14 October 2026v0.10.0

The CivilianGeopoliticalReality Map

How to understand states by what they do, not what they declare

Every claim in the atlas, one tile each, grouped by file and coloured by what kind of evidence stands behind it.

Arturo Sánchez Pineda

Author's position

I write as a Venezuelan living in Switzerland and as a physicist and engineer, trained to separate observation, assumption, uncertainty and conclusion. My residence outside Venezuela gives me neither neutrality nor permission to ignore what is happening. My scientific training does not make my values disappear; it obliges me to show where the evidence ends and my interpretation begins.

This manual is not a theory that law is irrelevant. It begins from the opposite premise: law supplies the vocabulary by which force can be identified, rights can be claimed and responsibility can be recorded. But a rule on paper is not an enforcement mechanism. Civilians who confuse legal entitlement with practical protection misunderstand both their risks and the institutions on which they rely.

The project podcast

Listen to the Reality Map

One general podcast-style introduction to the complete project.

1Recording

Listen to the project podcast

Every claim carries its evidence class

A rule on paper is not an enforcement mechanism, and an accusation is not a finding. 95 claims are logged in the ledger, each with the wording the record supports and the wording it does not.

  1. Record39

    A dated act or status supported by an official or documentary record.

  2. Court rule8

    An order, warrant or rule with defined legal effect. A warrant is not a conviction.

  3. Finding20

    A conclusion by a competent inquiry, oversight body or assessment, not a court.

  4. Position13

    What a government or institution states. Attributed, never adopted as fact.

  5. Inference11

    A conclusion drawn from the record and labelled as the author's analysis.

  6. Forecast4

    A possible future outcome, stated as a risk and never as a prediction.

The bars and counts show how many ledger claims fall in each evidence class. They are a count, not a confidence score and not a measure of evidentiary weight.

Open the ledger

Trace the evidence

Watch the conclusion change

Start with a question, then move through the record in the order the evidence appeared. Every step comes directly from a classified ledger claim; the final step is only as strong as its label.

Was Canelón extradited—or transferred another way?

Begin with the US court record, then see how Pulido changes an isolated maritime mystery into a possible repeated channel.

  1. 2 October 2026 C70 Court rule

    A Venezuelan reaches a US court. The accusation is not a conviction.

    Canelón appeared in Nebraska, pleaded not guilty and remains accused rather than convicted

    What the evidence permits

    Identify the charges, plea, detention and case number without treating allegations as adjudicated fact

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  2. October 2026 C71 Record

    The FBI supplies a maritime location, but not the jurisdictional facts.

    The FBI says Canelón was apprehended at sea, but coordinates, vessel flag, boarding authority, Venezuelan consent and any removal order remain unpublished

    What the evidence permits

    “The official account establishes a maritime apprehension and US transport, not its complete jurisdictional basis”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  3. Governing law C72 Record

    Article 69 makes Venezuelan custody and delivery the decisive missing facts.

    Venezuelan law bars extradition of Venezuelan nationals; application to Canelón depends on whether Venezuelan authorities detained or delivered him

    What the evidence permits

    “A Venezuelan surrender would directly engage the nationality bar; an independent foreign arrest outside Venezuelan territory raises different rules”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  4. 13 October 2026 C73 Record

    A second defendant appears in Florida after unnamed international coordination.

    DEA confirmed Pulido in Florida after coordination with international partners but did not publish the arrest location, removing authority or legal procedure

    What the evidence permits

    “US custody and international coordination are official; the route and legal basis are not”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  5. 13 October 2026 C74 Finding

    Reporting places Pulido in Venezuelan imprisonment until his transfer.

    Credible reports say Pulido held Venezuelan citizenship, remained imprisoned near Caracas and was delivered with senior Venezuelan participation

    What the evidence permits

    Attribute citizenship, prior custody and delivery actors to the reports and their sources

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  6. Current assessment C75 Inference

    Repetition strengthens the channel hypothesis without proving a shared route.

    The Canelón and Pulido records together make an organised opaque transfer channel more plausible without proving a common route or mechanism

    What the evidence permits

    “Repeated opaque transfers justify investigating a de facto channel capable of bypassing extradition safeguards”

    Source record
    Above records
    Open the ledger claim

Who controls Venezuelan oil?

Follow the record from a headline agreement to published official claims, implementation, institutional challenge and the clauses that remain hidden.

  1. 28 August 2026 C58 Position

    Two governments announce scale and projected benefits, not the operative clauses.

    The United States and Venezuela announced an agreement covering 17 fields with stated potential of 65 billion barrels, US$100 billion in investment and more than US$209 billion in Venezuelan tax and royalty revenue

    What the evidence permits

    “Both governments announced the same headline fields, reserves and projections”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  2. 31 August 2026 C61 Position

    Washington names the company and claims equity, purchase and governance rights.

    The White House named NABEP and officially described 35 per cent US equity, at-cost purchasing, first refusal and corporate-governance rights

    What the evidence permits

    “These are published official claims concerning the structure”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  3. 1 September 2026 C62 Record

    Parliament publishes its political support, but not the bargain it supports.

    The National Assembly support resolution was published, but it did not append the convention or specify NABEP, the fields, rights or term

    What the evidence permits

    “The political endorsement is public; the endorsed bargain is not”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  4. 7 September 2026 C63 Position

    The 25- and 100-year descriptions cannot both be read as the same vested term.

    PDVSA's president attributed a 25-year renewable contract to PDVSA–NABEP while the White House claimed 100-year concessions

    What the evidence permits

    “The published record contains incompatible descriptions; the renewal clause is needed to resolve them”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  5. 14 September 2026 C64 Record

    Implementation advances through sanctions law without revealing the contract.

    OFAC General License 52C authorises specified PDVSA contracting, directs specified payments and requires foreign dispute venues while excluding debt settlement and PDVSA equity transfers

    What the evidence permits

    “US sanctions administration enables and conditions implementation”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  6. 30 September 2026 C65 Position

    Senior senators formally question the US statutory authority; no court has ruled.

    Ranking members of four Senate committees formally disputed the statutory basis for the US equity and purchase structure and demanded the agreements

    What the evidence permits

    “Senior legislators challenged the asserted authority and requested the documents before finalisation”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  7. 2 October 2026 C66 Record

    Congress receives one document, but the public still cannot inspect it.

    Congressional efforts obtained one non-public document while other oil agreements and KPMG audits remained withheld

    What the evidence permits

    “Congressional scrutiny documents the disclosure gap but has not made the contracts public”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  8. 14 October 2026 C67 Record

    The controlling instruments still set the boundary of what can honestly be claimed.

    No complete contract, field list or renewal clause has been published; the 25- and 100-year accounts and constitutional approval requirements remain unresolved

    What the evidence permits

    “Official descriptions expanded; legality and exact rights still require the contracts and approvals”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim

When does custody become control?

Compare Iraq's changing legal architecture with Venezuela's explicit disbursement regime, then test whether foreign custody produced observable political leverage without transferring ownership.

  1. 2003–2026 C89 Record

    Iraqi oil receipts remain Iraqi property while New York becomes the durable access point.

    Iraqi oil receipts have remained in a Central Bank of Iraq account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York through an architecture originating in 2003

    What the evidence permits

    “Iraq owns the funds, while New York custody and dollar access give Washington substantial leverage”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  2. 2011–2014 C87 Record

    The UN mandate and US immunity regime end, but successor CBI accounts preserve the location.

    The UN-mandated Development Fund arrangements ended in 2011 and the US immunity regime ended in 2014; the CBI then used successor New York Fed accounts for oil receipts

    What the evidence permits

    “New York custody continued under a changed legal basis through Iraqi-owned successor accounts”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  3. 9 January 2026 C55 Record

    Venezuela's published arrangement goes further by assigning disbursement instructions to the US secretary of state.

    Certain Venezuelan natural-resource revenues are held in US Treasury accounts and their disbursement is subject to instructions from the secretary of state

    What the evidence permits

    “The United States exercises operational control over these funds, which the order itself describes as Venezuelan property”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  4. April–July 2026 C88 Record

    A suspension and conditional restart turn structural dependence into demonstrated leverage.

    Washington suspended roughly US$500 million in Iraqi physical-dollar deliveries in 2026 and later resumed them after Iraq accepted new controls

    What the evidence permits

    “The episode demonstrates US leverage over one access channel; most electronic flows reportedly continued”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  5. 18 September 2026 C91 Finding

    A reported gold move could extend the pattern, but no completed transfer is documented.

    A proposed transfer of Venezuelan central-bank gold from London to New York was reported but not completed or published as a signed agreement

    What the evidence permits

    “Government and opposition were reportedly nearing a supervised transfer requiring further UK judicial action”

    Source record
    Open the ledger claim
  6. Current assessment C90 Inference

    The common mechanism is custody and access, not identical law or US ownership.

    The Iraq precedent shows how custody can create durable external leverage without transfer of formal ownership

    What the evidence permits

    “The systems share a custody-and-access mechanism; Venezuela's published disbursement control is more explicit”

    Source record
    Iraq sources; EO 14373
    Open the ledger claim

The register

One manual and six case studies. The manual sets the method; each study applies it to a documented record.

  1. The method The Civilian Geopolitical Reality Map How to Understand States by What They Do, Not What They Declare 16 min read 15 sources
  2. Case study I International Law for Adversaries, Indulgence for Allies Europe and Switzerland’s Gaza Double Standard—and the Lebanon Enforcement Ceiling 22 min read 35 sources 24 claims
  3. Case study II When Conquest Becomes Administration Puerto Rico, Guam, New Caledonia and French Guiana 7 min read 12 sources 8 claims
  4. Case study III When Intervention Becomes Destruction and Abandonment Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and What Their Aftermath Warns Venezuela 8 min read 14 sources 5 claims
  5. Case study IV The Caribbean Killings The Sea as a Laboratory for Unaccountable Force 8 min read 6 sources 8 claims
  6. Case study V Venezuela—When the Threat Became Force Unlawful Intervention, Constrained Autonomy and Withdrawal from the ICC 21 min read 42 sources 30 claims
  7. Case study VI Debt, Humanitarian Abandonment and Resource Control How Selective Austerity Exports Death and Turns Other People’s Resources into Instruments of Power 16 min read 35 sources 20 claims

Four ways in

Start with the method The six-layer power map, the enforcement gradient and the tests that produce the rest of the atlas. Start with Venezuela Unlawful force, constrained autonomy and what a formal sovereign decision means after an intervention. Start with the evidence Search 95 classified claims across 7 files. Start with the map Eleven mapped locations across six studies, named with the status the record supports.