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Mar 28, 2023 17 tweets 7 min read Read on X
🧵🧵More trouble for CITGO thanks to the treacherous incompetence of the former "interim government" led by legendary buffoon @jguaido. We'll have a report on this tomorrow but here's a quick thread in the meantime
In a nutshell, 4 more corporations have joined a Delaware court-ordered auction of CITGO shares to collect on a combined $1.6 billion worth of arbitration awards ($2.5B + accrued interests). This @Reuters piece has some details (+ traditional dishonesty): reut.rs/3TQFmml
To make a long story short, corporate-friendly arbitration courts ruled in favor of several companies in disputes w/ Venezuela (over nationalizations). And then a corporate-friendly judge ruled that they could seize CITGO shares as compensation to collect on those debts
Four companies (Rusoro Mining, Huntington, O-I and ACL Investments) join this process to break and seize CITGO shares that already includes Crystallex ($1B outstanding) and ConocoPhillips ($1.6B outstanding)
Where does Guaidó come in? In a myriad of ways. To collect on an award against Vzla via a state company like CITGO, awardees need to prove that PDVSA (CITGO’s parent company) is an “alter ego.” The interim govt left the judge no doubt about it
Recall that the US puppet and his acolytes were granted control of CITGO b/c of the absurd decision to “recognize” this self-proclaimed circus. And owed to a lack of competence or honesty, the Guaidó gang was not able to shield CITGO from these claims
But it wasn’t just the running of CITGO. The handling of legal cases was also suspicious, from not showing up in court to shady under the table deals. Or in the case of Rusoro Mining, “quietly dropping” an appeal when it was highly recommended to at least drag proceedings on
Apart from the corporate threats, CITGO also faces a looming threat from holders of the PDVSA 2020 bond (CITGO was pledged as collateral). A ban on trades involving the bond expires in April. This report has more venezuelanalysis.com/news/15687
Worth recalling that the process was driven by Crystallex and it’s 100% due to sanctions. After several rounds in court to reduce the award, Venezuela actually reached a settlement w/ Crystallex. But sanctions made it impossible to continue paying the installments #SanctionsKill
We don’t agree on everything, but this thread by Francisco Rodríguez has some useful insights
We can’t leave without pointing out some egregiously poor reporting that we’ve come to expect from @Reuters. Notice this outrageous paragraph. First off, a blatant and ever more common lie. Sanctions against PDVSA actually began in 2017. But that’s not the worst part…
(see highlight above) It seems Maduro himself rigged the elections! He must have voted 5 million times with fake IDs, or hacked 5,000 voting centers and stuffed the ballot boxes. What a busy Sunday that must have been. Btw all these things are impossible to do in Vzlan elections
And then the “Maduro says” trick. Maduro hasn’t “denied” anything, there are electoral authorities here. The point is that there has never been any evidence whatsoever to back these rigging claims. Not that the corporate media would ever ask for it anyway
As for the US wanting Venezuela’s oil, don’t take our (or Maduro’s) word for it. Here’s SouthCom chief Laura Richardson talking about it
Finally, it never ceases to amaze how José Ignacio Hernández gets quoted like an impartial source. Not only did he have an active role in the Guaidó make-believe administration, he was a star witness in Crystallex’s legal case to get the greenlight to seize CITGO shares
Right on cue, we have recently published an infographic on CITGO and the corporate vultures currently circling
venezuelanalysis.com/images/15726
Stay tuned to Venezuelanalysis for balanced, accurate reporting on this an all things Venezuela. And remember that you can support our work by becoming a subscriber: venezuelanalysis.com/subscribe-opti…

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More from @venanalysis

Jul 23
🧵When it comes to reporting about Venezuela, there is no corporate outlet even remotely close to the level of dishonesty of the New York Times. Seriously, it's one piece of misrepresented bullsh*t after another. Follow this thread as we break it down Image
This is the piece:

The article is not to be taken seriously b/c it starts from a blatant lie. US "prodding" has nothing to do with Venezuela holding elections. It is dictated by the Constitution that they be held this year and they were never in doubt shorturl.at/LFusR
Image
Anyone not high on Western exceptionalism would actually be ashamed of their government meddling in other countries' affairs. But alas, this is the NYT.

In corporate media spiel, "restoring democracy" just means a US puppet being back in the presidential palace Image
Read 13 tweets
Nov 29, 2023
🧵🧵The border dispute between Venezuela and Guyana has flared up recently, leading to a war of words, increased military deployment and increasing signs of US intervention. We have prepared an infographic to explain the history and context of the controversy (thread) Image
The Essequibo Strip is a sparsely populated, 160,000 square km region spanning to the west of the Essequibo River. It has been the subject of centuries of dispute which, sadly, have never taken into account the indigenous population Image
Instead, it has always been pretty much about resources. Gold mining is what drove British expansion westward (more on this below), and the recent discoveries of massive oil deposits led to Venezuela and Guyana raising tensions too Image
Read 11 tweets
Sep 12, 2023
About time... Spain's @el_pais reports that the $3 billion in frozen Vzlan assets will soon be released. This was agreed to between the Venezuelan govt and opposition last November! But this thread is to point out the dishonest b.s. from the Spanish establishment's mouthpiece 🧵 Image
This is the article in question:

It essentially relies on anonymous sources who say that the funds will soon be released. El País then covers this fairly straightforward report in a cloak of lies and misconceptionsenglish.elpais.com/international/…
So it begins. How dare Maduro want to access Venezuelan funds? Then it's incredibly disingenuous and racist to claim the govt wants to fix schools/hospitals to "polish its image." If a western govt builds a hospital, it's laudable. If Vzla does it it's to fool voters. GTFOH Image
Read 20 tweets
Jul 25, 2023
🧵🧵Worse than a broken clock... Even when it wants to state the obvious, in this case that sanctions are a terrible and wrong policy, the @nytimes remains fully draped in US exceptionalism. The corporate media are an active front of the US empire (thread) Image
The article in question () is instantly off to a bad start. We are supposed to agree that Iran and NK should not have nuclear weapons, unlike the only country to ever use them. And would they also call the Iraq war an "egregious violation of intl laws"? https://t.co/ElNZjjKTlTtinyurl.com/3rmur79p
Image
The end of the first section shows that this editorial is really not going anywhere since it's based on the outrageously false premise that the US should have some kind of god-given ability to impose murderous sanctions on other nations when it so pleases Image
Read 13 tweets
Jun 9, 2023
🧵🧵🧵We just came across an incredible piece from the Financial Times (not in a good way). It has a remarkable blend of fallacious arguments, outright lies, bias, and lack of standards. This is a long thread, so bear with us! Image
This is the article in question from @FT (tinyurl.com/y32pmvtk). You can tell from the off that you're in for a ride because it's based on this assumption that the West "presses for free and fair elections" when this in fact has happened less frequently than Yeti sightings Image
FT "journalists" must get a bonus for every use of the word "authoritarian." It's not often that a piece starts w/ an outright falsehood, b/c "democracy" never left Venezuela, only the US didn't like election results. But this apocalyptic tone is worthy of a good chuckle Image
Read 17 tweets
Jun 7, 2023
The US-backed Venezuelan opposition, which runs an imaginary parliament, wants a US court to declare a Venezuelan bond as invalid to try and soften the disaster brought by their complete bundling when in charge of CITGO

reuters.com/markets/commod…
The strategy haw few chances of success, for several reasons, not least of them that when this National Assembly was actually running it *did not* formally declare the bond issued by the Maduro govt as illegal. A US-backed group was not about to challenge financial investors
.@Reuters will not let a short, straightforward piece get in the way of some outrageous lying. US sanctions have been classified as "collective punishment" against the Vzlan population, and these stenographer clowns write "sanctions against the Maduro govt" #SanctionsKill Image
Read 5 tweets

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