Venezuela is a Cuban Colony, and Maduro is its viceroy selected by Havana

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Cuban Culture Minister Abel Prieto tweeted on July 23rd message & photo from Cuban agent in Venezuela:
"Dear Graciela Ramírez sends us this photo with a message: 'Our troops with Atilio in Caracas." They will not be able to snatch victory from the people of Bolívar and Chávez!'" https://t.co/jYFgGEQStc

— Center for a Free Cuba (@cubacenter) August 25, 2024

Cubans were present on the ground in Venezuela prior to election day, and at least four unscheduled flights took off from Havana and arrived in Caracas on July 30,2024 reported Diario Las Américas, citing a source from the island.

“I cannot confirm whether they were carrying passengers or not, nor what they were carrying and what the purpose of these flights would be,” the source explained at the time.

The first plane, the Conviasa A340 executive plane, which President Miguel Díaz-Canel normally flies on, left Havana and landed in Caracas on the morning of Tuesday the 30th. The second, rented from Turkish Airline, also left the Cuban capital for Caracas, where it arrived at midday. The third aircraft, from Cubana de Aviación, left Havana after one in the afternoon.

According to the source, at the time of sharing this information, a fourth aircraft would have been preparing to leave Cuba for Venezuela.

In an interview published on August 17,2024, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado acknowledged Cuba's ongoing involvement in Venezuela's internal affairs. 

"National and international human rights organizations have issued severe objections...Several Venezuelan opposition victims have recounted atrocities [by Cuban captors]. We have long known that Cuba has had a negative impact in a variety of areas, including repression, persecution, espionage, and torture. And we have witnessed some callous acts in recent days."

The Castro regime spent four decades attempting to overthrow Venezuela's democracy before finally succeeding in 1999 when Hugo Chavez took power, and consolidated their control under his successor Nicolas Maduro in 2013.

Raul and Fidel Castro, Nicolas Maduro, at Fidel Castro's 90th birthday

Bertrand de la Grange, a two-decade reporter for Le Monde in America, first for Canada and subsequently for Mexico and Central America, was born in Tangier to a French family and educated in Grenoble. 

He is one of the world's top Latin America experts, and in a one hour interview published by The Objective on August 25, 2024 gave his analysis of the role played by Havana in the Venezuelan crisis. Basically, Venezuela is a Cuban Colony, and Nicolas Maduro is its viceroy selected by Havana. Here is a rough English translation of an excerpt of the full transcript available in Spanish.

Now, Latin America is once again, or not necessarily once again, but it is still experiencing upheavals that have been displaced in a certain way, particularly in Venezuela, which was a country that had been fairly peaceful despite Fidel Castro's various attempts to send guerrillas of all kinds with Cubans, with Venezuelans and with other guerrillas and that had always failed. Now Venezuela is experiencing a very, very complex moment, and I would say that I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic, because it is very difficult to know what is going to happen.

We know what Maduro wants, but he does not represent anything, because Maduro is an instrument of Cuba, an instrument of Havana and has no capacity to make his own decisions. And I am fascinated to see that everyone is talking about Venezuela, about the actors within Venezuela, but very little about the main actor that is not seen, which is Cuba. 

Cuba tries not to make too many statements, even in its own press it gives little space to what is happening in Venezuela, for a very simple reason: it does not want to attract attention and to start a real debate about the importance of Cuba in the search for a solution or, in reality, about Cuba's participation in the problem.

Cuba has made Venezuela a colony, it is exploiting it, it is using its oil for its own needs. It is the very exceptional phenomenon, let us say, of a small island that has taken over the world's leading oil power. Because we must not forget that Venezuela is the country with the largest oil reserves in the world, even though it has lower quality oil than that found in the Persian Gulf countries.

That said, for the moment, the debate is limited to within the Venezuelan political class. Or rather, I would say the political class, which is the opposition, and the mafia that is in power, because we must not confuse: those in power are not ordinary politicians, they are really a gang that has been consolidated since the death of Hugo Chavez.

We can say many things about Chavez, but it was an attempt at a nationalist revolution supposedly controlled from Cuba, because that is what it is from the beginning, Venezuela is controlled by Cuba. Chavez's heir is an heir chosen by Havana. It is the Cuban Communist Party itself that chose him. We must not forget that Maduro was trained in the School of Cadres of the Communist Party of Cuba, he had training there, he is a person who is not very bright, as everyone knows.

What is happening now is an attempt from outside to solve the problem. There we clearly see the groups in struggle. We have the Puebla Group, which is the group of the continental left, also adding Spanish elements that participate, in particular the former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who has a nefarious role.

That group has already split, curiously, between those who do not want to negotiate anything, that we must continue, that Maduro has won, and the others who say that at least we have to save face, present the minutes, although in the end if they are presented they will be false minutes, but at least pretend to be within the rules of the Venezuelan electoral system.

There are three countries that are the most important, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico – Mexico has distanced itself a bit lately – they have taken a slightly different position. What they really want is to confirm the victory, the supposed victory of Maduro, but they are willing to sacrifice Maduro, because Maduro is not convenient for them. He is such a nefarious character that they are looking for an alternative. Either through a coalition government, as Lula and Petro themselves have proposed, or to hold new elections, which is totally ridiculous.

Even the Chavistas do not want new elections because they say "if we have won, why hold new elections?" We are in this dilemma, with these three countries, now especially Colombia and Brazil, which are very clear allies of Chavismo and Cuba, who are trying, through supposed moderation, to help in the search for a solution.

 

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