Examining Venezuela's Electoral Integrity, Sanctions, and U.S. Interventionism w/ Dr. Bahman Azad - Ep 162

/ Don: this is Fortress On A Hill, with Henri, Danny, Kaygan, Jo

vonni, Shiloh, Monisha , and Mike

/Welcome everyone to Fortress On A Hill, a podcast about U.

S.

foreign policy, anti imperialism, skepticism, and the American way of war.

I'm Jovanni, and with me is Monisha.

Thank you for being with us today.

How are you doing,

Monisha?

I'm good.

Just chilling, hanging in there like everybody.

Okay.

Good, yeah.

I love it.

Thank you for joining us.

We have a special guest today, and we'll introduce him, in just

a minute, but first, I want to talk about The Monroe Doctrine.

On December the 2nd, 2023, the controversial and notorious Monroe

Doctrine turned 200 years old.

The Monroe Doctrine is considered a significant U.

S.

foreign policy statement articulated by President James Monroe in

his seventh annual message to Congress on December the 2nd, 1823.

There are four main points to the Monroe Doctrine.

One, it warns European nations against further interference.

In the Western Hemisphere, two, it established the Western Hemisphere as

the United States sphere of influence.

Three, it stated that the American continents will no longer be open for

new colonization by European powers.

And four, the U.

S.

pledged not to interfere in existing European colonies.

The initial reaction to this proclamation from the Latin America

inteligencia and pro sovereignty nationalist circles was positive.

Many of these newly established states in Latin America were either

gaining their independence from Europe or were in the process of gaining

their independence and envision a united American bloc against Europe.

Eyebrows rose, however, during the Mexican American war.

In 1846 to 1848, when Mexico lost half of its territories to the United

States, the doctrine was formulated to address immediate concerns,

but became a cornerstone of U.

S.

policy.

In the Western Hemisphere.

In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt added his corollary to the moral doctrine

justifying America's interventions in Latin America anytime the U.

S.

saw its interests threatened.

It has been acted upon both implicitly and explicitly, the American Doctrine

has been invoked many times throughout history, more recently by former National

Security Advisor and United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John

Bolton, in 2019, when he issued threats to Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua,

calling them the Troika of Tyranny, before announcing new sanctions and declaring

the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.

On August 28, Venezuela had a national election, and the United States has

refused to recognize the results, just like it refused to recognize the elections

before this one and the one before.

Washington's candidate didn't win.

As a result, more punitive measures have been imposed, including re

sanctioning Venezuelan oil and the confiscation of a Venezuelan presidential

airplane by American agents while in maintenance in the Dominican Republic.

Indeed, Washington has scrutinized every Venezuelan electoral victory of

the Socialist Party for the past 20 years, calling them fraudulent while

backing the most extreme elements of Venezuelans right wing reactionaries,

people like María Corina Machado and Leopoldo López, despite international

election observers saying otherwise,

even former President Jimmy Carter said in 2012 that the Venezuelan electoral

process was the best in the world.

Yet American authorities had problems then with the Venezuelan election results.

So where is the disconnect?

Why the obsession with Venezuela and its democratic elections?

I want to introduce you to someone who was on the ground during these past

elections to share his experience as an international election observer.

Someone who knows the country and has been an observer in

the past Venezuelan elections.

Dr.

Bhamin Asad.

Dr.

Asad, thank you for coming to the show.

Can you first tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and

what is your connection to Venezuela?

Dr. Bhamin Asad: My connection with when I'm president of the United States

Peace Council, and I've been serving as the executive secretary for decades.

And then recently, with the passing of our president, I was elected

as the president of Peace Council.

But our connection to Venezuela goes way, way back because, first of all,

Venezuela, the Peace and Solidarity Committee of Venezuela has always been

a member, one of the founding members of the World Peace Council very early

on, and as a sister organization to us, we have been cooperating with them for

a long time, not related to elections, but about everything else as well.

We have been going to Venezuela for the meetings of the World Peace Council.

And other events in solidarity for a long time.

So I've been very much involved in what is going on in Venezuela and

support and solidarity with Venezuela.

As a part of that we have been regularly invited by the Venezuelan

electoral council to participate in the elections as election

observers, international observers.

We have been going to the elections from the November.

Early on, the beginning.

And we have been observing those elections.

We are closely tied with Venezuela, with the Bolivarian revolution.

We fully support that, and as U.

S.

Peace Council, and also, since U.

S.

Peace Council is a member of the Secretariat of the World Peace Council,

as the World Peace Council also.

That has been our ties for a long time, and now, too, we stand in solidarity

with Venezuela regarding all the conspiracies that are being hatched,

against the government of President Maduro and the Bolivarian revolution there.

What motivated you to become an election observer?

Dr. Bhamin Asad: To me, it wasn't a personal motivation.

It was generally an invitation as a responsibility to go because I don't

think Venezuelan, Elections needs any international observers to begin with.

This is an internal matter to the people of Venezuela, and international observers

have become necessary just because the U.

S.

is interfering.

And it is from that point of view that it is our responsibility, historical

responsibility, to go in there, observe the process and testify that all of the

claims against the Venezuelan government and its electoral process are false and

lies and that they need to be corrected.

It's interesting you say that because, both, President

Jimmy Carter was an election observer back in, I believe, 2012.

And, he said that the electoral process in Venezuela was the best in the world.

Also, former president of Spain, José Zapatero was also election.

Observer, I believe in 2020, he said that he didn't see any irregularities

in the elections and he validated the elections, yet, people in Washington and

mainstream media, both the Venezuelan opposition in Venezuela and the Venezuelan

opposition in Miami, Florida, always contest these elections saying that

they've been fraudulent, and yada yada.

So do you want to comment on that?

Dr. Bhamin Asad: The, as I mentioned, Venezuelan election, electoral process

does not need any confirmation.

I have been there, we have been there many times, and we have witnessed it, it's

not necessarily just the people who like President Carter who say that, but the

very process itself testifies to that.

Like, all governments have three branches, of the government, right?

Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary.

Venezuela has five.

And the electoral, branch is the fourth and independent branch of the

government whose leadership is elected.

It is not a subsystem of the government or executive of the branch

of the government so it's not taking orders from the executive branch.

It's supposed to be an independent entity whose job only is to supervise and observe

and manage the elections, electoral process in the country at all levels.

It's their job to watch over these processes and to make sure that all the

proper rules and regulations are observed.

I myself have been there, and this time, there were two groups

of international observers.

I think every time it was like that.

One was They call them kind of official or legal observers, which

many of them are officials of various governments or various international

institutions like UN and other places.

And then there's the general international observers that they are

invited by the CNE to participate.

I was one of the very few people who were selected.

To attend the meetings of official observers, briefing meetings, and

one of them, which was almost half a day, the CNE, rectors of the CNE,

all four or five of them, were there, present, and they were briefing.

The international observers, official observers, about

the process, how it works.

It was a four hour presentation by one of the directors, I think it was the deputy

of the CNE, through audiovisual slides, all mechanisms of process from the very

beginning, the first step to the last step, was outlined, how the system works.

First of all, the system is fully computerized in advanced high tech

level, which nobody can tamper with.

Okay, nobody can tamper.

Secondly, on top of the electronic process, they have a physical

process, which is, the person who enters the polling place,

First, they check the identity.

They check his ID card or her ID card and make sure that this is the

person who has the right to vote.

Second, after that is confirmed, the computer allows them to vote.

When they vote, there is a printout.

The machine gives them a printout that says such and such person

voted for such and such candidate.

Okay, unlike the U.

S.

that just printout says, thank you for voting, it tells you who you voted for.

That's a confirmation.

That is how it's registered in the machine.

Now, they want them to put their fingerprint on that slip, on that receipt.

They get a fingerprint of the voter.

Put it on that receipt and then put it in the ballot box.

Now the counting goes on according to the machine, not

to the, now the physical slips.

The physical slips are only there for audits, no system.

For example, in the US if you have, somebody wants to confirm the elections,

they have to apply for an audit, one of the parties should ask for an

audit and pay for it on whatever else.

To go through the process.

And usually not all of the votes are counted.

They go by samples.

And that sample is usually 10%, 15 percent in the areas that are being challenged.

By law, Venezuela automatically runs an audit of 50 percent of all votes.

That's on top of others requesting it like last time when they challenged the

election results and the whole process was started with CNE and then went to this,

Supreme Court of Justice and all that.

This is just within the CNE these things are happening.

And then after that, if anybody still does not believe that, they

call for counting of the vote, and then that, if anybody challenges

that, it goes to the Supreme Court.

So that's the whole process, layer upon layer of check and balances

and audit and everything else.

So there is no way, there is no way that anybody could cheat

on this electoral process.

They could cheat by staging a cybernetic attack on the electoral

system computers, which the U.

S.

did in the middle, and caused a lot of reporting to be delayed.

And then the opposition used that delay as, oh, they're hiding

the votes and they're not saying anything about their final results.

Because The only time that they can announce it officially and confirm is

after all the votes have been reported and every computer system has been shut

down and all the reports have been done.

And with the cyber attack that they managed to do against the system, they

created all the delays and everything else that caused all those complaints.

But even with that, President Maduro himself took it to the

Supreme Court and asked for

a legal judgment about that,

right?

And they also called the, requested the opposition, who was running against

Maduro, but he didn't even show it.

That's

Dr. Bhamin Asad: exactly right, because the main candidate who was challenging

the elections refused to show it.

To submit the data they had on the election on their part, to be

compared to what is on the records.

They refuse to hand in.

They claim that according to our data, election is stolen, but

they refuse to hand in the data.

Exactly.

They also have, didn't they also create like an, like a parallel,

website, to tally the, the election?

Yeah.

I think it was created in Florida.

And there is, the website ran from Florida, and they have like their

own results from the elections.

Yeah.

Dr. Bhamin Asad: So

That was

Dr. Bhamin Asad: The thing is, it was part of the strategy.

They would go to exit polls and create fake exit polls showing that their

candidate is winning so they can use it.

Afterwards, as a proof that the election is stolen.

It was a conscious strategy of developing these fake data publicly

and, influencing people's minds.

Their claim is based on those fake exit polls that they had.

And they used it at the end to say that our data shows this and that, right?

While refusing to give, show the data, where they came from.

Yeah, and Monisha, you also accompanied Dr.

Asad in 2020, right?

Can you share some of your experience, doing that event?

Sure.

Yeah, so I was there for the 2020 national elections.

There with Bhamin on a delegation from the U.

S.

Peace Council.

As a social worker.

At the time I was working on my dissertation, where I was

investigating and interrogating the US' use of propaganda,

psychological warfare, et cetera.

For folks listening, my doctorate is in psychology.

So I was pushing back on the military psychological industrial complex

through that academic exercise.

I wanted to go and be able to talk to just the voters.

I was interested in the processes that Vaman just described, but I was also

interested in, how do the people who are going to the polling places feel?

How are the interactions there?

We were able to talk to whomever we wanted to.

There was no one standing over us.

With a gun threatening us or anything like that, it was very free.

I spoke with people who were not fans of, the Maduro administration.

I spoke with people who were fans of the Maduro administration.

I talked to them about, how did they find the voting process for them.

I talked to people who were elders, who were accompanied to vote.

I talked to people who were wheelchair bound who were accompanied by

others through a voting process.

I asked questions specifically pertaining to, how are people's,

people's access to the polls protected?

I asked about how, people with various types of learning disabilities

or other things, that may impede them from being able to use

the machine or view the screen.

How are they assisted and how are their rights protected in

the process of being assisted?

So for me, it was important to look at that aspect of the voting

process, as well as the, higher level geopolitical issues that were at play.

And what I really respected about it was that a lot of the people told me that They

finally had access to polling stations after Chavez, that there was a huge effort

to expand accessibility, for voters, because prior to him, there was even more

limited access, geographically speaking.

And so with that expansion, that helped people have greater access to a more

participatory democratic process.

As well as, the protections that are in place for folks who, like I was

mentioning, a person in a wheelchair, the checks and balances that Bauman described

extend in a more fine way to that, so that the person that is accompanying

them, they have to have consent.

To be able to press a button on behalf of the person who maybe can't reach it.

The poll workers themselves, I got to talk to them, and these are just

community members, these are not people who are high level members of government

that can be accused of meddling in anything, these are just folks from

the neighborhood who are there at their local polling station, and they're the

ones in charge of the polling station.

Volunteers?

Yes, and they're the ones, Before the voting, day, there

are multiple processes to verify how the machines are functioning.

We were able to view how that process took place at, a couple different

polling stations prior to voting day.

We were able to ask questions.

There was lots of international press present as well during that.

It was very free.

There was a military presence.

I talked to some of the folks that were in uniform there and asked them,

what is it that you're doing here?

Why are you required to be here?

And it was because there was a high level of, anticipation that the opposition

was going to do some shenanigans.

And so they were there to also safeguard the people's right to vote.

What I witnessed was no interference on the part of anyone who was wearing

a uniform in the voting process.

They were only there, as a deterrent from any shenanigans and also to protect the

voters, to protect access, for the voters.

So to me, I would love to have seen this here in Puerto Rico, I

think we need this in Puerto Rico.

The system that Venezuela has in place to protect a people's right to participate

in how their lives essentially are governed and managed, how policies

are developed, we need that here.

The level of protection that's in place, we need that here.

We need international observers in Puerto Rico right now.

And I agree with Bahman that ultimately it's an internal matter within Venezuela

it's sad to me that the only reason, regular people like myself got invited

to go and be an Observer is because of the propaganda that comes from the

And Venezuela also has, there's uniformity in their

election, in their process.

Unlike the United States, it's every state, every county have their own

processes, American voters are really confused in how the election work.

It was, for a lot of people when Bush, second, when he lost the popular vote

back in 2000 but won the election, it was a surprise to a lot of Americans

that there's the electoral college that votes for the president, not

necessarily the individual, it was eye opening to a lot of Americans.

They didn't know that.

A lot of Americans didn't know that.

How they keep drafting the lines here, the political lines here to make sure

certain party always win here in the United States, particular Texas, the

way they do in Texas to keep Texas red.

They keep drawing the lines and they keep, doing all these shenanigans and whatnot.

But in Venezuela, more uniform, process, and I'm sorry I cut you off,

but you should go ahead and finish,

yeah, that's okay.

It's like we're just chatting anyways.

The issue is US interventionism.

That's the real problem.

There are always going to be issues within a nation as the

people themselves attempt to work together to determine their future.

There's going to be people who want to maintain power and dominance and

their ability to exploit others.

And there's always going to be that conflict that exists within

a nation as the people who are being exploited attempt to liberate

themselves from that exploitation.

And there is always going to be a need for checks and balances and to make

sure that the right to a participatory democratic process is protected.

But that is even harder to do when you have a settler imperial

entity like the United States constantly digging their claws in and

attempting to control the process.

according to their interests.

And then when you have people within that nation who align with

those imperial interests, who are basically opening the door and making

an invitation for interference.

Yeah.

I wanna ask both of you.

Is there invite for observers, right?

Is there any training involved you get in the country the day

before the election, or are you in the country several days before?

How does that work?

Dr. Bhamin Asad: Go ahead, Manisha.

They do have it.

We have to go through training.

There are sessions before the elections for all the observers.

Be familiarized with the process, how it works.

They tell us what they expect us to watch and be careful about and all those things.

Yes.

Yeah, I defer to you, Bahman, since you were there

more recently, and received that.

What I recall most, and some of my memory of that time is affected by COVID.

What I do remember, was a lot of emphasis.

about our safety, to make sure that, we understood what was happening currently

between the opposition, between, some of the violence, potential violence

that might occur from the opposition.

And just to make sure that we respected that, to keep us safe.

And to be good guests.

Not like sometimes people go and they act entitled and they, do whatever they want

instead of adhering to the place that they are in and understanding, you don't want

to do certain things just because you're an American and you feel entitled to.

You could be creating a problem for yourself and for the

people who are hosting you.

So I thought that was really, important.

Do they break you guys in groups as you go in?

How do you guys get from police station to police station?

Dr. Bhamin Asad: Depending in, this time there was about 900 people there.

So we were stationed in different hotels.

And based on which hotel you were, they would split you into groups.

If you're too much, too many.

And Put you in separate buses and each bus has a schedule of covering

a certain number of Polling stations.

It's a process that takes about two thirds of the day going

from one place to another, and observing the process everywhere.

Not all of us go to all of the polling places.

There's thousands and thousands of them, and no way that you can go to all of them,

each group goes through a different set of them, to observe.

Another thing that I thought was fantastic was that we went

to different sectors of society.

In Puerto Rico, we have the caseríos.

We got to go to the more, urban areas leading up to election day.

We got to meet with people, talk with people.

We got to meet some of the local grassroots candidates that were running

for the lower seats, hear about, why their communities asked them to run.

So we got to see how even, we don't really get to experience that in

Puerto Rico or in the US where you have a truly grassroots involvement

in a way that's supported and trusted.

Nick Estes from Red Nation was also present, and a group got to go and

see the Indigenous voting areas, and they had their own elections as well,

their completely own separate election process, and so there was even an

opportunity, I unfortunately was not on that bus, but there was an opportunity

for people to go and participate in observing how indigenous life is

preserved in the process as well.

Dr.

Asada, Venezuela has been a crosshairs of Uncle Sam since

Chavez's election back in, 1998.

I was still in the military then, and I recall the media blitz, around

him, how he was mad and crazy and whatnot they were saying about him.

He came with the politics to make fundamental changes.

To the socio economic landscape of this South American country.

Chavez, called his, initiative the Bolivarian Revolution, named after, the,

South American liberator, Simón Bolívar.

This caused a lot of tremors among the Venezuelan elite class

and their foreign benefactors.

Before Chavez, Venezuela had been, a good friendly state to the United States,

Washington, Venezuela enjoyed a imperial vassal state relationship, to each

other, for decades, Uncle Sam enjoyed the, steadfast influence over Venezuela,

Venezuela, I think it imported like, 80 percent of everything, that they consumed

in Venezuela, Chavez represented a spoiler, him coming to power represented

a spoiler to this relationship.

For context, for people to know who Chavez was, he was a popular Venezuelan

leader and one of the handful of leftist leaders that were sent to power in the

2000s, along with several other, Latin American leaders, and who the United

States, nominated as the Pink Tide.

Chavez's radical politics, nationalized the Venezuelan oil industry and would

use the proceeds to pursue ambitious socio economic and infrastructure

projects with a poverty reduction program at the center of his politics.

In 2010, he witnessed the highest price of crude oil in the world and

poverty in Venezuela was reduced by 40 percent with extreme poverty by 75%.

Chavez initiated several pan regionalist projects that included

institutions meant for more regional solidarity and economic and political

integration and less reliance on the U.

S.

and Europe.

Chavez promoted the idea of creating a regional currency to

reduce the influence of the U.

S.

dollar in Latin America and helped found institutions like the ALBA.

Which is the Bolivarian Alliance for Peoples of America, the CELAC, which

is the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States, and the Union of

South American Nations, the UNASUR.

All right, this was supposed to offshoot the, OAS, which is the

Organization of American States, an institution created by the United

States after the Second World War.

Chavez also initiated politics that reached out to other global actors

like China, Russia, and Iran, and would pursue his vision of South to

South relations, meaning more intimate relations among global majority

countries that would eventually lead to a better resource distributed world, a

multipolar world, a multilateral world.

With an ultimate goal of a pluripolar world.

Chavez died of cancer in 2013, and named his successor Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro would be interim president until new elections were organized.

And in 2014, he would win a thin majority against right wing

opposition leader Enrique Capriles.

That year, they issued La Salida.

Or the ouster, was announced by the right wing to oust Maduro

from power and immediately rise in barricades known as Guarimbas,

who paralyzed Caracas for weeks.

We know now that there was a lot of Washington NGO funding behind these,

opposition politicians, rioters, and guarimberos, with Obama once boasting

that millions of dollars were going to Venezuela for democracy promotion, Obama

would declare Venezuela an unusual threat to the United States and impose sanctions,

and Trump will impose maximum pressure sanctions to cripple the Venezuelan

economy and cause a regime change.

Dr.

Assad.

The U.

S.

promoted far right candidate Maria Corina Machado, who was banned from running

due to past misdeeds like conspiring with a foreign government and attempted

to overthrow a sitting president.

She had a gentleman by the name of Emundo González as her surrogate candidate.

González lost to a 43 percent vote.

Count to Maduro's 51%.

Explain what you saw on the ground compared to what the Western

media was projecting at the time.

Dr. Bhamin Asad: I think the results, show what was going on that the

president Maduro had the support of the majority of the people.

You could see it in the, street demonstrations that

the two sides organized.

You could see that a few thousand in some block somewhere with protests

in support of opposition and the tens of thousands on the other block,

the day after the election, it was most visible where the support in

the society and the communities, stands with the two candidates.

It was very clear.

To us from the beginning, people were so enthusiastic.

About Maduro, every community, every place we saw, there was no way, even

from the manifestations on the streets, this claim that they have the support

of 70 percent of the population.

Can have any validity.

There's no way, technicalities aside from the point of view electoral

process, the realities on the ground showed the opposite, to their claims.

It was very clear, the enthusiasm was all over the place.

People were even celebration after the victory was unbelievable.

Yeah, so go ahead, Monisha, you mentioned interference, how it impacts

the fairness of Venezuela's presidential election, how do you see this as an

obstacle for a true process, in Venezuela,

You and I have spent a lot of time working together on hybrid warfare

and talking about specifically the way psychological warfare plays into that.

And for me, what I look at most is how the attempts to interfere on all

levels, If you look at the aspects of hybrid warfare, the aspects of

psychological warfare that are at play, you have the manipulation of the public.

And, not everyone is going to agree with their government's policy.

Not everyone is going to agree with the way their elected officials run things.

That's just par for the course in any government system anywhere.

Everyone has different perspectives on what would make things better,

what would improve their lives.

Oftentimes where there are, dissatisfactions with the way

things are being done or handled, depending on a person's vantage

point from their place in society.

Those points of dissatisfaction or distrust or wherever there are

vulnerabilities within the society itself, particularly in the more

vulnerable sectors of that society, the more exploited sectors of that

society, then you have an undermining of trust, you have an undermining

of, confidence in the process itself.

So in that way, it causes harm, it can harm families, it can harm

communities, who may stand to benefit from the particular policies that will

affect their lives that come from, regardless of who is at the helm.

Oftentimes, people will focus on the particular figure who is elected.

In this case, it's Maduro.

Instead of looking at the larger picture of how are the people

protected by the public policies that are created by the entire party.

And important for the people to maintain confidence at the minimum and regardless

of whatever dissatisfactions may exist.

And again, I want to reiterate that it is an internal thing.

It's not for, I don't, I'm not Venezuelan.

I don't live there.

So it's not for me to lob a criticism because I'm not impacted

by those policies personally.

I don't understand how, people's dissatisfaction may form, in

terms of interventionism.

However, I think it's important that people remember that's for them to work

out and when you have, a force like the United States coming in and stoking

flames of discontent, you have them, using bochinche, using gossip, as Bahman was

mentioning, and you yourself, Jovanni, were mentioning that external interference

by, the opposition forces that are being housed and supported within the U.

S., particularly Florida, and you have the misinformation campaigns that are

taking place that can also reach back to the families, to the people, the

individuals who may be experiencing some discontent, and that can help

influence, and shape their own trajectory.

You also have the use of the anti electoral front.

So in Puerto Rico, here we have an anti electoral front, which doesn't always work

in our favor in terms of independence, but in Venezuela, you also had the creation of

an anti electoral front where people were essentially going to boycott the election.

Primarily people in the opposition were going to boycott the election

and they were calling for other people to boycott the election and using a

lot of the same strategies to try and influence, it was an influence campaign,

to, get people to not participate.

Because if you have lowered participation in voting, then you can

further delegitimize or attempt to delegitimize the outcomes of that vote.

Unfortunately, that does not work here in Puerto Rico, where you have bare minimum

voter participation and yet still you have the dominant party that is wreaking

havoc on our lives here still in power.

In the case of Venezuela, it was used as an attempt to undermine the participation

of voters who may, in fact, regardless of whatever dissatisfactions may exist with

their lived experience, Still vote for the

that's a ruling party.

Ruling party.

Yes.

Or, party that's empowered people's party, however people wanna put it.

So yeah, that's another way that interference can undermine the

outcomes and ultimately undermine the daily lives of the people.

And then you have the internal pressures that come from the

external pressures of sanctions.

And all of that economic warfare that Venezuela has been experiencing

for a long time, which weighs on also the daily lives of the people.

Yeah,

I was going to say that, and just for both of you, the issue of sanction.

Here in the United States, sanction is so abstract.

Many Americans don't understand what sanction is.

Even many Latin Americans don't understand how sanction works.

Latin Americans that come from countries that come from sanctioned countries

don't want to say how sanctions work, and their government for their precarities,

but they don't know how sanction is affecting the outcome on the ground.

I say impose about 930 unilateral coercive measures on sanctions or sanctions on

Venezuela, making Venezuela the second most sanctioned country after Russia.

In your experience, going to Venezuela, how did you see this play out, on

the ground, the sanctioned regime?

Dr. Bhamin Asad: In several ways.

One thing that people don't recognize is that even that 40 percent of

votes for opposition, It's because of the sanctions in many ways,

because the same dissatisfaction that is created by those sanctions

leads people to hang on to something that would represent some change.

Maybe, hopefully, things will change with this one.

In a way, that 40%, I would say, probably majority of it is sanction generated also.

That is a type of interference in the process in an indirect way of, Moving

people in the direction of being desperately looking for a solution

to the problem that they have, not knowing that it is coming from outside.

They refocus it on the present leadership of the country and say, okay, all your

hardships are coming from these people.

And as a result, you better, if you want some change, vote for somebody else.

In one of the discussions we had with some of our comrades, I raised this issue.

That, even in an open electoral process, even if they didn't challenge

anything, the very fact that there is a 40 percent vote for opposition,

which is created by the CIA and the sanctions and everything else.

Is used as a weapon to challenge the legitimacy of the government.

To say, see, if the Obama is so good, why do they have 40 percent opposition vote?

They never talk about the effects of these sanctions as a weapon that is doing this.

So this interference is at all levels, direct funding of the opposition,

moving the opposition towards a, not a democratic process, which is

aimed at overthrowing the government.

It's not aimed at the electoral process.

That is why from the beginning they say they don't recognize, they are not

going to recognize the results of it.

They don't accept the results of the election.

They refuse to bring any document.

The ultimate objective is to delegitimize the government, as Puneesha mentioned.

And sanctions are doing this.

That's one of the effective ways of doing that.

It generates enough opposition votes so that they can claim, the

government doesn't have the support.

It's not true.

Yeah, and I just want to reiterate an example of, how sanctions,

Work during COVID, there was a crisis in, medical equipment in Venezuela,

because of the sanctions, the Venezuelan government attempted to purchase

ventilators, a Swedish company.

To buy ventilators to bring to Venezuela an American company bought

that Swedish company, so they won't be able to sell to Venezuela, right?

The next step, the Venezuelan government attempted to buy

ventilators through a third party.

I think Portugal, gave Portugal the money, because they couldn't, because

of sanctions, they can't use electronic transactions, and the funds can be

tracked, and then, there's a thing called secondary sanctions, is that if you do

business with a sanctioned country, then your company be sanctioned as well, so

people try to avoid secondary sanctions, so they work in cash and whatnot.

The Venezuelan government gave money to Portugal, so Portugal can then

purchase the ventilators for Venezuela.

Then Portugal would eventually make its way to Venezuela.

And I think during that time, Trump, identified Maduro as a narco trafficker.

He accused him and put a bounty of 15 so we're not going

to purchase this ventilator.

And by the way, we want to keep the money too.

Yeah, I was there and got to experience.

So when I, they were testing us constantly, their biosecurity, I have to,

again, take my hat off to Venezuela's, way of trying to protect people from COVID.

We were being regularly tested.

They had strict biosecurity in place, masking, Sanitizing.

They had, workers in the hotel where we were staying going through with,

pumps with mist to sanitize surfaces.

Somehow or another, I still ended up contracting, I think, during traveling

to Venezuela was when I contracted it and I tested positive on Election Day

after, we had already visited the sites.

And I believe we had been tested twice before Election Day.

Once en route and once again when we arrived.

Their protocol was excellent.

I was moved into quarantine immediately.

They hosted my stay of almost a month.

I was hospitalized for six days.

Thankfully, because of the preventative, care that they provided, which is the

opposite of what happens in the U.

S.

and the opposite of what happens here in Puerto Rico, I believe that I survived.

They were also, receiving help from Cuban doctors, and I got to receive that.

But what was interesting is, so I think a lot of people, particularly in the U.

S., because of the propaganda, don't know that, Even though there

is movement toward a shift toward a more socialist, economic and

political system in Venezuela, that not everything there is socialist.

There's still a lot of private enterprise, including healthcare.

And so the hospital that I was taken to, It was not a private hospital, it was a

community hospital, and so the conditions within that hospital were a lot different

than the private hospitals where you still have to have insurance and pay a lot of

money, and they did not have an x ray machine to be able to x ray my, anyone's

lungs, and so that was very difficult for them, and even while I was in that

condition there, I was talking to some of the healthcare workers, and some of the

other patients, about life in Venezuela.

One person who helped me a lot passed away while we were

hospitalized together, unfortunately.

And I got to see how hard the nurses and the doctors tried to save her life.

I think that is another really horrific way that the use of economic warfare.

Essentially wreaks havoc on the daily lives of people there to the extent that

as Bahmanists, they will vote for wherever they think change will come from that

will make their lives a little bit easier.

So when people talk about sanctions, I think there needs to be more

humanization of what that means.

On the ground and what that means in the day to day lives of the

people who ultimately are the ones being affected by the sanctions.

It's not necessarily just government officials or business owners.

It's folks, it's children, it's mothers, it's siblings, that are being harmed.

Also access to food, access to essential services, right?

There was sabotage of the electrical system as well.

So imagine all of that during COVID when people are even more vulnerable,

even more susceptible to fear, pain, and are going to become even more

desperate during those times for change.

And then you have the economic impact of COVID on top of the economic

impact of economic warfare, and you have even more desperation.

The ambulance ride to the hospital was hectic because of gas lines.

Everything gets affected.

It's all connected, and everything gets affected from even that one seemingly

benign aspect of warfare that the U.

S.

is imposing or aggressing.

against the people of Venezuela, and I want people to really take that home.

That's Maduro.

Maduro is not the one that the U.

S.

is ultimately aiming to hurt.

It's the people that the U.

S.

wants to control, and it's the people that the U.

S.

is willing to sacrifice in order for it to take control over the resources, which

includes the labor resources in Venezuela.

Just like they do to us in Puerto Rico, just like they do to us in the U.

S.

They will do whatever they want to us in order to maintain control over us, in

order to put us in a position where we feel like we have to do what they say.

Dr. Bhamin Asad: Can I add to what, input the important point that Manisha

from human side of it, human side race, I think one aspect of the sanctions

that people have to pay attention to is the so called smart aspect of the

sanctions, because they call them smart sanctions, there is a reason for it, these

sanctions are not comprehensive, every entity in Venezuela or any country that

is under sanctions is equally affected.

The purpose of these sanctions is openly, as formulated, to strengthen

the private sector as opposed to the government and public sector.

They are sanctioning.

All the entities that are one way or another related or

working with the government.

Companies that work with the government closely, companies

that, sell stuff to the government.

Companies that operate on behalf of government in terms

of production are sanctions.

But countries, companies belonging to the opposition sector that are

not dealing with the government are free to do the trade.

This means that at the time that government public sector is being

constricted, the private sector is allowed to expand in the face of

it and replace the areas that the government is not active in anymore.

When we were there in, I think, 2018 or something, we organized a

delegation, of peace movement leaders.

U.

S.

Peace Council that very early on in support of President Maduro,

there was 12, 14 members of various organizations in the U.

S., leaders of the organizations that were there, Veterans for Peace, Jerry Condon

was there, and a few others, Code Pink Popular Resistance, everybody almost.

We witnessed this effect because they set up meetings with government

officials for us, for them to explain the situation in Venezuela.

And one of the places we visited was the Ministry of Health.

And the Minister of Health, official, I think it was one of the deputy

ministers that was talking, explained to us that before the sanctions,

Venezuela produced about 84 percent of the medicine it needed internally.

By the time we were there, as a result of the sanctions, this relationship was

reversed, because the main ingredients of the drugs they use were banned from

entering Venezuela and more and more the government of Venezuela was forced

to depend on private sector to provide

In a sense, by the time we were there, years later after sanctions

began, the relationship was reversed.

That is about 80 percent or 90 percent of the medical needs, medicine, for Venezuela

was in the hands of the private sector.

The same they had done with the food sector.

Now, I want to say that this sanction is not just to suppress Venezuela

as a whole, but also strengthen the private sector opposition against

the government, economically.

And as more areas of economy becomes controlled by the private sector, by

force, then they gain a political power to negotiate with the government and pressure

the government on various policies.

And the interesting thing is when the government of Maduro decides for the

protection of the Bolivarian revolution, to negotiate with the opposition,

which is the doing of the United States by creating this smart sanction.

That brings that opposition to a point that the government is

forced to negotiate with them to protect the Bolivarian revolution.

We have to understand, not look at the symptoms of the things and the

processes, but look at the real causes of the processes behind them.

Because if you look at it that way You will see where that comes from.

Who strengthened the opposition to the point that the government was forced

to negotiate with them over things.

It's the sanctions.

Very conscious policy of the sanctions.

So we are not just dealing with the sanctions affecting the

elections or health problems.

Balance of forces in the country are being changed as a result of that.

That's the intention, and we have to be aware of that.

And this is not only Venezuela.

They're doing to Nicaragua, they're doing to Cuba, they're doing to

Iran, they're doing to, all countries that are resisting United States.

And I think, we should also see the link between all of it's not

just one country targeted, it's a whole resistance movement targeted.

Yes, that was excellent.

That was brilliant.

You just mentioned Nicaragua, and as president to the strategy that they're

doing here, in the 79, revolutionaries overthrew the 40 year old U.

S.

backstop.

dictatorship of Somoza, and they came to power, the Sandinistas, and immediately

Sanchez were put upon Nicaragua.

They had elections in the mid 80s, I believe, and they were given

ultimatum, either vote the right way, or, Sanchez was Continue.

And Nicaraguan population, quote unquote, voted the wrong way.

So they voted for Sandinistas again, right?

So now the sanctions increased in Nicaragua.

They started putting mines in the harbor so ships come into Nicaragua with goods

and everything, then again, in 90, I believe it was 92, there was another

election, and the same ultimatum was given either vote the right way, or

Sanchez would continue this time around the voted, quote unquote, the right way.

So they voted they voted for Y Charo.

She was one of the, people from, the Nicaragua elite families,

so once she was voted in.

Miraculously, overnight, Sanchez disappeared, and, The Nicaraguan

system went from socialist to neoliberal, in the 90s.

That's what they're trying to achieve here.

They haven't been able to do but that's what they're trying to achieve here in

not only Venezuela, like you said, Dr.

Asad, also in Cuba and elsewhere, try to reign these dissident countries in.

Finally, do you believe, the United States promotes its strategy, promotes what

it's doing as benevolent, as promoting democracy, whatever it does, it's

promoting democracy, so it's benevolent, unfortunately some people get hurt

in the process, but at the end of the day, it writes for a good cause, right?

Do you believe that the United States interest in Venezuela will

go beyond promoting democracy, and what lessons can countries take?

Countries that are trying to break away from this orbit, take

from the Venezuelan experience.

You're our special guest.

Dr. Bhamin Asad: The whole thing about democracy is propaganda, we know that.

They have shown it over and over again that even if we take this

bourgeois formal democracy that they are trying to push over the people

because I always say democracy has a content and then it has a form, the U.

S.

pushing the form of it because it is through that form that it

manages to control the results.

They accept the outcome of a democratic process only if the result is good.

Every time the results of any democratic, formal democratic

process has been something that U.

S.

doesn't like or it's not in their interest, they immediately refuse to

recognize the results and organize coups, sabotages, everything

else to reverse that process.

And we know that.

So the claim that they are for democracy is just a hoax.

Just a cover.

That is not the issue.

If you look at the content of democracy.

Democracy, in my view, exists only when the governing body,

it's the state, represents the will of the majority of people.

That is the content of democracy.

And I don't see it as a formal thing.

The same way they define human rights, for example, for them it has no

economic side, it's just human rights from the point of view of the United

States for the people who support the United States inside any country.

Their rights should be respected.

Nobody else's right matters.

The same with the democratic process.

The lackeys of United States, the agents of United States, the

supporters of United States in every country have the right to rule.

That's the principle.

Now, if the results turn out otherwise, that's the end of democracy

according to the United States.

They don't see in all of these cases, if you look at it, U.

S.

Push for democracy has been push for the rule of minority.

Always.

Without exception.

And finally, if you look at it from a, as a matter of principle and

even theoretical philosophical one, imperialism is contradictory to democracy.

You cannot have both at the same time.

You cannot have imperialist control and democracy in any country

because as soon as people can democratically exercise their rights,

their first step is to get rid of imperialist control of their country.

So there is no way U.

S.

can genuinely call for democracy.

It is against its own interests.

It reshapes democracy in a way that serves its own purpose.

And that's what it is.

Yeah, at the end of the day, the US has never been democratic.

It was never ever.

The idea of democracy that the settler colonial entity of the United States.

For is a farce.

It's false.

It's a giant lie.

So for me, I wouldn't trust anything that comes out of the U.

S.

mouth, regardless of who's in power.

I don't care Republican or Democrat, settler colonial imperialist is

a settler colonial imperialist.

And they're going to always try to hold on to power dominance control over resources.

Whether those are human resources or natural resources, and we can

certainly, we must acknowledge that those same contradictions

exist anywhere that imperialism has existed, which includes Latin America.

We have a lot of unpacking of our own to do in our portion

of the Western Hemisphere.

Over, our long history of colonialism and imperialism before the U.

S.

began.

However, in many respects, there are more advancements toward decolonization,

a deeper decolonization happening in the southern half of the western

hemisphere than in the northern half of the western hemisphere.

And I believe that also poses a threat to the U.

S.

's idea of decolonization.

As Bauman described, that false democracy, because when you have something that I

really admired that Chavez was attempting was to balance, and again, I'm not

speaking from personal lived experience, I'm not Indigenous in Venezuela, what I

can see and observe is an attempt to shift toward a more decolonial way of life.

Similar in Bolivia.

So if the shifts that are taking place in Latin America destabilizing,

existing colonial powers, regardless of which empire they came from.

And that's setting an example for the people in the northern

half of the Western Hemisphere.

Holding on to, colonialism, imperialism, then that's another reason I think

the success we see of the whole it's for democracy narrative, is happening

because I think folks in the U.

S.

still haven't necessarily grappled with decolonization, aren't really

grappling with, or maybe haven't had the opportunity to grapple with.

Say it more like that, to be fair, because when does the working class have an

opportunity to breathe, much less deal with these, very complex contradictions.

So I think that has a lot to do with it as well, because if the U.

S.

can control the narrative about what democracy is, what it looks like, how it

operates, and they can control how that works in other countries, Then they can

keep control over the natural resources.

Then they can keep control over the working class inside the U.

S.

as well.

And so I think it all ties together.

And I wish here in Puerto Rico that, because here the narratives

around Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, et cetera, are very controlled by

the opposition in those places.

Are very controlled by imperialism, very controlled by our ruling class, which is.

Primarily people from those places that left when they were,

confronted with accountability, by the people they were exploiting.

I'm hoping that people listening and that folks who may encounter this later

on down the line, as things continue to evolve and accelerate inside the

Imperial Corps, just remember that, if we're not going to trust what the U.

S.

says about Palestine, why are we The U.

S.

says about Venezuela.

If we're not going to trust what the U.

S.

says about any other country that we're in solidarity with, why are we

going to trust it about Venezuela or Cuba or any place in Latin America?

You can't one side of your mouth say you're anti imperialist or anti colonial

or pro working class and then out of the other side of your mouth regurgitate U.

S.

state talking points about a country like Venezuela.

It's a contradiction that needs to be addressed.

And Resolve, hopefully sooner than later.

Said.

Thank you.

I think this is a good place for us to wrap up today.

Dr.

Azad, thank you so much for coming to the show and sharing your

thoughts and experiences with us.

It was a pleasure having you and discuss this topic with you.

Thank you, Monisha, for inviting Dr.

Azad to align us with his word and his experience.

Any last comments before we depart, Doctor?

Dr. Bhamin Asad: First of all, I thank you for inviting me.

Thank you, Manisha.

Thank you for allowing me to be part of this important discussion.

One thing that I probably emphasize, at the end is the global nature of

what is going on and understanding that Palestine is linked to Venezuela.

What is going on There is also part and parcel of the same process

of oppression that is going on.

The more the balance of forces in the world change toward the multipolar

world, the US is losing its grip over the international situation and as it

gets more desperate, it resorts to more violent paralegal methods of oppression.

Before that they at least observe some kind of veneer of.

Even defending democracy, but even today, the question is not that.

How can you support what is going on in Palestine, in the

name of defending democracy?

There is a contradiction there that we can see only if we look at things from

a global perspective and see what the U.

S.

is doing and the inconsistencies that exist in every word that Utter

in terms of democracy, in terms of human rights, in terms of, welfare

of the people and everything else.

We have to put all of this together to see the real intentions behind these actions.

It's not just personal fight against Maduro.

It's not personal fight against Ortega or against Iranian leadership.

It's one project that is going on.

And as they get more desperate, they resort to more

violent methods of doing it.

And we should expect more and be prepared for it.

Munish, any last words?

Yeah, a point I wish I'd made earlier is that I don't think it matters

who is, president of Venezuela, if they're from, The party that is advancing

the cause of liberation for the people.

It's Maduro.

It doesn't have to be Maduro.

It could be anyone.

The US would be behaving in the same manner.

It's a project.

Exactly.

It's the project.

So try not to get caught up in Maduro this, Maduro that.

Look at the bigger picture.

Especially from the global angle that Bauman is reminding us of.

None of us are going to be fully satisfied with any change process, sometimes it's

going to move slower than we want it to.

Sometimes we're going to have to let go of certain aspirations

in order to achieve others.

It's a process, it's messy.

All change is.

And that doesn't mean we don't continue and it doesn't mean that we don't,

give our energy toward maintaining as much as we can the shifts in power

that we have been able to achieve.

And we're going to need to be able to help each other do that

more and more under climate change as well, so we're contending

with all of it at the same time.

And now isn't the time for us to get caught up in a lot of this, non,

forget Maduro, focus on the project.

Try to understand what's really happening underneath all of this talk of

propaganda and all of this psychological warfare as much as you can and look

at the people and support the people.

If the people want Maduro in power, leave it alone.

They're getting some benefit from that and the working class around the world needs

to be able to shift power back into their own hands and by whatever means necessary.

Exactly.

I agree.

Dr.

Asad.

Again, thank you.

Where can people, plug into your work and know what you're doing and support?

Dr. Bhamin Asad: I don't have any personal link, but, the U.

S.

Peace Council, it's uspeacecouncil.

org.

We have our website, we have our Facebook, page, and We issue our statements

and all that, but if anybody wants to contact me, it's USPC at USPeaceCouncil.

org.

Absolutely.

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