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looks like uncle slime is concocting another crisis in Venezuela
Venezuela says six members of ‘armed groups’ killed near Colombia
Venezuela’s defence ministry has said six fighters belonging to “irregular Colombian armed groups” have been killed in a military operation near the Venezuela-Colombia border, which has displaced thousands of civilians since last Sunday.
In a statement on Saturday, the department said 39 additional fighters were taken into custody as part of the Venezuelan army’s operation against armed groups in Apure state, in the country’s southwest.
Venezuelan Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez earlier this week said two Venezuelan soldiers had been killed in the clashes.
An official from Colombia’s Arauquita municipality told the Reuters news agency that about 4,000 people have been displaced since the operation began in La Victoria, a Venezuelan town across the Arauca River from Arauquita.
“We must expel any group of any ideology, of any foreign nationality,” Padrino said on Saturday. “We are obliged to expel them, whatever they are called.”
The defence ministry’s statement said that “weapons, grenades, ammunition, explosives, uniforms, vehicles, drugs and technological equipment containing information on their activities” had also been seized.
Displaced Venezuelans have accused members of the country’s military of committing abuses, including detaining and killing civilians, as well as looting and burning homes. Venezuela said it is investigating those allegations.
“They raided our house and took everything from us,” Jose Castillo, who arrived in Colombia with his pregnant wife and 12-year-old daughter on Friday, told Reuters.
“When they arrived they broke everything, the doors; they entered and took everything I had in the house, the workshop.”
[quote="PhSt"]looks like uncle slime is concocting another crisis in Venezuela
[quote] Venezuela says six members of ‘armed groups’ killed near Colombia
Venezuela’s defence ministry has said six fighters belonging to “irregular Colombian armed groups” have been killed in a military operation near the Venezuela-Colombia border, which has displaced thousands of civilians since last Sunday.
In a statement on Saturday, the department said 39 additional fighters were taken into custody as part of the Venezuelan army’s operation against armed groups in Apure state, in the country’s southwest.
Venezuelan Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez earlier this week said two Venezuelan soldiers had been killed in the clashes.
An official from Colombia’s Arauquita municipality told the Reuters news agency that about 4,000 people have been displaced since the operation began in La Victoria, a Venezuelan town across the Arauca River from Arauquita.
“We must expel any group of any ideology, of any foreign nationality,” Padrino said on Saturday. “We are obliged to expel them, whatever they are called.”
The defence ministry’s statement said that “weapons, grenades, ammunition, explosives, uniforms, vehicles, drugs and technological equipment containing information on their activities” had also been seized.
Displaced Venezuelans have accused members of the country’s military of committing abuses, including detaining and killing civilians, as well as looting and burning homes. Venezuela said it is investigating those allegations.
“They raided our house and took everything from us,” Jose Castillo, who arrived in Colombia with his pregnant wife and 12-year-old daughter on Friday, told Reuters.
“When they arrived they broke everything, the doors; they entered and took everything I had in the house, the workshop.”
A lot of persons from Venezuela are coming across our Southern border into Texas.
On the ground in Del Rio, Texas for @townhallcom . This large group has just crossed the river from Mexico and many say they are from Venezuela. Only Texas state troopers were here at first to intercept them.
There has been trouble in the Colombian border area for months. This is cartel violence and not related to foreign backed insurgencies
On the Colombian side of the border there has been a sharp decline in safety and government influence for years now. This is related to the seemingly never ending immigrant flows from Venezuela and the neo-liberal policies in Colombia (creating artificially high fuel prices)
Smuggling, of both people and goods, has been become rampant in the area. Some time ago I heard that fuel smuggling had become more profitable than the cocaine trade. Don't know whether that's still the case though.
Cúcuta and the area around it are now infamous for its lawlessness and gang violence. The Colombian government calls the groups BACRIMes (bandas criminales). Most of them are heirs of the paramilitary groups, like Las Águilas Negras, los Rastrojos and the Clan del Golfo de Uraba.
In that area there are also several dissident FARC groups. CNN might not have told you, but after the 2016 Peace Agreements many of independent FARC groups (called.... th FRONT) rejected the peace deals and went on with what they were doing. After the demise of the USSR they transformed into a drugs cartel anyway
These clashes are caused by dissident FARC groups crossing the border into Venezuelan territory. Venezuelan state media frames it as 'Colombian groups'. The reason for this is something I don't know. Also not sure on the why, as the FARC has been allowed to set up base in Venezuelan border areas many times before
Columbia is a US colony and openly hostile to Venezuela. Even if Venezuela is not being careful with its attribution, it cannot be sure that these armed militants are not US sponsored "jihadis". The UK was training Ukr militants in 1945 to fight in Ukraine. This is a persistent and very old ploy by the west to engage in colonial regime change.
Politico: U.S. monitoring Iranian warships that may be headed to Venezuela
Interesting development to keep eyes on.
Politico is an establishment propaganda bullhorn and the article itself is a model of how to push a narrative. The arrogance is just astounding. Aren't Iran and Venezuela independent, sovereign states? What about the much touted "freedom of navigation of the seas"? Are US sanctions now equivalent to international sanctions? What the hell is going on?
Big_Gazza, kvs and Cowboy's daughter like this post
slasher wrote:Politico: U.S. monitoring Iranian warships that may be headed to Venezuela
Interesting development to keep eyes on.
Politico is an establishment propaganda bullhorn and the article itself is a model of how to push a narrative. The arrogance is just astounding. Aren't Iran and Venezuela independent, sovereign states? What about the much touted "freedom of navigation of the seas"? Are US sanctions now equivalent to international sanctions? What the hell is going on?
This is the capricious "rules based" system that the US and its minions are pushing in lieu of the existing international norms which includes the UN. The west has been bypassing the UN on a routine basis and wants to consolidate this into a regime where all international affairs are arbitrated from Washington.
The west is leaving the sanity reservation fast. There is not going to be any new epoch of colonial control like there was in the last few centuries. Even weak 3rd world countries are slowly emerging from such control. China's activity in the Africa is an example.
Uncle Swine-shit should be careful. His piracy can be met with force.
elconquistador wrote:There has been trouble in the Colombian border area for months. This is cartel violence and not related to foreign backed insurgencies
On the Colombian side of the border there has been a sharp decline in safety and government influence for years now. This is related to the seemingly never ending immigrant flows from Venezuela and the neo-liberal policies in Colombia (creating artificially high fuel prices)
Smuggling, of both people and goods, has been become rampant in the area. Some time ago I heard that fuel smuggling had become more profitable than the cocaine trade. Don't know whether that's still the case though.
Cúcuta and the area around it are now infamous for its lawlessness and gang violence. The Colombian government calls the groups BACRIMes (bandas criminales). Most of them are heirs of the paramilitary groups, like Las Águilas Negras, los Rastrojos and the Clan del Golfo de Uraba.
In that area there are also several dissident FARC groups. CNN might not have told you, but after the 2016 Peace Agreements many of independent FARC groups (called.... th FRONT) rejected the peace deals and went on with what they were doing. After the demise of the USSR they transformed into a drugs cartel anyway
These clashes are caused by dissident FARC groups crossing the border into Venezuelan territory. Venezuelan state media frames it as 'Colombian groups'. The reason for this is something I don't know. Also not sure on the why, as the FARC has been allowed to set up base in Venezuelan border areas many times before
Thank you for posting! For me it seems practically impossible to find any such news /history. I read Borderland Beat, which is news about the Cartels in Mexico, and I followed "independent reporters" from Mexico and the USA, Oscar el Blue, and Ben Berquam, when they went to Tapachula, Mexico, and crossed over into Guatemala, and posted videos. & have read Spanish language news from Mexico, but like a lot of other things, it's difficult to find news, unless it's from persons who live in, or go to, or are from, o have family in certain areas.
I didn’t know that classism was such a big deal in Latin America. It probably explains why that region is such a shithole. I think the Spanish culture had an extremely negative influence on Latin America.
andalusia wrote:I didn’t know that classism was such a big deal in Latin America. It probably explains why that region is such a shithole. I think the Spanish culture had an extremely negative influence on Latin America.
Latin America is infested with comprador elites. They are not loyal to their own countries, they are loyal to the biggest dog on the block because they think it is in their best interests. So they systematically throw the people of their countries under the bus. Venezuela is a perfect example. Before Chavez cleaned them out, they were busy running transfer rackets where the oil revenues were being pumped offshore to the USA. CitGO was a transfer pricing and tax racket.
The primitive colonial capitalism that Latin American regimes have been obsessed with since the Spanish and Portuguese colonial period results in a leftist backlash. The USA tried to suppress this by installing death squad juntas everywhere it could. This just polarized the situation more.
Venezuela had the potential to develop a viable mixed economy model, but the rotten capitalist elites never wanted to play ball and as shown in the documentary "The Revolution will not be Televised", openly aligned with Uncle Swine-shit to engage in coup plotting and attempts. This is why Chavez nationalized the assets of these clowns. But Uncle Swine-shit still wants to get his grubby fingers on Venezuela and has been financing the criminal underground (through Columbia and elsewhere) to destabilize the country. This is on top of the routine problems of nationalizing the economy. Some cultures are not well suited for broad spectrum state ownership and the efficiency plummets. Theoretically, there should be no problem and instead a net gain from state control since profiteering and parasite shareholders are no longer involved. But human psychology is suboptimal.
But it cannot be denied that Venezuela's socialism has directly benefited the poor majority. The claims that the country was better off before Chavez are grotesque historical revisionism.
The right-wing regimes and military juntas had 70 years to develop Venezuela, instead 80% of the population were poor. It took Cahvez only a few years to make the situation much better. It was the financial crisis in 2008 that slowed things down.
andalusia wrote:I didn’t know that classism was such a big deal in Latin America. It probably explains why that region is such a shithole. I think the Spanish culture had an extremely negative influence on Latin America.
It isn't just classism, but it is also discrimination by ethnicity. The Indigenous are very much discriminated against.
Study reveals racial inequality in Mexico, disproving its ‘race-blind’ rhetoric
Among nations surveyed in the Americas Barometer, Mexico ranks fourth in terms of the negative impact of skin-tone on an individual’s wealth, behind Bolivia, Uruguay and Ecuador.
The US support for the clique minority that has oppressed the indigenous majority in Bolivia, for two centuries or more, especially during the cold war and recently shows where its "concern" for human rights and democracy really lie.
Charlotte Cuthbertson@charlottecuthbo· 3h Del Rio, Texas. 57 illegal aliens from Venezuela on Thursday evening. Hundreds of Venezuelans coming through here every day now.
Biden invited everyone in Latin America to come to the USA.
These people may not be getting what they expect. Bing an undocumented illegal in the USA means being taken advantage of as cheap labour without benefits. If you get sick without coverage, then you may as well write your last will and testament and hope the US legal system recognizes its validity.
kvs wrote:Biden invited everyone in Latin America to come to the USA.
These people may not be getting what they expect. Bing an undocumented illegal in the USA means being taken advantage of as cheap labour without benefits. If you get sick without coverage, then you may as well write your last will and testament and hope the US legal system recognizes its validity.
They definitely get taken advantage of as cheap labor.
Although, if they go to the emergency room at a hospital, they legally must treat an emergency, whether they have money or insurance or not, and may not be able to ask if they are here legally.
but health care in the USA is iffy for everyone who doesn't have money or insurance. not just illegals.
Immigration law in Texas
Is it safe for me to see a doctor if I need to? Yes. Your doctor cannot share patient information about you, including your immigration status, without your permission.
Though undocumented individuals are typically not eligible for health insurance, there are many free/low-cost clinics that serve the uninsured. Find more information here.
Federal guidelines say that immigration officials or ICE cannot arrest people or do other enforcement activities at health care facilities like hospitals and clinics.
Cowboy's daughter wrote:Charlotte Cuthbertson@charlottecuthbo· 3h Del Rio, Texas. 57 illegal aliens from Venezuela on Thursday evening. Hundreds of Venezuelans coming through here every day now.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1400822586754351112
Much like the Cubans have been keeping Florida Red the Venezuelans will keep Texas Red. Because there is no better remedy for communism than living it.
Despite the strange descriptions of Venezuela in this thread it's actually a massive shithole. Venezuela makes African states look functional and well managed.
The only good things about Maduro/Chavez is that they keep LGBT insanity out, pursue an independent foreign policy, are on the proper side in the coming New Cold War and haven't sold out to global hooknosed oligarchs. Other than that it's your typical communist failed state.
For God's same there are nearly 3 million of them in Colombia. In Colombia(!!), where 42.5 percent of the Colombians already live below the poverty line. Forget about the official numbers, they are keeping those low to manage the blowback. Colombians are outraged by Venezuelans sucking dry the meagre public funds.
These Venezuelans make their money by doing crime, begging and working below the Colombian minimum wage. The stories are horrendous. The state has stopped functioning. The crime is completely out of control. Insane corruption.
The hilarity is the attempt to fob Venezuela's problems as its own. Chavez did not introduce communism. Such hyperbole is simple BS. He had a mixed economy approach which initially did deliver. But then the USA started pressuring all the private businesses in Venezuela to join its effort for regime change. Given their historical comprador nature, these precious, precious private businesses obliged. So Chavez had to commit the crime against humanity known as nationalization. The US just doubled down and kept using these new found victims and other criminals as regime change agents.
You can measure the success of US regime change efforts by the number of refugees. Chalk Venezuela up as another highly likely success of keeping Latin American countries on its plantation. And for me this is not theoretical. I have plenty of Ukrainian relatives in Argentina and my immediate family had experience with US meddling back in the 1950s. Peron was deposed because he dared not submit the country as a US colony. He was no commie but the US still did its best to remove him. His authoritarianism was vastly softer than what followed in the 1970s, when Bush Sr. ran the CIA. The USA went into a frenzy of death squad junta installation. You can't blame the leftist backlash on the victims.
The Venezuelan economy didn't collapse because of sanctions, it collapsed because it was over-reliant on oil, shortsighted economic policy making and overspending at home
I would also add to that the desire to export their 'Bolivarian Revolution' abroad started to annoy people far more powerful than themselves. But you could group that in with shortsighted policy making
It is no coincidence that Chavez's policies worked whilst oil boomed - and then busted during the 2013-2014 oil crisis. From there on the whole house of cards just collapsed
The US has dominated politics in central and south america for the last few hundred years... do you think Chavez and Maduro in the last decade or two shifted Venezuelas economy to an oil dependency in such a short period?
The long term policy of the US is to keep central and south American and also Arab states weak and dependent on single commodities... they wanted Russia to do the same... give up making planes and ships and land vehicles and everything else and just live off oil and gas revenue and just buy what you want from the west... we make it cheaper and better and it means essentially a straight trade where we get cheap energy and you get food and products to use... the perfect setup... for America... especially as American and western companies were the main ones with the technology to drill and extract and refine energy resources so they would be making lots of money too.
Venezuela was never Socialist or Communist and anyone claiming so is a fucking idiot who has never lived in a Socialist or Communist country... the people don't get a vote in a communist country... the Communist party has a vote and selects who will lead but the general public has no say and normally does not care anyway.
If you are wondering why all these people from Venezuela are coming to the US it is because the US and her western cronies... or should I say bitches... have economic sanctions on that country... which should be a war crime during an international pandemic BTW. They are not political refugees looking for freedom and democracy... they are economic migrants looking for a job.... probably to send money home if they can and if they can't to get a step hold in the country and then bring the rest of their extended family with them to the country not under western sanctions.
They will get abused by ruthless employers who wont pay a decent wage and human traffickers will try to exploit them too if they can... quite a few will end up dead.
In this day and age I rather suspect the number who will become millionaires will be near zero. America has changed.
elconquistador wrote:The Venezuelan economy didn't collapse because of sanctions, it collapsed because it was over-reliant on oil, shortsighted economic policy making and overspending at home I would also add to that the desire to export their 'Bolivarian Revolution' abroad started to annoy people far more powerful than themselves. But you could group that in with shortsighted policy making It is no coincidence that Chavez's policies worked whilst oil boomed - and then busted during the 2013-2014 oil crisis. From there on the whole house of cards just collapsed
The Venezuelan economy's dependence on oil did not start with Chavez/Maduro. And the US made it much, much worse not even allowing them to sell oil or buy food and medicine. They are just doing the same thing they did to Iraq under Saddam. In that case they had the excuse Iraq had invaded Kuwait. Which country did Venezuela invade?
Their excuse is Venezuela has nationalized its oil production. Except Chavez wasn't the one who did the nationalization. It happened in the 1960s. And Norway also has a national oil company. Libya had private oil exploration but HATO still went in anyway. Because the wrong private companies were exploring the oil.
Also, that oil crash was probably orchestrated by the US to try to break the Russian economy after the Maidan anyway. They failed to do it because their buddy the Saudis broke down first.
They did the same thing in the late 1980-1990s to break the Soviet economy.
The Venezuelan economy's dependence on oil did not start with Chavez/Maduro.
Venezuelas dependency on oil increased under Chavez. Just look up the numbers.
And contrary to Chavez the people before him didn't turn on the money printer when oil prices collapsed and instead implemented somewhat fiscally responsible policies that would at least mitigate the impact of these crashes instead of aggrevating them.
And the US made it much, much worse not even allowing them to sell oil or buy food and medicine. They are just doing the same thing they did to Iraq under Saddam. In that case they had the excuse Iraq had invaded Kuwait. Which country did Venezuela invade?
Their excuse is Venezuela has nationalized its oil production. Except Chavez wasn't the one who did the nationalization. It happened in the 1960s. And Norway also has a national oil company. Libya had private oil exploration but HATO still went in anyway. Because the wrong private companies were exploring the oil.
Not sure why you are arguing about this, and I am not defending US foreign policy
As for the severity of the pre- 2017 sanctions, they are overstated. FYI, up until 2017 the US itself was importing ~700 000 barrels of Venezuelan oil per day. The country was already deep in the gutter by that time. Only after the Trump Administration significantly hardened sanctions did this chokehold really emerge
Also, that oil crash was probably orchestrated by the US to try to break the Russian economy after the Maidan anyway. They failed to do it because their buddy the Saudis broke down first.
Saudis tell the US what happens regarding OPEC/oil, in return they use the (petro)dollar
Nothing points at the opposite.
They did the same thing in the late 1980-1990s to break the Soviet economy.
Venezuela was collateral damage.
I think you are a bit stuck in the Cold War narrative
Soviet economy didn't need no breaking from anyone, in fact powerful factions within the US were propping up the Soviet Union through middlemen like Armand Hammer
Only when the Soviet Union had become completely obsolete the plug was pulled - with help from very powerful Soviet politicians/businessmen that benefitted greatly from its demise bytheway
The SU didn't fall, it was a controlled implosion.
GarryB wrote:The US has dominated politics in central and south america for the last few hundred years... do you think Chavez and Maduro in the last decade or two shifted Venezuelas economy to an oil dependency in such a short period?
Many of these countries were not even independent 200 years ago and Mexico invaded the USA ~170 years ago.
Also I am at a loss how US dominating the Americas and Venezuela's oil dependent economy are connected. More on that below
The long term policy of the US is to keep central and south American and also Arab states weak and dependent on single commodities... they wanted Russia to do the same... give up making planes and ships and land vehicles and everything else and just live off oil and gas revenue and just buy what you want from the west... we make it cheaper and better and it means essentially a straight trade where we get cheap energy and you get food and products to use... the perfect setup... for America... especially as American and western companies were the main ones with the technology to drill and extract and refine energy resources so they would be making lots of money too.
Yea that's why all those US manufacturing industries have been relocated to Latin America
There is a kernel of truth in this statement but it doesn't hold its ground when looking at macro economic tendencies over the last 40 years.
Venezuela was never Socialist or Communist and anyone claiming so is a fucking idiot who has never lived in a Socialist or Communist country... the people don't get a vote in a communist country... the Communist party has a vote and selects who will lead but the general public has no say and normally does not care anyway.
Many communist countries have had elections, both general and local. That includes the Soviet Union (under the 1936 Soviet Constitution). In China the village comitee elections have become a model for success (but now mostly abandoned), and in many ways a form of democracy that is much more direct than anywhere else.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25054084?seq=1
Aside from that this is a silly condition to determine what country is socialist and what country is not. Even the DPRK claims it is democratic, and the vanguard concept of 'democratic centralism' is pillar in Leninism
As for Venezuela being socialist or not, I'll let the person in questions speak for themselves.
So for once I agree with you Big G, because Chavez/Maduro are straight up dumbasses with zero understanding of economy and the geopolitical realities.
If you are wondering why all these people from Venezuela are coming to the US it is because the US and her western cronies... or should I say bitches... have economic sanctions on that country... which should be a war crime during an international pandemic BTW. They are not political refugees looking for freedom and democracy... they are economic migrants looking for a job.... probably to send money home if they can and if they can't to get a step hold in the country and then bring the rest of their extended family with them to the country not under western sanctions.
And you decided this sitting behind a screen in NZ?
Find me 10 Chavistas amongst Venezuelans in Colombia and I'll send a cake your way. Protip, they don't exist.
They will get abused by ruthless employers who wont pay a decent wage and human traffickers will try to exploit them too if they can... quite a few will end up dead.
In this day and age I rather suspect the number who will become millionaires will be near zero. America has changed.
That's a bit dramatic, and in line with the bleeding heart liberal Open Border propaganda
Reality is that tens of billions of dollars are spent on these people, and that hustling as an illegal is in many cases more lucrative then wageslaving as a US citizen.
Funny analysis. So according to you the economic situation in Venezuela before Chavez was simply stellar and those comprador parasites who ran their transfer pricing rackets to siphon Venezuelan wealth to the USA were great economics managers who truly understood economics.
Spare your American imbecile drivel. You spout off standard American right wing talking points and could care less about any information that goes against your beliefs. Chavez raised millions of Venezuelans out of poverty. By that metric he clearly knew about economics more than you. Some magical market will always make everyone rich, not the colonial masters in Washington who pimp the particular economics ideology (free trade, etc.). Yeah, truly rooted in reality that is.
One of the most common BS assertions about Venezuela is that Chavez brought inflation. It was higher during the 1990s before his arrival. Using oil revenues to "subsidize" Venezuela takes the cake for imbecile propaganda. I suppose the optimal use of that money is to subsidize the starving children in the USA, the ones that run Congress and their puppet masters. This is the same imbecile drivel that we hear about Russia, how badly Russia's budget depends on Russian oil production taxes. Oh my. Clearly progressive taxation assrape of the vast majority through income and property taxes is the only way to go. The so-called free trade experts are such foaming at the mouth hypocrites. What happened to comparative advantage? So that only applies if Russia or Venezuela submit to Exxon and pals doing the extraction and export, throwing some crumbs to the local peasants...
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