Francisco Dominguez¹ writes:

Before the 23 of January 2019, Juan Guaidó was an unknown entity. He acquired notoriety due to a series of coincidences … and decisions made in Washington. The practice of annually rotating the National Assembly’s presidency among the parties holding the majority meant that in 2019-2020 it was the turn of the extreme right-wing party, Voluntad Popular (VP); unfortunately, all VP’s key figures (Leopoldo López, Freddy Guevara) were under arrest or were fugitives of the law for their participation in seditious and violent acts against the Venezuelan state. Guaidó happened to be the next in line making him rightfully president of the National Assembly.² In a bold move he (and Washington) decided he would proclaim himself “interim president” of Venezuela. His self-proclamation that was to catapult him into the world’s media limelight was part of Washington’s “regime change” strategy.

Mr. Guaidó’s “interim presidency” lacks constitutional or legal bases and his self-proclamation occurred in a public square in Caracas, in front of a small group of supporters. Guaidó has never been elected president of Venezuela nor has he ever stood as a presidential candidate for any election. His claim that his “interim presidency’ rests on the Venezuelan Constitution’s Art 233 is thoroughly false; the article reads: The President of the Republic shall become permanently unavailable to serve by reason of any of the following events: death; resignation; removal from office by decision of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice; permanent physical or mental disability certified by a medical board designated by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice with the approval of the National Assembly; abandonment of his position, duly declared by the National Assembly; and recall by popular vote.³ President Maduro is alive, has not resigned, has not been removed from office, is not physically or mentally incapacitated, has not abandoned the Presidency, and has not been recalled by popular vote. Additionally, the notion of ‘interim presidency’ does not exist in the Venezuelan Constitution. This ought to have been sufficient for European governments to never extend recognition, whatever they may think of President Maduro’s government.

The recognition of Juan Guaidó as “interim president” of Venezuela by European governments violates all basic principles informing political legitimacy, and should have never been awarded. The decision to award recognition is the result of political blackmail. Pedro Sánchez warned the Bolivarian government of Venezuela, on the EU’s behalf, that unless presidential elections, preferably without President Maduro as a candidate, were held within 8 days, the EU would have to recognise Guaidó. On this shaky, arrogant, and calculating basis EU governments proceeded to toe Trump’s line of elevating Mr Guaidó to the fictional position of “president” of Venezuela.

Ever since Jan-Feb 2019, Mr Guaidó has behaved abysmally.

In February 2019, Guaidó in complicity with the Colombian government, narco-paramilitaries, and the US government (Mike Pompeo), on the pretence of a concert at the Colombian border, tried to violently push ‘humanitarian aid’ into Venezuela by military means. The plan was sinister; it was naturally expected that Venezuela would oppose the illegal and violent action and it was intended to charge President Maduro with refusing to allow aid to his people, followed by serious military confrontation.

Guaidó made it to the concert through Colombian territory where he received military protection from the Los Rastrojos criminal narco-paramilitary gang, who Guaidó took several selfies with. The intensely anti-Chavista UK newspaper, The Guardian (14/09/2019) wrote: “Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan politician fighting to topple Nicolás Maduro, is facing awkward questions about his relationship with organised crime after the publication of compromising photographs showing him with two Colombian paramilitaries.” It was revealed later that one truck was set on fire, by Guaidó supporters. The media had blamed President Maduro. The episode did not merit comment from European governments: was their silence forgiveness?

On 30^th April 2019, Juan Guaidó led probably the most televised coup d’état in the history of Latin America. One wonders which features of this illegal, unconstitutional and armed action to violently overthrow President Maduro’s government – with incalculable consequences in human lives – are the European governments not prepared to condemn? The scandalously bland statement by the EU and European Parliament was inconsistent with the intense harshness and speed with which they are prepared to condemn the Maduro government. Euronews reported “Guaidó defiant after failed coup attempt.”

Mr Guaidó was complicit with the UK’s right-wing government in setting up a secret “Unit for the Reconstruction of Venezuela”. Records show that Guaidó and his entourage were prepared to offer oil and infrastructure contracts, and the restructuring of Venezuela’s debt, whilst his ‘ambassador’ to the UK, Vanessa Neumann, was reportedly prepared to surrender the Essequibo region in exchange for political support from the UK government. In short, Guaidó and his ‘team’ were ready to betray their nation on almost everything.

In May 2020 Guaidó contracted US-led mercenaries to launch an attack (‘Operation Gedeon’) against his own nation and to assassinate President Maduro and high officials in the government, followed – as stated in the contract – by a Pinochet-style purge aimed at the thorough eradication of Chavismo from Venezuela. Here again, the European governments either pretended the event did not happen or they confined themselves to lame and soft generalities, a far cry from their unforgiving criticism of the Maduro government.

Guaidó has deliberately complicated the Venezuelan government’s access to 31 tons of gold in custody in the custody of the Bank of England on the ‘merits’ of his ‘interim presidency’. The gold is needed for the purchase of food, medicine and vital health inputs in order to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, through the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV)’s appeal led the UK Appeals Court to annul a first verdict giving Guaidó access to the gold.

It is preposterous to imagine Guaidó having the capacity or the will to make good use of those resources. In Venezuela he has no control whatsoever, and given his obsession with imposing more sanctions on his own country, it is doubtful that he would spend money on the people of Venezuela. His lack of interest in paying the legal costs of the case (US$529,000) confirms he is not interested in complying with the law and is not desperate to obtain the gold to help the people of Venezuela.

Guaidó has made repeated calls to the military to wage a coup d’état to topple President Maduro, and has repeatedly (more then 20 times) organised a “final march” on Miraflores, Venezuela’s Presidential Palace, seeking to create a pretext for violent confrontations. In line with US and EU policy, he has repeatedly opposed the right of Venezuelans to vote in elections. The EU has at best commented on these flagrant undemocratic and seditious acts with deafening silence and at worst welcome them with enthusiastic approval.

Guaidó is not only a willing accomplice in aiding the US to illegally confiscate his own nation’s assets but he and his closest associates are also deeply involved in corruption. Through the protection of Trump, Guaidó and Co have been lining their pockets with hundreds of millions of US dollars resulting from the US illegal confiscation of Venezuelan assets ‘legalised’ by the ‘interim president’. On 24 January 2019 the US State Department gave US$20 million to the ‘new government’; a 2015 Citibank loan to Venezuela was unilaterally settled in advance and the saved difference (US$340 million) – with US government support – was given to Guaidó; in May 2020 OFAC gave Guaidó’s “government” US$80 million for the “liberation” of Venezuela; USAID gave Guaidó US$128 million to assist Venezuela migrants who have not seen one penny; and Guaidó was instrumental in Trump’s illegal confiscation of Venezuela state, US-based, gasoline distribution company CITGO, valued at about US$8,000 million. Venezuela has incurred US$11,000 in losses due to the freezing of assets. There is more but you get the picture. Europe has been the continent of colonial pillage so, is this ‘historic affinity’ maybe the reason they recognise Guaidó?⁴

In fact, European governments and the EU itself, de facto work with and recognise the Bolivarian government of President Maduro, by not only not recognising Guaidó’s appointees as “ambassadors” but by also sending ambassadors to Caracas who present their credentials to President Maduro in nationally televised public ceremonies. This sublime duplicity should end by the formalisation of a perspective of constructive engagement with the Bolivarian Government.

There is no justification whatsoever for European governments to continue their untenable policy of recognising Juan Guaidó as ‘interim president’ of Venezuela when in reality, he is totally bereft of any legal, political, or constitutional legitimacy for his self-proclamation, and especially since his thoroughly undemocratic and criminal credentials have been irrefutably proved. An unconditional withdrawal of his recognition is long overdue.

Chronologically, the latest measure of July 2 is the decision of a British judge not to return 31 tons of gold deposited by Venezuela in the Bank of England, for a total of about 1 billion dollars. The official motivation of the judge and “Her Majesty’s” bankers is that the British government does not recognize the constitutional government of Nicolás Maduro but the self-proclaimed puppet Juan Guaidò. Last March Venezuela had requested an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to fight the Covid-19, a loan denied under pressure from the United States. Again, the IMF’s “justification” was not to recognize Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate President.

In their obsession to asphyxiate Venezuela, the different U.S. and British administrations have followed a script of growing attacks in a framework of “multi-dimensional war”: media, military, diplomatic, commercial, financial, etc. As in the sieges of the Middle Ages to conquer the enemy’s castle, they try to vanquish the population by hunger and hardship. Only to then invoke the “humanitarian crisis” and the need for a foreign military intervention. Parallel to the military interventions (in May, the umpteenth attempt with “Operaciòn Gedeón“), the last attacks were concentrated on the commercial and financial side, creating a real “bloqueo“, as with Cuba. A bloqueo that became more aggressive after Venezuela’s announcement to abandon the dollar in commercial transactions and the adoption of a crypto-currency in international trade.

A few days ago, coincidentally after the announcement of upcoming elections (scheduled for December 6), in line with the United States, the European Union announced new sanctions, not only against representatives of the government, but also against opposition leaders, guilty of disagreeing with the violent and golpista strategy of the extremist fringes of the opposition.

But let us take things one by one.

The hostilities have started since Chavez’s electoral victory in 1998, well before the self-proclamation of an obscure character as ‘interim president’ of Venezuela in January 2019. Chavez’s victory caused Washington to lose control of “Saudi Venezuela,” a country with the largest proven oil reserves on the planet and only two days’ sailing from refineries on the US West Coast. An unacceptable situation for the voracious multinational oil companies, which have since then done everything they could to grab the lost loot. In a crescendo of aggressive actions (including the engineered fall in crude oil prices) after Chavez’s departure, it is the Maduro government that suffers the heaviest blows. From March 2015, with “Executive Order 13692” of Barack Obama, later reconfirmed also by Donald Trump. The presidential decree declares Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the security of the United States“, giving a legal mantle to media, political, diplomatic, financial, military and paramilitary operations, which have been covered for a long time. Wikileaks’ revelations, the declassified documents of the U.S. government and the latest book (The Room Where It Happened) by John Bolton, former national security adviser, have confirmed its existence.

At first, the retaliatory measures were applied to people linked to or close to the government, politically or for economic reasons, (including companies), as well as civil and military officials. Later, it was decided to “make the economy scream”, as Nixon suggested to Kissinger in the aftermath of the victory in Chile of socialist Salvador Allende, to protect the economic interests of US multinationals. And so, from individuals they then moved on to trade and finance, affecting the entire economy and therefore the entire population in its essential needs.

Modern “sanctions” try to bring about the country’s political and social collapse, hindering trade and preventing the import of food, medicines and essential goods, or blocking funds destined for their purchase, to make the population rise against the government. In Covid-19 times this strategy is even more criminal. The list of measures is long and not exhaustive. But by listing them, the figures and facts speak for themselves.

For example, the US Citybank refused to receive the funds for the purchase of 300,000 doses of insulin for diabetics, in open violation of international law.

The Colombian government has blocked the purchase of malaria medicines purchased by Venezuela from BSN Medical. More than $9 million for dialysis and $29.7 million for the purchase of food have been blocked.

In the “clearing houses” sector, Clearstream and Euroclear act in a context of duopoly. We are talking about two giants among the “exchange agencies”, financial intermediaries between governments that issue bonds and holders of securities that collect dividends. The first is based in Luxembourg, the second in Brussels.

The Maduro government has always honoured its debts, but Clearstream has not paid the shareholders the interest on the securities (for example in the case of PDVSA bonds maturing in 2019 and 2024). Under pressure and blackmail, some US funds have “suggested” to carry out checks on the “regularity of Venezuelan payments”, freezing dividend payments using an uncommon procedure.ⁱ

Under pressure from the U.S. Treasury Department, the other giant, Euroclear (custodian of a significant portion of Venezuelan sovereign bonds) has been freezing bond transactions since 2017 for “reviewing” and “procedural reasons”. These white-collar thieves are thus blocking more than 1.2 billion Venezuelan dollars earmarked for the purchase of food and medicine.

On the British side, modern privateers pull off a big score. In the past, privateers were famous for their assaults on the oceans on behalf of “Her Majesty”. In the present, reviving traditions of service, the Bank of England initially refused to return 14 tons of gold bars (about $550 million) deposited from Venezuela in London.

To the first 14 tons of gold, 17 more were added, given as collateral to Deutsche Bank, which unilaterally closed a “swap” contract with Caracas (guaranteed by the bars), and kindly turned them over to the British in the London account. In other words, the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) not only had to repay the loan obtained in valuable currency, but did not regain possession of the guarantee. In short, the Bank of England is the protagonist of a double theft by thieves in double-breasted suits, of an international piracy operation with the White House at its fingertips.

As you will remember, in 2011 Hugo Chavez tried to repatriate 211 tons of gold sent by the governments of the Fourth Republic to England and other banks around the world as collateral for loans from the International Monetary Fund to the governments of Jaime Lusinchi in 1988 and Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1989. But Caracas failed to repatriate the bars in their entirety.

And according to Bloomberg’s financial service, the July 2018 bonds listed on the international stock exchanges had lost at least 57.24%.

In March 2018, Trump renewed Decrees 13692 and 13808 and launched new unilateral coercive measures, prohibiting debt restructuring and preventing the repatriation of dividends from CITGO, a subsidiary of the Venezuelan state-owned oil company. Following this, the U.S. Treasury Department alerts financial institutions to the “possible link with the corruption of Venezuelan public transactions”. It makes it even more difficult to pay suppliers of essential goods, such as food and medicine.

In January 2019, the White House announced new “sanctions” to the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) through its CITGO subsidiary in Texas. The loot is 7 billion dollars in goods and the blockade of another 11 billion in crude oil exports for 2019. The first effect is to strengthen the theft of Venezuelan resources and goods in the U.S. and other countries, a process that began with CITGO’s pirate boarding, but now covers all Venezuelan assets in the U.S. and affects any country or company that has business relations with Venezuela.

The “continuous coup d’état” also includes economic sanctions and a financial blockade that, according to a study by the Centro Estratégico Latinoamericano de Geopolítica (CELAG), caused losses of 350 thousand million dollars in production of goods and services between 2013 and 2017ⁱⁱ.

At the height of cynicism, and in the face of the blockade of at least 18 billion Venezuelan dollars on the U.S. side, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (former head of the CIA) had promised aid of 20 million dollars for “humanitarian aid”, and Canada another 39.

Although the “sanctions” would have effect only on the territory of the United States, in reality, they are applied also in third countries on the basis of the principle of “extra-territoriality”. Currently, more than 6,000 million Venezuelan dollars are illegally blocked in private international banks outside the United Statesⁱⁱⁱ.

Similarly, transactions by U.S. companies or individuals with Venezuela are prohibited, extending this obstacle to third countries under threat of extortion to receive sanctions.

It’s easy to agree with the Venezuelan government: “If the United States really wants to help Venezuela, start releasing blocked bank accounts,” said its Foreign Minister at the UN Assembly.

Immediately lifting “sanctions”, peace, dialogue and respect for sovereignty are the only way to support the present and future of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Marco Consolo is Head of International and Peace Affairs, Communist Refoundation Party – European Left (Italy)

In their criminal adventures to plunder Venezuela’s gold, oil and other lucrative resources both Britain and the US are exposing themselves before the entire world as having no interest at all in supporting human rights, freedom and democracy in Venezuela. On the contrary, both Britain and the US continue to demonstrate their utter contempt towards the Venezuelan people and their right to determine their own future.

Imperialist assault on Venezuela’s sovereignty and democracy

The British government’s justification for the theft of Venezuela’s gold is predicated on an unashamed imperialist mentality and policy: that the British government is better placed than the people of Venezuela to decide who the President of Venezuela is.

The High Court noted that the British government “unequivocally recognises” Juan Guaido as the interim President of Venezuela. Despised by the Venezuelan people, Juan Guaido, who has not even stood in a Presidential election in Venezuela let alone won such a contest, declared himself interim President of the country in January 2019 with the full backing of the US administration in Washington.

The United Nations and most countries in the world have rejected Guaido for what he really is – a tool of the Trump Administration – and instead continue to recognise Venezuela’s legitimate and democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro.

In maintaining their recognition of the Maduro government, the majority of the world is respecting the result of Venezuela’s democratic elections, in defiance of the US, Britain and a handful of allies. Britain’s decision to steal Venezuela’s gold and attempt to leverage this to politically interfere in the country is a violation of Venezuela’s right to self-determination.

Stealing and sanctions: attempts to beat the Venezuelan people into submission

Britain’s theft of Venezuela’s gold also fits directly into the wider US strategy of ‘regime change.’ Through economic warfare the US is attempting to impoverish the Venezuelan population to such an extent that they give up on resisting Washington’s attempts to overthrow their legitimate government and accept the imposition of a US-puppet President instead.

Whilst US sanctions against Venezuela have proved effective in attacking the living standards and human rights of the Venezuelan people, they have failed to achieve the major shift in political opinion in the country that the US has been aiming for. In fact the Venezuelan people have overwhelmingly opposed US sanctions and millions have mobilised to defend their government against US aggression.

The humanitarian impact of US sanctions, however, has been severe. According to the Centre for Economic and Policy Research US sanctions on Venezuela have “killed 40,000 people… between 2017 and 2018” and caused shortages in vital supplies including food and medicine.

The US administration has seized upon the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to increase pressure on Venezuela through tightening the sanctions. Despite this, through a total mobilisation of its government and the whole of its society, the Venezuelan people have so far managed to prevent a major outbreak of the coronavirus and have limited the number of fatalities to 64 in total so far.

It is in this context that the Venezuelan Central Bank made its legal challenge for the Bank of England to release the $1bn worth of gold. Venezuela explicitly stated that these funds were needed to buy, through the United Nations Development Programme, vital supplies of equipment and medicine to combat the pandemic. For the British government to effectively deny the Venezuelan people access to medicine during a deadly pandemic – which is the direct consequence of stealing Venezuela’s gold – is to participate in the US’ economic war on Venezuela.

Britain’s secret plans to “reconstruct” Venezuela exposed

Britain’s ambitions to plunder the wealth of Venezuela extend far beyond $1bn worth of gold. In May 2020 The Canary exposed the existence of a secretive “Venezuela Reconstruction Unit” in Britain’s Foreign Office. The unit was established to promote the interests of British business in the event of the US regime change agenda succeeding in Venezuela. British officials met with figures from Venezuela’s right wing opposition, including with Guaido, to discuss these “reconstruction” plans.

Venezuela is home to the biggest oil reserves in the world – a clear prize for any imperialist power that succeeds in toppling the country’s government. Prior to the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998 Venezuela was dominated by US interests that saw the overwhelming majority of oil revenues go to multinational corporations at the expense of the population which languished in poverty. Chavez’s decision to nationalise the oil industry and use its revenue to tackle poverty was intolerable for the US. It is precisely this situation that the US – with a little help from Britain – is trying to reverse.

It goes against the basic spirit of humanity for Britain to steal over £1bn worth of gold from Venezuela. These vital funds should be returned to Venezuela immediately. As Venezuela’s Central Bank is appealing the UK High Court’s decision it is important for all progressive movements in Britain to support Venezuela’s fight to recover its gold. We should stand in solidarity with Venezuela by defending the country’s sovereignty and against the US and British governments’ relentless push for illegal ‘regime change’ and also oppose the brutal US sanctions which are an attack on human rights.

This article was previously published on Eyes on Latin America

Their leader, ‘contractor’ Jordan Goudreau, CEO of US ‘security company’, SilverCorp, in interview with Miami-based extreme right wing Venezuelan opposition journalist, Patricia Poleo, candidly explained that the aim of their military incursion against the South American nation was to attack the presidential palace so as to overthrow the government of President Nicolas Maduro and install a de facto Guaidó-led government. Goudreau claimed to have deployed a mercenary force of 300 to carry out the military ‘mission’.

The mercenaries received training in at least three camps in Riohacha, Colombia, had the full support of the Colombian government that has declared explicitly its desire to overthrow the government of President Maduro. All sorts of their logistical needs were resolved by well-known narco-trafficker and paramilitary, Elkin Javier López Torres, alias ‘Doble Rueda’¹, leading member of the La Guajira drug cartel, who offered his own ranch to host the mercenaries and financed all Gedeon’s preparation expenses. It would be impossible for Doble Rueda or any other Colombian drug kingpin to happily engage and participate in such a hefty political adventure without the Colombian government approving, supporting and collaborating with it. There is nothing surprising about this: It was the Colombian drug cartel Los Rastrojos who gave armed protection to Juan Guaidó after he illegally crossed the border to attend the Branson-led Cucuta concert in February 2020. After Los Rastrojos took pictures of themselves with Guaidó, handed him over to Colombia’s presidential guard who took him to the presidential helicopter who would fly him to the concert.

What was even more astonishing was that Goudreau showed on camera the contract for his services for which he would be paid US$212 million, “plus other expenses” (more on this later), signed by himself, ‘self-proclaimed interim president’ Juan Guaidó, Juan Jose Rendon, Sergio Vergara, and finally Manuel Retureta as witness. That is, Juan Guaidó and key members of his cabinet contracted the services of a mercenary company to launch a military attack on the presidential palace in Caracas, kidnap and/or assassinate president Maduro, also assassinate key members of the Bolivarian government such as president of the National Constituent Assembly and leader of the PSUV, Diosdado Cabello, Vladimir Padrino López, commander in chief of the armed forces, Delcy Rodriguez, vice-president of Venezuela and other high officials and Chavista political leaders.

JJ Rendon, a Venezuelan extreme right winger, specialist on black propaganda, has been advisor to presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, to Colombian presidents Alvaro Uribe and Juan Manuel Santos, Enrique Peña Nieto (Mexico), and a few other high level right wing politicians. Rendon signed the contract in his capacity as High Presidential Commissioner General Strategy and Crisis Management; Vergara, member of extreme right wing party Voluntad Popular, is Guaidó’s right hand and in charge of the his ghost cabinet, signed as High Presidential Commissioner for Crisis Management; Retureta, the witness, has been defense lawyer for Colombian paramilitary leader, Salvatore Mancuso; Dámaso Lopez, right-hand man to Sinaloa cartel leader, Chapo Guzman; Tony Hernandez, brother of Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, convicted by a US federal judge of large-scale drug trafficking; and Fabio Lobo, son of former Honduran President, Lobo, son condemned to 24 years in prison in the US for drug trafficking (Retureta is known as the ‘drug traffickers’ lawyer’). He is JJ Rendon’s personal lawyer.

The mercenary attack

A strategic objective of the mercenary incursion was to create distractions so as to disperse Venezuela’s military and police forces so as to facilitate their plans to drive in several SUVs with high calibre machine guns of their rooftops (a la ISIS) the 1-hour trip to central Caracas to both attack the presidential palace and secure the Simon Bolivar airport in Maiqueitía. As a distraction, a fake confrontation between criminal gangs in the poor and populous Petare barrio was organized seeking to divert crucial military and police forces from the coastal areas. This was confessed in video by José Alberto Socorro Hernandez, alias ‘Pepero’, a Venezuelan drug traffickers who in video confessed to being a DEA agent and said: “The DEA asked me to bring about chaos in several poor areas of Caracas. The DEA asked me to contact drug traffickers, and threaten them so they collaborated in this.” Pepero goes on to say that he hired Petare gang head ‘Wilexis’ so as to feign armed confrontation between gangs with war weapons but no casualties. If anybody has strong connections with drug traffickers is the DEA. President Maduro correctly drew the conclusion that the DEA seemed to have been in charge of the operational and logistical aspects of Gedeon.²

To top it all up, it has transpired that Goudreau’s company have performed security services as part of the personal guard of President Donald Trump himself. Goudreau “had been introduced to Keith Schiller, President Trump’s long time bodyguard, and accompanied him to a Miami meeting with representatives of Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Guaidó in May 2019”.³ And, Goudreau was in charge of security of the Branson-led Cucuta February ‘concert’ aimed at pushing so-called ‘humanitarian aid’ into Venezuela by military force, seeking military confrontation so as to justify an external (US military) intervention.

The full complexion and cobweb of links and connections of the mercenary incursion began to emerge slowly but inexorably. As all trails of the conspiracy led to Bogota and invariably ends up in Washington DC, President Nicolas Maduro has charged the US and Colombian governments of being behind the mercenary incursion. As expected, presidents Trump and Duque strenuously denied any involvement. In TV interview Rendon admitted he had signed the contract, which he characterised as ‘exploratory’ but denied Guaidó had signed it. Guaidó himself has denied signing it, even though the whole world has actually seen the contract with his signature.⁴

Three gunships carrying large quantities of heavy ammunition belonging to the Colombian Navy that certainly were abandoned by mercenaries on the run ended up in Venezuela. They were seized by Venezuelan military authorities. The Colombian Navy issued a statement ‘explaining’ the gunships had ended up in Venezuelan territorial waters because they had been dragged there by water currents.⁵ President Maduro has publicly said that as soon as the Colombian government formally requests it his government would immediately return them.

On April 29th, Pompeo, announced that James Story, US ambassador to Venezuela and all his staff, who have been running a virtual US embassy for Venezuela from Bogota, “would soon be moving to Caracas’. Next day (April 30th) war criminal Elliott Abrams, Special US Envoy on Venezuela, twitted “Transition in Venezuela is coming”. And infamous John Bolton in twitter message announced (April 30th) “Morning is coming to Venezuela – again.” Similar twitter messages were posted by prominent oppositionists such as Ivan Simonovis, Guaidó appointee to the White House on matters of defence: “What is coming is unavoidable and unstoppable”. This was one or two days before the mercenary attack. The US clearly knew about it.

As has been widely reported, the mercenary attack failed because it was stopped in its tracks by the Bolivarian armed forces which had a confrontation with one contingent of mercenaries in one of the boats in the small coastal town of Macuto which resulted in the death of 8 of them on May 3rd. On May 5th, 8 more mercenaries were captured by the inhabitants of Chuao, a small fishing village in the Aragua state. The image of a Chuao barefoot Black fisherman, member of the people’s militia, holding a gun in his right hand, supported by the community and a few municipal police officers, ordering the mercenaries to raise their arms behind their head in surrender was indeed symbolic. In Chuao the captured mercenaries, including two US mercenaries, Luke Denman and Airan Berry, were tied one next to each other. It poignantly symbolises the struggle of Venezuela against a powerful but immoral world power. Both, Denman and Berry have appeared on videos confirming the key features of Operation Gedeon, including securing the airport to wait for the arrival of an airplane to take kidnapped President Maduro to the United States. Berry said that one of the tasks was to kill President Maduro.⁶ When Denman was asked who he received orders from, he said, ‘Jordan Goudreau’ and when asked who gave the orders to Goudreau, his reply was, ‘President Donald Trump.’

In the last few days, more fugitive mercenaries are being mopped up by Venezuelan security forces, the militia or communities in a national mobilization of alert and, though God knows what else Trump and Co have in store for Venezuela, Operation Gedeon has been defeated and crushed by what President Maduro calls the ‘Bolivarian fury’.

Who is really behind this?

Since it would be impossible for training camps for such a number of mercenaries to operate in Colombia without government knowledge and agreement, even less so if it happens with the collaboration of powerful drug kingpins, for which the knowledge and connections the DEA has in Colombia and elsewhere are very convenient. Despite massive US military presence (at least 10 military bases established in 2009 entrusted with the task of precisely combatting drug trafficking) the training went on without detection. Furthermore, the DEA would not have been so collaborative without the State Dept. and President Trump himself agreeing to the carrying out of Operation Gedeon. Guaidó and his corrupt entourage follow orders from the Yankee paymaster that not only finances but owns them.⁷ Thus, it looks like the line of command of all Colombia-originated terrorist operations against Bolivarian Venezuela perforce of existing hierarchies, can be traced to the Four Apocalypse Horsemen: Abrams, Pompeo, Pence and Trump, as must have been the case with Gedeon. Additionally it is impossible for Guaidó to have undertaken such a hefty financial commitments with SilverCorp without consulting and the specific authorisation of the US and especially Steven Mnuchin US Secretary of the Treasury, body that is managing all Venezuelan illegally confiscated monies.

The ostensibly puzzling feature of Operation Gedeon is the deployment of about 60-70 mercenaries who were expected, if one follows the full details of the tasks to be undertaken if Gedeon was successful, could not possibly have been carried out by such a small number confronting a well-armed, well trained, well equipped, and fully alert and mobilised Bolivarian armed forces and police supplemented by about 3.5 million people’s militia. This scepticism holds even if the number of mercenaries was 300 as claimed by Goudreau. This has allowed the world corporate media to present Operation Gedeon as the narcissistic whim and money ambition of one crazy individual, Jordan Goudreau. In this regard, the worst was an AP piece by journalist Joshua Goodman who in an extremely long account of the whole saga desperately seeks both to ‘demonstrate’ no connection with Duque and Trump but also convince us that Guaidó and Co, having entered into ‘exploratory’ talks and even drawing a ‘drafts contract’, had abandoned the project with Goudreau. Goodman claims “Guaidó’s envoys, including Toledo, ended contact with Goudreau after the Bogota meeting because they believed it was a suicide mission, according to three people close to the opposition leader.”⁸ The Guardian’s Julian Birger, Joe Daniel Parkin and Chris McGreal echoed the narrative and mount a sturdy defense of Guaidó who they quoted as having said “that if the Venezuelan president let the operation go ahead in that knowledge, he had blood on his hands.”⁹ And the BBC forcefully reported that “Mr Guaidó denied having anything to do with Mr Goudreau. In a statement, he said he had “no relationship nor responsibility for any actions” taken by the US war veteran.”¹⁰ These two ‘bastions’ of the struggle for democracy rather than condemn a criminal and illegal mercenary attack against a sovereign nation they end up, though deviously, the side of the criminals.

So almost monolithically most of the corporate media pumped the same narrative. It was a big effort aimed to get international public opinion away from focusing on Trump, Duque, the DEA and, if possible, Guaidó. It feels as though the world corporate media is intensely compliant when it comes to communicational narratives required explicitly or not by the State Dept.

The feasibility of Operation Gedeon takes an entirely different complexion when other contextual factors are taken into account. First, not only La Guaira is at 1-hour drive from Caracas (the airport to be secured by the mercenaries is even closer), and Juan Guaidó was elected to the National Assembly for the state of Vargas, where La Guaira happens to be.¹¹ The plan, after the attack on the palace and the kidnapping (or killing) of President Maduro, mercenary forces involved taking control of Macuto, a Restauration Patriotic Government Junta headed by Juan Guaidó would be flown in, proclaimed it as ‘liberated territory’, calling upon the ‘international community’ to be recognised, followed by the immediate recognition by the US government and all its vassals in Latin America, starting from Colombia and probably, the European Union.

This was almost certainly to be followed by an intoxicating media frenzy ‘reporting’ the fall of Maduro filling the waves with images of confrontations, corpses, blood and ‘heroic resistance by freedom fighters’, showing Guaidó making an impassionate call for foreign assistance to be responded in the first instance probably by the anti-drug US-led air and sea fleet deployed recently by Trump in the Caribbean Sea (which includes warships from Holland, France and the UK).¹² Thirdly, where was the plane to take President Maduro to be flown to the US coming from? Not only the US has 10 military bases in Colombia, it also has military facilities in Aruba, Curacao, and recently they have obtained control over Brazil’s Alcántara military base and have also been granted control over military facilities in the Galapagos islands, Ecuador, plus plenty of more in the Lesser Antilles. When added up to the NATO bases in the region, Venezuela is completely surrounded by hostile military installations. The US-led air-sea combined fleet deployed on the false premise to ‘cut off links between the Venezuelan government and drug traffickers’, was followed after an indictment by US General Attorney, Bill Warren¹³, against President Maduro and his government on charges of drug-trafficking and terrorism, so as to purposefully create a scenario, legitimising and generously rewarding in law any endeavour leading to the capture of President Maduro and other indicted high officials in the Bolivarian government, as in 1989 Panama with Manuel Noriega.¹⁴

The Dept. of Justice held a media show with President Trump leading it, and accused President Maduro and 14 high ranking Venezuelan officials of Allegedly Partnered With the FARC to Use Cocaine as a Weapon to “Flood” the United States.”¹⁵ Incredibly as it may sound, during the whole media show, with all kind of speakers including President Trump and Barr himself who, with ardent rhetoric they castigated drug trafficking, Colombia was not mentioned once. Warren issuing of the indictment took place barely one month before the mercenary forces was unleashed. As though in the Far West the US offered a US$15 million reward for any information leading to the capture of Nicolas Maduro.

The US characterization of Venezuela as ‘narco-state’ (repeated by sections of the media ad nausea) are not only false but thoroughly contradict the DEA’s own reports whose data lead it to conclude that “92% of cocaine seized in the U.S. comes from Colombia”.¹⁶ Worse, since 2009, date of the installation of the 7 extra U.S. military bases in Colombia to combat cocaine production and trafficking, both problems have massively increased according to the DEA itself, institution whose data also shows that 82% of the cocaine produced in Colombia reaches the US through the Pacific Ocean.¹⁷ Figures and trends broadly consistent with official UN Office on Drug and Crime. Furthermore, Venezuela does not have geographical access to the Pacific.

US harassment, aggression and criminal sanctions against Venezuela have intensified during the pandemic because US strategists think that the complications, extra expenditure, lockdown and dislocation that Covid-19 brings in its wake are likely to be conducive to implement successful ‘regime change’ rogue operations. There must be the additional consideration that Venezuela has received international recognition for its efficient programme to control the pandemic (see article by Francisco Dominguez on this in Transform Nº8), something Washington finds intolerable therefore it is not reported in the world corporate media.

Thus, a coalition to carry out the mercenary attack was put together which must have had the OK from Washington with the DEA in charge of its operational and logistic features which involved high levels of decision making in the US, the Colombian government and its para-state outfits, including well known paramilitary drug traffickers (Doble Rueda), SilverCorp, Guaidó, his close entourage (JJ Rendon et al), and petty criminals in Caracas coerced by local DEA agents. All crisscrossed from top to bottom by vast sums originated in the cocaine trade in Colombia.¹⁸

What were the political objectives?

The speculation about the central role that large foreign military forces would play to support the mercenary attack, is relevant and valid when one considers the full plan of ‘regime change’ involved in the Guaidó-Goudreau contract, especially since the legal and political framework for a military strike against President Maduro had been created by the Dept. of Justice. Once the Guaidó-Goudreau contract’s appendixes were published the tasks to be carried out by a successful coup d’état are so enormous and so multifaceted that unless the golpistas had at their disposal a massive invading military force, they could not be accomplished. The plan amounts to the full and complete dismantlement of the Venezuelan state brick by brick until its total demolition. Given the size and commitment of Chavismo in all its thousands upon thousands of local committees, grassroots organizations, trade unions, women bodies, the 3.5-milllion strong people’s militia, the armed forces and so forth, the dismantlement of the Bolivarian state necessitates perforce a gigantic social and political purge involving mass killings to a level that would make Pinochet like a naughty school boy. The full 41-page Appendixes of the Guaidó-Goudreau contract¹⁹ stipulate among other tasks, for the military force in command – Goudreau – after the successful ‘regime change’ to stay for a preliminary period of 450 days, a year and a half, renewable depending on the evolution of the situation in the country. In short, US plans for Venezuela is total and thorough demolition of the Bolivarian state and for which Goudreau would be paid, to start with, US$212 million.

In the appendix (page 3), there is mention to an Investors’ Group, who would put together the US$212 million, but because such a sum was not immediately available, Goudreau would request a bank loan to finance the preliminary operations and for which Guaidó commits his government to pay it back with a 55% interest. If the mission has been accomplished, additionally Goudreau would receive an extra bonus of about US$10 million.

The mercenary military force would constitute itself in a Military Task Force who would be under the direct command of Guaidó, but it would exert military authority over all the existing military and police forces and over the whole of the Civil Service. Thus, by virtue of the Guaidó-Goudreau contract, the latter becomes the most powerful body in the land.

The Task Force would declare hostile certain military forces (military, naval, air, police, etc. both conventional and non-conventional) associated with the V Republic (page 8) and that have emerged and evolved with the 1999 Constitution and Bolivarian Revolution that must be “neutralised”, i.e., assassinated. Furthermore, any military force loyal to Maduro in the eventuality of putting up resistance, must be eliminated (sic). Among key figures to be eliminated are Diosdado Cabello and forces loyal to him and to Maduro would be declared hostile and also eliminated (page 9).

By decision of Guaidó (page 9) as stipulated in the contract, authorises Goudreau to order and approve any military attack and to start any hostilities he deems necessary, against groups such as non-conventional troops, over any private or public buildings, weapons storage facilities, roads, motorways, any media, and can order attacks on buildings associated with the V Republic government that have been declared hostile (page 7). Thus, for example a building of the Housing Programme where a local cultural committee operates can be declared hostile and be attacked so as to be eliminated. The same applies to thousands of such premises throughout the country that house trade unions, communal councils, local committees, cooperatives, and such like. That is, by virtue of the Guaidó-Goudreau contract the whole of the Chavista movement or anything that may resemble it can, to the prejudiced and racist eye of a Rambo-style gringo mercenary, be a military target for elimination. One can imagine extreme right wing armed Venezuelans ‘guiding’ members of the Task Force to attack just about any target as they themselves have done so many times during their guarimbas: health centres schools, universities, houses of the Housing Mission, crèches, and burning dark-skinned people alive. Guaidó, additionally authorises the Task Force to make use of any lethal weapon, including personal or other type of mines.

Page 15 authorises the Task Force to arrest any civilian ‘involved in a criminal activity’, that interferes with any military mission of the Task Force, that is on a list of persons to be arrested, for security reasons, this includes even priests can be arrested.

In page 20 of the contract, confirming how much US neocon mindset influences the desired outcome, since “Any person providing support to or a member of the following international terrorist organizations, or any group/cells/facilities associated therewith: ELN, FARC, Drug Cartels, Al Qaida, Hizballah, Hamas, Taliban and about 10 other organizations in the Middle East are deemed to be hostile forces and therefore targets for the Task Force (page 20).

Any form of disturbance, demonstrations, marches, etc., would be dealt with by force as follows, first a call to stop, then deployment of weapons showing the intention to use it, a shot is fired as warning and, if not heeded, then the threat or disturbance is eliminated. Any civilian can be arrested and held prisoner with no legal rights. The contract stipulates that the Task Force can make use of force at any time, even lethal force. The Task Force would also assume the role of security for Guaidó and his entourage, assistants and the golpista government. Furthermore, (page 21), the contract grants “all privileges, exemptions and immunities”” from prosecution for the use of lethal force as you would ‘to any country’s security force’, well before the perpetration of the announced Force’s military attacks. The contract also grants the Force and its members to get in and out of the country without passport and are exempted from visa protocols, all they need is to show their SilverCorp staff card and for travel they would only need a written authoritisation from Goudreau (page 24). And SilverCorp is not responsible for any destruction or loss of life that occurs in the carrying out of the mission contained in the contract and were there to be any litigations emanating from the US, Venezuela or any other source, the ‘Venezuelan Guaidó state’ would cover all costs and were the litigations to be lost Guaidó would indemnify them financially (page 38).

If any member of the Task Group is wounded, killed or arrested, Guaidó commits himself to insure them by paying US$450,000 to their closest relative, this means that because Berry and Denman have been captured, Guaidó already owes Goudreau’s SilverCorp US$900,000. And if any member of the Task Group loses a limb or eyesight during the carrying out of the mission they will be paid US$250,000 (page 28).

The chain of command in the planned golpista Guaidó government would be as follows: Juan Guaidó, Commander in Chief; Overall Project Supervisor, Sergio Vergara; Chief Strategist, Juan Jose Rendon; On Site Commander, To Be Determined. That is to say, the democratic institutional apparatus of the Bolivarian Republic would have been simply pulverised by a de facto rogue government supported militarily by a bunch of rogue US mercenaries very likely with the collaboration of invited ‘friendly’ military forces from at least the US and Colombia. A bunch of 300 mercenaries have no chance in hell to carry out such a mammoth task as the dismantlement of the Bolivarian state apparatus. As with the April 2002 brief coup against Hugo Chavez, all state institutions (National Assembly, Supreme Court, National Electoral Council, all ministries, the Ombudsman, the government, the Constitution, national sovereignty and so forth, would be simply dissolved). The difference with 2002 is this time their dissolution would have been carried out by military force followed by mass elimination of Chavistas.

Bolivarianism versus barbarism

President Maduro and the Bolivarian government have responded to yet another US-inspired, and probably US-funded mercenary attack with political calm and military efficiency. As we write social networks report that over 37 mercenaries have been rounded up whilst an intense search throughout the nation but especially around the areas La Guaira, Aragua and the whole Caribbean coast are being combed inch by inch, continues, and the border with Colombia is tightly secured. They have also responded by telling the truth and fully informing their people and the world through various press conferences on national TV to journalists from all around the world. President Maduro himself has led the truth offensive and it is clear that whatever the level of unscrupulous cynicism of Trump, Pompeo, Abrams et al, there is no question they did not expect such a swift outcome favourable to Maduro. Nor probably did they expect such a crushing and humiliating defeat for the US mercenaries. The Bolivarian government has already submitted a formal accusation against the US in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for all its aggression, sanctions and threats. On national TV President Maduro instructed Jorge Arreaza, minister of foreign affairs, to add the charges related to the US government involvement in the recent mercenary attack. Another accusation to the ICC will be presented by the Venezuelan government against President Duque and his government for his undeniable participation in Goudreau’s Rambo criminal adventure.

This is essential since the skilful diplomacy of the Bolivarian government has led to interesting and fruitful collaboration with various UN bodies, including the UNHRC Michelle Bachelet, but also with the International Red Cross, the WHO, plus powerful international voices such as the Non-Aligned Movement, several Latin American countries, Russia, China and plenty of others. Additionally Venezuela enjoys worldwide solidarity support from international trade union federations, mass political parties everywhere particularly in Latin America, social movements, intellectuals and solidarity bodies. During the few days following the mercenary attack, literally hundreds of messages of support came from all over the globe.

What is disgusting is the sickening silence of the European Union that has been so preoccupied with just about anything and everything with Bolivarian Venezuela for the last decade at least taking a highly negative stance and being led by the nose from Washington’s views and foreign policy on Venezuela. They knowingly took a skewed view of US-led extreme right wing forces violent efforts to oust the democratically government of Venezuela in 2014 and 2017. The EU pretended it did not see Guaidó collaborating with criminal gangs of Colombian narco-paramilitaries in February this year to attend the Branson-led concert in Cucuta. Worse still the EU did not condemn the coup attempt led by Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo on April 30 this year and they pretended. By then however doubtful Guaidó’s credentials were since he was never elected nor did he even stand as a presidential candidate yet most European governments recognise his thoroughly unconstitutional self-proclamation as ‘interim president’ which ought to have been sufficient for European governments to withdraw that recognition. And now Guaidó contracts mercenaries with the explicit and written aim to kidnap a head of state and assassinate him as a prelude to establishing a de facto rogue military dictatorship with the declared aim to eliminate a whole political current by the use of lethal force which is deemed genocide in international law nevertheless the European governments continue to recognise him as the ‘interim president of Venezuela’ and keeps silent about the mercenary attack. Is the EU decomposing politically as well as falling apart?

Conclusion

The US continues with its ‘regime change’ policy through violent means against Venezuela but keeps failing. The mercenary attack clearly took a long gestation period since it included the US Dept. of Justice indictment against President Maduro and high officials in his government of drug trafficking and narco-terrorism so as to create Panamanian conditions for US military intervention. However, they know Venezuela is not Panama and the US of 2020 is increasingly becoming a shadow of its 1989 self. Yet, US imperialism will persists because it desperately needs to lay its claws of the largest deposits of oil and gold in the planet but more importantly Venezuela’s resistance is a key obstacle in its efforts to fully reassert its hegemony regionally which will give it a better position from which to face the formidable China challenge.

Therefore, our solidarity with the heroic Venezuelan people must be redoubled and we must demand, echoing international voices such as UN General Secretary, Antonio Guterres, and Pope Francis I, the immediate suspension of US sanctions against Venezuela during the period of the pandemic so as to allow Venezuela to engage in financial transactions to purchase food, medicines and vital health inputs, essential to combat the pandemic and keep saving tens of thousands of lives.

The international labour movement should call upon the US stop interfering in the internal affairs of Venezuela, a fully sovereign and proud nation and demand the immediate and unconditional return of all assets and resources illegally confiscated to the Venezuelan state by the Trump administration. By 12th May 2020, the US has about 1,4 million people infected with Covid-19 with over 80,000 deaths, greater than the deaths of US Marines of the entire Vietnam War, whilst Venezuela on the other hand has 422 cases of infection, with 10 deaths. The argument for the US to abandon its wasteful and criminal ‘regime change’ efforts against Venezuela to instead concentrate on saving US lives and allow Venezuela the breathing space to continue with saving Venezuela lives.

This applies to Europe as well where banks and financial institutions are illegally retaining Venezuelan assets to the tune of over US$5 billon (notably Venezuelan gold in the Bank of England), they should be immediately and unconditionally return to its legitimate owner the state of and the people of Venezuela.

There is no legal or political justification on earth for the EU to continue its untenable policy of recognising Juan Guaidó as ‘interim president’ of Venezuela when de facto they work with the Bolivarian government of President Maduro, especially now that his criminal credential have been (again) conclusively proved.

US Hands Off Venezuela! Fight the Pandemic Not Venezuela!

Source: Counterpunch

Somehow, we are to believe from our “free” press that Trump and his band of rogues are going to deliver democracy and human rights. 

Analyzing 76 total press articles of the “elite” press from January 15 to April 15, 2019, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) could find not one voice that opposed Trump’s regime plans in Venezuela. Meanwhile, 54 percent openly supported these plans.

Of course, this should not be all too surprising given the press’s usual complicity in past US war efforts — e.g., by pushing such war lies as the Gulf of Tonkin, the killing of babies in Kuwait, the WMDS of Iraq and the alleged Viagra-fueled rapes in Libya.  The current war lies are coming fast and furious from such outlets as CNN which lied about seeing Maduro forces lighting aid containers on fire at the Colombian border (it was in fact opposition forces which did so as the NYT admitted two weeks later), and which claimed that US puppet Juan Guaido actually won the presidential election against Nicolas Maduro when in fact Guaido never even ran for president.

What is quite stunning, however, is the total unanimity of the press in uncritically covering and supporting the ongoing coup in Venezuela.

This is baffling because the same press outlets which have been rightly critical of Trump for all of his stupidity, lying and meanness, have suddenly found him brilliant, true and benevolent when it comes to Venezuela.

This is particularly remarkable given that his partners in this crime are Neo-Con John Bolton; former CIA Director Mike Pompeo who recently joked that the CIA’s true motto is “We lied, We Cheated, We Stole”; and convicted liar Elliott Abrams.

As for Abrams, he is infamous for his role in the illegal funding of the Nicaraguan Contras; his covering up of the El Mazote massacre in El Salvador in which around 1000 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed by US-backed forces; and his aiding and abetting the US-backed genocide in Guatemala.

And yet, somehow, we are to believe from our “free” press that this band of rogues is going to deliver democracy and human rights to Venezuela.  Never mind the fact that Trump himself is President after losing to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes, and that the US, in the words of former President Jimmy Carter, no longer has a functioning democracy.  As for Venezuela, on the other hand, Carter has said that its electoral system is “the best in the world.”

Meanwhile, this same captive press incessantly tells of us of all the deprivations and travails in Venezuela while refusing to explain how, as UN Expert Dr. Alfred de Zayas has concluded, this state of affairs is largely the result of brutal US sanctions.

Recently, respected economist Jeffrey Sachs co-authored a report showing that, since August of 2017, over 40,000 Venezuelans have died due to the US sanctions which have deprived Venezuela of food and life-saving medicines.   But few would know any of this because the voices of de Zayas and Sachs are never heard in the mainstream press.

Also unheard are any of the 6 million Venezuelans who voted for Nicolas Maduro in May of 2018, many of whom turn out for massive pro-government demonstrations.  Instead, the press gives ink and air time only to mostly white, well-off and English-speaking individuals who support the opposition, giving the false impression that Maduro has no support.

Moreover, in Orwellian fashion, the press refuses to call the current push for a military uprising in Venezuela a “coup,” while the same time referring to Maduro invariably as “repressive” and as a “dictator,” and his government as a “regime.”

In short, instead of giving two sides of the story, the press gives us one, ignores crucial facts and tells us how we should be viewing the situation in Venezuela.  This is not journalism at all, but naked propaganda, and it is shameful.

The fact that, despite all of the US pressure and threats, and despite all of the lies, the Venezuelan people have not risen up en massein support of Juan Guaido – a man 80 percent of Venezuelans never heard of until he declared himself president with the US’s urging – should tell one that things are not as we are being led to believe.

What we are seeing in Venezuela is but another attempted coup made in the USA, and it is the same type as the ones that brought such scoundrels as General Pinochet to power in Chile.  But one would never know this from our trusted press which has decided that it is the mouthpiece for the State Department instead of a check on a President and a nation run amok.

Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is author of the forthcoming, The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela, How the US is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil, with a Foreword by Oliver Stone.

Source: Rogue Journalist

Person A: Wow, things are looking really bad in Venezuela right now.

Person B: Yeah.

Person A: All that poverty and unrest!

Person B: I know, it’s terrible.

Person A: You know what we should do?

Person B: Please don’t say send in Godzilla.

Person A: What? Why not??

Person B: Because he always makes things worse! You know that! Every time we send in Godzilla to try and solve problems in the world, he just ends up trampling all over the city, knocking down buildings and killing thousands of people with his atomic heat beam.

Person A: Maybe this time would be different though!

Person B: Why in God’s name would this time be different?? You said it would be different in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria. What happened there?

Person A: He trampled all over the cities, knocked down the buildings and killed people with his atomic heat beam.

Person B: Exactly! So what makes you think sending in Godzilla would be any different this time?

Person A: Well we can’t just do nothing!

Person B: Dude, doing nothing would be infinitely better than sending in Godzilla to do the thing he literally always does.

Person A: Hey, inaction has consequences too you know! You probably don’t even talk to Venezuelans. My brother’s co-worker’s dentist is Venezuelan, and he says a Godzilla rampage is just what they need. You should listen to Venezuelans.

Person B: No matter how many Venezuelans I talk to, it will still be an indisputable fact that Godzilla rampages are always disastrous and always make things worse.

Person A: Why are you such a Maduro apologist?

Person B: What?!? I’m not a Maduro apologist! This has nothing to do with Maduro. I just remember what Godzilla is and the things he always does when we summon him up from the bottom of the sea to try and solve problems.

Person A: Look, I understand that Godzilla has made a mess of things in the past, that doesn’t mean you have to go around supporting Maduro.

Person B: I don’t support Maduro! Why do you always do this?? With Iraq you called me a Saddam apologist, with Libya you called me a Gaddafi supporter, with Syria I was an Assadist, and all I’m saying is that Godzilla is a giant nuclear monster that destroys everything in its path!

Person A: So I guess you just don’t care about the people of Venezuela then.

Person B: Of course I care about the people of Venezuela! That’s why I don’t want them to be trampled to death beneath the feet of a destructive nuclear behemoth!

Person A: Yeah but Venezuela is in dire straits right now. It’s not like sending in Godzilla could make things any worse.

Person B: Sending in Godzilla can definitely make things worse! Are you kidding me?? Have you seen Libya lately?

Person A: Oh, right, everything was so perfect in Libya before we sent in Godzilla to kill Gaddafi, I forgot. It was a perfect utopian paradise!

Person B: Nobody’s saying Libya was perfect under Gaddafi, but it was a hell of a lot better than it was before Godzilla went on a chaotic rampage trampling and burning everything in sight. Now it’s a lawless humanitarian disaster!

Person A: You’re just a Godzilla-hating, Maduro-loving socialist.

Person B: This isn’t about socialism. It’s an established fact that sending in Godzilla literally always makes things worse and literally never makes things better. The only reason you keep shifting between straw man arguments and ad homonym attacks is because you know you’ve got no case. All you can do is keep calling me a Maduro supporter, saying I don’t care about the Venezuelan people, and saying it’s because I love socialism, when you know damn well I’m telling it like it is. Honestly, what do you think happens when we send in Godzilla again? Do you think he’s just going to be a cuddly wuddly nice guy all of a sudden and start solving problems with surgical precision?

Person A: Uhh… maybe?

Person B: He won’t! He never will! You keep hoping it will be different and it never, ever is! How do you keep making this same stupid mistake over and over again??

Person A: Well the TV told me this time it’s different.

Person B: They tell you that every time! It’s a narrative advanced by Godzilla rampage profiteers!

Person A: Hey, maybe it won’t even come to that. Maybe Mothra can sort of gently blow Maduro out?

Person B: Mothra hurts civilians too!

Person A: Nuh-uh. Her wind gusts are laser-targeted to solely affect Maduro and Venezuelan oligarchs.

Person B: That’s not even true! Anyway what happens when Mothra starts killing civilians?

Person A: Nothing a bit of Godzilla couldn’t fix.

Person B: Of course. Awesome. Excuse me, I need to go slam my head in the car door.

Caitlin Johnstone’s articles are entirely reader-supported. See https://caitlinjohnstone.com/

¡No pasaran! Confronting the Rise of the Far-Right

2 March 2019  ¡NO PASARAN! Conference in London to organise against Europe-wide rise of the far-right. Bringing together activists, MPs, campaigners from across Europe.

Details and registration…

Source: JohnPilger.com

In this analysis, John Pilger looks back over the Chavez years in Venezuela, including his own travels with Hugo Chavez, and the current US and European campaign to overthrow Nicolas Maduro in a ‘coup by media’ and to return Latin America to the 19th and 20th centuries.

“What did her words say?” I asked.

“That we are proud,” was the reply.

The applause for her merged with the arrival of Chavez. Under one arm he carried a satchel bursting with books.  He wore his big red shirt and greeted people by name, stopping to listen. What struck me was his capacity to listen.

But now he read. For almost two hours he read into the microphone from the stack of books beside him: Orwell, Dickens, Tolstoy, Zola, Hemingway, Chomsky, Neruda: a page here, a line or two there. People clapped and whistled as he moved from author to author.

Then farmers took the microphone and told him what they knew, and what they needed; one ancient face, carved it seemed from a nearby banyan, made a long, critical speech on the subject of irrigation; Chavez took notes.

Wine is grown here, a dark Syrah type grape. “John, John, come up here,” said El Presidente, having watched me fall asleep in the heat and the depths of Oliver Twist.

“He likes red wine,” Chavez told the cheering, whistling audience, and presented me with a bottle of “vino de la gente”. My few words in bad Spanish brought whistles and laughter.

Watching Chavez with la gente made sense of a man who promised, on coming to power, that his every move would be subject to the will of the people.  In eight years, Chavez won eight elections and referendums: a world record. He was electorally the most popular head of state in the Western Hemisphere, probably in the world.

Every major chavista reform was voted on, notably a new constitution of which 71 per cent of the people approved each of the 396 articles that enshrined unheard of freedoms, such as Article 123, which for the first time recognised the human rights of mixed-race and black people, of whom Chavez was one.

One of his tutorials on the road quoted a feminist writer: “Love and solidarity are the same.” His audiences understood this well and expressed themselves with dignity, seldom with deference. Ordinary people regarded Chavez and his government as their first champions: as theirs.

This was especially true of the indigenous, mestizos and Afro-Venezuelans, who had been held in historic contempt by Chavez’s immediate predecessors and by those who today live far from the  barrios, in the mansions and penthouses of East Caracas, who commute to Miami where their banks are and who regard themselves as “white”. They are the powerful core of what the media calls “the opposition”.

When I met this class, in suburbs called Country Club, in homes appointed with low chandeliers and bad portraits, I recognised them. They could be white South Africans, the petite bourgeoisie of Constantia and Sandton, pillars of the cruelties of apartheid.

Cartoonists in the Venezuelan press, most of which are owned by an oligarchy and oppose the government, portrayed Chavez as an ape. A radio host referred to “the monkey”. In the private universities, the verbal currency of the children of the well-off is often racist abuse of those whose shacks are just visible through the pollution.

Although identity politics are all the rage in the pages of liberal newspapers in the West, race and class are two words almost never uttered in the mendacious “coverage” of Washington’s latest, most naked attempt to grab the world’s greatest source of oil and reclaim its “backyard”.

For all the chavistas’ faults — such as allowing the Venezuelan economy to become hostage to the fortunes of oil and never seriously challenging big capital and corruption – they brought social justice and pride to millions of people and they did it with unprecedented democracy.

“Of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored,” said former President Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Centre is a respected monitor of elections around the world, “I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.” By way of contrast, said Carter, the US election system, with its emphasis on campaign money, “is one of the worst”.

In extending the franchise to a parallel people’s state of communal authority, based in the poorest barrios, Chavez described Venezuelan democracy as “our version of Rousseau’s idea of popular sovereignty”.

In Barrio La Linea, seated in her tiny kitchen, Beatrice Balazo told me her children were the first generation of the poor to attend a full day’s school and be given a hot meal and to learn music, art and dance. “I have seen their confidence blossom like flowers,” she said.

In Barrio La Vega, I listened to a nurse, Mariella Machado, a black woman of 45 with a wicked laugh, address an urban land council on subjects ranging from homelessness to illegal war. That day, they were launching Mision Madres de Barrio, a programme aimed at poverty among single mothers. Under the constitution, women have the right to be paid as carers, and can borrow from a special women’s bank. Now the poorest housewives get the equivalent of $200 a month.

In a room lit by a single fluorescent tube, I met Ana Lucia Ferandez, aged 86, and Mavis Mendez, aged 95. A mere 33-year-old, Sonia Alvarez, had come with her two children. Once, none of them could read and write; now they were studying mathematics. For the first time in its history, Venezuela has almost 100 per cent literacy.

This is the work of Mision Robinson, which was designed for adults and teenagers previously denied an education because of poverty. Mision Ribas gives everyone the opportunity of a secondary education, called a bachillerato.(The names Robinson and Ribas refer to Venezuelan independence leaders from the 19th century).

In her 95 years, Mavis Mendez had seen a parade of governments, mostly vassals of Washington, preside over the theft of billions of dollars in oil spoils, much of it flown to Miami. “We didn’t matter in a human sense,” she told me. “We lived and died without real education and running water, and food we couldn’t afford. When we fell ill, the weakest died. Now I can read and write my name and so much more; and whatever the rich and the media say, we have planted the seeds of true democracy and I have the joy of seeing it happen.”

In 2002, during a Washington-backed coup, Mavis’s sons and daughters and grandchildren and great-grandchildren joined hundreds of thousands who swept down from the barrios on the hillsides and demanded the army remained loyal to Chavez.

“The people rescued me,” Chavez told me. “They did it with the media against me, preventing even the basic facts of what happened. For popular democracy in heroic action, I suggest you look no further.”

Since Chavez’s death in 2013, his successor Nicolas Maduro has shed his derisory label in the Western press as a “former bus driver” and become Saddam Hussein incarnate. His media abuse is ridiculous. On his watch, the slide in the price of oil has caused hyper inflation and played havoc with prices in a society that imports almost all its food; yet, as the journalist and film-maker Pablo Navarrete reported this week, Venezuela is not the catastrophe it has been painted. “There is food everywhere,” he wrote. “I have filmed lots of videos of food in markets [all over Caracas]… it’s Friday night and the restaurants are full.”

In 2018, Maduro was re-elected President. A section of the opposition boycotted the election, a tactic tried against Chavez. The boycott failed: 9,389,056 people voted; sixteen parties participated and six candidates stood for the presidency. Maduro won 6,248,864 votes, or 67.84 per cent.

On election day, I spoke to one of the 150 foreign election observers. “It was entirely fair,” he said. “There was no fraud; none of the lurid media claims stood up. Zero. Amazing really.”

Like a page from Alice’s tea party, the Trump administration has presented Juan Guaido, a pop-up creation of the CIA-front National Endowment for Democracy, as the “legitimate President of Venezuela”. Unheard of by 81 per cent of the Venezuelan people, according to The Nation, Guaido has been elected by no one.

Maduro is “illegitimate”, says Trump (who won the US presidency with three million fewer votes than his opponent), a “dictator”, says demonstrably unhinged vice president Mike Pence and an oil trophy-in-waiting, says “national security” adviser John Bolton (who when I interviewed him in 2003 said, “Hey, are you a communist, maybe even Labour?”).

As his “special envoy to Venezuela” (coup master), Trump has appointed a convicted felon, Elliot Abrams, whose intrigues in the service of Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush helped produce the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s and plunge central America into years of blood-soaked misery.

Putting Lewis Carroll aside, these  “crazies” belong in newsreels from the 1930s. And yet their lies about Venezuela have been taken up with enthusiasm by those paid to keep the record straight.

On Channel 4 News, Jon Snow bellowed at the Labour MP Chris Williamson, “Look, you and Mr Corbyn are in a very nasty corner [on Venezuela]!” When Williamson tried to explain why threatening a sovereign country was wrong, Snow cut him off. “You’ve had a good go!”

In 2006, Channel 4 News effectively accused Chavez of plotting to make nuclear weapons with Iran: a fantasy. The then Washington correspondent, Jonathan Rugman, allowed a war criminal, Donald Rumsfeld, to liken Chavez to Hitler, unchallenged.

Researchers at the University of the West of England studied the BBC’s reporting of Venezuela over a ten-year period. They looked at 304 reports and found that only three of these referred to any of the positive policies of the government. For the BBC, Venezuela’s democratic record, human rights legislation, food programmes, healthcare initiatives and poverty reduction did not happen.  The greatest literacy programme in human history did not happen, just as the millions who march in support of Maduro and in memory of Chavez, do not exist.

When asked why she filmed only an opposition march, the BBC reporter Orla Guerin tweeted that it was “too difficult” to be on two marches in one day.

A war has been declared on Venezuela, of which the truth is “too difficult” to report.

It is too difficult to report the collapse of oil prices since 2014 as largely the result of criminal machinations by Wall Street. It is too difficult to report the blocking of Venezuela’s access to the US-dominated international financial system as sabotage. It is too difficult to report Washington’s “sanctions” against Venezuela, which have caused the loss of at least $6billion in Venezuela’s revenue since 2017, including  $2billion worth of imported medicines, as illegal, or the Bank of England’s refusal to return Venezuela’s gold reserves as an act of piracy.

The former United Nations Rapporteur, Alfred de Zayas, has likened this to a “medieval siege” designed “to bring countries to their knees”. It is a criminal assault, he says. It is similar to that faced by Salvador Allende in 1970 when President Richard Nixon and his equivalent of John Bolton, Henry Kissinger, set out to “make the economy [of Chile]scream”. The long dark night of Pinochet followed.

The Guardian correspondent, Tom Phillips, has tweeted a picture of himself in a cap on which the words in Spanish mean in local slang: “Make Venezuela fucking cool again.” The reporter as clown may be the final stage of much of mainstream journalism’s degeneration.

Should the CIA stooge Guaido and his white supremacists grab power, it will be the 68th overthrow of a sovereign government by the United States, most of them democracies. A fire sale of Venezuela’s utilities and mineral wealth will surely follow, along with the theft of the country’s oil, as outlined by John Bolton.

Under the last Washington-controlled government in Caracas, poverty reached historic proportions. There was no healthcare for those could not pay. There was no universal education; Mavis Mendez, and millions like her, could not read or write. How cool is that, Tom?

Follow John Pilger on twitter @johnpilger

Source: Medium

Venezuela is shaping up to be our Spanish Civil War. And like Spain in the 1930s, the struggle taking place now is of world-historical importance .

If this is to be the end of the Bolivarian Revolution, be in no doubt that it will be a bloody and chaotic affair. For it is no exaggeration to state that Venezuela is shaping up to be our Spanish Civil War. And like Spain in the 1930s, the struggle taking place in the Latin American oil rich country now is of world-historical importance — arguably even more so than those that took place or continue to unfold in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Ukraine, places where rampant and unfettered US-led Western hegemony has left its blood-soaked footprint since the demise of the Soviet Union.

Though some may still retain the capacity to suspend disbelief and elicit the desired Pavlovian response to the rolling out of the Holy Trinity of democracy, human rights and freedom as justification for imperialist aggression by Washington and the usual suspects, there are those of us who refuse to be infantilised. Trump and his neocon grim reaper crew — Bolton, Abrams and Pompeo — are engaged in a campaign against the sovereign government of Venezuela of which Julius Caesar would have been happy to associate himself while rampaging through Gaul, coronating their placeman Guaido in Caracas while salivating over the prospect of getting their gnarled hands on the country’s prodigious oil reserves.

Never knowingly late to the feast, the usual clutch of Washington’s European satellites, with the honourable exception of Italy, have followed instructions in the accustomed manner, joining in the frog’s chorus of recognition of Juan Guaido as interim president and the demand for new elections in a country that sits across the other side of the world in a far off continent. This is at a time when the leader of the opposition in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn, cannot get Theresa May to call an election in the midst of a Brexit crisis that has paralysed her government — a government that continues to mercilessly bludgeon millions of its own people for daring to commit poverty.

Compounding the hypocrisy of perfidious Albion when it comes to Venezuela is the act of grand larceny committed by the Bank of England in sequestering £1.2 billion of Caracas’s gold reserves. At least Dick Turpin went to the trouble of wearing a mask.

In France, meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron has done more for the colour yellow than Dulux could ever dream. Despite harbouring delusions of grandeur as a world leader of note, France’s President of the Rich is has already gone down in history as the most unpopular leader to occupy the Elysee Palace since Louis XVI was striding through the place with his head still attached to his shoulders.

Having lost in Syria, the beast of US hegemony has now turned its attention to Venezuela, whose present troubles are a consequence of capitalism and imperialism not socialism. This is not to claim that President Maduro has not made mistakes or wrong turns since his election as Hugo Chavez’s successor: first in 2013 after the latter’s death, then again in 2018. Both elections, en passant, were adjudged free and fair by international observers; and both were conducted wholly in keeping with the country’s constitution.

But with a nation’s internal development inextricably linked to the external pressures arrayed against it in a given time and space — especially those nations of the Global South whose vulnerability to the hegemonic agenda of the West is ever present—any deficiencies in Maduro’s governance must weighed against the actions of a determined domestic opposition, supported by Washington, and Venezuela’s history of under development.

Oil reserves are both a curse and a blessing for a country like Venezuela. They are a curse in that the economic bounty they provide disincentivises the drive for economic diversification. This has been the case in Venezuela for generations; long periods when the country’s oil was harnessed not in the cause of improving the condition of the masses of the poor and dispossessed, or to invest in other sectors with economic diversification in mind, but to enrich an oligarchy for whom the nation’s poor and dispossessed were invisible.

Though oil is a valuable commodity, oil prices can act as a potent weapon, especially when applied to a country that is oil dependent and in the crosshairs of hegemony. Chavez used the revenue from the country’s oil exports when oil prices were buoyant to fund the social programs which transformed the condition of the poor in the barrios. The result was social indicators that inspired millions throughout the region and beyond during his first decade in power. However, with oil accounting for 98 percent of Venezuela’s export earnings, when oil prices took a tumble in 2014, the economy was hit with uncommon severity.

Criticisms of Chavez’s own lack of serious attempt at diversification during the good times are not entirely without foundation, however in a 2016 article in The Nation, Gabriel Hetland points out that that the healthy growth in the Venezuelan economy in the first decade or so of Chavez’s tenure “was made possible by the 2003–2008 oil boom,” but that nonetheless “the non-oil sector grew faster than the oil sector during this period, and government reserves increased.”

What must be borne in mind when it comes to moves towards economic diversification by nations of the Global South is the immovable force of existing market relations. Those relations favour the rich economies of the northern hemisphere in terms of trade, investment, currency and technology. Indeed, in essence, the global economy operates with the express purpose of maintaining a status quo by which the development of the so-called First World is predicated on the underdevelopment of the so-called Third World.

Many analyses have been produced making the case that Chavez damaged Venezuela’s oil industry by extracting too much revenue from it to fund the aforementioned social programs, while not reinvesting enough in what is a capital-intensive industry. Assuming there is some validity to this, the neglect of the poor in the country prior to Chavez was the prime mover in him being elected and re-elected time and again up to his death, and thus their plight was rightly central to his leadership.

Chavez’s showdown with the management and workforce of Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, in 2003 — culminating in his government firing the management and 18,000 workers — did much to disrupt the country’s oil industry, of this there is no doubt. This kind of disruption and sabotage has been a running theme in Venezuela since Chavez came to power (the attempted coup in 2002 being the most obvious example) on the part of an opposition whose actions have consistently demonstrated a preference for ruination and US intervention to socialism in a country it believes is theirs to rule. Because abstracted in the doom-laden analyses on the whys and wherefores behind the destruction of the Venezuelan oil industry and economy, analyses of a type found at Forbes and the FT, is the vicious and unremitting ideological struggle that has underpinned politics in Venezuela during the Chavez and Maduro years.

These one-sided analyses of Venezuela under Chavez and Maduro is no surprise, of course, not when the upsurge in mass consciousness the Bolivarian Revolution produced brought with it the possibility of an escape from a capitalist past that had shackled not only Venezuela but Latin America in its entirety to Washington via the dollar, reducing the entire region to a vast neo-colony.

Where Chavez can be justly criticised is in his failure to root out corruption, and his mismanagement of the nation’s currency in opening the door to the kind of rampant corruption that remains a feature of the country’s woes to this day.

Gabriel Hetland: “The problem stems from the coexistence of three different exchange rates, and the yawning gulf between the lower of two official rates and the black market, or parallel, rate,” creating created “immense incentives for corruption among businesses and state/military officials who are provided dollars by the government at the lower official rate. These businesses and officials often trade these dollars on the black market in order to make obscene profits. Second, the diversion of dollars away from imports and into illegal black-market trading has contributed to severe scarcities as well as the marked drop in imports. Third, production by legitimate businesses (as opposed to ghost enterprises, so-called empresas de maletín) has declined because of their lack of access to dollars and needed inputs.”

Hetland also criticises Chavez’s refusal to lift capital controls at a certain point, though this is problematic given the danger, indeed likelihood, of capital flight in an economy in which the private sector, controlled by the opposition, still retains a commanding footprint.

US and international sanctions, imposed in various guises since 2015, when initially introduced by the Obama administration — along with reguar bouts of social unrest due to the actions of a restive and aggressive opposition — have had the effect of frightening off private investment and restricting access to dollars, thus producing shortages due to the inability of the government to import foods, medicines and other basic necessities.

With the aforesaid factors in mind, Chavez made a sharp turn to Moscow and Beijing before he died. Maduro deepened those ties, borrowing extensively from both in recent years to provide Venezuela with a semblance of a lifeline in the midst of prolonged economic and social crises. Though China’s relations with Maduro have been solely economic, receiving oil in return for loans and investing in the country’s copper and gold mining industries since 2012, Russia has established ever closer geopolitical and military ties. Last December’s non-stop flight to Venezuela from Russia of two strategic bombers and two other long range military aircraft served to highlight those ties.

That Washington views Russia’s growing relationship with Caracas, especially on the level of military cooperation, as a serious threat to its own influence in a region it has always considered a US fiefdom is not in doubt, with the Trump administration’s move for regime change just two months after the aforementioned international flight of Russian military aircraft to the country clear evidence.

Whatever the outcome of the crisis in Venezuela, and at time of writing civil war is a distinct and emerging possibility, the country is now, as with Syria and Ukraine before it, a key frontline in the continuing struggle between the forces of hegemony and unipolarity, led by the US, and those of anti-hegemony and multipolarity, led by Russia and China.

Taking a broader view, when the history of this period in Venezuela’s history is written it will be impossible to avoid exploring the possibility that just as a woman cannot be half pregnant, an economy cannot be half socialist and half capitalist in a time of imperialist hegemony. Authoritarianism is not a charge that can be seriously laid at the door of Hugo Chavez or Nicolas Maduro. On the contrary, it is arguable that both men were not authoritarian enough in relation to a US-supported and funded opposition.

It is also hard to argue that the severe shift to the right that has taken place across Latin America overall, after an all too brief pink tide, has left Caracas isolated with few allies.

“There are decades when nothing happens,” it is said, “and weeks when decades happen.” The crisis in Venezuela confirms that those weeks are upon us.

Source: Counterpunch

As Palestinians have fought Israeli tyranny for years, Venezuelans will continue to fight foreign tyranny and unlawful political and military interventions.

Venezuela is struggling to defeat a coup attempt that is supported by the United States, Israel and many Western governments.

The relationship between Venezuela and Palestine has been particularly strong under the presidencies of late Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez and current president Maduro. Neither leader has missed an opportunity to show their solidarity towards the Palestinian people, a fact that has always irked Tel Aviv and its western benefactors.

The Gaza rallies, however, were more than a display of gratitude towards a country that had enough courage to break off ties with Israel following the latter’s 2008-9 war on Gaza – a bloody campaign known as “Operation Cast Lead”. Thousands of Palestinians were killed in that one-sided war. No Arab government that has diplomatic ties with Israel severed its relations with Tel Aviv. While Caracas – over 10 thousand kilometers away – did. Then, former President Chavez, accused Israel of “state terrorism”.

But there is more to Palestinian solidarity with Venezuela than this recent history. Palestinians have experienced decades-long collective trauma from US-funded Israeli colonialism and military occupation. The US has imposed itself as an ‘honest peace broker’ as a way to mask its political interference and meddling in the Middle East, while fully and blindly supporting Israeli aggressions.

While the Venezuelan people have every right to protest their government, demanding greater accountability and economic solutions to the crushing poverty facing the country, no one has the right to meddle in the affairs of Venezuela or any other sovereign country anywhere.

We must remember that the US government has hardly ever been a source of stability in South America, certainly not since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. Since then, the US has done more than mere meddling, but outright political and military interventions, supporting various coups that toppled or attempted to overthrow democratically-elected governments.

What is underway in Caracas is a repeat of that sad and tragic history.

The unhealthy relationship between the US and its southern neighbors took an even darker turn when, in 1904, then US President Theodore Roosevelt declared the “right” of his country to hold “international police power” in Latin America. Since then, the entire region has been Washington’s business.

Always looking for opportunities to exploit, Washington now sees a chance to undermine Venezuela and its elected government.

The Venezuelan people are dealing with overwhelming poverty and a very unstable social situation. Hyperinflation and the crumbling of the country’s oil industries led to a dramatic economic downturn, with about 10% of the population fleeing the country. Poor policy choices led to an escalation of the already endemic corruption, to a significant weakening of local production and increasing devaluation of the country’s currency.

However, consensus around president Maduro’s socialist government is still broad, as witnessed by their victory in the 2018 presidential election.

Despite the presence of about 150 international observers from 30 countries and international organizations, which declared that the last Venezuelan election was transparent, domestic opponents, supported by the US and its western and regional allies denounced it as “fraud foretold”, even before Maduro delivered his victory speech.

The US and its Western allies are frustrated by the fact that despite its economic problems, most Venezuelans remained united around Chavez, and now Maduro, who are perceived, especially by the poorer classes, as independent national leaders fighting against constant US destabilization and neocolonialism.

The world order is vastly changing, but US ruling elites refuse to change. While speaking about Washington’s need to “protect democracy” in Venezuela, US National Security Advisor, the infamous Israel supporter, John Bolton admitted that the coup in Venezuela is an opportunity to exploit the country’s oil and natural resources.

“It will make a big difference to the United States economically”, Bolton told Fox News in an interview this week, “if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

Tragically, the US boycott against Venezuela forced the country to sell its gold in return for valuable currency, as well as consumer goods, food and medicinal products. The coup is meant to completely push Caracas to its knees.

Western predators are all moving in, each party playing the role entrusted of them, as if history is repeating itself. Bank of England (BoE) has blocked Maduro’s officials from withdrawing $1.2 billion worth of Venezuela’s gold. Worse, brazen interference from foreign countries is becoming so pronounced that UK foreign office minister, Sir Alan Duncan has suggested that the BoE grant access to the gold reserves to the self-proclaimed opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Germany, and France and Spain gave Venezuela’s Maduro an ultimatum: the President has eight days to call elections, otherwise they’ll recognize Guaido as president. On January 31, the European Parliament recognized Guaido as a de facto leader of Venezuela in complete disregard of the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people.

Yet, as odd as this may seem to some, Maduro still enjoys greater legitimacy in his country than Donald Trump or Emmanuel Macron do in the US and France respectively. Yet, no entity is threatening to intervene in France, for example on behalf of the ‘Yellow Vests’, who have protested in their hundreds of thousands for weeks, demanding an end to Macon’s rule.

It is doubly important that Venezuela doesn’t collapse before this US-led sinister campaign because of the rising far-right powers in South and Latin America, namely the upsurge of reactionary forces in Brazil.

If Venezuela’s political order disintegrates, others, too will become target: Bolivia, Cuba, and even Mexico.

Since the US partial withdrawal from Iraq in December 2011, and the Obama Administration’s ‘pivot to Asia’, to challenge the inevitable dominance of China, US policy makers have been keen on staging a comeback in South America as well. More recently, the just-departed US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley was instrumental in shaping the aggressive US policy towards Venezuela.

Now that the country is struggling with extreme poverty – itself resulting from the manipulation of oil prices – the US sees an opportunity to make its move, and reclaim its destructive, domineering role in that part of the world. The election in Brazil of far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro, who wants to “make Brazil great again’ is tipping the balance in favor of reactionary forces in the whole region.

But the plot against Venezuela is also an opportunity for those who want to challenge the old order, to tell the US government ‘enough is enough’; that the age of coups and blood-soaked interventions should be behind us, and that South America must not be subjugated again.

As Palestinians have fought Israeli tyranny for years, Venezuelans will continue to fight foreign tyranny and unlawful political and military interventions as well. And with true and tangible global solidarity, both nations will prevail – sooner or later.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle.

Source: RT

Hiring him as the president’s top national security advisor is an invitation to war, perhaps nuclear war. This must be stopped at all costs.

Source: The Gray Zone

Guaidó was selected by Washington, not to lead Venezuela toward democracy, but to collapse a country that for two decades has been a bulwark of resistance to US imperialism.

This is the introduction to an in-depth investigation by Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal, which is a must-read that counters the corporate media’s presentation of Juan Guaidó as a beacon of democracy. Available in full here…

But after a single phone call from from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó proclaimed himself president of Venezuela. Anointed as the leader of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political bottom-dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves.

Echoing the Washington consensus, the New York Times editorial board hailed Guaidó as a “credible rival” to Maduro with a “refreshing style and vision of taking the country forward.” The Bloomberg News editorial board applauded him for seeking “restoration of democracy” and the Wall Street Journal declared him “a new democratic leader.” Meanwhile, Canada, numerous European nations, Israel, and the bloc of right-wing Latin American governments known as the Lima Group recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.

While Guaidó seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, he was, in fact, the product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US government’s elite regime change factories. Alongside a cadre of right-wing student activists, Guaidó was cultivated to undermine Venezuela’s socialist-oriented government, destabilize the country, and one day seize power. Though he has been a minor figure in Venezuelan politics, he had spent years quietly demonstrated his worthiness in Washington’s halls of power.

“Juan Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance,” Marco Teruggi, an Argentinian sociologist and leading chronicler of Venezuelan politics, told The Grayzone. “It’s the logic of a laboratory – Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between laughable and worrying.”

Diego Sequera, a Venezuelan journalist and writer for the investigative outlet Misión Verdad, agreed: “Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to The Grayzone, “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”

While Guaidó is today sold as the face of democratic restoration, he spent his career in the most violent faction of Venezuela’s most radical opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one destabilization campaign after another. His party has been widely discredited inside Venezuela, and is held partly responsible for fragmenting a badly weakened opposition.

“‘These radical leaders have no more than 20 percent in opinion polls,” wrote Luis Vicente León, Venezuela’s leading pollster. According to León, Guaidó’s party remains isolated because the majority of the population “does not want war. ‘What they want is a solution.’”

But this is precisely why Guaidó was selected by Washington: He is not expected to lead Venezuela toward democracy, but to collapse a country that for the past two decades has been a bulwark of resistance to US hegemony. His unlikely rise signals the culmination of a two decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist experiment.

The in-depth investigation by Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal, “The making of Juan Guaidó: how the US regime change laboratory created Venezuela’s coup leader”, is available in full here…

¡No pasaran! Confronting the Rise of the Far-Right

2 March 2019  ¡NO PASARAN! Conference in London to organise against Europe-wide rise of the far-right. Bringing together activists, MPs, campaigners from across Europe.

Details and registration…

Source: RT

For over 30 years, Washington has engaged in a concerted and unrelenting effort to return the oil-rich country to its ‘rightful’ status as a wholly owned US subsidiary.

The Mexican-American War was a war of plunder and conquest on the part of a US ruling class for whom every country south of the Rio Grande was then, as if by divine right, deemed subservient to Washington. From then to now the US has regarded Latin America as a wholly owned subsidiary, its primary function to serve Washington’s economic interests.

Any Latin American government that dared assert its country’s right to sovereign independence of the US in the years since has found itself subjected to a campaign of subversion and attack, so blatant in gangsterism it would have made Al Capone blush.

It was US Marine General Smedley Butler who famously said after retiring in 1931: “I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.”

This is the context in which Trump’s public recognition of Venezuelan opposition leader, Juan Guaido, as interim president should be weighed.

Starting from the beginning, ever since Hugo Chavez dared liberate Venezuela from the iron grip of a US-controlled local oligarchy in the late 1990s, Washington has engaged in a concerted and unrelenting effort to return the oil-rich country to its ‘rightful’ status as a wholly owned subsidiary.

And what with Venezuela possessing the largest proven oil reserves in the world, for a Trump administration that evinces the characteristics of a New York mafia crime family more than a democratic government, it was always inevitable that this campaign would be ramped up rather than tamped down upon the Orange One’s arrival in the White House in 2016.

Venezuela’s current ‘legally elected’ president, Nicolas Maduro, took over the presidency after his mentor’s death from cancer in 2013, pledging to protect and continue the legacy of radical reforms Chavez inspired and introduced.

And under the aegis of the Bolivarian Constitution, the achievements of those reforms cannot be gainsaid.

The mass literacy known as Mission Robinson was the biggest and most ambitious ever undertaken, its success recognized by UNESCO in 2005 when it declared Venezuela ‘illiteracy-free’. Cuba, crucial to that success, was also involved in the establishment of health clinics, designed to provide free healthcare to the country’s poor.

Additionally, according to the UN, the quality of life of Venezuelans improved at the third highest rate in the world between 2006-11. Poverty was cut from 48.6 percent in 2002 to 29.5 percent by 2011, while at the time of Chavez’s death Venezuela had the lowest rate of income inequality of any country in Latin America.

In order to achieve such outstanding outcomes, the Chavez government moved against the country’s US-backed oligarchy, seizing the assets of over 1,000 companies. It also nationalized oil fields owned by US oil giants Exxon Mobil and Conoco Phillips.

Price controls were introduced in order to ensure the affordability of basic necessities, which along with free education, healthcare and the constitutional right to a home ensured that the Bolivarian Revolution was a beacon of hope to the poor and marginalized not just in Venezuela but throughout the region and across the wider Global South.

On foreign policy, meanwhile, Chavez proved a formidable foe of US hegemony, taking every opportunity to denounce the history of Washington’s role in subverting democracy, human rights and national sovereignty throughout Latin America, educating the Venezuelan people on the history of US imperialism in the process.

He sought and forged closer ties with Cuba, China, Russia and Iran – countries that likewise opposed and challenged US domination – and embarked on numerous initiatives throughout the region to foment closer economic, political and cultural integration.

This fruits of this policy were the establishment of the Latin American trading bloc known as Mercosur, the economic, political and cultural integrationist project knows as ALBA, and the pan-Latin American television and media network, Telesur.

Prior to his death, Chavez also had ambitions to set up a regional development bank in order to end dependence on the IMF and World Bank.

The legacy laid out above is important to grasp if serious about understanding why for Washington the Venezuela shaped and inspired by Hugo Chavez could never be allowed to survive.

Since assuming office in 2013, Maduro has had to contend with a sharp drop in the price of oil, which, combined with a determined campaign conducted by a US-supported opposition, plus US sanctions, has plunged the country into a deepening economic, social and political crisis.

The result has been skyrocketing inflation and a shortage of basic goods on supermarket shelves, blamed by Maduro on an orchestrated policy by the opposition of hoarding food supplies in order to foment social unrest.

Now, with the crisis in the country reaching the point of critical mass, Trump’s coronation of Juan Guaido as interim president marks the next and most blatant attack on a Bolivarian Revolution whose only crime, since inception, has been the crime of a good example.

¡No pasaran! Confronting the Rise of the Far-Right

2 March 2019  ¡NO PASARAN! Conference in London to organise against Europe-wide rise of the far-right. Bringing together activists, MPs, campaigners from across Europe.

Details and registration…

How the corporate media is helping groom the UK public for regime change in Venezuela.

Source: Things That Matter

“The U.S. condemned the actions of the “Maduro dictatorship.” The two opposition leaders were “political prisoners being held illegally by the regime.”

Of course, when Trump was lavishing praise on the Saudi regime, holding orbs, and swinging swords, he forgot to mention the teenage political prisoner being held illegally by the regime who was soon up for beheading; but not for the crime of orchestrating a violent overthrow of a democratically elected government but based on the accusation of turning up to a protest.

In addition, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former CEO of Exxon, who has a completely impartial view of the oil-rich country of Venezuela, described the re-arrest of the two opposition leaders as

“very alarming.”

Tillerson has also stated:

“The situation from a humanitarian standpoint is already becoming dire.”.

Yet, his concerns regarding the humanitarian standpoint and its direness seems to be eerily absent from his thoughts about Saudi Arabia. He goes on to say:

“We are evaluating all of our policy options as to what can we do to create a change of conditions, where either Maduro decides he doesn’t have a future and wants to leave of his own accord, or we can return the government processes back to their constitution.”

The gall and arrogance of this statement seems to go unreported, as he just assumes  the U.S. right to enforce regime change. In addition to this, the Trump administration has hit Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with financial sanctions. Of course, Saudi kings get no such red card.

Here, in the U.K., we have Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, accusing Mr. Maduro of behaving like a “dictator of an evil regime.” All this when Boris has an actual dictator of an evil  regime, called Saudi Arabia, he is willing and happy to sell billions of pounds worth of arms to. Thus, ensuring that 600,000 Yeminis in 2017 will contract cholera, add to the  10,000 Yeminis civilians already  murdered, and it can continue to successfully oppress its people.

Then the usual suspect on the of the Labour right,  like MP Angela Smith, work hand in glove with the Murdoch press, as she told the Times newspaper that she hoped “that my party leadership will as soon as possible condemn what’s happening in the country and call for the release of opposition party political prisoners.”

We see all this and  the  media reporting  that what’s happening Venezuela will chart a predictable trajectory of “concerning” followed by “unacceptable” and then eventually “something must be done”. We’ve heard the same kind of memes about the invasion and toppling of Libya and Iraq, but there  seems to be a convenient “media amnesia” about the outcome of these “concerns”.

The way Venezuela is being reported contains a kind of coded language in the build-up to violent western supported or organized regime change. It’s the public getting groomed with the idea of regime change  as events get portrayed as “inventible” and “the only just solation to a terrible crisis”; yet this narrative that eventually concludes “something must be done” is off bounds for tyrannical states that our governments support. Well, it’s even more than off bounds; it has never been allowed to be build up into that kind of crescendo of inescapable action.

All this reveals  the mainstream media and the political establishment’s ability to hold two completely contradictorily narratives simultaneously and report on them as if neither had anything to do with each other. Even if you buy the western propaganda model that Maduro is acting like an evil dictator, why should that be a problem? I can list numerous Gulf state regimes and another’s around the world that are, in fact evil dictatorships, and no one pays attention. Crickey! They even attend our royal weddings.  Concerns of democracy, human rights, and its political prisoners must make for an awkward wedding party conversation.

As Saudi Arabia is just the most grotesque and blatant example of this hypocrisy, as it’s a regime that’s so barbaric and so deplorable, yet it’s so fawned over and so welcomed by the political establishment. This is then reinforced in the way media reports on each respectively with reverent terms, such as King and Monarchs, for Saudi rulers, who are in fact brutal dictators and tyrants. Yet, democratically elected Venezuelan presidents like Chavez and Maduro are routinely labelled as “dictators,” “autocrats,” and “oppressors.”

In Trumps gushing speech in Saudi Arabia only a few months ago, he states:

“We are not here to lecture—we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnership—based on shared interests and values —to pursue a better future for us all.”

Of course, the sentiment “We are not here to lecture—we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be…” doesn’t extend to Venezuelans, and the reasons why are obvious, as it’s revealed in the second sentence in the word “partnership.”

For the global mafia Don U.S.A., the rules of “partnerships” are simple: play ball, buy our arms, and be open to our economic interests, and you can do as you please in your own country; you can behead, torture, imprison, and murder whoever and how many people you want.

Yet, don’t pay ball, go against  U.S. interests, and by hook or crook, we will bring you down. We will overthrow your government, assassinate your leaders, sanction you into the dark ages or simply invade and bomb you to smithereens.

I have stated in previous articles that if ISIS suddenly becomes open to U.S. economic interests, it would be rebranded, armed, and supported.  Do you want to know what a barbaric ISIS caliphate with U.S. support looks like? Well, look no further than Saudi Arabia; it’s simply a posh version of ISIS whose medieval monarchy is happy to collude with the U.S. for their own psychopathic gains.

That plain and simple fact is not reported on, questioned or challenged, as it works against the interests that corporate and the establishment media represents. In reality, it shatters the most obvious of illusion that is curated and cultivated on the mainstream media every day. The truth that our state and corporate centres of power that rule over our lives are amoral and sociopathic institutions, that are willing to condone and conduct industrial levels of murder in the pursuit of profit and power

If the concerns about the Venezuelan democracy were true, they would be way down the list of “problem the nations” we must tend to, while Saudi Arabia would be top of that list. So, the next time you see a BBC report on how bad things are in Venezuela, try think back when  the BBC showed the same concern for the citizens of Saudi Arabia or any other of the horrible regimes our government supports. Then, observe whenever it reports on the like of the Saudi monarchs that the pundits, MPs, or military generals brought on to convince the public that “something must be done” get conveniently left out—which is convenient, indeed.