Published at: 25/09/2024 10:00 PM

(Elite Magazine, June 1, 1957 — No. 1653)

• Between 1885 and 1936, the British flag flew in the Port of La Guaira, as if that enclave were a small Hong Kong or Falkland Island. No Venezuelan person or authority could access or transit inside its facilities without authorization from the officers of the British Empire stationed there.
• The use of British imperial symbols was never agreed to within the facilities of the Port of La Guaira. For this reason, it constituted one of the many grievances and dispossessions carried out by British agents against Venezuela.
• This time, on the occasion of a 99-year concession granted by the government of Antonio Guzmán Blanco, for the construction of the port in 1885.
• The British authorities also allowed troops to disembark from their warships, carrying out military exercises inside the port area.
• Finally, on June 2, 1936, the government of General Eleazar López Contreras managed to rescue that port, by paying a large amount of compensation (Bs. 17,531,878.32), which prevented the concession from continuing for 44 more years, that is, until 1980.
• This figure was exorbitant, since the English built only a modest administrative office house. The rest of the port was reduced to miserable ranches that served as a collection center for goods in transit.

THE CONTEXT:

• During the looting that the first monopoly of the Guipuzkoan Company (1728-1785) plundered our production (gold, coffee, cacao, indigo, tobacco, cotton, salt, guano, cattle and furs), the Venezuelan economy was severely strangled since the Bourbon courts in Madrid.
• After independence, this continued with the presence of foreign monopolies that exercised 100% port control of all our exports.
• Likewise, the control of the trade of our products or raw materials, in turn entailed the control of prices, which were always set very high for their imports and very low for our exports.
• Through the hegemonic exercise of shipping and customs firms over our ports, not only goods were controlled, but also governments.
• For the imperial legations of Germany, England, Italy, France and the United States, the Miraflores Palace was one of their offices, putting in and taking out presidents or setting up local groups to overthrow them, when they did not respond to their requests.
• “Until the coming of Cipriano Castro to power, no ruler in Latin America, even in dreams, dared to contravene or question or doubt any order, any agreement imposed by the Gringo and European powers” (Article: How was it that we don't remember Cipriano Castro, as a great anti-fascist fighter. Who deserves a great monument... by José Sant Roz).
• “They were owners and lords of our ports, of the best farms, of our resources, even of the presidents and ministers in office themselves. In fact, they placed all the key officials of the public administration, proposed them and dismissed them as they pleased” (Article: How is it that we don't remember Cipriano Castro, as a great anti-fascist fighter. Who deserves a great monument... by José Sant Roz).

Mazo News Team