Tomás Ó Flatharta

The Dublin government is doing normal campist hypocrisy : Currently the Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin is visiting China. Expect no mention of the Beijing régime’s well-documented human rights abuses in the Xinjiang province and persecution of the Uyghur minority – China’s boss Xi Jinping will not tolerate that kind of talk :

Link :
China Syria and the Uyghurs

“Another piece of information related to the Xinjiang issue concerns the dissemination of confidential documents that would prove Xi Jinping’s direct involvement in the repression of the Uyghurs. These are three internal speeches given in 2014 during a visit to the region immediately after the attack on Kunming railway station in which Xi called for a campaign of “heavy and rapid strikes” and demanded the creation of a climate of constant pressure. These instructions already hinted at the elements that would subsequently shape the system of internment camps, forced labour and linguistic assimilation programmes, with the aim of eliminating religious practices and cultural identities considered threats to national security.”

The head of the Dublin government is saying nothing about ongoing repression of trade union activists in Hong Kong. Not a dicky-bird from Micheál about the Chinese régimes’s threatening build-up of its military forces in the South China Sea.

Here is a flavour of the Leinster House “Official Version” : Business Before Principles :

“In Shanghai, the Taoiseach will meet the city’s mayor Gong Zheng and visit Irish and Chinese companies in the country’s commercial capital. He has planned meetings with representatives from the financial services, tourism and food and beverage sectors, among others.

“In Beijing, there will be a particular focus on further and higher education – an important area with a lot of potential for both partners, and where co-operation will yield longer-term dividends in terms of research and innovation, and people-to-people links,” he said.

The Taoiseach will meet representatives from 12 Irish third-level colleges that offer full-time degree and diploma courses with Chinese higher education partners. Typically, these offer qualifications that are recognised in both Ireland and China, with courses based on those in Irish colleges.

Last month, the Sunday Times Ireland edition reported that the Irish Military Intelligence Service was concerned about security risks associated with academic links to China. But the Taoiseach later suggested that a more sophisticated approach to China’s strategic ambitions was required.

“I do accept the intelligence that’s across Europe and UK recently but on the other hand, China has never initiated, in modern times, a war. I had a very interesting, pretty careful discussion with the Singaporean Prime Minister on that. We should do more to understand the Chinese psyche and approach, and the more longer term sort of scenario, strategic thinking,” he told The Journal.” – Irish Times January 5 2026.

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Venezuela – Ordinary Imperialism

Denys Pilash, from Ukraine, offers us a very useful article based on principles which need to be universal across the left :
Ukraine – Venezuela – Palestine – Occupation Is A Crime.

Washington’s scarecrow, catching up with its Kremlin counterpart, has conducted its own special military aberration [1]. Moreover, whilst boasting about this latest step towards what it calls the “noble peace prize” [2] and asserting its “Donroe Doctrine” [3], it makes no attempt to conceal that this is all for the sake of tasty oil and that it could not care less about the consequences of regional destabilisation. [4]

The single-celled cowboy George [5] was not even this lazy in searching for pretexts for the war in Iraq; but what can you do when the disguise of a “war on drugs” immediately peels off the moment you recall that with those same tiny hands, he literally amnestied a proven Latin American drug trafficker the day before—the former right-authoritarian president of Honduras, whom they had imprisoned in an American jail for life because of the mountains of cocaine he and his brother pumped into the USA [6], perhaps even directly to Casa Paella [7]—in order to help his party cronies, ahem, “win” the elections and build yet another concentration camp in another Central American state, following the model of Bukele’s El Salvador [8]. It looks like the embodiment of fears about a global deal between two imperialisms: “you leave us the Western Hemisphere, we leave you Ukraine.”

Of course, nobody except deranged fans of moustachioed helmsmen [9] wants to defend the autocrat Maduro—who, having put an entire people on intermittent fasting and long-distance business trips [10], and having also rattled sabres himself with threats of a “small victorious war” [11] against Guyana [12], has become a useful bogeyman for every regional fascist to demonise any local leftist by his example. But who will take control in this vacuum?

Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez [13], whom the media have already rushed to pack off to Rostov [14]? The reluctant opposition candidate in the elections, González Urrutia [15]? Or straight to the little Ayn Rand devotee María Corina “bomb my country, please” Machado [16]? One of Maduro’s henchmen who sold him out, like the thug-faced Cabello [17]? Or perhaps, as in the response of Escobar (not the Medellín one, but the Makiivka one)—“nobody writes our texts for us” [18]—further escalating chaos? But worst of all is an even deeper normalisation, following Bush’s and Putin’s adventures, of might-makes-right in international relations over respect for international law and the at-least-declarative rules of coexistence between states. [19]

Link :
Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières

Venezuela – Ordinary Imperialism

Footnotes

[1] A mocking reference to Russia’s term “special military operation” used to describe its invasion of Ukraine.

[2] A sarcastic reference to Donald Trump’s aspirations for Nobel Peace Prize recognition.

[3] The Monroe Doctrine, articulated by US President James Monroe in 1823, declared that European colonisation of or interference in the Americas would be viewed as acts of aggression requiring US intervention. Trump has repeatedly invoked it to justify interventionism in Latin America. See Dan La Botz, “Trump’s squeeze of Venezuela goes beyond ’Monroe doctrine’ – in ideology, intent and scale, it’s unprecedented”, Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières, November 2025. Available at: https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article76871

[4] On the Venezuelan crisis and US aggression, see “Venezuela: Between Trump’s imperialist offensive and Maduro’s repression”, Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières, December 2025. Available at: http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article77109

[5] A derogatory reference to former US President George W. Bush.

[6] Juan Orlando Hernández, president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022, was extradited to the United States in April 2022, convicted in March 2024 of conspiring to import over 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, and sentenced to 45 years in prison. Donald Trump pardoned him on 1 December 2025, claiming without evidence that the prosecution was a “setup” by the Biden administration. The investigation into Hernández actually began during Obama’s presidency and continued through Trump’s first term.

[7] A mocking reference to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

[8] Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador since 2019, has imposed a permanent state of exception and mass incarceration policies that have resulted in over 70,000 people imprisoned, many without due process. His CECOT mega-prison has become a model for authoritarian “mano dura” (iron fist) policies in the region. See “A Portrait of El Salvador’s Completed Dictatorship”, Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières, September 2025. Available at: http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article75909

[9] A reference to admirers of Stalin and similar authoritarian leaders.

[10] Ironic references to the severe food shortages and mass emigration from Venezuela, with approximately 8 million Venezuelans having fled the country.

[11] A Russian phrase referring to a quick, easy military victory that boosts domestic popularity—historically associated with disastrous miscalculations.

[12] Venezuela under Maduro has maintained territorial claims to the Essequibo region, which constitutes about two-thirds of Guyana’s territory, and held a referendum in December 2023 on annexing the region.

[13] Delcy Rodríguez has served as Venezuela’s Executive Vice-President since 2018. Under the Venezuelan constitution, she would assume presidential duties in case of the president’s absence.

[14] A reference to the flight of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to Rostov-on-Don, Russia, in 2014—suggesting exile.

[15] Edmundo González Urrutia was the opposition coalition’s presidential candidate in the July 2024 Venezuelan election after María Corina Machado was barred from running. International observers widely believe he won the election, though Maduro claimed victory. González went into exile in Spain in September 2024.

[16] María Corina Machado, leader of the Venezuelan opposition party Vente Venezuela, was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. A proponent of free-market economics influenced by libertarian philosophy, she has been criticised by some on the left for previously supporting US sanctions and intervention against Venezuela. She dedicated her Nobel Prize to Donald Trump.

[17] Diosdado Cabello is a powerful figure in Venezuela’s ruling United Socialist Party, currently serving as Interior Minister. He has been accused by US authorities of involvement in drug trafficking.

[18] A reference to a notorious statement by a Russian-backed separatist leader in eastern Ukraine, suggesting improvised chaos rather than coordinated planning.

[19] On the implications of the US attack on Venezuela, see “United States Seizes Venezuelan Territory and Government”, Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières, January 2026. Available at: http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article77572