Venezuela: Oil and the election protocols

By Atilio Borón*

Various media organs in the Spanish-speaking world report that the government of Brazil will not accept the ruling of the Supreme Court of Venezuela in the dispute over the results of the elections. The governments of Colombia and Mexico are in a similar position and, with a more belligerent stance, that of Chile.

What does this attitude reveal? Simple: The enormous effectiveness of the blackmail power of the empire, which through an unprecedented media, diplomatic and economic offensive (even worse than what President Salvador Allende suffered in Chile, because at that time, the media had much less firepower and social media had not appeared yet) has managed to establish as an unappealable certainty the idea that the election of Nicolás Maduro was fraudulent.

Such a lie is nothing more than another example of the power of propaganda produced by lies and fake news based in the United States, which for months had been announcing that there would be fraud in the Venezuelan elections. And they announced it with the same irresponsibility and impunity with which they previously said that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Unfortunately, Latin American governments seem powerless to neutralize the extortion designed in Washington and executed by hundreds of media outlets and crushed by thousands of idiots who sing the same melody in chorus: there was fraud, show the election protocols!

But it turns out that, when last Wednesday the right had the opportunity to show the protocols that demonstrated its victory before the Electoral Chamber of the Superior Constitutional Court, its spokespersons showed absolutely nothing.

What’s more, they said verbatim, and I quote, that they “do not have protocols of scrutiny of the witnesses at the tables, nor lists of witnesses, further alleging that they did not participate in the process of transferring and safeguarding any material.” Likewise, they pointed out that the SUMATE organization is part of the technical advisory team of the Democratic Unitary Platform Alliance, and in turn they did not know who uploaded the information from the alleged scrutiny documents on the website of that organization that granted the victory for Edmundo González Urrutia.

Despite such a resounding confession, the government of President Lula da Silva continues to demand that “the protocols be shown”, an attitude that is not only unusual and disrespectful of the internal affairs of a sister state but is also paradoxical because, where are the documents that prove that Lula had won the 2022 elections? Did you ever display them? No, despite the complaints of the Bolsonaro supporters and Steve Bannon.

Joe Biden and several other leaders did not display them either, because there are none. What happens is that in the Brazilian electoral system, less reliable than the Venezuelan one, these records do not exist. There are no paper receipts that confirm the electoral result that the voting machines return. There is only the blind and suicidal confidence that these cannot be hacked, and the electoral result provided by the computer device is the faithful transcription of the citizen will. A belief that is at least reckless, if not absurd or laughable.

Precisely because of this lack of transparency, by not being able to compare the electronic result with the electoral ballots, countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Holland, Ireland, Kazakhstan and Norway have banned electronic voting. I repeat: where are your election protocols, President Lula? Why are they now required of the Bolivarian Government?

Brazilian President should be aware of what’s at stake in Venezuela

The Brazilian president and his advisors should instead be very clear that what is at stake in Venezuela is not the electoral verdict but the appropriation by the United States of that country’s immense oil reserves. It is naive to think that all this shrapnel from the media hitmen is because of some minutes or a percentage of votes.

“It’s the oil, stupid,” we can say, paraphrasing Bill Clinton. And Washington’s will to plunder is not going to be appeased by stealing only Venezuelan oil. Take note, President Lula: they also come for the Brazilian “Presal”, which with its almost 14,000 million barrels – nothing, compared to the more than 300,000 that Venezuela has – still constitutes a morsel that excites the insatiable appetite of the empire. You will see how they will also try to take over that wealth that belongs to all Brazilians.

Does it seem coincidental to you that the United States’ Fourth Fleet, deactivated since 1950, was reactivated in 2008 a few months after you announced the discovery of the “Presal”, hailing it as “the second independence for Brazil”? There are no coincidences in the world of geopolitics, president.

But to seize Brazilian oil and gas, Washington must first break the South American bloc and foment enmity between Brazil and Venezuela, preventing these two great countries from acting together and thus remaining defenseless against the empire.

They are about to achieve it. I hope you can free yourself from the extortion to which the empire subjects you with its army of operators, pseudo-journalists, hired diplomats and venal politicians who attack you day and night and recognize, once and for all, that Nicolás Maduro is the legitimate president of Venezuela and that the opposition’s complaints lack any basis, as has been proven in court. And, furthermore, that a joint project be developed without further delay within the framework of Unasur, to defend the enormous wealth of South America. If not, these will pass, via the IVth Fleet and the Southern Command, into the hands of the United States.

This article was previously published on TeleSUR here. Translation from Spanish by UWI.