Upping the ante… on Venezuela

President Trump continues to tighten the screws – or noose if you would have it!! – on Mad Maduro! Apart from Southcom forces shooting another three narco-boats out of the water in the Eastern Pacific and killing eight, he announced “A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela”!! This has caused any number of oil tankers – sanctioned or otherwise – headed for Venezuela to do as sharp a U-turn as these behemoths can execute and beat a hasty retreat!! The only exception are Chevron’s tankers headed to US refineries!!
This, of course, means that while Venezuela might be able to keep its oil production at 900,000 barrels per day – they aint going nowhere!! While Eric Williams correctly pointed out that “oil doan spoil”; it don’t do no good when you can’t sell it!! Plus pretty soon they’re gonna run out of storage tanks!! Now this strategy of keeping the pressure on to force Mad Maduro to step down peacefully is just what the doctor – doctor in International Relations!! – ordered!! Landing Marines to remove the madman would just lead to a prolonged guerrilla-type war of resistance from the true-believing Chavistas – and send tens of thousands of refugees our way!! We DON’T want that!!
But the US endgame is becoming clearer from some intriguing statements in Trump’s message. “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before. Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us, it will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before.” In terms of “US oil and assets”, President Trump gotta be referring to the US oil companies which refused to go along with the terms Chavez imposed when taking over their oil operations under PDVSA. Exxon had demanded US$12B compensation but had only been awarded US$1B, while Conoco demanded US$8B and was awarded US$2B.
So at last we’re informed that once Maduro goes – and that’s a foregone conclusion in your Eyewitness’ estimation: the only question is “when?” – the US will seek to take control of those 300 barrels of heavy crude sloshing around under Venezuela!! One question, of course, is what will China be doing about the tankers of oil that they’ve been receiving from Venezuela – along with their billion-dollar oil platform they installed a couple of months ago!!
The last question, of course, is what “land” Trump might be referring to that he wants returned?? Our Ankoko??!!

…on citizens’ welfare
Your Eyewitness was pecking away at this piece on Wednesday morning and was informed by numerous feeds on his phone that Pressi gonna be addressing the nation this afternoon!! The announcement elaborated that he’ll be expatiating on his Government’s five-year plan on our development. Which, of course, was in the manifesto that enabled his party to snag a solid majority – unassailable to even the half-man theory! – of 36 seats in the 65-member House!!
But do you think anyone’s looking forward to that??! No Siree Bob!! We Guyanese live in the moment – and in this moment, just a week before Christmas, all they’re thinking is “CASH GRANT”!! Pressie just happened to’ve mentioned back in August that we would be having a “beautiful Christmas” – and that was automatically processed as “Christmas Cash Grant”!! Never mind, the man might’ve meant that having a PPP Government at the helm ensures a “Beautiful Christmas”!!
Anyhow, there’s gonna be a cash grant!! But we just gotta wait a bit!!

…on US entry
President Trump again tightened visa rules to the US – with “partial restrictions and entry limitations” on 15 additional countries, including citizens from Antigua and Dominica. Why?? Well, they award “citizenship by investment” to anyone – including criminals!!