberation of political prisoners give us hope that a comprehensive transition to the rule of law is in sight? Too early to tell. What I do venture to speculate is that, what we have in front of us is a radical reversal of a post-war liberal paradigm. This paradigm was based on the idea that principles come before material conditions, that legitimacy ought to be a precondition for all other considerations. But just like Marx did to Hegel, the US strategy in Venezuela is putting this paradigm on its head: first, the strategic control of economic interests, then transition, and only then, legitimacy. Is this really as radical and ‘immoral’ as it sounds?
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The progressive paternalists out there, who have been selectively ignorant of our humanitarian crisis until Maduro’s extraction, seem to be waking up from their dogmatic slumber. Offended by the suggestion that strip-naked economic interests can ever fuel, as an unintended consequence, political stability and the re-establishment of minimal constitutional rights, they tell us that we should condemn the extraction of Maduro and the US’s imperialism. What they seem to miss is that it was ‘our own people’ in power for 27 years who have systematically looted our national resources, destroyed our oil industry, and shattered the fabric of society. We were subjects to locally bred masters, exploited with our own resources, invigilated, controlled, incarcerated, and tortured by Cuban intelligence. It is from this unique ‘lived experience’ that Venezuelans are judging, with contradictions, for sure, with serious and justified worries, no doubt, the present events. Yet, for some reason, we seem to feel a case of epistemic injustice when we are told that we cannot rejoice in seeing Maduro and his wife face justice. We exhausted all possible democratic and non-violent means to bring down a dictatorship without force. This was and is the crux of our existential dilemma, our historical conundrum.
It is against this form of paternalistic mentality, that I would like to set a couple of things straight:
“They are taking our oil”
The idea that the US ‘is only in for the oil’ should be unpacked. Yes, Trump is carving a new world order, on the assumption that America has to recover and oversee control over the Hemisphere. Yet, the idea that Venezuela was an independent, sovereign country, and that the Americans are coming in to take what is ours, is wrong: Venezuela has been invaded and controlled by foreign interests for two decades. China is the major beneficiary of our oil and most importantly, of our rare earth minerals, essential for the AI race. Loans have been the fuel of Venezuela’s toxic relationship with the Chinese Communist Party: the more oil we gave them, the more we owed them. Cuba has systematically infiltrated our military ranks, to such an extent that 32 Cuban soldiers died in the Maduro extraction operation – they were the only ones he could trust. When the US says that they are going to get back the oil Venezuela took from them, they are referring to the debt Venezuela owes to American oil companies, due to the mismanagement on the part of ‘Chavismo’ of the oil industry. Let’s recall that after the 2002-2003 general strike of the state-owned PDVSA, Chávez fired all the engineers, scientist and top-notch oil experts on ideological grounds, suddenly replaced by party cronies. Little did they know that our oil was not black gold but a dense and complicated affair to manage. The idea that we are little lambs and the wolf is coming to take what is ours, is disingenuous and factually wrong: it was Chávez, and then Maduro and his followers, who looted our national wealth.
Does this mean Americans won’t do the same? That is to be seen. Secretary Rubio insist on a three-stage plan, of which reactivating the oil industry is the first stage. Before the catastrophic collapse of our oil industry, America paid well, timely and in cash. That paid for the public university I went to, the roads we drive on and the preferential oil-dollars that paid for my Masters in the UK. We are the product of those golden years of high oil prices. In short, there is nothing morally wrong or politically evil about the fact that we have, and will keep living from selling our oil to the world. The problem is that Chavismo, having for a decade the highest ever oil revenues in our modern history, decided to put it in their pockets.
Is this only a temporary American tutelage?
Venezuela has historically been a state-driven, oil-centred economy. As much as I would personally like for the oil industry to be privatised and to abandon the welfarist mentality that I grew up with, a country in shatters (both institutionally and economically) like ours will need to depend on our basic resources and invest them wisely. However, Trump has said that it is the Americans who will administer our oil industry for now. Are we happy with this form of American economic tutelage?
No.
This is why Venezuelans, especially those of us outside the country, who can speak freely without our physical integrity being at risk, alongside those courageous Venezuelans back home, are pressing the US to align their economic interest with our political vocation. The revenues from our resources should be managed by elected and competent Venezuelans in the context of the rule of law. This is the challenge that the extraction of Maduro and a Chavismo-led transition presents. Are we heading, step by step, to a more stable and legitimate political system? Can sovereign governance and the US’s economic interest be made compatible? Is democracy at the end of this 3-stage plan? I cannot answer that right now.
The dictator is gone, but his allies are running the transition
The US has bet on giving Chavismo a “chance”, after the extraction of Maduro. For many Venezuelans, this has been a bitter pill to swallow. Trump was mistaken when he said, minutes after Maduro was on his way to New York, that opposition leader María Corina Machado, did “not have the support of the people”. However, would María Corina have been the right person to lead a transition, when the rest of the regime is still holding the de facto power? I can already hear the cries calling her a Trump puppet. For the moment, that servile puppet is, instead, Delcy Rodríguez, a once fervent anti-imperialist who, in less than 48 hours talks has started speaking of ‘strategic cooperation with the United States for the sake of peace and regional stability’.
Venezuela for the Venezuelans?
The challenge right now is that the democratic will of the people does not seem to be a currency with enough value to secure us a place at the negotiating table. At least for the time being, we Venezuelans, the civil society, the democratic opposition, have been left out of the political fight between the two powers, the US and the de facto regime. Partly because our political leaders are either in prison, in hiding or in exile. Partly because the US wanted to guarantee there wouldn’t be military coups following the extraction (for that, they needed to keep parts of the regime in place), partly because Trump personally doesn’t trust the opposition at this very moment and given the high stakes, to be capable of governing. The political value of Venezuela’s civil society longing for good governance is a ‘weak’ currency in the face of realpolitik. Can that change?
My hunch:
Will the Chavismo-led transition stay for long? How long will America’s tutelage last? Can Chavismo’s long-held hatred of the US be redressed? I have an instinct, a hunch, that the Chavistas will ultimately not behave the way the Americans want them to.
Am I worried? I am cautiously optimistic. I don’t care if America has good intentions or not regarding Venezuela: they have economic interest and we have legitimate political ambitions: the two can coexist together. The US needs some minimal political stability in Venezuela to guarantee its own economics plans. Those minimal conditions (rule of law, free and fair elections, competitive markets, the recovery of the oil industry, etc.) are, from the point of view of Venezuelans, conditions we haven’t had and have longed for, for 25 years.
The issue for us is to recover a minimal set of constitutional rights and to be masters of our own destiny. Venezuelans have been fighting for their freedom for years, alone, without arms, without resources. I trust that our time has come.
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