The Netherlands Colonized the Antilles for Venezuelan Oil
The Dutch neutrality claim is a farce, argues Marjolein van Pagee, together with the USA, the Netherlands is posing a military threat to Venezuelan sovereignty.
Last week, Dutch outgoing Prime Minister Dick Schoof visited the Antilles. The old Lago refinery on Aruba will be permanently closed, and the Netherlands will help to dismantle it. On this location, until 1985, the American oil company Exxon refined Venezuelan oil.
The Dutch Shell company did the same on Curaçao. Schoof emphasized that the Netherlands is not involved in the current US intimidation of neighboring Venezuela.
Dutch media also give the impression that the recent show of force in the Caribbean is an initiative of Trump. This is misleading. The Hague also wants President Nicolás Maduro to be replaced.
The Dutch claim of neutrality is a farce. Both now and in the past, the Antilles were an important stepping stone for the Netherlands to Venezuelan oil.
At the end of the nineteenth century, when the black gold was first discovered, Shell was one of the first Western oil companies to invest in it. The Dutch government provided the necessary support at all times.
Venezuelan leaders who refused to accept unfair oil deals were thwarted and intimidated. In 1908, not very different from Trump’s actions now, The Hague also sent warships to intimidate Venezuela. In our time, oil does not have a very positive image anymore.
Nowadays, the Netherlands wants to look ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’. On his visit to Aruba, Prime Minister Dick Schoof said that the dismantling of the old Lago refinery was an important step towards a sustainable economy.
Subsequently, on November 9 and 10, 2025, he attended the fourth CELAC-EU summit in Colombia where the word ‘sustainability’ was frequently mentioned as well.
The participating countries pledged their allegiance to the UN’s 2030 Agenda.
One of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) reads that the use of fossil fuels needs to be reduced, which will never happen if plastic use remains to be commercialized.
How do these noble promises relate to the current aggression against Venezuela, which is about oil?
In fact, Trump’s unlawful attacks on fishing boats were discussed during the summit. Colombian President Gustavo Petro had previously expressed the hope that the meeting would produce a joint statement that would condemn the US actions in the Caribbean.
Unfortunately, the final statement only included some vague remarks about the right to self-defense within the margins of international law.
It did not explicitly mention the unlawful acts carried out by the Trump administration. Not surprisingly, important parts of the declaration were not signed by Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Good Cop and Bad Cop both want Oil
Although EU countries, including the Netherlands, are generally more diplomatic than Washington under Trump, the EU is equally responsible for both the economic sanctions against Venezuela as well as the demonization of Maduro’s government.
It seems that the EU is playing ‘good cop’, maintaining contacts in the region, while the Trump administration plays ‘bad cop’, threatening with open war.
How noble the UN’s sustainable development goals may sound, if the US war fleet in the Caribbean demonstrates anything, it is the importance of Venezuelan oil to imperialist interests.
The USA war fleet now includes: 8 destroyers, 2 missile cruisers, 1 amphibious transport ship, a coastal combat ship, a nuclear submarine, B-1 bombers, several fighter jets, helicopters and drones, and the largest US aircraft carrier the USS Gerald R. Ford.
At the end of October, one of the first ships arrived at the port of Trinidad, about ten kilometers off the northeast coast of Venezuela, for a so-called ‘military training’.
Regional support centers like Trinidad are essential for the success of imperialist wars and regime changes. The American colony of Puerto Rico is another strategic port where US warships can always rely on.
USA & Dutch Military Bases in the Antilles
Less known is that the USA has military bases at the airports of the Antillean islands of Curaçao and Aruba as well, just dozens of kilometers from the Venezuelan coast.
On April 12, 1999, the Dutch government signed an agreement with the USA for the establishment of what they called a ‘Forward Operating Location’ (FOL).
Officially, it was presented as a counter-drug operation, yet in 2019, the location was used for an infiltration attempt when the North Americans attempted to invade Venezuela under the guise of providing ‘humanitarian aid’.
In the Antilles, the US Southern Command works closely with NATO partner the Netherlands. The latter has a permanent force of thousand defense personnel stationed on the islands.
Last spring, together with their North American counterparts, the Royal Dutch Navy conducted an operation near the Venezuelan port of Puerto Cabello.
Of course, the population of the Antilles was never asked about the desirability of Dutch and American military bases on their territory, while they bear the risks of the provocative actions that the imperialist countries together undertake.
Even though Curaçao formally has an independent status within the Kingdom of the Netherlands since 2010, in effect it is still a Dutch colony. The Hague decides on all foreign policy or defense matters.
Because of their direct link to the Netherlands, the Caribbean islands are also associated with the European Union and the EU-sanctions.
Last August, when the US announced that their warships were planning to refuel in Willemstad, the population reacted with concern. In the Dutch parliament, the D66 party submitted parliamentary questions about the matter.
But then-Minister of Defense Ruben Brekelmans (VVD) emphasized that the American deployment was nationally driven and that the Netherlands had nothing to do with it.
As if insignificant, he added that the Dutch War Minister called defense and Foreign Affairs Ministries were in close contact with the USA.
The fact that the brand new Dutch supply ship HNLMS Den Helder arrived in Willemstad on October 20, was also totally disconnected from the situation in Venezuela, according to Dutch Captain Stefjan Veenstra.
But was it really a complete coincidence that a large Dutch naval vessel docked in the Caribbean for ‘warm water exercises’ just as Trump was increasing the pressure on Venezuela? After all, also a ‘military exercise’ is not neutral in a context of war.
It is unlikely that the Dutch would not assist their American friends if they needed help. Captain Veenstra: The HNLMS Den Helder replenishment warship has arrived at the right time. The [Dutch] navy has guided another warship to the war-zone.
Curaçao Prime Minister Gilmar Pisas expressed the hope that the treaty between the Netherlands and the US will be extended next year. According to him, there had been intensive discussions about the risks:
That is why an additional Dutch military ship has arrived here. There are no tensions with us as a country, but we could become involved. He emphasized that the logistical visit of American warships to Willemstad was no reason to panic.
Yet, the Dutch intelligence service AIVD thinks otherwise. In a 2024 report, they warn that the situation in Venezuela could potentially have major consequences for the migrated enslaved economy, politics, and security of Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire.
Of course, the authors do not see any link with the provocative actions of Western countries themselves. The Antillean population are only at risk because Venezuela is building up its armed forces with the help of Russia, Iran, and China.
Not surprisingly, the AIVD fails to mention that Venezuela is forced to build up its defenses because of Western intimidation. On their part, Caracas equally distrusts the Dutch-European presence in the Antilles.
In January 2018, the Maduro government imposed a trade embargo on the Antilles, after its gold was being stolen by the Dutch, leading to skyrocketing fruit & vegetable prices.
Naturally, the relationship between the Caribbean islands and the Venezuelan mainland would be much better without Dutch colonialism and threats.
After 2015, when the USA and the EU increased their pressure on Venezuela, the Venezuelan-Antillean trade has only deteriorated. In a way, the Antillean islanders, like the Venezuelans, are victims of the USA and European sanctions too.
Dutch Neutrality Claim is a Farce
Given the close historical ties with the US, the Dutch claim of neutrality is not very convincing, even if The Hague currently does not play an active role in the escalation right now.
In the war of aggression against Venezuela, Dutch politicians and media follow the line set by Washington and Brussels, which continuously accuses Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of undemocratic and authoritarian actions, human rights violations, and recently even of involvement in illegal drug trafficking.
Last August, the Dutch embassy in Caracas provided shelter to pro-Western opposition leader Edmundo González who claimed that he, instead of Maduro, had won the election.
According to the human rights report of 2023, Venezuela is also one of the twenty countries that the Dutch government labeled a priority. In fact, The Netherlands is not just facilitating the US. The Dutch has its own (oil) interests in Venezuela too.
History shows how central the Antilles are to the close collaboration between the two imperialist powers in the colonial exploitation of Venezuelan resources.
For over a century and a half, the Dutch occupation of the islands caused reoccurring troubles in the bilateral relation with Venezuela.
The Antilles: Stepping Stone to Venezuela
A 1971 article, published in the magazine of the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN) refers to the Netherlands Antilles as a stepping stone to South America.
In practice, the islands were primarily a stepping stone to Venezuela, which had attracted European attention long before the discovery of the black gold. The Spanish colonization of Venezuela began in 1522 and lasted until 1811.
After independence, under the leadership of Simón Bolívar (the present-day Venezuelan Republic is named after him) the country became part of Gran Colombia.
This new nation, which united Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, collapsed in 1830 with Bolívar’s death.
Subsequentely, the Venezuelan cocoa and coffee industries, which had been established by the Spanish before, were further intensified and expanded.
This was done by Dutch, British, German, and Italian entrepreneurs and the large profits flowed primarily to Europe. Money creates money and the capital generated was obviously not intended to develop Venezuela.
The Dutch financed the exploitation of Latin-America
Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano writes in his book The Open Veins of Latin-America (1971) that Venezuela remained an agricultural country condemned to the cyclical rise and fall of coffee and cacao prices; the two products created the capital that enabled landlords, merchants, and moneylenders to live as wasteful parasites.
The profits also created a local oligarchy in Caracas, who served as intermediaries and accomplices of the Western imperialists.
Interestingly, in Galeano’s book, the Dutch appear not only as (slave) traders or colonists, but especially as bankers and moneylenders who controlled no less than one third of the Spanish trade at the end of the seventeenth century.
Besides the physical occupation of land (colonization) and the appropriation of bodies for unpaid labor (slave trade), the true goal of Western imperialists was to control the vast flows of money.
Raw materials, whether petroleum, coffee, or cocoa, were the means by which this end could be achieved.
Even though the financial center shifted from Amsterdam to London and New York respectively, this did not mean the end for the Netherlands as an important player on the capitalist market.
Venezuela Analysis / ABC Flash Point News 2025.
Crickey Amigu di Natura 
Great article showing non-binding reality of the facts as the are, like it or not.
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