Category Archives: Insert

April 17, 2019

From the margin of the periphery: Albania on Venezuela

by Griselda Qosja  

Has the government in Albania taken an official position regarding the situation in Venezuela? If yes, what is the position? Yes, the Albanian government has officially recognized Juan Guaidó as temporary president. The prime minister tweeted his support in the name of the Albanian people, wishing that the courageous Venezuelans successfully remove the illegitimate power that has made the country into a hell for its people. This position was to be expected. What does this reveal about the foreign policy and international standing of Albania? To understand this position, we have to start from the beginning. Alban ..

March 5, 2019

Macedonia’s position on Venezuela: A Perspective from the Left

by Recep Haktan Ismail  

1. Has the government in your country taken an official position regarding the situation in Venezuela? If yes, what is the position? If we consider the twitter posts of the Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov as official statements of the ministry and the Government itself, then we could say that our government has an official position on the situation in Venezuela. The position is not the least bit surprising if we take into account that our country’s government is subordinated to Western imperialism and has completely lost its sovereignty in the last year. Namely, the Tweet read as follows: “In line with our E ..

March 4, 2019

Georgia’s position on Venezuela: A Perspective from the Left

by Dato Laghidze  

1.Has Georgia’s government country taken an official position regarding the situation in Venezuela?  Georgia recognized Guaido as an interim head of the government of Venezuela. The country’s official position is no surprise as it is always in a line with Washington’s and Brussels’ stance. There was only one peculiarly Georgian angle to this story. Since independence, Georgia experienced two ethnic/political conflict within its own territory as a result of which Tbilisi lost control on the breakaway regions – Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In 2008, the Russo-Georgian war escalated as Georgian mili ..

February 25, 2019

Turkey’s position on Venezuela- a Perspective from the Left

by Justus Links  

1.Has Turkey’s government taken an official position regarding the situation in Venezuela? If yes, what is the position? Turkey presents the peculiar case of a right-wing government with historically close geopolitical ties to the USA supporting President Maduro both verbally and commercially. Over the last year, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has developed an ever friendlier rapport with Maduro, visiting him in Caracas and receiving him in Ankara. Over the course of these visits the Turkish and Venezuelan governments concluded a deal by which Venezuela exports unrefined gold to Turkey in return for crucial food ..

February 25, 2019

Croatia’s position on Venezuela: A Perspective from the Left

by Marko Milosevic  

1.Has Croatia’s government country taken an official position regarding the situation in Venezuela? If yes, what is the position? The government of Croatia has already moved to recognize Guaido as “interim president” about a week ago, when a handful of regional right-wing governments and a handful of imperialist Western countries did so, proving yet again Croatia’s spotless record in neo-colonial bootlickery. 2. What does this  (fail to) reveal about the foreign policy/international standing of your country? Like i said, it proves first and foremost that Croatia has no “foreign poli ..

February 25, 2019

Serbia’s position on Venezuela- A Left Perspective

by Nebojsha Milikic  

1. Has Serbia’s government taken an official position regarding the situation in Venezuela? If yes, what is the position? The government is trying to keep a low profile. After a period of some sort of a constrain, Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic gave a moderate statement for Sputnik: “The least we can do is to not change our position towards Venezuela”. In fact the government is openly on Maduro’s side but tends not to insist this position because most of European countries- including Germany, which is super influential in the governing party- act as hard-liners on the issue. 2.What does this (fail to) ..

February 25, 2019

Bulgaria’s position on Venezuela – A Left Perspective

by Mariya Ivancheva  

1. Has the government in Bulgaria country taken an official position regarding the situation in Venezuela? If yes, what is the position? In Bulgaria the Venezuelan crisis produced a somewhat unexpected cleavage between the government and the opposition. I say somewhat unexpected because Roumen Radev, the President elected from the mandate of the Bulgarian Socialist Party which has deferred any position on Latin American politics, took a stance in support of President Maduro and against the intervention of the US. He said that the events were a matter of concern with risk of escalation of violence and called for ..

February 25, 2019

Israel’s position on Venezuela – A Left Perspective

by Matan Kaminer  

1.Has the government of Israel taken an official position regarding the situation in Venezuela? If yes, what is the position? The Israeli government has come out strongly in support of Juan Guaidó’s claim to the presidency of Venezuela. PM Netanyahu has strongly stressed that this position is in accordance with the stances of “the US, Canada, most Latin American countries and [some] European countries”. According to press reports, the announcement was delayed by a few days due to concern that it might lead to reprisals by the Maduro government against the Venezuelan Jewish community (which is ..

January 29, 2019

Letter to citizens of the EU from the “periphery”: Politics of the closed borders are bringing us closer to fascist rules

by lefteast  

Note from LeftEast editors: This article has been reprinted from the Medium account of Are You Syrious. We, the human rights defenders and citizens from the countries relegated to the “periphery” of the European Union (EU) and the Schengen space, want to express our deepest concern for the current situation in which we can see the rise of fascism and a deterioration in basic human rights, such as freedom of movement and the right to seek asylum. The leniency towards and acceptance of the rise of the far-right in European countries is worsening living conditions for people on the move and increasingly endanger ..

January 18, 2019

The Living Front of Stanislav Markelov

by Kirill Medvedev  

This article by Kirill Medvedev, a Moscow-based poet, translator, and activist of the Russian Socialist Movement, originally appeared in an English translation by Tom Rowley and Guiliano Vivaldi in Open Democracy–Russia and Beyond. Ten years ago, Stanislav Markelov was murdered in Moscow. He defended anti-fascists and ecologists, mothers trying to defend their sons serving in the army and citizens of Blagoveshchensk brutalised at the hands of the riot police, the relatives of Elza Kungayeva (murdered by a Russian soldier in Chechnya) and journalist Mikhail Beketov, who was brutally assaulted for coveri ..