Should the UK return the Venezuelan gold?

[Artemis3]

Funny you brought this here, because today came news about the Maduro regime hastily selling gold to the United Arab Emirates, and there are rumors gold was sent in "that Russian plane", possibly with their families.

I posted this in the Fit to Talk project, and I hoped to get some replies from Venezuelans.

Venezuela is selling a large consignment of gold to the UAE, and I find the political ramification quite fascinating. Because of the US sanctions, Venezuela is probably having to offer a 5% or so discount on the price, and the UAE will be able to melt the gold and recast it, and thus gain its full value. They are paying in Euro, and it is not clear how this money will be used. It is claimed that it will be used to purchase food, but it is more likely that it will be used to purchase light crude oil to replace the oil it purchased from the US. This can be mixed with the heavy Venezuelan oil to create a product that can be sold on the open market. This has two damaging effects on the US. Not only is it depriving the US of a useful oil exchange, but it is introducing yet more oil sales that are not based on the dollar. Maduro will be gaining the revenue from both the sale of the gold, and the sale of the heavy Venezuelan oil, and this could well be diverted.

So what can the US do about it> Not a lot in my opinion. The UAE is assisting the US in its attempt to force regime change in Iran, so they won't want to rock that boat. There is also the problem of Maduro's grasp on the army. The US want a number of senior Venezuelan army officers to be prosecuted for drug offences and other alleged crimes, so they are likely to continue to support Maduro.

I'll try to get some more info,and take the article to the political board here.

Last I read/heard news about it (yesterday), the US applied pressure to the UAE and the transaction was halted. The Russians probably got theirs. This gold is from the national reserve, its not supposed to be used for anything, just stored safely. Traditionally in the central bank but some is kept abroad. Because Maduro is not recognized as the legitimate president, no orders coming from him or his officials need to be obeyed by the countries who have officially backed Guaidó and denounced Maduro's usurpation.

There is also the problem of the more recent gold being extracted by destroying thousands of acres of millennial rain forest, and the killing of people due to the organized crime involved in its "illegal" extraction which is then conveniently seized by the military who then in turns sells it

About the heavy oil refineries, indeed they belong to Citgo, which in turn belongs to Venezuela, its a Venezuelan State owned company.
Due to mismanagement and lack of maintenance, the largest heavy oil refineries within Venezuela itself stopped, and they hastily came up with buying both lighter crude oil and fuel already processed, this of course is given away almost for free to the population, ruining what little money could be coming to the State oil company PDVSA, and is estimated 2/3rds of it gets smuggled out of the country anyway, with military complicity...

Citgo has been put under control of President Guaidó. The US has not issued an embargo against Venezuela, but against specific individuals from the Maduro regime. After Maduro ordered the American embassy closed, he also ordered the diplomats in the US to leave. However Guaidó has told them to disobey the usurper and stay. Some diplomats are leaving, but others staying. Something similar is happening in all Venezuelan institutions, including the military. Usually those who express support to Guaidó (in Venezuela) get imprisoned, but more and more are rebelling, and its only a matter of time.

There is general anger to the Maduro regime, he is literally the reason Venezuela got it its worth inflation in history, and there is more to tell of his wrongdoings, but i'll stop for now. Regime change is wished by the vast majority of Venezuelans, including former Chavez supporters. It is THAT bad.

There is a good video whose English version finally came out and I was waiting to share a link here so you can all understand the situation better:

[TalkStar]

The US doesn't give two ducks about any democracy; they care about the Oil and the Russian/Chinese investments in the country.

Yeah thats the exact reason. Its all about Russian/Chinese
Issue. Worldwide politics already divided into two sides. Some Countries having friendship with US and others with Russia/China. In every single issues there always two sides debate.

[Lauda]

The US doesn't give two ducks about any democracy; they care about the Oil and the Russian/Chinese investments in the country.

Yeah thats the exact reason. Its all about Russian/Chinese
Issue. Worldwide politics already divided into two sides. Some Countries having friendship with US and others with Russia/China. In every single issues there always two sides debate.

It's usually the US that starts bullshit like this; it's trivial when the majority of your population is well-trimmed sheep like quickseller.

[Quickseller]

The US doesn't give two ducks about any democracy; they care about the Oil and the Russian/Chinese investments in the country.

Yeah thats the exact reason. Its all about Russian/Chinese
Issue. Worldwide politics already divided into two sides. Some Countries having friendship with US and others with Russia/China. In every single issues there always two sides debate.

Both the Russian and Chinese governments are enemies of the US and the Western world. These governments are hoping to use the money invested in the area to exert influence in the region.

The human rights violations by the current Venezuela government (and military) are very real and the government should not be able to stay in power because of these violations.

[Jet Cash]

Venezuela's greatest problem is that it has the world's largest oil reserves, and the second largest gold reserves, and some other stuff. Everybody want to take control of these assets, and unfortunately the people are the ones who suffer as a result of this. Guaido is a graduate of the American regime change college, and may well turn out to be worse for Venezuela than Maduro, and that must be a pretty extreme comment.

[TECSHARE]

Venezuela's greatest problem is that it has the world's largest oil reserves, and the second largest gold reserves, and some other stuff. Everybody want to take control of these assets, and unfortunately the people are the ones who suffer as a result of this. Guaido is a graduate of the American regime change college, and may well turn out to be worse for Venezuela than Maduro, and that must be a pretty extreme comment.

That is not an extreme comment at all. Many people make the mistake of thinking the USA is monolithic. Even (or especially) the kind of agencies that organize these types of things have white hat and black hat factions within them. There is most certainly a risk of more of the same interventionist smash and grab type war policies we have seen a lot of in the past. This threat however should also be counterbalanced with the risk of allowing China to fill that power vacuum in the region, and the even greater war that would result in a build up of Chinese influence in South America.

Make no mistake they have a high priority of doing this as a sort of tit-for-tat reaction to the US presence in the South China sea, and their stance on Taiwan. In a lot of ways there are a lot of parallels here between Venezuela now and what happened between the USA and the USSR in Cuba during The Bay of Pigs operation run under George H.W. Bush (as CIA not POTUS). This could be a watershed event here. Hopefully this time everyone keeps their heads.

I am not at all a fan of interventionist policies, however the fact that Trump is actually pulling out of Syria and scaling down other conflicts is a strong indicator to me that he will not be seeking a similar scenario there. Time will tell.

[Jet Cash]

I think there is more of a parallel with Libya, and look what happened there.

[Carlton Banks]

The human rights violations by the current Venezuela government (and military) are very real and the government should not be able to stay in power because of these violations.

You're wrong.

The human rights violations started when the US placed Venezuela under economic sanctions in 2004, after Chavez defended himself against a US sponsored coup. Chavez and Maduro have no reason to starve everyone half to death, but the US state department does.


Chavez was a bit of an asshole. Maduro also. I don't like totalitarians, period.

But the US state department does like human rights abusing totalitarian dictators; so long as they do what they're told to by the US state dept. That's why Saddam, Gadaffi, Chavez and Maduro have been targetted; the fact that they're assholes is not the problem (they all apparently threatened or even began to trade oil outside SWIFT/dollar system before their demise). They're independent assholes, and the US (and also China and Russia) don't tolerate independent despots.

[TECSHARE]

Related article: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-01/coming-us-china-proxy-war-venezuela

[mayo2u]

The human rights violations by the current Venezuela government (and military) are very real and the government should not be able to stay in power because of these violations.

You're wrong.

The human rights violations started when the US placed Venezuela under economic sanctions in 2004, after Chavez defended himself against a US sponsored coup. Chavez and Maduro have no reason to starve everyone half to death, but the US state department does.


Chavez was a bit of an asshole. Maduro also. I don't like totalitarians, period.

But the US state department does like human rights abusing totalitarian dictators; so long as they do what they're told to by the US state dept. That's why Saddam, Gadaffi, Chavez and Maduro have been targetted; the fact that they're assholes is not the problem (they all apparently threatened or even began to trade oil outside SWIFT/dollar system before their demise). They're independent assholes, and the US (and also China and Russia) don't tolerate independent despots.

Wait. What? The US refuses to buy and sell anything with Venezuela (not true as there are still Citgo stations in the US) and that excuses killing your own people? Throwing people who disagree with you in jail? That excuses closing newspapers and arresting the editors? No. Just no.

Don't play that foolish game. Don't excuse the evils of a dictatorship.

[Juggy777]

Venezuela's greatest problem is that it has the world's largest oil reserves, and the second largest gold reserves, and some other stuff. Everybody want to take control of these assets, and unfortunately the people are the ones who suffer as a result of this. Guaido is a graduate of the American regime change college, and may well turn out to be worse for Venezuela than Maduro, and that must be a pretty extreme comment.

In my personal opinion sending gold back to Venezuela now will be a bad decision, I feel they should only send it back once there’s some stability. I’m not convinced by either of the candidates, as the current one has screwed their economy, and the other one basically wants to bend the knee to USA. It is in times like these the people need to make a choice stick with the current leader, or bend the knee to USA forever.

[mayo2u]

Venezuela's greatest problem is that it has the world's largest oil reserves, and the second largest gold reserves, and some other stuff. Everybody want to take control of these assets, and unfortunately the people are the ones who suffer as a result of this. Guaido is a graduate of the American regime change college, and may well turn out to be worse for Venezuela than Maduro, and that must be a pretty extreme comment.

So, it would be better for Venezuela to not have any assets? (Obviously not)

Perhaps it would be best if their government was competently run. How is it that nations that the US conquored (Japan) and stationed troops for 60 years (South Korea) are doing so well. Whereas North Korea is a sh!thole? If the US was so horrible why isn't Japan and South Korea simply poverty-ridden, slave state being exploited by the US?

[Carlton Banks]

Don't excuse the evils of a dictatorship.

I didn't. Don't excuse the US dictatorship either.

[Jet Cash]

So, it would be better for Venezuela to not have any assets? (Obviously not)

Venezuela has an enormous number of assets, and this made it one of the richest South American countries a few years ago, We aren't really talking about that though, we are discussing a large quantity of gold that is the property of the Venezuelan people.

Giving it to Maduro. who has a bad record of economic management, is unlikely to help the people
Giving it to Guaidó, who is a graduate of George Washington University ( the US school for foreign regime change activists) is unlikely to help the people of Venezuela, and is more likely to be used to enrich the elite bankers, and to foment even more violent dissent in the country.

[coins4commies]

This sort of thing is the main reason for nuclear nonproliferation.  Imagine pulling a heist like this against a nation with ICBM capabilities.  Wouldn't happen.

Venezuela's greatest problem is that it has the world's largest oil reserves, and the second largest gold reserves, and some other stuff. Everybody want to take control of these assets, and unfortunately the people are the ones who suffer as a result of this. Guaido is a graduate of the American regime change college, and may well turn out to be worse for Venezuela than Maduro, and that must be a pretty extreme comment.

So, it would be better for Venezuela to not have any assets? (Obviously not)

Perhaps it would be best if their government was competently run. How is it that nations that the US conquored (Japan) and stationed troops for 60 years (South Korea) are doing so well. Whereas North Korea is a sh!thole? If the US was so horrible why isn't Japan and South Korea simply poverty-ridden, slave state being exploited by the US?

Well the answer is in the question.  Japan and South Korea benefited from the US' economic support.  North Korea's loss was also Japan's gain.

The second reason that accounts for Japan's rapid recovery from WWII was the outbreak of Korean War, as Japan was favored by the Special Procurement.[10] The Korean War was fought on the Korean Peninsula, and the United States eventually participated in the war, providing an opportunity for the Japanese economy. The Korean Peninsula is distant from US territory, so the logistics soon became a significant problem. As one of the major supporters of the United States in Asia, Japan stood out, providing ample support to logistical operations, and also benefitting from the production of firearms. The order of mass firearms and other material by the United States greatly stimulated the Japanese economy, enabling Japan to recover from the wartime destruction and providing Japan the basis for the upcoming high increasing stage.

Japan was the first country in Asia to industrialize.  American investment was poured into Japan with the goal of making sure the Japanese people were happy and wouldn't think about communism.  The question is almost like asking "Why do trust fund babies succeed while orphans start off with shitty lives"


Japan also has its security guaranteed by the US which is a huge economic relief.  North Korea has had to focus most of its resources on protecting itself from US invasion.

South Korea was a repeat of the same thing again bankrolled by the west at the expense of North Korea. 

the conclusion of the economic miracle coincided with the conclusion of the Cold War. While the Japanese stock market hit its all-time peak at the end of 1989, making a recovery later in 1990, it dropped precipitously in 1991. The year of the conclusion of the Japanese asset price bubble coincided with the Gulf War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

[Lauda]

Don't excuse the evils of a dictatorship.

I didn't. Don't excuse the US dictatorship either.

Maduro is far better than the CIA spy that the US sent. A lot of the trouble that Venezuela is in now is not due to Maduro's faulty policies, but due to all the sanctions that the US war-machine set upon them. I could never understand how someone could say they are proud to be American.

[Carlton Banks]

Don't excuse the evils of a dictatorship.

I didn't. Don't excuse the US dictatorship either.

Maduro is far better than the CIA spy that the US sent. A lot of the trouble that Venezuela is in now is not due to Maduro's faulty policies, but due to all the sanctions that the US war-machine set upon them. I could never understand how someone could say they are proud to be American.

I broadly agree. But it's not easy to see at exactly which level this is true.

Take Kim Jong Un, just one of many cardboard cutout dictators scaring all the children into going along with the international soap opera (with main characters including USA, Britain, France. Germany, Russia & China, that's a familiar list...). Kim Jong Un spent most of his life at an expensive Swiss international school, hanging out with those type of kids (who you would assume he is still friends with). I have a hard time accepting that Kim really believes in what he's doing as North Korean president, so what's really going on?

But then you only have to check out that video of Gaddafi getting stabbed in the sphincter to realise that independent dictator assholes is a real phenomenon. There's alot of fakery going on, but precisely what is difficult to pin down. We can safely say that the US (or Russia/UK/China etc) give zero fucks about asshole dictators, but there's good reasons to believe that some of these Doctor Evils are actually working with the big powers (certainly true in the case of China and North Korea, that's publicly accepted).


So you maybe see what I'm trying to say: how do we know that Maduro is for real, and not playing a clandestine role? One thing's for sure, Venezuela is losing population fast, one way or another. Could that be the real goal, and is Maduro going to be left in charge to facilitate that (and to what end?)? Or is it more a Castro situation, where Maduro is wanted as a permanent boogeyman to scare the American public into accepting even more oppressive treatment from the US federal agencies? All of that and more?

One thing that makes increasingly less sense to me is that Russia and the US are mortal enemies, after all, the only one to benefit from all these stories is US and Russian state power. It's one big game of good cop/bad cop, but mutually inverted. "We'll save you from those nasty scary Americans/Russians!!!" is what they're both effectively saying. Great racket fellas.

[bitmover]

It's so crazy to see people from rich capitalist countries defending Maduro (or trying to compare his crimes to supposed US interference).

Maduro and chaves stole not the country, but the people.

This is what happened therein the last decade:

Engineers and technicians from PDVSA (Their oil company) were most of them fired and had their pension funds deleted. They were all replaced by socialist party members. Imagine, oil engineers replaced by illiterate members of the party.

Those engineers flee away from the country, most wen to Brazil and Colombia and USA. They were the lucky ones.

The ones who stayed now live with a wage of about 100 USD per month in Venezuela.

Marketplaces are all empty. Food shortage, basic hygiene products shortage.
All big companies left the country.

Welcome to the Latin America socialist dream.


Maduro chose who can or cannot participate in elections. Chaves banned all guns in the country, only his government officials are allowed to have guns (how convenient isn't it?)

Criminality there is one of the highest in the world. The homicide rate is higher than in Syria during civil war.

There is no food. People are eating dogs in the streets

All that happened in front of Obama eyes. USA did nothing. Obama is a fuking coward.
Brazil did nothing. Even worse. Our corrupted government supported maduro.. We were also having problems, as we had to deal with our socialists (Lula and Dilma) who wanted to make the same to us.

Now Brazil and USA are finally doing something. Embargos are the least we can do
It's our moral obligation.

Maduro needs to be removed. That's the only thing that matters for people who live there.

[Carlton Banks]

It's so crazy to see people from rich capitalist countries defending Maduro (or trying to compare his crimes to supposed US interference).

Maduro and chaves stole not the country, but the people.

Yep, I agree.

But maybe you should listen to some people from those rich capitalist countries; you're not going to get real capitalism in South America. People with political friends will get given great deals on former state assets, and anyone who creates a successful business will need to let in the establishment's influence before they can become the next corporate giant. The power dynamics are very similar to socialism, except the poverty is less extreme and it's less likely to collapse.

You swap hard-totalitarianism for soft-totalitarianism. Capitalism is what you will not get.

[TECSHARE]

Don't excuse the evils of a dictatorship.

I didn't. Don't excuse the US dictatorship either.

Maduro is far better than the CIA spy that the US sent. A lot of the trouble that Venezuela is in now is not due to Maduro's faulty policies, but due to all the sanctions that the US war-machine set upon them. I could never understand how someone could say they are proud to be American.

Why is no one surprised you are fond of a Communist dictator.