Author Archives: Jim Hodgson

U.S. approach to Venezuela is “imperial madness”

by Jim Hodgson

The claim by U.S. President Donald Trump that his forces attacked “a big facility” in Venezuela left me wondering if he was (again) flat-out lying, having another cognition meltdown, or maybe speaking some sort of truth.

In a radio interview Dec. 26, Trump said: “We just knocked out – I don’t know if you read or you saw – they have a big plant or big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard.”

In Venezuela, officials reacted hesitantly. It turns out there was a fire earlier that day at a chemical warehouse run by a company called Primazol in Maracaibo, a major hub for the export of petroleum. But in Venezuela, the fire was treated as a minor event, and the company issued a statement rejecting “the versions circulating on social media,” stating that they “have no relation to the incident and it does not correspond to official or verified information.”

Headline and photo from TeleSur English site.

The Primazol plant is located five km from the sea, making it doubtful that there was any facility there from which boats carrying drugs could depart, much less a “dock,” as Trump claimed in a second set of comments at Mar-a-Lago Dec. 29. (“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.”)

Today’s New York Times morning newsletter quotes U.S. officials who may be trying to provide cover for their boss or offering a semi-truthful account:

A port strike

The C.I.A. [Central Intelligence Agency] conducted a drone strike on a port facility in Venezuela last week, people briefed on the operation said. The strike was on a dock where U.S. officials believe a Venezuelan gang was storing narcotics, and it did not kill anyone, they said. The strike is the first known American operation inside Venezuela.

This Times story offers new details on the strike, which President Trump has already discussed openly, despite the secrecy that typically surrounds C.I.A. operations. 

The Trump administration has focused on three goals — to limit Nicolás Maduro’s power, to use military force against drug cartels and to secure access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves for U.S. companies.

“We’ve had 27 weeks of imperial madness”

Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello denounced the silence of the international community, particularly the United Nations (UN) and other multilateral organizations, regarding the months-long offensive waged against his country by the United States government.

“We’ve had 27 weeks of imperial madness… harassment, threats, attacks, persecution, theft, piracy, murder, and the world – I mean the world, that UN and its cronies – is silent; nobody says a word,” he stated during the activation of a new security program in Aragua state. 

He added that “imperialism, those who think they own the world,” not only intend to steal Venezuela’s natural resources, but “want to go further” and subjugate the Venezuelan people because “they don’t like dignified peoples who demand respect and respect themselves.”

Cabello, who highlighted the character of the Venezuelan people in the face of years of attacks of various kinds, offered assurance: “They are not going to ruin our Christmas or New Year, they cannot because of how many things we have endured, how many things they have tried against this people.”

On Monday afternoon, the U.S. Southern Command announced that it had struck another small boat in the eastern Pacific, killing two more men. The new strike means that the U.S. military has killed more than 100 individuals in an operation widely condemned as illegal.

Mexico’s president rejects interventions, call for greater UN leadership

Speaking at a news conference early on Dec. 30, President Claudia Sheinbaum said that the UN should play a more prominent role in these cases.

“What we have to say is that we do not agree with interventions, especially military ones. That is enshrined in our country’s constitution, and that is what we will continue to defend,” she said in response to a question about the case.

When asked if there should be a call in the region to support Venezuela, she replied, “Yes, and as we have said, the United Nations must take a more prominent role in these cases.”

Mexico and other countries backed Venezuela in a Dec. 23 meeting of the UN Security Council, but the United States used its veto power to block a Venezuelan resolution from even coming to a vote. 

Diverse parts of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) are responding to the situations facing Venezuela in different ways. 

On Dec. 24, several UN experts (“special rapporteurs”) denounced the partial maritime blockade imposed by the United States on Venezuela as violating fundamental rules of international law. The same day, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil welcomed the statement: “The truth about Venezuela is breaking through around the world.”

Meanwhile, the OHCHR has announced a new “fact-finding” mission to Venezuela that will include Alex Neve, former secretary general of Amnesty International Canada.

And Canada?

Silence from Ottawa regarding U.S. aggression towards Venezuela has been resounding – even in the face of reports that Canada helps the United States in those boat attacks. It’s clear that the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney is choosing its words carefully in the face of U.S. threats to Canada’s sovereignty.

But Canada should at least uphold the 2014 declaration by Latin America and Caribbean countries that their region is a “zone of peace,” support calls for UN leadership in peace-making, and reject the new U.S. National Security Strategy. 

Take action for Cuba this Christmas

by Jim Hodgson

As Beth Baskin, my friend and former colleague at the United Church of Canada, wrote in an email Wednesday to several Canadian churches, unions and solidarity groups:

“Unfortunately, the people of Cuba will be experiencing a Christmas without sufficient power and having spent 70 per cent of their income on food to feed their family this month. They may be missing family members at the table as they suffer from increased disease or have left the country seeking a better life. All of these realities existed before Hurricane Melissa struck earlier this fall affecting 3.5 million people and damaging homes, schools, and healthcare centres.” 

You might have been doing this (or something like it) over the past few years – or for more than 65 years since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, sparked the ire of the United States. Maybe you have written letters like the one we suggest here and below. Or maybe you have contributed funds to one of the organizations that support workers, churches, women and farmers in Cuba. Or perhaps you contributed goods to send in a container to Cuba, or took an extra suitcase with medicine or milk powder to leave with friends when you last travelled there.

Thank you!

The government of Canada has contributed at least $6.5 million to several agencies carrying out relief actions in response to Hurricane Melissa. But there are longer term requests that we have of our government. 

Canada should take these actions:

  • Continue to scale up efforts to provide immediate food, medicines and medical supplies and ongoing development assistance to Cuba;
  • Strengthen Canada’s commitment to an independent foreign policy with Cuba based on dialogue, constructive engagement and respect for self-determination rather than punitive measures such as sanctions that only hurt the Cuban people;
  • Work with other countries, including from Latin America, the Caribbean and others, to prevent U.S. measures that isolate and harm the Cuban people from interfering with the delivery of humanitarian assistance by other countries, including Canada.

You are invited to raise your concerns with our Canadian government through this Take Action link.

And thanks for sharing this request as you are able. 

From the text of our Take Action request:

What’s Happening in Cuba
Cuban partner organizations and recent visitors say conditions in Cuba today are much more difficult than in the early 1990s when the implosion of the Soviet Union led to a massive deterioration in living standards. The pandemic shuttered the tourism industry, a main source of revenue used to acquire food, medicines and fuel from abroad. Cuba has also suffered a series of hurricanes, droughts and floods, leading to lost crops and food shortages. Energy shortages limit public transit and even the collection of garbage. Punitive U.S. measures under both Biden and Trump have also reversed the many gains delivered by the easing of such measures by the Obama administration.

The return of Trump in 2025, and appointment of Marco Rubio, a vocal proponent of increased sanctions on Cuba, as U.S. Secretary of State, has meant additional pressure. U.S. measures not only restrict U.S. citizens and businesses from providing support to the Cuban people, they also interfere with the delivery of humanitarian aid by other countries because banks limit transactions; suppliers face risks of U.S. retaliation; shipping of freight becomes more complicated and costly.

Again, here’s a way to write to Canadian government ministers and your Member of Parliament: https://petition.web.net/CanadaActNowOnCuba

Thanks! ¡Feliz Navidad!

The Monroe Doctrine never went away

by Jim Hodgson

Beyond the constant babbling of That Man Next Door is a real plan for U.S. domination of the Americas. 

The Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) says it will discourage Latin America and Caribbean nations from working with each other and with countries from outside the hemisphere. Overtly racist and nationalist, it also presses European countries to take “primary responsibility” for their own defence.

New York Times headlines in recent days.

The document was released Thursday night (Dec. 4) and neatly summarized Friday night (Dec. 5) by U.S. historian Heather Cox Richardson:

In place of the post–World War II rules-based international order, the Trump administration’s NSS commits the U.S. to a world divided into spheres of interest by dominant countries. It calls for the U.S. to dominate the Western Hemisphere through what it calls “commercial diplomacy,” using “tariffs and reciprocal trade agreements as powerful tools” and discouraging Latin American nations from working with other nations. 

“The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity,” it says, “a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region.” …

It went on to make clear that this policy is a plan to help U.S. businesses take over Latin America and, perhaps, Canada. “The U.S. Government will identify strategic acquisition and investment opportunities for American companies in the region and present these opportunities for assessment by every U.S. Government financing program,” it said, “including but not limited to those within the Departments of State, War, and Energy; the Small Business Administration; the International Development Finance Corporation; the Export-Import Bank; and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.”

Should countries oppose such U.S. initiatives, it said, “[t]he United States must also resist and reverse measures such as targeted taxation, unfair regulation, and expropriation that disadvantage U.S. businesses.”

Think of it. The tariff fights with Canada, Mexico and Brazil. The stepped-up sanctions against Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. The mass murders of alleged “drug-traffickers” by exploding their boats in the open sea. Overt threats of “land strikes” in Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela. Trump’s interventions in national elections in Argentina and, most recently, Honduras. These are all part of the same strategy for renewed U.S. dominance.

Resistance grows and is not futile.

I take my title today from the headline over La Jornada’s lead editorial Sunday, Dec. 7:  Monroe nunca se fue. Trump’s policy (“Donroe”) rejects the polite notion of a “good neighbour policy” towards Latin America and the Caribbean promoted after 1933 by Franklin D. Roosevelt and others. But that approach was betrayed repeatedly by presidents from both parties who involved themselves in coups in Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Honduras and elsewhere, along with invasions of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Grenada and Panama – and the wars in Central America in the 1980s and U.S. support for paramilitary death squads in Colombia.

The people of Honduras went to the polls Sunday, Nov. 30. Before the vote, Trump did two things: he pardoned former President Juan Orlando Hernández, convicted last year in the United States for trafficking cocaine; and he endorsed the candidate of Hernández’s National Party, Nasry Asfura (known as “Tito” or “Papi”). A week after the vote, Asfura is in what election officials called a “technical tie” with a slightly more centrist candidate, Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party. Those two parties represent different factions of Honduran family oligarchs. 

Whichever of them is ultimately declared the victor (a process that could take until Dec. 30), the ruling Libre party has been pushed aside. President Xiomara Castro had led the country for the past four years; her party’s candidate, Rixi Moncada, has only about 20 per cent of the official count – although many aspects of the election remain in dispute – including U.S. interference.

Key here is the coup On June 28, 2009, that ousted the elected government of Mel Zelaya, not quite a half-year into the administration of Barack Obama and his secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Their machinations brought about more than 12 years of rule that facilitated drug-traffickers, mining, corrupt land sales and human rights abuse – only partly subdued after the election of Castro four years ago.

“The abuse of force,” concludes La Jornada’s editorial, “is not, as [Trump] pretends, a sign of strength, but the recourse of one who cannot attract his neighbours with technological innovation, productive investment, exemplary institutions or a viable model of civilization.”