Professor of International Studies of the public University of New York Danny Shaw brings some insights on the process of this Consultative Referendum on the territory of the Guyana Essequiba. teleSUR
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00:00 To continue talking about this day and following the results,
00:04 we welcome Danny Shaw, professor of international studies
00:07 at the Public University of New York.
00:10 Hello, Danny.
00:10 Welcome to our special program.
00:13 Danny, can you hear me?
00:19 Yeah, I can hear you.
00:20 How are you doing?
00:21 I find Danny here celebrating alongside our Venezuelan
00:25 compatriots the landslide victory
00:28 that they reached in this referendum.
00:30 Danny, to begin our exchange here,
00:33 our conversation in this special program, how do you describe,
00:36 how do you see the developing, the holding of this referendum
00:39 and now that we know the results, what they represent?
00:44 This is an important demonstration
00:47 of Venezuelan unity before the ongoing hostility of the US
00:52 government and of private capital
00:56 that wants a slice of this extremely rich Ezequiel region.
01:01 The Venezuelan people and their Bolivarian leadership
01:04 do not have any beef with their neighbors in Guyana.
01:09 Their beef is with Exxon Mobil and these corporations
01:14 who for decades now and centuries
01:17 have sought to divide and conquer in order
01:21 to control one of the most mineral rich and gas
01:25 and oil rich regions in the entire world,
01:27 and that is South America.
01:30 So to see this resounding show of unity
01:33 is certainly significant.
01:34 I think we have to contextualize this latest US proxy--
01:38 it's not a proxy war, but certainly it's
01:44 a proxy informational war using Guyana.
01:48 We have to contextualize it because Brazil
01:50 has gone left last year with the victory of Lula over Bolsonaro
01:54 and over fascism.
01:56 And look at Colombia.
01:57 Colombia has historically been the largest US base
02:03 in the region, more than nine US bases in Colombia.
02:07 And they haven't been able to weaponize Colombia and Brazil
02:10 in the same way.
02:11 So now they're trying to weaponize Guyana.
02:14 And he's seeing the will of the Venezuelan people that
02:20 came out peacefully to vote.
02:22 And as you were saying, the discourse from the Guyana side,
02:25 they are afraid they're part of a victim,
02:28 that they feel they're going to be invaded,
02:31 they're going to be attacked by Venezuela.
02:32 But this has been a stance that has been clearly defended
02:35 by the Venezuelan authorities, that the situation,
02:38 the dispute has to be resolved through the 1966 Geneva
02:42 Agreement, only through dialogue and negotiations
02:45 to settle this peacefully.
02:47 There's never been an expression of aggression against Guyana.
02:50 So what is the intention of Guyana acting
02:54 as the victim in this role?
02:57 That's because Laura Richardson in the US Southern Command,
03:01 as well as the Germans and the imperialists of yesteryear,
03:06 who continue to want to devour the Ezequiel region
03:10 for their own self-interest, and all of Venezuela,
03:13 and all of South America.
03:17 This vote shows that the Venezuelan people are
03:20 standing firm in defense of their national interests.
03:25 What a shame that President Irfan Ali in Guyana,
03:30 the Guyanese people are a proud people.
03:32 What a long history of anti-imperialist struggle,
03:36 from President Chetty Jagen to Dr. Walter Rodney,
03:42 and of course, the slave rebellions in centuries past.
03:48 I think the Guyanese people can also
03:50 see that they are being used by the imperialist powers
03:55 with these divide and conquer strategies.
03:57 But nationalism can be a very deceptive thing.
04:01 So popular education and critical information
04:07 and social media coverage is so important right now,
04:12 at a time that they're trying to use this small, often forgotten
04:16 Caribbean and South American nation against its much bigger
04:20 neighbor, Venezuela.
04:22 But to insinuate that the Venezuelans somehow
04:24 have a military intention, that they somehow represent
04:28 a threat to Guyana, is ridiculous.
04:31 This referendum today was more of a diplomatic exercise
04:35 to show that the Venezuelan people don't trust
04:39 the International Court of Justice, which
04:41 may have a high-faluting-sounding name,
04:45 but certainly does not represent justice
04:47 and does not represent a truly international community.
04:50 When they say international community,
04:52 it's a euphemism that means US interests,
04:56 along with their underlings like the English and the French.
05:01 Daniel, I'm going to ask you please to hold on a moment,
05:03 because we have to connect with our special set
05:06 in the headquarters in Caracas, where we'll continue
05:09 talking about the referendum.
05:12 But let's quickly go with the set in Caracas.
05:15 Sorry.
05:15 Let's now continue talking with Danny Shull,
05:18 professor of international study at the Public
05:20 University of New York.
05:22 We were previously talking with the professor,
05:24 but we had to cut short the conversation.
05:27 But now we retake the dialogue with Professor Danny Shull.
05:31 Professor, can you hear us?
05:33 100% loud and clear from the belly of the beast
05:36 here in New York City.
05:37 Perfect.
05:38 That sounds like Jose Marti once said in his writings.
05:43 Danny, continue talking about the Esequibo and the future
05:48 that it might bring after this referendum,
05:50 also taking into account the region,
05:53 because this is not only something that involves
05:56 Venezuela and Guyana, we could say, but also the region.
05:59 We have CARICOM.
06:00 We have all the different regional groups.
06:03 And how can the future come after today's
06:06 important referendum?
06:09 Well, as the two analysts were laying out,
06:12 the global class struggle continues
06:15 to play out across South America and across the Caribbean.
06:20 We saw a real pivot to the right with Javier Millet,
06:25 the latest Trump Bolsonaro wannabe,
06:29 and his victory in Argentina.
06:31 That came as very tough news.
06:34 But we've seen big victories in Brazil about a year ago.
06:41 Peru is going through a very tough time.
06:44 This week is the one-year anniversary
06:47 of the coup in Peru.
06:49 So the US, whether it's a Democratic regime
06:52 or a Republican regime, is going to continue
06:54 to look for proxy forces that are
06:57 hostile to the Bolivarians.
06:59 The Bolivarians in Venezuela have received
07:03 the most hostile treatment.
07:05 Why?
07:05 Because they're the spearhead of South American unity
07:09 and South American integration.
07:11 And despite the most cruel sanctions
07:15 that began in 2014 under the Barack Obama regime,
07:20 the Venezuelan people have pushed through.
07:23 They've got rid of this Juan Guaido proxy force
07:27 that Trump and then Biden had been pushing for so long.
07:32 So despite the hybrid war, despite the theft
07:37 of $2 billion in Venezuelan gold by the Bank of England,
07:41 despite all of the threats and intimidation,
07:44 we can see that the Bolivarian people continue
07:46 to stand by their leadership in fight
07:50 for a unified, anti-imperialist South America.
07:55 Danny, speaking of the US foreign policy,
07:58 we have to talk about the Mongol doctrine, which
08:01 can be a very clear example here in this case of what
08:04 is happening.
08:05 And in this occasion, coincidentally in Venezuela,
08:08 there was a forum celebrating the 200 years of resistance
08:12 against the Mongol doctrine.
08:14 How present, how in current times,
08:16 is the Mongol doctrine still active, if it is,
08:19 and what is its impact on the region today?
08:24 Yeah, today the Monroe doctrine could
08:26 be called the Southern Command doctrine, or the Laura
08:29 Richardson doctrine, or the Biden doctrine.
08:31 They continue to have no respect for the economic and resource
08:36 sovereignty and political, diplomatic, and military
08:40 sovereignty of the Venezuelan people,
08:42 of the diverse nations of South America.
08:45 And when countries like Iran or Russia
08:48 try to break this hermetically sealed US
08:51 blockade of Venezuela, the US again
08:55 responds with aggression surrounding Venezuela
08:59 with US gunboats, with nine US military bases in Colombia,
09:05 another 11 US military bases in Panama.
09:08 But because things have shifted to the left in Colombia,
09:12 and because there is social tumult led by workers
09:16 and students in Panama, the US intelligence community
09:21 and the Pentagon and the State Department
09:24 and the foreign policy establishment
09:25 are constantly surveilling where their weak points are.
09:29 And Venezuela has been one of their biggest weak points.
09:32 That's why in 2015, ExxonMobil, trying
09:36 to conspire with their Guyanese lackeys,
09:39 who they're trying to buy off with the promise
09:42 of handsome profits from the exploitation of the ECEQIBU,
09:46 that region, that's why this vote, this resounding yes
09:51 on all five votes today in this national referendum,
09:55 comes as an important countermeasure to the ICJ's
10:00 decision recently saying that this region belongs to Guyana.
10:04 But how can it belong to Guyana when all of these borders
10:08 were drawn up in London, in Paris,
10:10 and in the colonial metropolises and not in Caracas
10:15 and not in Georgetown, where these agreements have
10:18 to be hashed out by representatives
10:20 of the people of those respected nations?
10:25 Venezuela stands on the side that the Geneva Agreement is
10:29 the only path to settle the dispute between Venezuela
10:33 and Guyana because they outright reject the 1899 arbitration
10:38 award that was pretty much negotiated between the States
10:41 and the British Empire, leaving completely
10:44 Venezuela off the negotiating table
10:46 without a say in that moment.
10:49 Now, seeing the images, Danny, of the celebrations
10:52 of the people, I need to ask you,
10:55 is Venezuela an example of how democratic processes should
10:59 be held in the world?
11:01 As we saw, the authorities have expressed the security
11:04 and efficiency of the electoral system.
11:07 And every time that Venezuela goes to the polls,
11:09 we see them celebrating as if it was a national party
11:13 to express their right in the polls of the will of the future
11:17 they want for the country.
11:19 Yeah, contrary to all of the rhetoric and propaganda
11:24 that we hear in Las Entrañas de la Bestia,
11:26 to quote Jose Marti here in The Belly of the Beast,
11:29 we don't hear one positive word about Venezuela.
11:32 Every New York Times headline and Daily News and New York
11:36 Post headline is completely anti-Venezuelan.
11:40 It's complete war and propaganda seeking
11:46 to justify more invasions and occupations of Latin America
11:50 as if the 200-plus invasions in the last 200 years reflecting
11:55 the arrogance of the Monroe Doctrine was not enough.
11:59 But any visitor to Venezuela can feel the people's patriotism,
12:05 the people's pride in their country, a super-rich country
12:10 that the people want to develop.
12:12 And that's what this democratic vote,
12:14 that's what this national referendum was all about.
12:17 The Venezuelan people, I don't think there's a way for us here
12:21 in the imperial center to ever imagine what the Venezuelan
12:25 people have gone through in the past decade
12:27 since Hugo Chavez's death.
12:29 Nicolás Maduro has had almost an impossible job
12:33 keeping this nation of 30 million on its feet.
12:37 Despite the cruelest of blockades,
12:40 and as part of the US hypocrisy, they
12:42 deny that there even is a diplomatic, military,
12:44 and economic blockade and hybrid war on the Venezuelan people.
12:48 So certainly today is a victory not just
12:52 for the humble forces within Venezuela,
12:54 but for workers across the world.
12:56 Danny, seeing the results, seeing everything
13:01 that we have been talking about and everything
13:03 that has been analyzed in this special program,
13:06 I have to ask you, in your opinion, what comes next?
13:10 Well, there's a big presidential election coming up next year.
13:15 The PSUV has decided that their candidate will be Nicolás
13:19 Maduro, and the opposition continues
13:22 to be fractionalized in many ways.
13:27 And they continue to do the bidding of their Washington
13:30 sponsors.
13:32 Certainly, DC is highly embarrassed and, again,
13:35 disgraced in the South American nation of 30 million
13:40 after the Juan Guaido option went down the tubes.
13:43 Imagine in 2019, Trump in the most dictatorial,
13:48 tyrannical, despotic of ways trying
13:51 to impose a dictator on the Venezuelan people,
13:55 thinking they could do the same thing they did
13:57 during the dirty war to Uruguay and Paraguay and Argentina
14:01 in the 1970s and '80s.
14:03 So those who believe in the Mutton Road Doctrine
14:07 will never stop.
14:08 They'll try everything to divide and conquer
14:13 the region precisely because they won't stop drooling
14:17 over this immense wealth.
14:18 We know that Venezuela is up there
14:20 with Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Iran.
14:23 And we've seen what the US has been
14:26 willing to do with the bloodbath,
14:27 with the genocide in Gaza, in Palestine,
14:31 the invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003,
14:35 a similar type of hybrid war against Iran.
14:39 So really, it's no different.
14:41 And that's why this vote comes as a victory,
14:44 not just for Venezuela, but for the one third
14:47 of the people of the world who wake up every morning
14:50 under sanctions, very cruel sanctions,
14:53 that seek to create huge headaches
14:57 and economic disintegration in all of the blockaded countries
15:02 from Managua to Tehran to Beijing to Moscow.
15:07 But this multipolar world is certainly on the horizon.
15:11 And I think today's vote in Venezuela was a piece of this.
15:15 And the sooner we have a pluripolar world,
15:17 as Hugo Chavez laid out some 20 years ago,
15:22 the sooner that we can find peace,
15:24 peace for the Palestinian people and peace
15:26 for all of the blockaded, oppressed nations
15:28 that I mentioned.
15:31 Thank you for your impulse, Danny Cho,
15:33 for this special program on the referendum held
15:37 in defense of the Guayana Esequibo of Venezuela.
15:39 Thank you, Teli Sua.
15:42 Thank you for your coverage.
15:43 Oh, it was always our pleasure to have you here with us.