Transcript of News X panel discussion of Maduro inauguration

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NewsX: 0:00
Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro has sworn in for a controversial third term, sparking global backlash. The US has announced an increased 25-million-dollar reward for his arrest on narcotics and corruption charges. Similar bounties target close allies, including interior minister Diostado Cabello and defense minister Vladimir Ppadrino. The UK, EU and Canada have also imposed fresh sanctions, accusing Maduro’s regime of human rights abuses and undermining democracy. Venezuela has dismissed these claims, blaming its economic woes on what it called US-led imperial sanctions. Maduro, meanwhile, insists his new term will bring peace and prosperity, but critics say the July election was rigged, with international observers rejecting the results. The US calls Maduro’s leadership fraudulent, offering a 65- million-dollar bounty for him and his key allies. Aditya, with this recent news from Venezuela, why is there so much international attention on this case?

Aditya Wadhawan: 1:06
Well, you know, as you rightly pointed out, the US has also placed a $25-million bounty upon this Nicolás Maduro. You know, in the past, he has been sworn in as a Venezuelan president for the third time and you know many reports suggest that you know this voting hasn’t been fair because the opposition leaders have been arrested and there is a whole sort of autocracy that exists in Venezuela. That is why you know this protest with this particularly this particular Nicolás Maduro is getting international attention you know that is why you know America has also put this bounty of 25 million dollars it needs to be seen you know. Earlier also America you know have threatened this Maduro because you know his governance hasn’t been well, you know. During his last term, the inflation in Venezuela has reached to about 400% inflation. So that needs to be seen as to what steps are taken in this regard and what the build-up, how will the international community respond to this further. Yes, Tom, back to you in the studio.

NewsX: 2:11
Thank you, Aditya. For further discussion on this we are joined by Professor AK Pasha, international affairs expert, live from New Delhi; Gilbert Doctorow, russian affairs expert, live from Brussels. Thank you for joining us. My first question is for you, Professor AK Pasha. The US has a long history of getting involved in socialist Latin America. What is their– what did they want the outcome to be in this case, now they’re offering this bounty?

AK Pasha, PhD: 2:42
The recent announcement, increase in bounty for capture of the Venezuelan president and the interior minister and others, you know, it is a continuation of the regime-change agenda by the United States and its allies, you know, who have become used to changing regimes who don’t toe the US line. It is not the first time or the last time. They have done it plenty of times, not only in Latin America but elsewhere. But what makes this case unique is the continuation of the socialist regime there and how they have survived years of sanctions and deprivation and the confiscation of their gold reserves, so on and so forth. Although there is high inflation, but from what I hear from one of my students who is an ambassador there, that life goes on normally there for most Venezuelans, even though it is tough. But the kind of propaganda which America and its allies have been unleashing has not undermined Maduro and Socialist Party to a very large extent, like the Iranian regime also which has been under sanctions, or Russia.

4:18
You know, it is a systematic policy pursued by the United States and its allies to undermine and overthrow the regimes which it doesn’t like. On the one hand, you have $10 million on the head of the new Syrian administration, HTS, which has been ignored. It is a terrorist organization, declared by the State Department. But since he collaborated with the United States and its allies, you know, that will not see the light of the day. So this double standard is part of the US policy to undermine its own propagation of rules-based order, whether it is Venezuela or Russia or Iran or even Nicaragua or Cuba or for that matter many other countries which have become victims.


And increasingly countries in the global south are looking for break away from this so-called rules-based order and steering towards the BRICS which is emerging as an alternative power block to challenge the US attempts to strangulate countries which don’t toe the American line.

NewsX: 5:37
Gilbert, I wanted to come on to you in this next one. Is offering a bounty for a head of state an appropriate use of foreign policy?

[speaking simultaneously]
… Sorry.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 5:50
I agree with the speaker who has just completed his remarks, in every respect. I’d like to put a new title on. We’re talking about naked imperialism. This term has come up in discussion in international news in the last several days, thanks to Donald Trump’s stating what he would like to do to Greenland and what he’d like to do to Panama Canal. Some of that, that bravado, that macho foreign policy has been applauded by people like the “Financial Times”, who said, on his remarks, “Oh, we thought that Trump is an isolationist. No, he’s actually an expansionist. And bravo.”

So there are people in the G7 and UK as foremost in this who applaud imperialism. That is not true of the global South, and I think it’s probably not true of many of your listeners. After all, the kind of sanctions and penalties that Joe Biden is now imposing on the Venezuelan leader, well, you have a recollection of that in India. After all, the United States had imposed sanctions on Modi, before he took power, for their disagreement with his treatment of minorities within India.

7:18
So the United States is an imperialist state, whether it’s run by Mr. Joe Biden in the name of a rules-based order and values-driven foreign policy, or whether it’s driven by a man who is unafraid of positioning himself as promoting naked aggression, like Mr. Trump.

NewsX: 7:40
Professor AK Pascha, they have accused– this bounty is for a 2020 arrest warrant for him being accused of narco terrorism and flooding the United States with cocaine. Is this the right time to use this arrest warrant, and what do you think of America and the UK being involved in this?

Pasha:
You see, this is the typical State Department, I mean the rule passed by the US Congress to use State Department to accuse leaders who don’t toe the US line of corruption and narcotic involvement. You know, this has been done for a number of leaders, including former Panamanian head of state, who was abducted, to many other leaders in Latin America. So this is well known.

8:42
You know, this is just a cover, a pretext for the US administration to accuse the popular leaders of involvement in drug charges and corruption charges, whereas they overlook their own support to whether it is the Pakistani leaders or the innumerable dictators America supports in Africa or even in Latin America and elsewhere. So this charge of undermining the democratic process itself is questionable, because America has never respected the democratic elections. For example, the Hamas elections, Palestinian elections in 2006 which brought Hamas to power in Gaza was never respected, and they declared it as a terrorist organization. Or even the involvement of the full line Lebanese politics, you know, they look at it as a terrorist organization.

9:43
So anybody who genuinely participates in the political process and wins due to popular electoral support, you know, this legitimacy is questioned selectively, and this is what is a big question mark for American foreign policy. And the British also toe the American line. And this is undermining the credibility of the United States as a leader of democracy. And the rules-based order is being pulled down brick by brick by themselves, and pushing the global South countries to look with suspicion [on] what they do, whether it is against Venezuela or Iran or Russia or Nicaragua or South Africa also. And even including India, you know, they try to question a number of issues, domestic issues, with which America has nothing to do. So in that way, the color revolutions in Central Asia or in the Caucasus, all these including in Ukraine, where many were through the CIA and its regime-change agenda.

10:55
And this is isolating the Americans, if you see the voting pattern in the United Nations General Assembly. On many of these issues, America is isolated. More than two-thirds of the members of the United Nations disapprove of what America has been pursuing for its narrow national interest, ignoring the aspirations, expectations of the global South who want a better life, who want development, who want less exploitation, and the kind of strangulating sanctions imposed on any issue if you don’t buy the American language. So in that way, you know, the American leaders themselves have been isolating and affecting its own credibility in the short term and in the long run.

NewsX: 11:50
Gilbert Doctorow, election observers in Venezuela claim they have credible evidence that Gonzalez, his opponent, won the election. Western countries and countries all around the world have all called Maduro’s win illegitimate. What does, do you think once President Trump comes to power, can you see him getting involved in this like the Biden administration has?

Doctorow: 12:17
Oh very likely he will be, though he has other issues that are foremost in his policy plans. But this would fall in line completely with Trump’s view of America’s policeman role within the Western hemisphere. I applaud the mention by my colleague, fellow panelist, of the Noriega case, that is the abduction of the president of Panama, and his being taken to the United States where he died in prison after many years.

This is also, you need a sense of irony to appreciate what these charges of narco traffic mean when they’re addressed to the Venezuelan president. I think the biggest trader in narcotics in the last two decades was the United States, the United States government, which encouraged the cultivation of poppy in Afghanistan and facilitated the heroin trade. It was only when the Taliban took over that they snuffed out within two years what the United States seemed to be unable to touch for the whole time that it was resident in Afghanistan. So there’s a lot of hypocrisy here.

And when you say that the members of the G7 and other allies of the United States condemn the elections, there’s a British expression which summarizes very efficiently the response to that: “You would say that, wouldn’t you.”

NewsX: 13:49
Thank you very much for joining us on this discussion.