The extreme nature of sanctions against Venezuela made it very challenging to keep economic activity going. One example is Caracas’s impressive five-line Metro system, where for almost twenty years they had to keep things running with no spares or maintenance support from the train manufacturers.
Yet resilience and ingenuity kicked in, and Venezuela actually reverse engineered and manufactured parts – the need to do this in the oil sector also created a burgeoning small foundry industry, for example. Eventually, sanctions will stimulate domestic production. I spent some time with the Metro looking at how this happens.
As ever we need to spread the load and please we are looking primarily to those who have never donated or contributed before. Our GoFundMe link for the Venezuelan operation is here:
This is the same crowdfunding account we used for Lebanon so discount the first £35,000 raised as it was spent in Lebanon.
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Economic sanctions can help stimulate domestic industry but background context has to be favourable as well. Having abundant natural resources (or being able to obtain them), no immediate hostile neighbours, and a culture with a long history of resilience and cooperation against immense odds surely helps as well.
Impressive stuff! The sooner Maduro is acquitted and Trump is out of office, the better off the whole world (including Venezuela) might be.
M.J.
Indeed – regime change is required – and the sooner Trump is out – the better.
An excellent video showing the extend ofimprovement to society and the well educated reverse engineering abillities that are serving society by enableling them to travel to and from work, as well as providing a service to visitors, able or disabled.
Thank you for an insight otherwise not available from our blinkered and stoic MSM.
Definitely can’t have crapitalist societies thinking that maybe we’d be better off without privatised, proprietary systems governing our lives, no Sir!
When you understand that sanctions are a form of economic warfare, which they in fact are, it starts to look like all the US’s, and by extension, the UK’s – because we simply shadow US foreign policy – adversaries, are nothing more than our own deliberate creations. That is to say, those designated adversaries, wouldn’t be naturally inclined to be our enemies, were it not for morons at the highest levels of state, acting without any meaningful public debate, to impose crippling sanctions. It stems from the US’s desire for control; wanting total subservience from what it views as subordinate nations. It’s only under Trump though, this ‘we are the rightful rulers of the world’ mentality is being overtly stated, with diplomatic niceties towards allies being cast aside. The US is a hegemonic power, seeking dominion over the peoples of the Earth. And it wouldn’t matter if Venezuela, Iran or Cuba were model democracies, it’s total geopolitical allegiance and loyalty Washington demands.
Don’t forget that the British invaded Afghanistan eight times and helped train Israeli terrorists. The CIA helped train the Mujahideen, Contras…
Sanctions have gone from a rarely used diplomatic tool to the primary instrument of US foreign policy. It’s a relatively recent development too; by 2021, the US had increased its number of sanctioned parties by 933% compared to the year 2000. Sanctions obviously hurt the most deprived and impoverished people in society in a sanctioned country, so they are morally reprehensible.
I still can’t quite believe the US kidnapped Maduro and his wife, using bogus cartel accusations, then threatened to bomb Venezuela if Delcy Rodriguez failed to cooperate. Do the American public think this kind of international gangsterism is acceptable? On Iran, they’ve forced a country, long weakened by sanctions, to fight for its very survival, after starting a war of choice. Israel and the US are now targeting public infrastructure, like universities and Trump threatens to destroy civilian power infrastructure, potentially causing societal breakdown in a country of 93 million and tens of millions of refugees.. How can every American not feel thoroughly ashamed?
Trump warned yesterday, “Cuba’s next”, this, after already having imposed a blockade. I personally thought Trump’s threats to take Greenland were tongue-in-cheek bluster, but I’m not so sure now. Denmark apparently took the threats very seriously. We’ve since learnt they sent Danish troops with orders to to blow up the main landing strip, to prevent US forces trying to establish a forward base for operations. Is anyone in the U.S. going to rein this ‘mad king’ Trump in, where is the opposition to this man?
“Do the American public think this kind of international gangsterism is acceptable?”
On the whole, I would guess that yes, they do. Until it affects their standard of living. One of the most astonishing things I have witnessed recently has been seasoned commentators like Larry Johnson (ex-CIA) suggesting that price increases of a few cents at the petrol pump could be more important than the murder of Iranian leaders and thousands of Iranian citizens.
But to the average American, apparently it is so. The outside world is not real to them.
“How can every American not feel thoroughly ashamed?”
A country that had no problems with thinking for centuries that Africans and Native Americans were subhumans is not going to struggle with this concept applied to the inhabitants of West Asia.
Venezuela has had charismatic leaders who have developed its resources to benefit its people. It is also outward looking. Cuba has been a slow and gentle backwater. Sanctions have limited access to much of modern life. America does not play fair. The UK too is being asset stripped. Black Rock wants the London Underground, and is towing drilling equipment to take our oil, as Trump told the King he intended. Greenpeace has had a hundreds of millions fine slapped on it in a US Court and is pluckily trying to prevent the drilling in UK waters.
We have a toy navy, Trump has said. And indeed we have borrowed a boat from Germany to protect Cyprus….
Correction: we have borrowed a boat from Germany for our commandos to board Russian ‘ghost ships’ in UK waters. Incidentally the ‘Ukrainian’ long distance missiles are continuing to take out fuel nodes across Russia, including a Baltic port that has been supplying countries affected by the supply restriction in the Strait of Hormuz.
I think the attacks inside Russia are mostly carried out by drones rather than missiles, although there have been a few of those too.
The attack on Ust-Luga was definitely by drones, and the smart money suggests that although apparently Ukrainian, they were launched from the Baltic states or even Finland.
Unwise; most unwise. More and more people online have been citing proverbs to the effect that Ivan, although slow to mount up, gallops when he does; and that his apparent peaceful nature is belied by the amount of blood that flows once he is roused to anger. Russians are increasingly impatient with what they see as Mr Putin’s excessively slow and legalistic methods.
British decision-makers would do well to remember that a Russian submarine could pop a drone or missile through their office or bedroom window at any moment. And there would be nothing the survivors could do about it.
Who exactly is this ‘smart money’? I’ve not seen any such claims. It would, as you say, be unwise to provide Russia with another excuse to take aggressive action against the Baltic states.
This stupid and unnecessary war has been dragging on for four years now. How long is it going to take for Ivan to ‘mount up’ as you put it? The claim that Russia’s slow progress is due to Putin’s over cautious approach is wearing a bit thin. Wars cost money, a lot of money, Russia has already burnt through 90% of its debt target for the whole of 2026 and Vlad is having to get out the begging bowl and ask his oligarch mates to contribute.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/26/putin-asks-oligarchs-to-donate-to-russias-dwindling-defence-budget
When he says “mount up” he means in the bedroom sense. On Trump.
Thanks. You realize that image will stay with me for the rest of my life?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5bx3J8E4wps
According to The Moscow Times (not exactly supportive of the Russian government – the newspaper is based in Amsterdam), it looks as if an unidentified Russian businessman proposed the idea of individual entrepreneurs donating funds to the Russian military at a private gathering attended by the Russian President and linked to an annual congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
Putin apparently liked the idea but did not request that such private donations be made to finance Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine.
Kremlin Denies Putin Solicited War Contributions From Russian Billionaires
It looks as if Naveem Badshah, the freelancer who wrote The Guardian article and who appears not to have written anything else on Russia-related matters, simply read The Financial Times article and repeated what it said.
“This stupid and unnecessary war has been dragging on for four years now. ”
and to think it could have been avoided by Ukraine accepting a peace treaty in March 2022, which would have resulted in the Russian forces leaving the country without further bloodshed. Who was it again, that persuaded the Ukrainian government that this would be a bad idea? It can’t have been anyone from the peaceable UK, could it? Surely not!
to think it could have been avoided by Ukraine accepting a peace treaty in March 2022
Not that hoary old myth again.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putins-2022-peace-proposal-was-a-blueprint-for-the-destruction-of-ukraine/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/22/boris-johnson-ukraine-2022-peace-talks-russia
“Not that hoary old myth again.”
I think your choice of sources for the mythicality of the peace process rather bolsters its truthfulness. The in-house organ of the security services and the Atlantic Council, what possible reason could they have for not telling the truth?
From your first link:
the terms offered by the Kremlin in spring 2022 would have left Ukraine partitioned, disarmed, internationally isolated, and utterly unable to defend itself against further Russian aggression.
That presupposes that “further Russian aggression” is a given, which I suppose it is in the minds of the Atlantic Council, but that doesn’t make it a reality.
In other words, Vladimir Putin’s alleged peace proposal was in fact a call for unconditional surrender and a blueprint for the destruction of the Ukrainian state.
That would be the same “Ukrainian state” that the US put in place with the 2014 coup, would it? No qualms about destroying the pre-2014 state to put it in place, I don’t suppose.
Documents released this week by Radio Free Europe…
Ah, that beacon of probity! Not a propaganda outlet or anything.
No doubt there is more, and more in the Grauniad, but I can’t be arsed and anyhow I refuse to read that rag on principle. All very Mandy Rice-Davies.
Well if you’re done sniping at the messengers I’m sure you have a infinite number of provably unbiased sources that support your position. How about sharing one or two?
No need. Even your choice of sources admits that there was a peace proposal on the table. All it is saying is that it is unacceptable to it, the Atlantic Council. Boris Johnson has also voiced similar opinions. Presumably they managed to convey that unacceptability to Zelensky, thereby getting him to refuse the chance for peace and choose to take his country to war, exactly as I said.
I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then.
Why, do you not trust your own source?
Even your choice of sources admits that there was a peace proposal on the table.
Which was really asking for unconditional surrender so no surprise that Ukraine rejected it without any prompting from Boris or the Atlantic Council.
https://youtu.be/a5126u88E7E?si=2YztApSWGIjIM931
Mass transit in La Paz, Bolivia. There was one of these systems in Caracas as well
Craig, Could you write some words about the election for the Scottish Parliament that is coming up on May 7th?
We understand that you will be standing for it as an Alliance to Liberate Scotland candidate and we are very glad about that.
But something seems to be going on. Or not going on.
The Alliance and how to vote for it is hardly getting a mention even from those who should be shouting from the rooftops about it.
I thought that I would hear the words Give your first vote to the SNP, and your second (the list vote) to an Alliance candidate. Not a sqeak.
Even Prism, who now feature sensible and impressive candidates for Alliance, seem very coy about how to actually vote for them.
Please could you give us advice ; how to get as many genuine Independence Alliance MSPs into Holyrood to make the super majority Alex Salmond was advocating before we lost him.
The problem with being a country that is a net exporter, is that you end up with a lot of foreign currency, received in payment for those exports, all of which can only be spent abroad. Thus domestic manufacturing and agriculture suffer because the foreign currency is used to buy goods from abroad. If sanctions reduces both the amount exported and the amount imported, then this problem is perforce solved and the country has to return to making things for itself.
Looks like my comment got binned by the spam filter even though it only linked to a Wikipedia article so I’ll ask the question without the hyperlink this time:
Did you have any interaction with Canaima OS Distribucion during your stay in Venezuela? The UK’s education system could learn a thing or two from it!