Venezuelans deserve democracy not fossil fuel-driven regime change

Global Witness has criticised the US attack on Venezuela in what the Trump administration says will enable US companies to exploit the country’s vast fossil fuel reserves.

The investigative campaigning organisation has called for a peaceful and democratic solution that allows the people of Venezuela to decide the future of their country and resources.

After the US conducted an attack on the Latin American country and abducted Maduro, President Trump said that: “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies – the biggest anywhere in the world – go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country. We’re going to have a presence in Venezuela as it pertains to oil… we’re going to be taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” Trump stated.

Global Witness CEO Mike Davis said:

“Trump’s attack on Venezuela reminds us that a world dependent on fossil fuels is one that’s riven with conflict, instability and human rights abuses.

“Much of the oil and gas the world uses is controlled by regimes that are undemocratic and systematically abuse human rights. We know that these qualities breed instability but the global addiction to fossil fuels entrenches that harmful power and condemns us all to the impacts of further conflicts.

“Switching to renewables is great for the climate but it is also a form of liberation, as it frees us all from dependence on dictators and warmongers.

“At COP30 in Brazil, 80 countries pledged to develop national plans to phase down their use of fossil fuels. Events of the past two days in Venezuela underscore how urgently not just plans, but action, to end dependence on oil and gas are.”

A history of oil and power

Following Venezuela’s nationalisation of its oil industry in 1976, there has been tension between its government, the US and the foreign oil companies operating in the country.

In the late 90s and 2000s, Venezuela introduced policies aimed at increasing state revenue from the oil industry to support social programs, including bringing the oil industry under control of a state-owned company.

In 2007, then President Hugo Chavez introduced a decree requiring a foreign-owned oil operations be converted to 60 percent ownership under the country’s state-owned oil company.

Foreign companies that resisted these changes – including ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil – had their assets seized. The two US companies and Chevron spent years in legal battles seeking compensation following the seizures.

After last week’s attack Trump said the seizures were the “largest theft of property in the history of our country” and that “massive oil infrastructure was taken like we were babies, and we didn’t do anything about it”.