+ THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE AND WAR HAS TO BE SYSTEMIC AND NOT CONTINUE TO BE ATOMSIZED

The global repercussions of the COVID 19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have exposed the profound shortcomings that humanity suffers from in dealing with events of this nature, which is very serious both because of the serious problems it currently suffers : massive migrations, wars, drug trafficking, etc. as well as those that are foreseen in the future: climate change, with its disastrous consequences, desertification, food shortages, drinking water, among others.

Given the constant apathy, indifference or inability to address them, by the UN and other organizations created at a global level in recent decades to regulate relations between peoples; it is imperative to modify them or create new ones.

Special chapter is marked by wars.

If we base ourselves on historical facts, we see how the last two great wars have been generated by the desire of the dominant powers to snatch their colonies from each other.

These bitter and costly experiences led the winning empires, at the end of the Second World War, to replace in their areas of influence, their traditional method of colonization based on the political and military occupation of territories, for one based on the suffocating control of their economies.

With the defeat of the so-called "socialist camp" in the Cold War, the victorious powers tried to expand that model in all the countries of the globe, seeking to establish a new "international division of labor", in which they would maintain industrial and technological control. and the dominated countries would be limited to having economies based on agriculture, the export of raw materials and tourism, in what was called the neoliberal project of globalization, which included the military occupation of the main oil fields on the planet. To direct this model of domination, the so-called "Group of Seven" was constituted.

The impossibility of exercising that absolute control over humanity, allowed a strong development of the economy of several countries, called emerging, with the consequent rivalries and confrontations to exercise the greatest domain, which have led to war, as we see in the case of Ukraine, in which we have seen how the member countries of NATO act emboldened, since they assume that the role of Russia as supplier of raw materials and consumer of its industrial goods will be replaced by the countries of the so-called Third World, for them simple appendages of their orders, without any personality, thus despising our sovereignty, which does not exist for them.

The truth is that humanity cannot continue on this path that will inevitably lead to its destruction. It is imperative to create a new, democratic and inclusive Global Order.

The only way for this New World Order to be effective is for there to be nations that get involved in those purposes, serving as a dynamo to build global organizations in which all countries participate, where their decisions are made democratically and where there are no neither power pole privileges nor military alliances.

We are aware that achieving this is not an easy task. There are many and very powerful political and economic factors that today dominate the main international organizations, which are opposed to any change that means loss of their privileged status.

The conjunction of the imminent threat of climate change, with the necessary integration of our Latin American and Caribbean region so that, acting jointly with the rest of the peoples of the world, the establishment of a new world order is achieved, implies the search for a systemic solution instead of atomized, dispersed solutions. An example of their ineffectiveness was the recent meeting organized by the UN in Glasgow to deal with climate change, and in which the environmentalist youth leader Greta Thunberg expressed at the end that it had only been "words, words, words ."

THE CASE OF THE ESEQUIBO

We must be aware that the fact that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves makes it a prime target in world geopolitics.

International power factors are playing to the card that a ruling on the Essequibo territory to be issued in the first months of next year by the International Court of Justice, rules against our country, hoping that this will lead to armed confrontations between our country and Guyana and its NATO allies, which justifies the occupation of our oil fields.

That is why we maintain that the National Government must take advantage of the energy needs of the NATO countries to condition any decision on oil exploitation in our country, both to the withdrawal by Guyana of its claim before the ICJ and its return to the Protocol of Port of Spain, as well as the annulment of any NATO-Colombia commitment. We must take advantage of this advantageous position to impose conditions.

Not doing it, more than an error would be a crime.

Due to the foregoing, we have decided to establish our Civil Association in order to join our efforts in these three directions: the struggle to preserve the environment, to achieve a New Democratic and Inclusive International Order and for the Integration of the Latin American peoples and Caribbeans.

HEADER

- LET US NOT LOSE THESE FAVORABLE CONDITIONS TO STRENGTHEN OUR SOVEREIGNTY.

As a way to win votes, the two candidates in the second round of the Colombian presidential elections have promised to reestablish diplomatic relations with Venezuela, as if this reestablishment depended solely on them.

Of course it is desirable that these relations return to normal.

However, this is not unconditional. For that to happen, and for the security of our territorial integrity, the President who is elected must eliminate Colombia's relations with NATO and eliminate the US military presence in that country.

The Venezuelan government must make these conditions known to both candidates before the elections. If they do not make a clear statement on the matter, they are demonstrating their tacit support to the pretensions of the Colombian oligarchy to take by force the disputed waters in the Gulf of Venezuela, just as they tried to do when the Colombian corvette Caldas entered our territorial waters in 1986.

Because, what other objective could this extra continental military alliance have, if not Venezuela?

THE DANGER OF A WAR ON TWO FRONTS

It must be remembered that in the first quarter of next year, the International Court of Justice will probably decide against Venezuela on the lawsuit introduced by Guyana, a situation that could lead to a situation of force, from there, which would be taken advantage of by Colombia to try to take away our sovereignty.

Hence the vital importance of imposing these conditions for any resumption of relations.

In the same sense, our country must act in the face of the NATO countries' pretensions to have access to Venezuelan crude oil as a substitute for Russian oil supplies, imposing as a non-negotiated condition the withdrawal of the lawsuit filed by Guyana before the ICJ.

It is no secret that it was designed and imposed by those same NATO countries.

The brazenness is so grotesque that the same oil company that operates in the territorial waters in dispute between Venezuela and Guyana, Chevron, is the same company to which the U.S. government granted the "imperial permission" to restart operations in Venezuela.

The experience of 1966 should not be repeated, when our country, not taking advantage of favorable conditions, both in international politics and in the energy aspect, did not take advantage of them to finalize the resolution of the Essequibo border problem, and inexplicably signed an agreement in Geneva, freezing it in fact, in one of the saddest episodes in the history of our diplomacy.

Now there are equal or more favorable conditions to rescue our territory. We cannot make such blunders again.

For a nation to be respected, it must begin by respecting itself. It is high time that Venezuelans begin to do so and leave this shameful behavior of a banana country in the past.

HEADER

WHY NEITHER CELAC NOR A RECONSTRUCTED OAS IS A PATH TO LATIN AMERICAN INTEGRATION.

1 - By arguing for the elimination of "taboos" on climate change, NATO countries are destroying what little progress has been made in the fight to stop it.

While the G7 announces with great fanfare the formation of a "Climate Club" to fight climate change, news reports appear in the European media such as the project to expand the production of a gigantic coal mine in the Colombian Goajira, to supply European countries; or Germany's plans to use the predatory method of tracking to exploit gas fields in the North Sea; or the statements of the German Minister of Economy and Climate, R. Habeck, who stated that "we are confident that we will be able to achieve the goal of climate change". Habeck, who stated that he "will rely more on coal-fired power plants rather than gas-fired power plants", to mention just a few of those published in the international media.

2 - With the application of Argentina, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to join the BRICS (with more than 40% of the world's population), other countries can be expected to follow suit, leading to the constitution of a real and even more powerful anti-pole, which will necessarily lead to the reconfiguration of the international order.

Our region must play a leading role in shaping this emerging New Order in order to defend both our interests and those of nature itself.

But such integration will not be possible either with the CELAC structure or with the reconfiguration of the OAS, as some leaders have proposed.

The CELAC, for two fundamental reasons: first, its conception of unanimity in decision-making, which, given the conflicting positions of its member countries, paralyses it in practice, and second, the annual rotation of the pro-tempore presidency, which means that, as long as it is exercised by a progressive president, integration will be promoted, but when exercised by a retrograde one, it will slow down and destroy what has been advanced.

Neither will the reconfiguration of the OAS, given the conflict of interests that exists between the United States and Canada with the rest of the region, as was seen at the recent "Summit of the Americas", in which that nation, seeking to impose an agenda tailored to its interests, ignored very important problems of our peoples.

This divergence of interests means that the current OAS is not only a paralysed and ineffective entelechy, whose image can be likened to that of a cart pulled by two yoke of oxen, placed on opposite sides, but that it prevents any possibility of being an instrument for our integration.

Anyone who proposes CELAC or a "reconstructed" OAS as avenues for integration is, consciously or unconsciously, against our peoples.

This does not mean that economic, political and diplomatic relations with the United States should not be maintained, far from it. Certainly, more than necessary, they are essential, but they must be sincere, and the best way to do it is to understand the differences and interests and to sustain them placed on different sides of the desk.

About Esequibo

It is highly worrying that the current President-elect of Colombia has not referred to his country's relationship with NATO, nor to its military bases, while announcing a pact with the Liberal and Conservative parties. Let us remember that the Caldas "incident", provoked by the domination of the Gulf of Venezuela and its rich oil fields, was planned by those parties when they were in power, nothing indicates that they have renounced to those plans. The alliance with NATO is clearly going in that direction.

And if we add to that the very recent and revealing "incidents", related to the sanctions against our country, such as the extension of the status of Monomer, the visit of a US delegation to meet with the belligerent sector of the opposition, the abandonment of the country by important foreign companies, the denial of visas for our sports delegations, etc., etc., we can clearly see the strategy of taking advantage of our foreseeable reaction to the future decision of the International Court of Justice on the Essequibo, to initiate a warlike adventure to secure our immense energy resources.

HEADER

CHALLENGES OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION (1):

INVESTMENT AND EXTERNAL DEBT

Achieving Latin American and Caribbean integration is not a simple task, given the different challenges to be overcome.

In the current situation, the first challenge is to achieve an economic development that generates the necessary wealth for the inhabitants to have a quality of life that not only covers their basic needs, but is also in line with the benefits offered by the spectacular scientific and technological advances that have been made, especially in the areas of health and communications, to mention just a few. .

While we understand that the objectives of regional integration are different, at present, a clear roadmap in the economic sphere is essential for its success.

CAPITAL INVESTMENT.

In order to achieve the necessary level of income, capital investment is a determining factor, both social, through public administration, and in the attainment of the necessary monetary capital.

In this last aspect, the experiences in the region are instructive and set the tone for the measures to be taken. In this regard, we must point out the enormous flight of private capital, which instead of being used for investment and reinvestment, and under the influence of the deep political crises experienced in the region, sought "security" abroad, and which we can safely estimate at thousands of billions of dollars,

Contrasting this attitude with that of the owners of capital in the industrialized countries, who convert their profits, mostly in new investments, either made by the companies themselves or through the financial system, resulting in an increase in the production of goods and services as well as their profits, to the point that this continuous growth of production made the domestic markets small and boosted capital investments abroad, converting their profits into an ever greater net transfer of capital abroad.

An integration process should reverse this behavior, promoting the creation and strengthening of local capital companies and the local recapitalization of their profits, leaving foreign investment only for those niches of the economy in which the necessary technology or capital is not available.

EXTERNAL FINANCING.

Another way to raise capital for production is through external financing. However, the unfortunate experiences lived by many Latin American countries that contracted huge debts, which in the end were not used to leverage productive investments, and which ended up turning their payment into heavy burdens for their peoples, impose the need to establish very clear criteria to prevent their repetition.

It is worth mentioning Venezuela's recent tragic experiences in this regard.

In 1989, our country obtained voluminous capital resources through a large international loan for "productive investment", which ended up turning into a maelstrom of corruption, causing a gigantic financial crisis and the impoverishment of our people.

In the years 2016 and 2017, more than 70 billion dollars of public debt matured, a period in which the national oil production inexplicably decreased, which, combined with the plunge in the price of a barrel of oil from approx. 80$ to 19$, caused an extreme shortage of goods to the population, including basic necessities and produced a deep economic crisis.

This is why, within the integrationist scheme, local financing mechanisms must be designed, such as the so-called Bank of the South, proposed in 2006 by seven Latin American Presidents and which, unfortunately, did not crystallize.

HEADER

CHALLENGES OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION (2):

A NECESSARY INTERDEPENDENCE

In our opinion, the most important challenge to be overcome in an integration process in our region is the formation of an economy that impedes, rather than hinders, the regional exchange of goods and services and, therefore, the necessary economic interdependence among nations, without which any attempt at integration will fail.

In effect, the economies of the countries of the area are based, fundamentally, on their primary sector, with agricultural, livestock and fishing production and mineral extraction, with a weak secondary sector, concentrated mainly in agro-industry and products for daily household and personal use, mostly controlled by foreign capital factories, and with the presence of a hypertrophied tertiary sector, fed by public spending and bureaucracy.

With the exception of very specific cases such as Argentine wheat, agricultural, livestock and fishery products are very similar throughout the region, so that, except in exceptional situations such as those experienced by Venezuela in recent years, these products do not find a market in other countries in the region.

For example, all Latin American and Caribbean countries, except Bolivia and Paraguay, have maritime coasts, or almost all of them have livestock and poultry infrastructures, so that local production of these goods is directed to the domestic market of each country and to transcontinental markets.

In the case of minerals, since the region does not have a solid industrial development that demands them, their production is directed to the most industrialized countries of North America, Europe and Asia, thus wasting the enormous advantage of having resources such as copper, oil, lithium, etc., which can underpin a strong industrial development.

All this is a consequence of the fact that our nations have become true "neo-banana" countries, suppliers of raw materials and agricultural products to the industrialized nations and demanders of the industrial goods they produce. The same scheme colonial.

The recent pandemic and the unfortunate war in Ukraine have exposed how harmful this economic dependence on foreign nations is for our countries. We have experienced this in the case of vaccines and other vital supplies to combat the corona virus; also in the significant decrease in the export of agricultural products such as bananas; in the practical paralysis of tourist activities; in the serious problems caused by the shortage of fertilizers; or in the substantial increase in the cost of fuel; among many other examples.

As long as this situation remains unchanged, any attempt at integration will be very fragile and would allow some countries to withdraw from it, since it would not represent any significant economic loss for them. What has happened with UNASUR, in which only four nations remain, is a tangible example of what we are expressing here.

It is therefore necessary that any integrationist initiative that crystallizes should make it a top priority to promote, in a planned manner, the creation of new productive niches through the industrial development of the countries, establishing internal mechanisms to prioritize the acquisition of these goods.

A process that should combine the total production of a good in one nation, as well as the shared production among different countries of the various components required to manufacture products such as motor vehicles, boats, electronic devices, etc.

All this so that the benefits that such measures will undoubtedly bring will serve as a glue for a solid and strong integration of our countries, in addition to the inevitable added value that this will entail in the technological development of the area.

HEADER