The State of Venezuela

In this episode, we're joined by returning guest Joseph Humire, Executive Director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, and host of the new Border Wars podcast, to discuss recent developments along the Colombia-Venezuela border as they relate to Russia's ongoing invasion of neighboring Ukraine, as well as the recent trip by senior officials from the U.S. State Department to Caracas to meet with Nicolas Maduro and other officials from the regime's inner circle.

Joseph M. Humire is a national security expert, specialized in analyzing Transregional Threat Networks in the Western Hemisphere. Mr. Humire provides regular briefings and lectures on combating international terrorism, countering transnational organized crime, as well as China, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah’s influence in the Americas to various entities within the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as prominent think tanks and universities worldwide. He has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress as well as the European and Canadian Parliament. Mr. Humire is a regular national security commentator and contributor for a variety of English and Spanish language media outlets, including Univision, Telemundo, CNN en Español, Fox News, The Hill, and Newsmax.

Joseph Humire's new podcast series, Border Wars, is both a documentary series and interview-style show that provides viewers and listeners alike a firsthand look into the geopolitical dimensions of border conflicts in the Western Hemisphere.

Links:

Border Wars: Arauca, Colombia and Venezuela's Rising Tension I Episode 01

Border Wars Podcast: Weaponized Drug Trafficking I Episode 01

Washington Post: U.S. weighs engagement with Venezuela, a Russian foothold in America’s backyard

Foreign Policy: Another Conflict Is Brewing in the Caribbean

Human Rights Watch: Colombia-Venezuela Border Area Abuses by Armed Groups

In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Evan Ellis to discuss how Russia's invasion of Ukraine could affect Venezuela, Russia's closest ally in the Western Hemisphere.

Dr. Evan Ellis is a research professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, with a focus on the region’s relationships with China and other non-Western Hemisphere actors as well as transnational organized crime and populism in the region.

Dr. Ellis previously served as on the secretary of state’s policy planning staff with responsibility for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as international narcotics and law enforcement issues.

In his academic capacity, Dr. Ellis has presented his work in a broad range of business and government forums in 27 countries on four continents. He has given testimony on Latin American security issues to the U.S. Congress on various occasions, has discussed his work regarding China and other external actors in Latin America on a broad range of radio and television programs, and is cited regularly in the print media in both the United States and Latin America for his work in this area.

Dr. Ellis has also been awarded the Order of Military Merit José María Córdova by the Colombian government for his scholarship on security issues in the region.

Links:

Dr. R Evan Ellis

Lessons from Russia's Latin America engagement over Ukraine

Russia’s Latest Return to Latin America

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine comes amid Colombia-Venezuela tensions

Ukraine Crisis: Venezuela Assures "Strong Support" To Russia

In this episode, we discuss the Juan Guaidó-led Venezuelan opposition's "National Salvation Agreement" and their recent decision to enter ongoing negotiations with representatives of the Maduro regime (include Nicolás Maduro's son) in Mexico, as well as the decision to participate in local and regional elections to be held in November of this year.

Like most Venezuelans, both in the country and abroad, we remain skeptical of further dialogue and negotiations with the Maduro regime, and much more so of participating in elections in a dictatorship. In the past, the regime has repeatedly used negotiations as a stalling tactic, further dividing the political opposition and distracting the international community. Election results in Venezuela are rigged or not honored by the regime, paving the way for the dictatorship's current usurpation of institutions to begin with.

Zach Foster is the host of Latin Libertarians TV, hosted by the Libertarian Party of the United States, and helps operate the Citizens' Embassy of Venezuela.

@Mr_Zach_Foster | Twitter

Citizens Embassy of Venezuela

The Caracas Chronicles Glossary

EXPLAINER: Low expectations for Venezuela-opposition talks | AP News

Venezuela's Endless Crisis | Foreign Affairs

Venezuela Wants to Add Jailed Food Czar to Negotiation Table | Bloomberg

linktree.com/stateofvenezuela

NOTE: This episode was recorded prior to the July 2021 protests in Cuba. These nationwide protests, stemming from chronic shortages, lack of medical supplies, and skyrocketing prices for basic necessities, are the largest seen in decades, and are directly linked to Venezuela's declining oil production. More importantly, these protests are a call for freedom, which we echo and fully support. This episode will help put into context the interdependency between the dictatorial regimes of Cuba and Venezuela. Viva Cuba Libre.

“Colonialism basically consists of political, military and cultural control, a puppet government and an extractive economy. By manipulating Chavez, Fidel Castro managed to conquer Venezuela. He defined its government model; aligned the country ideologically with Socialism of the 21st century; reorganized, trained and defined the doctrine of its Armed Forces; assumed control of its intelligence and security agencies; sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers, teachers and doctors to consolidate its political dominance; and established the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of America (ALBA) for the geopolitical defense of his colony. He chose Maduro as the puppet successor to Chavez and established an extractive economy that allowed him to obtain up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day to sustain his own regime.” - Juaquín Villalobos, former commander, Farabundo Marti Front of El Salvador

In this episode, we're joined by professor John Polga-Hecimovich to delve into the symbiotic relationship between Venezuela and Cuba. Venezuela's sovereignty and independence has been ceded to Cuban authority, who under Fidel Castro managed to establish a modern model of colonial domination. It is the main source of Venezuela's militarization of political and economic institutions, creation of a police state, and the current deliberate disinformation apparatus.

John Polga-Hecimovich is an assistant professor of political science at the US Naval Academy and an associate researcher at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Ecuador (FLASCO-Ecuador). He holds a PhD in political science from the University of Pittsburgh, a master’s degree in Latin American studies from the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Ecuador, and a BA in government and Spanish from Dartmouth College. He has taught political science at Wake Forest University, the College of William and Mary, and FLACSO-Ecuador, and has conducted academic fieldwork in Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, and Colombia. His research is broadly focused on the effects of political institutions on democratic stability, policymaking, and governance, especially in Latin America. He has published peer-reviewed articles in top academic journals in the United States, United Kingdom, and Latin America, and book chapters in both English and Spanish.

Important Links:

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/programs/adrienne-arsht-latin-america-center/venezuela-working-group/#h-john-polga-hecimovich

https://twitter.com/jpolga

https://g.co/kgs/oUVtPV

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/venezuela-and-cuba-ties-bind

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2021/07/13/what-the-protests-in-cuba-have-to-do-with-venezuela/

Over the past two decades, China has become Venezuela's most important economic partner. At one point, Venezuela was the largest recipient of Chinese loans in the whole world, making up more than half of China's loan portfolio at approximately $60 billion. While those loans have long since dried up, and Venezuela still owes China tens of billions of dollars, China remains a key political and economic lifeline for the Maduro regime, importing Venezuelan oil in spite of U.S. sanctions, gifting medical supplies to combat the COVID pandemic, and generally providing quiet but crucial diplomatic support on the international stage.

In this episode we discuss the Venezuela-China relationship. To help us break it all down, we’re joined by Parsifal D’Sola Alvarado. Parsifal is a co-founder and director of the Andrés Bello China-Latin America Research Foundation, a think tank dedicated to the investigation and analysis of Sino-Latin American relations, and serves in his dual capacity as a foreign policy advisor to the interim government of Juan Guaidó.

We discuss China's history in Venezuela and overall strategy of supporting the regime of Nicolás Maduro despite Venezuela's continuing economic devastation.

http://www.twitter.com/pdsola

http://funacionandresbello.org

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2021/04/09/the-venezuela-china-relations-arent-going-well/

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2020/07/13/china-turns-the-pandemic-into-an-influence-tool/

Over the past month, Venezuela’s military has launched an offensive against irregular Colombian armed groups in the western state of Apure. About eight Venezuelan soldiers have died during the operations, which have caused over 5,000 people from the area to flee across the border into Colombia.

These armed groups include dissident members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist paramilitary insurgency operating in Colombia for decades until they signed a 2016 peace treaty with the Colombian government. These dissident groups rejected the peace treaty and have been operating in clandestine rebel units accommodated by the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro.

In this episode, we're joined by Cody Weddle, an investigative freelance journalist based in Colombia who has been reporting for ABC affiliate WPLG Local 10 News from the Colombian border town of Arauquita, speaking with Venezuelans arriving in the area to escape the violence, and hearing firsthand the sounds of gunfire and explosions from across the Arauca River.

Cody was first based out of Caracas until 2019 when a group of armed Venezuelan officers raided his apartment with a court arrest warrant for treason and espionage. After being detained for over 24 hours, he was released, put on a plane to Miami, and effectively deported from Venezuela.

We discuss the escalating combat on the Colombia-Venezuela border, as well as the refugee crisis in Colombia, the special military unit created by Venezuela for the border region, and the harrowing stories about Venezuelan troops told by Venezuelans arriving from the makeshift war zone, including arbitrary detentions and murders of civilians.

If you enjoy the show, please consider subscribing!

Links: 

Cody Weddle: https://www.twitter.com/coweddle

Cody Weddle's Story of Detainment in Venezuela: https://youtu.be/804ClXU9p_E

WPLG Local 10 Story on the Venezuela-Colombia border crisis: https://youtu.be/OA5DDtIJ3RY

Intro/Outro Song: tu+yo by Sad Lacra (https://youtu.be/Xaax2S74XhE)

We’re back! In this first episode of 2021, we’re joined by José Niño, a Venezuelan-born freelance writer and author based in Austin, TX. José Niño has more than a decade of experience as a political operative. He works with major organizations on a host of political issues, from gun rights to foreign policy both as a policy analyst and a copywriter. In addition, José has years of experience writing for various outlets such as Ammo.com, Gunpower Magazine, and the Mises Institute. José’s articles have also been featured on Business Insider and Zero Hedge, and he’s appeared as a guest on such programs as the Tom Woods Show and Dana Loesch’s Relentless.

We discussed the themes from José’s e-book How Socialism Destroyed Venezuela and Why the U.S. Should Stay Out. Among the topics tackled are the historical origins of Venezuela’s collapse and the macroeconomic trends of the past that have led to the totalitarian leviathan in the present. We also discussed José’s observations on the failures of gun control laws in Venezuela, as well as the China-driven realignment of the geopolitical landscape and the consequential need to reevaluate the scope of American foreign policy under and after the Biden administration.

If you enjoy the show, please consider subscribing!

— José Niño —

— State of Venezuela Social Media —

— INTRO / OUTRO —

To live in Venezuela is to survive. This is the case for the overwhelming majority of Venezuelans that did not flee the country and are now under strict lockdown measures imposed by the Maduro regime. We discuss at length in this episode the hardships of surviving Venezuela in 2020.

We're joined in this episode by Jorge Jraissati, President of the Venezuelan Alliance and a fellow at the Abigail Adams Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A syndicated columnist and Foundation for Economic Education alumnus, Jorge has been crucial to organizing the international community and its efforts to achieve a political and economic change in Venezuela. He has spoken about the Venezuelan crisis at numerous universities, including Harvard, NYU, and Cambridge (UK).

We discuss the harsh difficulties Venezuelans currently face on a daily basis trying to survive lockdown measures, a nationwide fuel shortage, and rampant hyperinflation. We also discuss Venezuela and Iran circumventing sanctions imposed by the United States, and what impact the U.S. elections and Venezuela's National Assembly elections will have on the political future of the country.

Links:

Jorge Jraissati (@JraissatiJorge) | Twitter

Iran and Venezuela are Circumventing American Energy Sanctions | National Review

The Public Discourse | Jorge Jraissati

Bloomberg Venezuela Café Con Leche Inflation Index

In this episode, we speak with the team at Yakera, a newly launched platform designed to re-imagine peer-to-peer aid in Venezuela. Launched by a group of students at Kenyon College, Yakera is a platform with the potential to help Venezuelans transition from survival to resilience. 

Skyrocketing hyperinflation and chronic food shortages amidst an ongoing global pandemic have pushed Venezuelans to a point of desperation, with a growing number relying on remittances sent from families living abroad. Remittances are in fact the single greatest resource of income stimulating the Venezuelan economy after oil and gas exports (and other illicit sources of income financing the dictatorship such as drug trafficking and gold mining, but more on that in other episodes). Humanitarian aid is often hoarded by the Maduro regime at the expense of Venezuelans facing the fourth-worst food crisis in the world according to the UN, and the regime has made it next to impossible to legally send money to Venezuelans who have no access to bank accounts.

Yakera aims to provide Venezuelans an alternative for aid and dollar remittances from abroad, and for donors to directly aid Venezuelans in desperate need. Through the use of cryptocurrency, transfers can take place freely without the regime intervening to take a percentage or enact foreign currency controls. Yakera recently announced that they have partnered with AirTM, the financial startup that is currently working with interim President Juan Guaidó to transfer bonuses to frontline healthcare workers in Venezuela. 

In addition to the financial partnership with AirTM, we discuss how Yakera works for both donors and recipients to establish a pattern of sustained engagement, all while skirting the malicious incursion of the Maduro dictatorship. 

Raúl Romero is a Venezuelan student at Kenyon College, and the founder of Yakera. He’s an award-winning alumnus of Middlebury College’s MiddCare Program for mentorship based program, where he came up with the idea for the Yakera initiative. Raúl is also an intern for the Human Rights and Democracy program at the McCain Institute.

Aaron Lambert, CFO at Yakera, is a student at Kenyon College majoring in International Studies with a concentration in Global Politics & Society in Latin America, and minoring in Spanish. Aaron is also a defender on Kenyon College’s Men’s Lacrosse Team.

Daniel Santos Ramirez, Yakera’s Head of Local Implementation and Partnerships, is a student at Trinity College (Hartford, CT), where he’s majoring in Economics and Political Science, with a concentration in comparative politics. Daniel is also a Strategic Planning & Policy Intern at the Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation.

For more information on Yakera, their social media, upcoming events, and ways to support and donate to their fundraising campaign, please visit their Linktree page to learn more: