U.S. international sanctions are a throwback to 16th-century piracy

José Ignacio Hernández, Juan Guaidó’s former special prosecutor, has announced that supposed victims of the FARC and the ELN will be demanding an indemnification derived from assets of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA that were frozen in the United States. The opening case is that of the Colombian citizen Antonio Caballero who has had his demand against PDVSA accepted in a court of New York. Caballero is demanding that the court turn over $9,444,116 worth of PDVSA assets. He is basing his case on an anti-terrorist law promulgated under Trump that allows victims of terrorism to request compensation in the form of property impounded by the United States government. Caballero is claiming that the Venezuelan government is complicit in the alleged acts of terrorism carried out by the Colombian guerrilla movement.

 

All this speaks poorly of Juan Guaidó who has been unable to defend the very property – in this case Venezuela’s oil company CITGO – that was illegally turned over to him by the U.S. government. That Hernández, who teaches at Harvard University and has taught in the pro-business institute IESA located in Caracas, was first working for Guaidó and is now working against the interests of the Venezuelan nation, demonstrates the mixed loyalty, or rather the lack of any loyalty, of those working to destabilize Venezuela.

 

It is amazing that with so much rhetoric coming from the economic elite – dating back to the writings of the 18^th century ideologues of the rising bourgeoisie – on the sacred nature of private property, that none of its representatives are raising concern. Indeed, the seizure last August of gasoline from four Iranian oil tankers destined for Venezuela by the U.S. navy which is now being sold is another example of disrespect for property rights and of veritable piracy. What is really sad is not the violation of the principles of private property, but the immense suffering of all Venezuelans in the face of this complete disregard for national sovereignty.