 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. The year 2021 has been vital for the embattled country of Venezuela. The country has for years been the target of a sustained diplomatic and even violent offensive by the United States and its allies. The extensive sanctions regime imposed by these countries has had a disastrous impact on Venezuela and led to the deaths of tens of thousands and destroyed the quality of life. The US and its allies have also supported the far-right opposition in Venezuela, including a coup attempt by Juan Guaido in 2019. After years of such assaults, Venezuela has seen a turnaround this year. There has been greater engagement between the elected government of Nicolás Maduro and the opposition, a widely celebrated electoral process and developments at the global stage. Zoe Alexandra of People's Dispatch analyzes how this year has been for Venezuela. So as we're coming to the end of 2021, one country which saw tremendous change and growth was the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. So 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 were very challenging years for Venezuela, starting with the campaign of sanctions that of course began in 2014, but intensified when Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. And he, under his leadership, the US imposed a series of financial sanctions, of sanctions on oil production in Venezuela that had catastrophic impacts on the economy, had catastrophic impacts on human life, and on really all sectors of society and life in Venezuela. Of course, the goal of these sanctions was to destabilize the country, was to shake the legitimacy of the democratically elected government of Nicolás Maduro. And throughout these past couple of years, there was a very challenging economic situation. You know, thousands of people did leave Venezuela. The GDP dropped, you know, over 30 percent imports of food and medicine also saw a serious decrease. Oil production, massive decrease at the same time, you know, very high levels of inflation, the devaluation of the currency was also really uncontrolled. And this year, 2021 is the first year that Venezuela is seeing a breath of fresh air, a little bit of stability, of economic stability, of political stability. People are finally starting to get back to, you know, a normal situation in Venezuela, what they call, you know, they were under an economic war, a siege. This has started to let up. And there are two key factors of how this happened. On one hand, of course, a very key element has to do with the continued resistance of the democratically elected government in terms of creating alternative economic partnerships, working with countries like Russia, working with countries like China, strengthening its relationship with Cuba. You know, the vaccine, buying of vaccines from Cuba was extremely important in terms of getting a very high level of vaccination in Venezuela. They also received a lot of vaccines from these previously mentioned economic partners, Venezuela, sorry, Russia and China. There were important economic agreements also made with Iran regarding their oil production. And so these branching out and, you know, of course, all economic activity with the US has essentially been cut off. But when Venezuela was able to branch out, work with these other countries, these emerging economies, countries that are trying to promote this more multilateral world, this has really served to help Venezuela rebound economically to rebuild some several key aspects of industry of infrastructure. And of course, they're very important oil infrastructure. Another element, you know, in addition to this, to the perseverance of the democratic elected government in pursuing other economic partnerships and other economic opportunities is also the, at this one on one hand, the weakening of the political opposition of the far right opposition of Juan Guaido, the continued kind of decline of him as a figure, and the continued victories of the Chavismo, the Pesu of Alliance, the Grand Patriotic Pole. The elections that were held on November 21st in Venezuela, the subnational elections where, you know, millions of Venezuelans were able to go to the polls to elect their mayors, to elect their governors, city council members. These elections not only saw a very high level of participation, about a 10% increase from the prior year, but also it saw, you know, a massive landslide victory of Chavismo forces of this great patriotic pole alliance and an almost complete defeat of the opposition. They participated in these elections, which I'll get to in the next point of what's been another important development in the stabilization process. And it really showed that people do not believe in the project that they have been presenting for the country, which is, you know, essentially a non-project, a project that involves supporting the blockade, supporting the economic sanctions, and working against the best interests of the people. And so the third element of how Venezuela has been able to regain this level of stability, regain a sense of, you know, well-being again for the Venezuelan people, you know, breaking out of this sense that they're under attack. The third element is the success of the negotiation process with the far-right opposition in Mexico. So there have been several attempts to engage in a dialogue process with the opposition in these critical years in 2014 and 2017. This same far-right opposition engaged in several different rounds of protests, largely with political goals, you know, not necessarily mobilizing for a certain economic measure, policy, a certain demand in that sense, but really with the sole purpose of overthrowing the democratically elected government of Nicolás Maduro. And, you know, during these protests, there were a lot of acts of violence in 2017. Over 100 people were killed. And so in this process of political upheaval, political crisis, this Venezuelan government has attempted to engage in several instances of dialogue. Many of these have not been successful. And finally, this year in Mexico, the government and the opposition, including the far-right opposition, for the first time agreed to sit down with the government in a dialogue table in Mexico. And this was extremely important in terms of regaining the confidence of the Venezuelan people to show that after all this time, after all this crisis, that there is still possibility for people to, you know, resolve conflicts in peaceful means, in a dialogue, in engaging in conversation. And these dialogues were very important, because they achieved a common understanding among the opposition and the government that in order for Venezuelans to live in peace, in order for Venezuelans to survive, the unilaterally imposed coercive measures by the United States must be lifted. And so one of the first calls of this dialogue between the opposition and the government was calling on the United States to lift sanctions in order for the economic life in Venezuela to improve for people to be able to engage in commerce, for there not to be so many restrictions, and to really recover the oil production and many other elements of the economy. Another key achievement of this process was the participation of this far-right opposition sector, which had not participated since 2015 in electoral processes. And so this year in November, on November 21st, and the privacy mentioned electoral process, this far-right opposition did participate. As I mentioned, they did not, they were not successful in many cases. However, their participation in the process was an important boost of legitimacy to Venezuela's electoral system, which has been praised internationally because of its transparency. It's one of the first biometric voting systems in the entire continent. However, it has been often called by the United States and the European Union as being fraudulent and many other aspects. And in a final aspect of, you know, Venezuela's return to stability and, you know, even seeing economic growth, which it hadn't for many years, is also the regional reconfiguration. And so we're seeing a, in Bolivia, the coming to power of the progressive government of the movement towards socialism led by Luis Arce, the recent victory of Zio Maracastro, the reelection of Daniel Ortega Nicaragua, the continuing left and progressive projects across the continent, which gives more strength to Venezuela that had been previously isolated in the moment of a conservative counterattack against many countries in the region. And in the coming year with the looking like very positive outcome for Gustavo Petro in Colombia, Lula da Silva in Brazil, these have been the two strategic allies of the United States in its attacks against Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil. And, you know, with the popularity of these two candidates in these countries, which have been very important in this attack, this is also a really important possibility for Venezuela. And that if there's a progressive government in Colombia, if there's a progressive government in Brazil, the entire region will, you know, be strengthened and Venezuela won't receive so much pressure from its neighbors, and maybe even they will engage in cooperation. So looking at this year, looking at 2021, it's really been a tremendous year in terms of regaining some stability in Venezuela, regaining the support and the trust of the people in a very, very trying time, a time of crisis, a time of a lot of upheaval. And it's looking like 2022 will be even, you know, another crucial year for Venezuela, a lot of important economic growth will be happening, and will of course be staying tuned at people's dispatch.