Captaincy General of Venezuela
The independence movement for Venezuela began with the establishment of the Caracas Junta in 1810. After the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence in 1811, the provinces of Caracas, Cumaná, Barinas, Margarita, and the newly separated ones of Barcelona, Trujillo, and Mérida established a Republic of Venezuela, which claimed the area of the Captaincy General. The provinces of Maracaibo and Guayana, along with the city of Coro, rejected the republic, and after a year of war against the royalists, this First Republic collapsed. The provinces that had created the Venezuelan Republic were reconquered by Frigate Captain Domingo de Monteverde, who usurped power from the appointed Captain General Fernando Miyares. Because of this the Cádiz Cortes erected the Province of Maracaibo into a separate Captaincy General with Miyares at its head, but did ratify Monteverde as Captain General of the smaller Venezuela. During this period, the Province of Maracaibo elected a representative to the Cortes, José Domingo Rus, who served from March 3, 1812, to May 10, 1814, and continued to represent the province before the crown after Ferdinand VII abolished the Cortes. With Ferdinand VII's return, Venezuela was reunited in one captaincy general.
Venezuela
Oil was discovered in the early 20th century, and today, Venezuela has the world's largest known oil reserves and has been one of the world's leading exporters of oil. Previously, the country was an underdeveloped exporter of agricultural commodities such as coffee and cocoa, but oil quickly came to dominate exports and government revenues. The 1980s oil glut led to an external debt crisis and a long-running economic crisis. Inflation peaked at 100% in 1996 and poverty rates rose to 66% in 1995 as (by 1998) per capita GDP fell to the same level as 1963, down a third from its 1978 peak. The recovery of oil prices in the early 2000s gave Venezuela oil funds not seen since the 1980s. The Venezuelan government under Hugo Chavez then established populist social welfare policies that initially boosted the Venezuelan economy and increased social spending, temporarily reducing economic inequality and poverty in the early years of the regime. However, such populist policies later became inadequate, causing the nation's collapse as their excesses—including a uniquely extreme fossil fuel subsidy—are widely blamed for destabilizing the nation's economy. The destabilized economy led to a crisis in Bolivarian Venezuela, resulting in hyperinflation, an economic depression, shortages of basic goods and drastic increases in unemployment, poverty, disease, child mortality, malnutrition and crime. By 2017, Venezuela was declared to be in default regarding debt payments by credit rating agencies. In 2018, the country's economic policies led to extreme hyperinflation, with estimates expecting an inflation rate of 1,370,000% by the end of the year.
Venezuela is a charter member of the UN, OAS, UNASUR, ALBA, Mercosur, LAIA and OEI.