IMAGE: Leonhard Foeger / Reuters
On July 2, the UK High Court ruled against Venezuela’s government in a legal battle over access to $1bn (£820m) of gold stored in the Bank of England. It claimed that it will be ‘unlawful’ to give it to the government of Nicolas Maduro since the UK does not recognize him as president of the Latin American nation.
The US, the UK as well as several other US ‘allies’ recognize the foreign-controlled leader of the opposition Juan Guaido as the leader of the country. Despite this, the rule self-proclamed ‘Venezuelan President’ Guaido in Venezuela does not extend beyond his twitter account.
Venezuela’s Central Bank, controlled by Maduro, sought to use the gold to soften the economic crisis caused by the high-sky US sanction pressure on the country. However, the British government just seized the Venezuelan gold in an apparent act of modern financial piracy. Indeed, this is a common approach for Western states. In June 2020, it was also revealed that the Trump administration used $601m seized from Venezuela-linked bank accounts in the US to fund the border wall with Mexico.
Even much earlier, during the Russian Civil War (1917-1923), then the British Empire used the trumoil in order to seize the part of gold reserves of the Russian Empire, which was stored in British banks. So, despite the supposed collapse of the colonial system, the so-called ‘Democratic World’ continues employing various neo-colonial approaches, including blatant looting, to suck resoures from other countries.
