By: Ricardo Abud
I recently read in Russian Today: ("We will use the available communication channels with the Americans to clarify this situation," commented the spokesman for the Russian president)
https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/586611-kremlin-comentar-futuro-proyectos-petroleo-venezuela?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Array . My indignation was total.
"There are national junctures where silence amounts to consent, and where hesitation is nothing more than veiled disloyalty." Venezuela is going through one of those decisive moments where not only the control of its natural resources is at stake, but the very essence of its existence as a sovereign nation. What is happening is not a simple diplomatic dispute or just another geopolitical negotiation: it is the blatant attempt to turn the country into an energy protectorate, into spoils of war divided among powers that discuss our oil as if it were their own.
The imperial arrogance that seeks to unilaterally decide who can buy or sell Venezuelan oil is unprecedented in the modern history of international relations. For a foreign power to arrogate to itself the authority to "authorize" the commercial transactions of a sovereign nation using its own resources represents a flagrant violation of international law and an insult to the dignity of an entire people. This is not a sanction or a pressure tactic: it is an act of economic piracy cloaked in the sterile language of geopolitics.
While Russia declares it will use "available communication channels" to discuss its oil investments in Venezuela with the United States, a fundamental question remains: Since when have foreign powers discussed the fate of Venezuelan resources without Venezuela being the main, leading, and unavoidable voice in that conversation? When does it become normal for others to decide our fate while we remain mere spectators of our own dispossession?
The current situation demands a clear, unequivocal, and decisive stance from those who wield power in Venezuela, regardless of their political affiliation or legitimacy of origin. There can be no room for ambiguity when national sovereignty is at stake. Political calculations cannot justify silence in the face of the humiliation of watching foreign powers negotiate away our patrimony as if we were an unclaimed territory, a no-man's-land where the powerful exercise their will without restraint.
It is unacceptable, to say the least, to receive with honors and celebrations (a red carpet welcome) the energy official or his business representative from the same administration that carried out the forced removal of the country's constitutionally elected president. There is a line that cannot be crossed without losing all moral credibility: one cannot denounce a kidnapping on the one hand and shake the kidnapper's hand on the other. One cannot clamor for sovereignty while surrendering effective control of the resources that sustain it. Consistency is not a luxury in politics: it is the bare minimum of national dignity.
Venezuela is not a legal fiction or an abstract concept. It is a nation with two hundred years of republican history, built on the blood of those who died precisely so that no foreign power could decide our destiny. Venezuelan oil is not American, nor Russian, nor Chinese. It is Venezuelan. And any decision regarding its exploration, exploitation, and commercialization must be made in Caracas, by Venezuelans, in the interest of Venezuelans.
Beyond the current political situation that fragments and polarizes the country, there is a fundamental truth that transcends all sides: without sovereignty over our resources, no national project is possible, whether right-wing or left-wing, revolutionary or liberal. Without effective control of our oil, Venezuela ceases to be a country and becomes an energy province administered from abroad. And no government, no leader, no political faction has the right to mortgage this fundamental principle.
We Venezuelans, all Venezuelans without exception, have the inalienable right to decide about our resources. To decide whether we want foreign investment or national self-sufficiency. To decide whether we prefer to partner with Russia, with China, with the United States, or with no one at all. To decide whether we want external technical management or the development of our own capabilities. But these decisions must be made here, on our territory, through our institutions, however imperfect they may be, and not in offices in Washington, Moscow, or any other foreign capital.
History does not forgive those who, having the power to defend national sovereignty, chose the convenience of the moment, petty calculation, or complicit silence. Venezuela has been plundered for centuries: first by Spanish colonialism, then by North American oil companies that took our wealth, leaving only crumbs, and later by corrupt governments that squandered the common patrimony (none are exempt). We cannot, we must not allow a new episode of this long dispossession to occur in the 21st century.
This is the moment of absolute clarity. Those who hold positions of power in Venezuela today, regardless of how they came to power, face an irrefutable historical test: defend national sovereignty over natural resources or go down in history as the administrators of a protectorate. There is no middle ground. There is no room for ambiguity. No political calculation justifies surrendering what belongs to all Venezuelans. This is no longer the rhetoric of those who, in disguise, shouted anti-imperialist slogans. It is time to take that rhetoric and put it into unambiguous revolutionary practice.
A country's dignity is not measured by its military might or the size of its oil reserves. It is measured by its capacity to say "NO" when the unacceptable is imposed upon it. It is measured by the consistency between words and actions. It is measured by the courage of its leaders to defend what is non-negotiable, even if that entails immediate political or economic costs.
Venezuela deserves leaders who understand that there are principles that transcend any circumstance. Leaders who understand that sovereignty is not a slogan for official speeches but a daily practice defended with concrete actions. Leaders who know that no agreement, no investment, no geopolitical advantage is worth the price of our self-determination as a nation.
Venezuelan oil is Venezuelan. PERIOD. And any government that is incapable of defending that basic principle with all the necessary force does not deserve to govern this land that Bolívar dreamed of as free and sovereign.
THERE IS NOTHING MORE EXCLUSIONARY THAN BEING POOR
0 Comentarios