Where are the ‘empty shelves’? Max Blumenthal tours Caracas supermarket (VIDEO)
Corporate media grieve for the barren shelves and empty bellies in Venezuela, but are the alleged food shortages real? After touring a supermarket in Caracas, Max Blumenthal found plenty to buy – even craft beer.
“Grocery shelves lie empty as food becomes increasingly scarce” in Venezuela, the UK Independent weeps. The country’s shops remain open but “sparsely stocked,” The Guardian laments. Even “basic commodities” such as toothbrushes aren’t available for purchase, CNN bemoans. “Hungry” Venezuelans must choose between “torture or starvation,” Bloomberg grimly concludes. Mainstream media coverage of Venezuela gives the impression that President Nicolas Maduro is slowly starving his own people – a narrative which, as journalist Max Blumenthal found after surveying a massive supermarket in Caracas, is wildly deceptive.
The store offered a wide selection of meat, produce, and dairy (although no low-fat Greek yogurt, an indignity which is likely the result of Maduro’s tyrannical ways, Blumenthal jokingly hypothesizes). Most importantly, craft beer – a hallmark of heroic consumerism – could be found in the supermarket’s alcohol aisle.
Blumenthal also marveled at the store’s huge variety of scented toilet paper, shampoo and toiletries – the “basic commodities” which, according to CNN, are nowhere to be found in Venezuela.
“There isn’t an issue here with food distribution or food scarcity,” Blumenthal concludes. “The issue is the buying power of Venezuelans has been completely destroyed because their currency has been so badly weakened by hyperinflation, speculation and the flood of dollars that the government can’t control here, as well as hoarding by private capitalist elements that support the opposition.”
The amusing bit of on-the-ground reporting comes amid a tense stand-off over US attempts to deliver what Washington describes as humanitarian aid into Venezuela, in defiance of the wishes of its government. Juan Guaido, the US-backed, self-declared “interim president” of Venezuela, said on Thursday that he will personally go to the border with Colombia to get the shipment from the US, urging drivers to go with him and defy the border guards ordered to prevent the delivery.
Humanitarian organizations have distanced themselves from the alleged aid package, amid accusations that the “humanitarian aid” could contain military equipment, or be used for political purposes.
https://www.rt.com/news/452158-blumenth ... t-shelves/
Venezuela
Re: Venezuela
Violence Erupts at Venezuelan-Brazilian Border Ahead of ‘Aid’ Deadline
Tensions surrounding the entry of “humanitarian aid” are set to rise this weekend.
By Ricardo Vaz
Feb 22nd 2019 at 6.30pm
Maduro held a video conference with military leaders on Thursday (Presidential Press)
Caracas, February 22, 2019 (venezuelanalysis.com) - At least one person died and several were wounded in the Venezuelan town of Kumarakapay, on the border with Brazil.
According to reports, clashes erupted between the indigenous Pemon people and the Venezuelan National Guard as the latter moved tanks to shut down the border with Brazil. Local Mayor Emilio Gonzalez told Associated Press that security forces had fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. There were reports of a second casualty, and 12 to 14 wounded, which have yet to be confirmed.
President Maduro ordered Venezuela’s southern border with Brazil closed on Thursday. The measure took effect at 8 PM and will stay in place until further notice.
During a video conference with several armed forces commanders, Maduro instructed Major General Mantilla Oliveros, commander of the Guyana region defense, to strengthen security measures along the border in order to “protect the people.”
“Provocations need time in order to be dismantled,” he added.
Tensions along Venezuela’s borders have increased in recent weeks following self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido’s pledges, with the backing of the US and allies, that humanitarian aid would make its way into Venezuela “no matter what.”
Venezuelan authorities have vowed not to let the aid enter, seeing it as a possible spark for foreign intervention and stressing that the aid amount pales in comparison to losses incurred by sanctions. International agencies, including the Red Cross and the United Nations, have also criticized attempts to “politicize” aid.
Reports emerged that aid was being prepared both in Brazil and in the Dutch Antilles, with the respective borders shut down on Thursday and Wednesday, respectively. On Thursday, Maduro likewise floated the possibility of closing the border with Colombia.
Humanitarian aid has been stockpiled in the Colombian town of Cucuta, a few miles from the border, with February 23 the date set by Guaido for aid to enter. Food and medical supplies, originally reported to meet the needs of 5,000 people for 10 days, was transported by US military planes to Cucuta.
The Venezuelan opposition has been registering thousands of volunteers to mobilize and bring in the aid at the border, while billionaire British media mogul Richard Branson is hosting a “Live Aid”-style concert on the Colombian border which opened on Friday morning.
The Venezuelan government has responded by hosting a concert of its own on the Venezuelan side of the border, also underway on Friday, as well as pledging to bring 20,000 CLAP boxes of subsidized food and medical attention to communities in Cucuta.
Venezuelan authorities also reported on Thursday that the European Union had pledged US $2 billion worth of aid, termed as “technical assistance,” to be channeled through the United Nations.
According to Nicolas Maduro, the amount was pledged by the International Contact Group, headed by Uruguay and the European Union. The Venezuelan president also announced that 7.5 tonnes of medicine, supplied by Russia and the Panamerican Health Organization would be arriving shortly. A larger shipment of over 900 tonnes of medicine, bought from Cuba and China, also arrived on February 14.
Vice President Delcy Rodriguez told press on Thursday that Caracas had requested food and medical aid from the United Nations, but that the Venezuelan government was willing to support some of the costs.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14345
Tensions surrounding the entry of “humanitarian aid” are set to rise this weekend.
By Ricardo Vaz
Feb 22nd 2019 at 6.30pm
Maduro held a video conference with military leaders on Thursday (Presidential Press)
Caracas, February 22, 2019 (venezuelanalysis.com) - At least one person died and several were wounded in the Venezuelan town of Kumarakapay, on the border with Brazil.
According to reports, clashes erupted between the indigenous Pemon people and the Venezuelan National Guard as the latter moved tanks to shut down the border with Brazil. Local Mayor Emilio Gonzalez told Associated Press that security forces had fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. There were reports of a second casualty, and 12 to 14 wounded, which have yet to be confirmed.
President Maduro ordered Venezuela’s southern border with Brazil closed on Thursday. The measure took effect at 8 PM and will stay in place until further notice.
During a video conference with several armed forces commanders, Maduro instructed Major General Mantilla Oliveros, commander of the Guyana region defense, to strengthen security measures along the border in order to “protect the people.”
“Provocations need time in order to be dismantled,” he added.
Tensions along Venezuela’s borders have increased in recent weeks following self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido’s pledges, with the backing of the US and allies, that humanitarian aid would make its way into Venezuela “no matter what.”
Venezuelan authorities have vowed not to let the aid enter, seeing it as a possible spark for foreign intervention and stressing that the aid amount pales in comparison to losses incurred by sanctions. International agencies, including the Red Cross and the United Nations, have also criticized attempts to “politicize” aid.
Reports emerged that aid was being prepared both in Brazil and in the Dutch Antilles, with the respective borders shut down on Thursday and Wednesday, respectively. On Thursday, Maduro likewise floated the possibility of closing the border with Colombia.
Humanitarian aid has been stockpiled in the Colombian town of Cucuta, a few miles from the border, with February 23 the date set by Guaido for aid to enter. Food and medical supplies, originally reported to meet the needs of 5,000 people for 10 days, was transported by US military planes to Cucuta.
The Venezuelan opposition has been registering thousands of volunteers to mobilize and bring in the aid at the border, while billionaire British media mogul Richard Branson is hosting a “Live Aid”-style concert on the Colombian border which opened on Friday morning.
The Venezuelan government has responded by hosting a concert of its own on the Venezuelan side of the border, also underway on Friday, as well as pledging to bring 20,000 CLAP boxes of subsidized food and medical attention to communities in Cucuta.
Venezuelan authorities also reported on Thursday that the European Union had pledged US $2 billion worth of aid, termed as “technical assistance,” to be channeled through the United Nations.
According to Nicolas Maduro, the amount was pledged by the International Contact Group, headed by Uruguay and the European Union. The Venezuelan president also announced that 7.5 tonnes of medicine, supplied by Russia and the Panamerican Health Organization would be arriving shortly. A larger shipment of over 900 tonnes of medicine, bought from Cuba and China, also arrived on February 14.
Vice President Delcy Rodriguez told press on Thursday that Caracas had requested food and medical aid from the United Nations, but that the Venezuelan government was willing to support some of the costs.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14345
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Venezuela
On eve of US-orchestrated border confrontation
Washington’s “aid” provocation reportedly claims first victims in Venezuela
By Barry Grey
23 February 2019
A husband and wife were killed Friday morning and a dozen others injured, according to opposition sources, when Venezuelan troops fired on antigovernment protesters who sought to block a military convoy dispatched to reinforce a checkpoint near the country's border with Brazil.
No statement on the incident had been released by the government of Nicolás Maduro as of this writing.
The incident occurred in the southern village of Kumarakapay, an area inhabited by the indigenous Pemones people and lying on the main artery linking Venezuela and Brazil. It took place on the eve of Saturday's US-orchestrated operation aimed at provoking a clash between opposition forces, led by Washington's designated "interim president" Juan Guaidó, and forces loyal to the elected president, Maduro, on the pretense of bringing humanitarian aid into the country from neighboring Colombia and Brazil.
The right-wing governments of both countries have lined up behind Washington's attempt to carry out regime change against the bourgeois nationalist Maduro government.
Frustrated by its inability to break the Venezuelan military away from Maduro a month after giving the little-known official of the far-right Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) party, Guaidó, the go-ahead to declare himself "interim president," the Trump administration is aiming to provoke a confrontation between the Venezuelan military and opposition protesters that it can use to justify direct military intervention.
Friday's clash in southeastern Venezuela could be a small sample of bloody confrontations on either or both borders on Saturday that spark a civil war in the country, a military intervention by Venezuela's US-allied neighbors, by the US itself, or a combination of all three. US imperialism has created an explosive crisis that has brought the entire region to the brink of catastrophe.
The context of Friday's incident is a buildup of US supplies in Brazilian and Colombian towns that border on Venezuela and the efforts of the opposition to mobilize hundreds if not thousands, particularly across the border from the Colombian town of Cúcuta, to physically confront government barriers and troops and forcibly bring medical supplies and food into Venezuela under the auspices of the antigovernment opposition. Guaidó has said he plans to mobilize a “humanitarian avalanche” at the borders.
Opposition leaders are convening in San Cristóbal, the biggest Venezuelan city near the Colombian border, to oversee the operation. Volunteers are to be bused to the four international bridges that connect bordering cities to Cúcuta to escort the aid across the border. Opposition leaders say the protesters will march toward San Cristóbal’s military barracks holding flags.
In preparation for Saturday, Maduro has deployed troops to the border to enforce a blockade of the aid, closed Venezuela’s border with Brazil, ordered the grounding of private jet traffic nationwide, and blocked air and sea travel between Venezuela and the nearby Dutch island of Curaçao, where supplies from the US arrived earlier on Thursday.
On Friday, the New York Times, which, along with the Democratic Party, is fully supporting Trump’s regime-change operation and is backing the fraudulent "humanitarian" aid effort, quoted Jason Marczak, director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington DC as saying, “Venezuela’s borders are a powder keg with sky-high tensions, meaning that any errant move could unleash a wave of violence. The key question is who will blink first.”
There are concerns within the US ruling elite and foreign policy establishment over the potential consequences of the brazen and reckless policy being carried out by Trump and his far-right team of advisers, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Trump's designated point man on Venezuela, Elliot Abrams. This was reflected in a segment on Thursday's Public Broadcasting Service evening news interviewing Venezuelan citizens who vehemently oppose the intervention by the US and Washington's hand-picked puppet Guaidó.
Washington's pretensions of humanitarian concern and democratic scruples are absurd. The economic crisis that is ravaging Venezuela is the result of the global capitalist economic crisis and fall in oil prices, compounded by US economic sanctions and the pro-capitalist policies of the Maduro regime, which, despite its claims to "Bolivarian socialism," has continued to pay off its loans from the imperialist banks and protected the interests of domestic and international capital.
The US has pledged a paltry $20 million in humanitarian aid to the country, while the embargo it imposed last month on the nation's oil industry is costing Venezuela $30 million in revenues every day. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that oil stockpiles in the country are at a five-year high as a result of the sanctions imposed in January, because of the reduction in Venezuela's export markets. The US is seeking to starve the country into succumbing to an American coup.
The US is out to overthrow the Maduro regime because it wants to seize the country's oil industry—Venezuela sits astride the largest proven oil reserves in the world—and destroy the growing influence of China and Russia in the country and the region, so as to establish unbridled US hegemony over all of Latin America.
Recently, John Bolton said on Fox News: “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”
Trump has made the removal of the "socialist" government in Venezuela the spearhead of a fascistic attack on socialism. In a rant last Monday before an audience of far-right Venezuelan and Cuban exiles and Republican operatives in Miami, Trump proclaimed, "the twilight of socialism in the Western Hemisphere," and made clear that regime change in that country was the prelude to similar operations against Nicaragua and Cuba.
On Wednesday, John Bolton reiterated this intention, tweeting: “As President Trump said Monday, Ortega’s days are numbered, and the Nicaraguan people will soon be free.”
Bolton and Abrams were personally and intimately involved in the drive by the United States in the 1980s to supply arms to terrorists such as the Nicaraguan Contras and the Salvadoran death squads under cover of providing "humanitarian aid."
It is highly likely that the C-17 Air Force cargo planes Washington is flying into Cúcuta contain weapons and ammunition along with food and medical supplies. The Russian foreign ministry, which has denounced the “aid” operation as “a convenient pretext for conducting military action,” accused the US of deploying “special forces and equipment near Venezuelan territory.”
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters Friday that the US is preparing weapons shipments for the opposition. She said the arms, purchased “in an Eastern European country,” would likely include “large-caliber machine guns, grenade launchers, assault rifles and man-portable anti-aircraft rocket systems.”
Whatever happens on Saturday, the Trump administration is preparing to escalate its coup efforts in Venezuela. Vice President Mike Pence, who personally gave Guaidó the go-ahead to announce his "interim presidency" last month, will be in Colombia Monday for a meeting of the Lima Group, a coalition of Latin American countries, plus Canada, that have backed Washington's demand for Maduro's ouster. He will be joined by Guaidó in the discussions to plot the next stage of the coup.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/0 ... e-f23.html
Washington’s “aid” provocation reportedly claims first victims in Venezuela
By Barry Grey
23 February 2019
A husband and wife were killed Friday morning and a dozen others injured, according to opposition sources, when Venezuelan troops fired on antigovernment protesters who sought to block a military convoy dispatched to reinforce a checkpoint near the country's border with Brazil.
No statement on the incident had been released by the government of Nicolás Maduro as of this writing.
The incident occurred in the southern village of Kumarakapay, an area inhabited by the indigenous Pemones people and lying on the main artery linking Venezuela and Brazil. It took place on the eve of Saturday's US-orchestrated operation aimed at provoking a clash between opposition forces, led by Washington's designated "interim president" Juan Guaidó, and forces loyal to the elected president, Maduro, on the pretense of bringing humanitarian aid into the country from neighboring Colombia and Brazil.
The right-wing governments of both countries have lined up behind Washington's attempt to carry out regime change against the bourgeois nationalist Maduro government.
Frustrated by its inability to break the Venezuelan military away from Maduro a month after giving the little-known official of the far-right Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) party, Guaidó, the go-ahead to declare himself "interim president," the Trump administration is aiming to provoke a confrontation between the Venezuelan military and opposition protesters that it can use to justify direct military intervention.
Friday's clash in southeastern Venezuela could be a small sample of bloody confrontations on either or both borders on Saturday that spark a civil war in the country, a military intervention by Venezuela's US-allied neighbors, by the US itself, or a combination of all three. US imperialism has created an explosive crisis that has brought the entire region to the brink of catastrophe.
The context of Friday's incident is a buildup of US supplies in Brazilian and Colombian towns that border on Venezuela and the efforts of the opposition to mobilize hundreds if not thousands, particularly across the border from the Colombian town of Cúcuta, to physically confront government barriers and troops and forcibly bring medical supplies and food into Venezuela under the auspices of the antigovernment opposition. Guaidó has said he plans to mobilize a “humanitarian avalanche” at the borders.
Opposition leaders are convening in San Cristóbal, the biggest Venezuelan city near the Colombian border, to oversee the operation. Volunteers are to be bused to the four international bridges that connect bordering cities to Cúcuta to escort the aid across the border. Opposition leaders say the protesters will march toward San Cristóbal’s military barracks holding flags.
In preparation for Saturday, Maduro has deployed troops to the border to enforce a blockade of the aid, closed Venezuela’s border with Brazil, ordered the grounding of private jet traffic nationwide, and blocked air and sea travel between Venezuela and the nearby Dutch island of Curaçao, where supplies from the US arrived earlier on Thursday.
On Friday, the New York Times, which, along with the Democratic Party, is fully supporting Trump’s regime-change operation and is backing the fraudulent "humanitarian" aid effort, quoted Jason Marczak, director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington DC as saying, “Venezuela’s borders are a powder keg with sky-high tensions, meaning that any errant move could unleash a wave of violence. The key question is who will blink first.”
There are concerns within the US ruling elite and foreign policy establishment over the potential consequences of the brazen and reckless policy being carried out by Trump and his far-right team of advisers, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Trump's designated point man on Venezuela, Elliot Abrams. This was reflected in a segment on Thursday's Public Broadcasting Service evening news interviewing Venezuelan citizens who vehemently oppose the intervention by the US and Washington's hand-picked puppet Guaidó.
Washington's pretensions of humanitarian concern and democratic scruples are absurd. The economic crisis that is ravaging Venezuela is the result of the global capitalist economic crisis and fall in oil prices, compounded by US economic sanctions and the pro-capitalist policies of the Maduro regime, which, despite its claims to "Bolivarian socialism," has continued to pay off its loans from the imperialist banks and protected the interests of domestic and international capital.
The US has pledged a paltry $20 million in humanitarian aid to the country, while the embargo it imposed last month on the nation's oil industry is costing Venezuela $30 million in revenues every day. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that oil stockpiles in the country are at a five-year high as a result of the sanctions imposed in January, because of the reduction in Venezuela's export markets. The US is seeking to starve the country into succumbing to an American coup.
The US is out to overthrow the Maduro regime because it wants to seize the country's oil industry—Venezuela sits astride the largest proven oil reserves in the world—and destroy the growing influence of China and Russia in the country and the region, so as to establish unbridled US hegemony over all of Latin America.
Recently, John Bolton said on Fox News: “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”
Trump has made the removal of the "socialist" government in Venezuela the spearhead of a fascistic attack on socialism. In a rant last Monday before an audience of far-right Venezuelan and Cuban exiles and Republican operatives in Miami, Trump proclaimed, "the twilight of socialism in the Western Hemisphere," and made clear that regime change in that country was the prelude to similar operations against Nicaragua and Cuba.
On Wednesday, John Bolton reiterated this intention, tweeting: “As President Trump said Monday, Ortega’s days are numbered, and the Nicaraguan people will soon be free.”
Bolton and Abrams were personally and intimately involved in the drive by the United States in the 1980s to supply arms to terrorists such as the Nicaraguan Contras and the Salvadoran death squads under cover of providing "humanitarian aid."
It is highly likely that the C-17 Air Force cargo planes Washington is flying into Cúcuta contain weapons and ammunition along with food and medical supplies. The Russian foreign ministry, which has denounced the “aid” operation as “a convenient pretext for conducting military action,” accused the US of deploying “special forces and equipment near Venezuelan territory.”
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters Friday that the US is preparing weapons shipments for the opposition. She said the arms, purchased “in an Eastern European country,” would likely include “large-caliber machine guns, grenade launchers, assault rifles and man-portable anti-aircraft rocket systems.”
Whatever happens on Saturday, the Trump administration is preparing to escalate its coup efforts in Venezuela. Vice President Mike Pence, who personally gave Guaidó the go-ahead to announce his "interim presidency" last month, will be in Colombia Monday for a meeting of the Lima Group, a coalition of Latin American countries, plus Canada, that have backed Washington's demand for Maduro's ouster. He will be joined by Guaidó in the discussions to plot the next stage of the coup.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/0 ... e-f23.html
Re: Venezuela
Confront Imperialism and Don’t Make Concessions: A Conversation with Nestor Kohan (Part 1)
An important Latin American political theorist suggests that Marxism and Bolivarianism together represent the solution to the continental crisis.
Néstor Kohan is a longtime militant and a philosophy professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires.
By Cira Pascual Marquina
Feb 23rd 2019 at 9.43am
More than any other living thinker, Argentinian intellectual Nestor Kohan has worked to recover the tradition of Latin American revolutionary Marxism, a trajectory that he argues stretches from Julio Antonio Mella and Jose Carlos Mariategui to Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Manuel Marulanda. Kohan has also developed a reading of Marx that considers commodity fetichism to be the centerpiece of Capital: Critique of Political Economy at the same time as it emphasizes the political and revolutionary character of all of Marx’s texts. Kohan has supported the Bolivarian Process from its beginning. In this interview, we asked him questions about crisis engulfing the whole continent, with Venezuela as its epicenter.
What is happening right now in Latin America seems to have a lot in common with Operation Condor, that aimed to rollback the revolutionary tide of the 1960s and ‘70s. Today, US imperialism wants to wipe out the “Pink Tide” that began at the start of the current century. Do you think the analogy is relevant?
In the decade of the 1970s Operation Condor was born. There is a lot of investigation about it and a lot of evidence. An Argentinian investigator, Stella Calloni, wrote a very good book about the Operation, and a Paraguayan victim of political persecution found documents in Paraguay that prove its existence. Intelligence agents of the Pinochet dictatorship also made declarations that ratify its existence, and finally there are declassified documents of the CIA that confirm it too. In effect, there was a coordinated international project put in place to carry out repression on a continental scale. In other words, there was a right-wing internationalism, a counter-revolutionary internationalism.
On a rhetorical level, the counterrevolution traded in nationalist language. In every country they even talked about defending the “national self” (el ser nacional). That was their preferred jargon, but their practice was internationalist, and their combatants and agents operated in many countries. For instance, the terrorist of Cuban-American descent Felix Rodriguez not only assassinated Che Guevara. He later participated in the counterinsurgency in El Salvador. There are films of Felix Rodriguez on a helicopter shooting at the troops of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador.
Another terrorist of Cuban-American descent, Luis Posada Carriles, put a bomb in a commercial airplane, killing many civilians. He also operated in several countries. Many of these terrorists did their work in several countries. The bomb that killed [Chilean economist] Orlando Letelier in the US itself was set off by agents of the Chilean intelligence. They were, arguably, internationalists.
The “clandestine detention centers” – that was the juridical terminology used in Argentina – also worked on an international level. In Buenos Aires, there was an extermination camp, a torture camp. (I call it that, because there’s no reason to use the juridical terminology, let’s speak without euphemisms.) Well, one of those camps for torturing and “disappearing” people was called “Automotores Orletti,” because it was run from an auto repair shop. They gathered there the foreigners they had kidnapped from countries nearby Argentina (Chileans, Uruguayans, Paraguayans), and they sent them back to their respective dictatorships. In other words, Operation Condor worked on a continental scale. Who directed it? The United States. One of its main heads was Henry Kissinger. That is a well-known fact.
So where did Operation Condor come from? The National Security Doctrine, that is how they called it, which was nothing other than a counterinsurgency doctrine, imported from the French torturers in Algeria. The United States applied it in Vietnam… The practice used by the US in Vietnam, for instance, of throwing prisoners alive from airplanes, which was part of the Phoenix Program. Well, that same practice was used in Argentina. They threw the revolutionaries captured by the military and the navy from airplanes into the Rio de la Plata. And they also combined it with the same form of massive torture that was used in Algerian torture camps – including the systematic rape of men and women – during the French occupation.
So those were the two doctrines, French and North American, that were taught in the counterinsurgency schools in Panama (run by the US military’s SOUTHCOM), and in the war school in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, after the 1964 coup, and in Buenos Aires too.
So what was Operation Condor trying to do in the broad sense? It was [imperialism’s] reaction to three things. First, to the huge revolutionary insurgency, the huge “social rebellion” of the 1960s, which went from the Vietnamese Revolution to the Algerian Revolution and the Cuban Revolution. It also included the youth rebellions that took place in Mexico, Tokyo, Rome, Berlin, Berkeley and Paris (which was the most famous one). So Operation Condor was a response to the 1960s social rebellion. It was a response, as well, to the emergence of Third-World national liberation movements, because many countries, nations and communities that had been French, English, Dutch, US, or Japanese colonies, gained independence between the end of World War II and the late 1960s, or even the end of 1970s, if we consider the case of Angola.
So this counterinsurgency doctrine that expressed itself in Operation Condor (but not only in it) was an organized response. First, it was a reaction to the “social rebellion” of the 1960s and the global emergence of Third World national liberation movements. Second, it was a response to the declining profit rate which was felt especially sharply with the oil crisis, or “petrodollar crisis,” of 1973 and 1974. That economic crisis was itself the outcome of the rebelliousness in the workforce. In effect, counterinsurgency tries to curb the consequences of the falling profit rate. Thirdly, there was the overall aim of disciplining the workforce, imposing mechanisms of super-exploitation on Third World workers, and finishing off with the welfare state (the so-called “golden age of capitalism” that had lasted little more than 30 years in Western Europe: from the end of World War II through the crisis of the early 70s). The aim was to be able to make a capitalism-in-crisis function again.
In sum, Operation Condor was imperialism’s political reaction to these three issues… It was a project that produced a strong social response and a lot of conflict. In other words, imperialism did not have an easy time implementing it.
Portraits of missing persons, victims of Operation Condor during the Paraguayan dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. (Archive)
Are we seeing the same thing today then? Is there an Operation Condor of the twenty-first century?
Today, the counterinsurgency project continues. There is some continuity and some discontinuity. I believe that we are seeing a new attempt to apply the [old] counterinsurgency doctrine in different conditions. Why does this happen? Because rebellions reemerged, as responses to neoliberalism, which was applied at the end of the 1970s. The rebellions emerged after twenty or so years of neoliberalism.
First, there was the Zapatista rebellion in 1994. Then came Chavez’s emergence in Venezuela. There was also the ongoing political-military insurgency in Colombia and the survival of non-capitalist relations in Cuba. That wave of rebelliousness against neoliberalism extended to the World Social Forums in the early twenty-first century. And it got more radical when Chavez declared the Bolivarian Revolution to be socialist...To the Zapatista’s question, ”Is there a world where all other worlds fit?,” the World Social Forum responded: “Another world is possible.” Then Chavez raised the stakes. He said that other possible world must be a socialist one. And he added, it’s “Twenty-First Century Socialism.”
So what is “Twenty-First Century Socialism”? The question was an open one. In my opinion, it is a weakness of the progressive movements to not have defined Twenty-First Century Socialism, to have stopped short. However, I think we should be cautious in our answers, because from my point of view there are no pre-established models about to how to make the transition from capitalism to socialism, of how to initiate the transition to socialism. There are no models.
Many paths were proposed to Chavez. Some people suggested that using self-managed industries was the right path, as was done in Yugoslavia. Others proposed to follow the path of market socialism, as Deng Xiaoping had done in China. Still others, including me, suggested working with Che Guevara’s project and his Budgetary Finance System. In other words, a transition to socialism based on Popular Power, on participative democracy, but also with a centralized economy. Venezuela has an apparatus that offers certain advantages when it comes to applying this system. Its situation is more favorable than Cuba’s, where the economy was based only on sugar.
Venezuela has nothing less than [state oil company] PDVSA, which could, with its oil resources, coordinate a series of activities – not only those relating to the oil profits – but of collective, centralized socialist production, with a centralized banking system and a nationalizing [network of] large enterprises. But that had to be done not only in one isolated country, Venezuela. The proposal was that from ALBA, the Budgetary Finance System could be put in practice on a continental scale. If not in all of the countries, at least in a great many of them.
Hence I believe that President Chavez and Bolivarian Venezuela only went halfway, not because they were lukewarm or didn’t understand Marxism, or there was a shallow reading of it. They did so because there was and there continues to be an open debate. The debate is about the transition to socialism. It is not a new discussion. There have been at least three stages.
The first stage took place in the 1920s in Bolshevik Russia, where not everybody was in agreement as to how to move forward. On the one hand, Nicolai Buharin proposed market socialism. On the other side was Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, who proposed an economy with centralized planning. Meanwhile, Lenin tried to find a political solution, reconciling the two.
That very rich debate [about the transition to socialism] from the 1920s reemerges in the decade of the 1960s in Cuba, where Charles Bettleheim proposes market socialism together with Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, who had a somewhat more pro-Soviet attitude. On the other hand, Che Guevara, supported by Ernest Mandel, proposes the Budgetary Finance System. As Lenin had done before, Fidel opts for a political solution that tries to maintain the alliance between the two tendencies as Lenin had done in the Bolshevik Russia of the 1920s… He tried to keep the pro-market current and the central planning current both within the revolution’s sweep.
The third phase of this debate is the one that exists now. It’s the one that has been going on in Venezuela and I think in the Bolivian process too. It’s a debate that is going to happen in any Third World or peripheral country that wants to leave capitalism behind. It is an open debate. It’s not a failing or a problem that the debate is there. The progressive governments in Latin America – in the Venezuelan case it’s a government that stands out for it socialist intentions – have raised this debate. It is still an open one and has not been resolved.
How is socialism built in a peripheral country like Venezuela?
Following up on that, let’s look critically at our movements and political process in Latin America, which are all in crisis now. Would it be fair to say that these progressive movements are in trouble because of their failure to connect with the Latin American revolutionary tradition and with the practices that derive from Marxist theory?
Are you asking whether Marxism guarantees that we will have successes and triumphs? Is that what we are talking about? I believe that Marxism is a political identity, a conception of the world and of life. It is a multilinear and materialist conception of history, a philosophy of praxis, and a dialectical method, but in itself it does not assure [that we are on a] revolutionary path.
Marxism is a tremendous tool that allows us to understand how capitalism works and understand what are the elements that bring it into crisis. It allows us to understand the mechanisms of exploitation, domination, dependency, and imperialism. Yet merely appealing to Marxist texts does not guarantee a revolutionary outcome.
As an Argentinian, I know a tremendous number of Marxist intellectuals who can quote from classical Marxist works, but in practice they have reformist positions! And as far as Venezuela is concerned, they have very ambiguous positions! Some don’t know if they should support the Bolivarian Process. Or they don’t want to admit it because they are embarrassed by their own positions, but they support the imperialist offensive using quotes taken with tweezers from Marx’s texts. They don’t define themselves clearly against imperialism, and yet they employ apparently Marxist rhetoric. For that reason, appealing to Marxist texts is not sufficient to confirm that you’re going in a revolutionary direction.
I believe that revolutionary Marxism must be accompanied by a firm revolutionary project and not just a reading of the texts. In that sense, I believe that Bolivarianism is an emancipatory continental project that could [fill that role]. That is what Chavez tried and it what the Colombian insurgency tried to do (along with a lot of other people in the continent). I believe that the synthesis of Marxism and Bolivarianism is the best assurance that we can have a leftist solution to the crisis, one that questions capitalism. In other words, confront imperialism and not make any concessions. And that is not going to be achieved only by quoting the classical works of Marxism.
It is necessary to study Marxism, but it’s not enough. Marxism is needed because it makes things clear. It is necessary because it is a theoretical and scientific tool and critical method, but it must go hand on hand with clear political positions. Again, in Argentina there are political currents that quote Marxist texts, but when imperialism attacked Syria and Libya and now Venezuela, they have very ambiguous positions. They declare Maduro to be a tyrant. They declare Gaddafi to be a tyrant, whom they lynched! They say Saddam Hussein was a tyrant! In other words, in the name of Marxism they end up being the shock troops of imperialism. So studying Marxism is necessary, but it has to go hand on hand with revolutionary positions.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14346
An important Latin American political theorist suggests that Marxism and Bolivarianism together represent the solution to the continental crisis.
Néstor Kohan is a longtime militant and a philosophy professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires.
By Cira Pascual Marquina
Feb 23rd 2019 at 9.43am
More than any other living thinker, Argentinian intellectual Nestor Kohan has worked to recover the tradition of Latin American revolutionary Marxism, a trajectory that he argues stretches from Julio Antonio Mella and Jose Carlos Mariategui to Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Manuel Marulanda. Kohan has also developed a reading of Marx that considers commodity fetichism to be the centerpiece of Capital: Critique of Political Economy at the same time as it emphasizes the political and revolutionary character of all of Marx’s texts. Kohan has supported the Bolivarian Process from its beginning. In this interview, we asked him questions about crisis engulfing the whole continent, with Venezuela as its epicenter.
What is happening right now in Latin America seems to have a lot in common with Operation Condor, that aimed to rollback the revolutionary tide of the 1960s and ‘70s. Today, US imperialism wants to wipe out the “Pink Tide” that began at the start of the current century. Do you think the analogy is relevant?
In the decade of the 1970s Operation Condor was born. There is a lot of investigation about it and a lot of evidence. An Argentinian investigator, Stella Calloni, wrote a very good book about the Operation, and a Paraguayan victim of political persecution found documents in Paraguay that prove its existence. Intelligence agents of the Pinochet dictatorship also made declarations that ratify its existence, and finally there are declassified documents of the CIA that confirm it too. In effect, there was a coordinated international project put in place to carry out repression on a continental scale. In other words, there was a right-wing internationalism, a counter-revolutionary internationalism.
On a rhetorical level, the counterrevolution traded in nationalist language. In every country they even talked about defending the “national self” (el ser nacional). That was their preferred jargon, but their practice was internationalist, and their combatants and agents operated in many countries. For instance, the terrorist of Cuban-American descent Felix Rodriguez not only assassinated Che Guevara. He later participated in the counterinsurgency in El Salvador. There are films of Felix Rodriguez on a helicopter shooting at the troops of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador.
Another terrorist of Cuban-American descent, Luis Posada Carriles, put a bomb in a commercial airplane, killing many civilians. He also operated in several countries. Many of these terrorists did their work in several countries. The bomb that killed [Chilean economist] Orlando Letelier in the US itself was set off by agents of the Chilean intelligence. They were, arguably, internationalists.
The “clandestine detention centers” – that was the juridical terminology used in Argentina – also worked on an international level. In Buenos Aires, there was an extermination camp, a torture camp. (I call it that, because there’s no reason to use the juridical terminology, let’s speak without euphemisms.) Well, one of those camps for torturing and “disappearing” people was called “Automotores Orletti,” because it was run from an auto repair shop. They gathered there the foreigners they had kidnapped from countries nearby Argentina (Chileans, Uruguayans, Paraguayans), and they sent them back to their respective dictatorships. In other words, Operation Condor worked on a continental scale. Who directed it? The United States. One of its main heads was Henry Kissinger. That is a well-known fact.
So where did Operation Condor come from? The National Security Doctrine, that is how they called it, which was nothing other than a counterinsurgency doctrine, imported from the French torturers in Algeria. The United States applied it in Vietnam… The practice used by the US in Vietnam, for instance, of throwing prisoners alive from airplanes, which was part of the Phoenix Program. Well, that same practice was used in Argentina. They threw the revolutionaries captured by the military and the navy from airplanes into the Rio de la Plata. And they also combined it with the same form of massive torture that was used in Algerian torture camps – including the systematic rape of men and women – during the French occupation.
So those were the two doctrines, French and North American, that were taught in the counterinsurgency schools in Panama (run by the US military’s SOUTHCOM), and in the war school in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, after the 1964 coup, and in Buenos Aires too.
So what was Operation Condor trying to do in the broad sense? It was [imperialism’s] reaction to three things. First, to the huge revolutionary insurgency, the huge “social rebellion” of the 1960s, which went from the Vietnamese Revolution to the Algerian Revolution and the Cuban Revolution. It also included the youth rebellions that took place in Mexico, Tokyo, Rome, Berlin, Berkeley and Paris (which was the most famous one). So Operation Condor was a response to the 1960s social rebellion. It was a response, as well, to the emergence of Third-World national liberation movements, because many countries, nations and communities that had been French, English, Dutch, US, or Japanese colonies, gained independence between the end of World War II and the late 1960s, or even the end of 1970s, if we consider the case of Angola.
So this counterinsurgency doctrine that expressed itself in Operation Condor (but not only in it) was an organized response. First, it was a reaction to the “social rebellion” of the 1960s and the global emergence of Third World national liberation movements. Second, it was a response to the declining profit rate which was felt especially sharply with the oil crisis, or “petrodollar crisis,” of 1973 and 1974. That economic crisis was itself the outcome of the rebelliousness in the workforce. In effect, counterinsurgency tries to curb the consequences of the falling profit rate. Thirdly, there was the overall aim of disciplining the workforce, imposing mechanisms of super-exploitation on Third World workers, and finishing off with the welfare state (the so-called “golden age of capitalism” that had lasted little more than 30 years in Western Europe: from the end of World War II through the crisis of the early 70s). The aim was to be able to make a capitalism-in-crisis function again.
In sum, Operation Condor was imperialism’s political reaction to these three issues… It was a project that produced a strong social response and a lot of conflict. In other words, imperialism did not have an easy time implementing it.
Portraits of missing persons, victims of Operation Condor during the Paraguayan dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. (Archive)
Are we seeing the same thing today then? Is there an Operation Condor of the twenty-first century?
Today, the counterinsurgency project continues. There is some continuity and some discontinuity. I believe that we are seeing a new attempt to apply the [old] counterinsurgency doctrine in different conditions. Why does this happen? Because rebellions reemerged, as responses to neoliberalism, which was applied at the end of the 1970s. The rebellions emerged after twenty or so years of neoliberalism.
First, there was the Zapatista rebellion in 1994. Then came Chavez’s emergence in Venezuela. There was also the ongoing political-military insurgency in Colombia and the survival of non-capitalist relations in Cuba. That wave of rebelliousness against neoliberalism extended to the World Social Forums in the early twenty-first century. And it got more radical when Chavez declared the Bolivarian Revolution to be socialist...To the Zapatista’s question, ”Is there a world where all other worlds fit?,” the World Social Forum responded: “Another world is possible.” Then Chavez raised the stakes. He said that other possible world must be a socialist one. And he added, it’s “Twenty-First Century Socialism.”
So what is “Twenty-First Century Socialism”? The question was an open one. In my opinion, it is a weakness of the progressive movements to not have defined Twenty-First Century Socialism, to have stopped short. However, I think we should be cautious in our answers, because from my point of view there are no pre-established models about to how to make the transition from capitalism to socialism, of how to initiate the transition to socialism. There are no models.
Many paths were proposed to Chavez. Some people suggested that using self-managed industries was the right path, as was done in Yugoslavia. Others proposed to follow the path of market socialism, as Deng Xiaoping had done in China. Still others, including me, suggested working with Che Guevara’s project and his Budgetary Finance System. In other words, a transition to socialism based on Popular Power, on participative democracy, but also with a centralized economy. Venezuela has an apparatus that offers certain advantages when it comes to applying this system. Its situation is more favorable than Cuba’s, where the economy was based only on sugar.
Venezuela has nothing less than [state oil company] PDVSA, which could, with its oil resources, coordinate a series of activities – not only those relating to the oil profits – but of collective, centralized socialist production, with a centralized banking system and a nationalizing [network of] large enterprises. But that had to be done not only in one isolated country, Venezuela. The proposal was that from ALBA, the Budgetary Finance System could be put in practice on a continental scale. If not in all of the countries, at least in a great many of them.
Hence I believe that President Chavez and Bolivarian Venezuela only went halfway, not because they were lukewarm or didn’t understand Marxism, or there was a shallow reading of it. They did so because there was and there continues to be an open debate. The debate is about the transition to socialism. It is not a new discussion. There have been at least three stages.
The first stage took place in the 1920s in Bolshevik Russia, where not everybody was in agreement as to how to move forward. On the one hand, Nicolai Buharin proposed market socialism. On the other side was Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, who proposed an economy with centralized planning. Meanwhile, Lenin tried to find a political solution, reconciling the two.
That very rich debate [about the transition to socialism] from the 1920s reemerges in the decade of the 1960s in Cuba, where Charles Bettleheim proposes market socialism together with Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, who had a somewhat more pro-Soviet attitude. On the other hand, Che Guevara, supported by Ernest Mandel, proposes the Budgetary Finance System. As Lenin had done before, Fidel opts for a political solution that tries to maintain the alliance between the two tendencies as Lenin had done in the Bolshevik Russia of the 1920s… He tried to keep the pro-market current and the central planning current both within the revolution’s sweep.
The third phase of this debate is the one that exists now. It’s the one that has been going on in Venezuela and I think in the Bolivian process too. It’s a debate that is going to happen in any Third World or peripheral country that wants to leave capitalism behind. It is an open debate. It’s not a failing or a problem that the debate is there. The progressive governments in Latin America – in the Venezuelan case it’s a government that stands out for it socialist intentions – have raised this debate. It is still an open one and has not been resolved.
How is socialism built in a peripheral country like Venezuela?
Following up on that, let’s look critically at our movements and political process in Latin America, which are all in crisis now. Would it be fair to say that these progressive movements are in trouble because of their failure to connect with the Latin American revolutionary tradition and with the practices that derive from Marxist theory?
Are you asking whether Marxism guarantees that we will have successes and triumphs? Is that what we are talking about? I believe that Marxism is a political identity, a conception of the world and of life. It is a multilinear and materialist conception of history, a philosophy of praxis, and a dialectical method, but in itself it does not assure [that we are on a] revolutionary path.
Marxism is a tremendous tool that allows us to understand how capitalism works and understand what are the elements that bring it into crisis. It allows us to understand the mechanisms of exploitation, domination, dependency, and imperialism. Yet merely appealing to Marxist texts does not guarantee a revolutionary outcome.
As an Argentinian, I know a tremendous number of Marxist intellectuals who can quote from classical Marxist works, but in practice they have reformist positions! And as far as Venezuela is concerned, they have very ambiguous positions! Some don’t know if they should support the Bolivarian Process. Or they don’t want to admit it because they are embarrassed by their own positions, but they support the imperialist offensive using quotes taken with tweezers from Marx’s texts. They don’t define themselves clearly against imperialism, and yet they employ apparently Marxist rhetoric. For that reason, appealing to Marxist texts is not sufficient to confirm that you’re going in a revolutionary direction.
I believe that revolutionary Marxism must be accompanied by a firm revolutionary project and not just a reading of the texts. In that sense, I believe that Bolivarianism is an emancipatory continental project that could [fill that role]. That is what Chavez tried and it what the Colombian insurgency tried to do (along with a lot of other people in the continent). I believe that the synthesis of Marxism and Bolivarianism is the best assurance that we can have a leftist solution to the crisis, one that questions capitalism. In other words, confront imperialism and not make any concessions. And that is not going to be achieved only by quoting the classical works of Marxism.
It is necessary to study Marxism, but it’s not enough. Marxism is needed because it makes things clear. It is necessary because it is a theoretical and scientific tool and critical method, but it must go hand on hand with clear political positions. Again, in Argentina there are political currents that quote Marxist texts, but when imperialism attacked Syria and Libya and now Venezuela, they have very ambiguous positions. They declare Maduro to be a tyrant. They declare Gaddafi to be a tyrant, whom they lynched! They say Saddam Hussein was a tyrant! In other words, in the name of Marxism they end up being the shock troops of imperialism. So studying Marxism is necessary, but it has to go hand on hand with revolutionary positions.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14346
Re: Venezuela
Today, Puente Las Tienditas, at the border with Colombia(18 hrs ago)
Now, Zulia
Courtesy Francisco Nunes @fcn_84
people as far as the eye can see..compare to the photo of the Branson concert claiming 300K but not more than a tenth that.
Now, Zulia
Courtesy Francisco Nunes @fcn_84
people as far as the eye can see..compare to the photo of the Branson concert claiming 300K but not more than a tenth that.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Venezuela
I was asking those defenders of capitalism (private finance/property/inheritance) why it seems that they are unable to defend their social construct on the basis of merit and must resort to Might-Makes-Right. Why can't there be alternative social systems and lets see how they fare and how their people do in the long term approach?
You would think that the West would jump at the chance to compete with socialism until you look at that PROFIT millstone they are forced to add to any organizational form and that the focus is not on serving the client but making money from them. The West only knows how to use Might-Makes-Right to maintain their social system and since they are unable to project that control worldwide they are destined to fail when any sort of more humanistic social system exists as the alternative.
Venezuela is a proxy battle in this bigger war about the historic jackboot of global private finance control of everything.
=============
You would think that the West would jump at the chance to compete with socialism until you look at that PROFIT millstone they are forced to add to any organizational form and that the focus is not on serving the client but making money from them. The West only knows how to use Might-Makes-Right to maintain their social system and since they are unable to project that control worldwide they are destined to fail when any sort of more humanistic social system exists as the alternative.
Venezuela is a proxy battle in this bigger war about the historic jackboot of global private finance control of everything.
=============
Re: Venezuela
Venezuela Breaks Relations with Colombia as Guaido Tries to Force Aid In
Skirmishes broke out on the Colombian and Brazilian borders but efforts to bring in aid have so far been unsuccessful.
By Paul Dobson
Feb 23rd 2019 at 7.09pm
TOPICS
International
Military
Opposition
TAGS
23 January 2019 CoupJuan GuaidoRed Cross
SHORT URL:
https://venezuelanalysis.com/N48P
1976285-n_0.jpg
Venezuelan soldiers patrol the Brazilian border that the Venezuelan government ordered closed on Friday (AP)
Venezuelan soldiers patrol the Brazilian border that the Venezuelan government ordered closed on Friday (AP)
Merida, February 23, 2019 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that Venezuela is breaking diplomatic relations with neighbouring Colombia and gave Colombian diplomats 24 hours to leave the country.
“My patience has run out, we can’t keep allowing Colombian territory to be used for attacks against Venezuela,” he stated to the crowd. “You are the devil himself [Colombian President] Ivan Duque,” he added.
His comments came at a large anti-imperialist rally in Caracas held under the slogan ‘Hands off Venezuela.’
Tensions have reached new heights along the Venezuelan-Colombian border after self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido pledged that aid would enter the country on Saturday “no matter what.” The aid, which is being supplied by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and stockpiled in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, the Brazilian border city of Boa Vista, and on the Dutch Caribbean Island of Curacao, consists of basic food products such as lentils and flour, as well as basic personal hygiene products estimated to meet the needs of 5,000 people for roughly 10 days.
Caracas has denounced the move as a precursor for a US-led military intervention into the country and proceeded to shut down the borders with Dutch Caribbean Islands, Brazil and Colombia on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday respectively. This stance has been supported by both the Chinese and Russian governments, with Russian foreign office spokespersons telling reporters Friday that the “aid” scheme “resembled those in Iraq and Libya.” Moscow also accused Washington of arming the Venezuelan opposition.
concentracion_av_libertador_marcha_paz_230219.jpg
Chavistas turned out in force in Caracas this Saturday (@Manueldelborneo / Twitter)
Chavistas turned out in force in Caracas this Saturday (@Manueldelborneo / Twitter)
During his speech at the end of the rally, Maduro declared that the “coup d’état” initiated by Juan Guaido 30 days ago had been “defeated” and told his followers that they are “on the right side of history” before challenging Guaido to compete in elections.
Maduro also promised to apply justice against anyone who violates Venezuelan law, citing a number of right-wing activists who led isolated incidents of violent protests at the Colombo-Venezuelan border towns of Urena and San Antonio in Táchira State Saturday. The violent protests set fire to a public bus and burnt tyres in the streets in an attempt to open the border crossing.
Finally, Maduro reiterated earlier reports that his team are coordinating US $2 billion worth of “technical humanitarian assistance” channeled through the United Nations, as well as receiving 7.5 tonnes of medicine from Russia.
“Of course there are problems in Venezuela,” he told the crowd, “But who is going to solve them? Mr Trump? Or the Venezuelans?”
Saturday’s pro-government mobilisation in Caracas was one of the largest pro-government rallies seen in recent weeks. There were also rallies of pro-government supporters on the Colombian-Venezuelan border during the day and opposition marches in Caracas and other cities.
bridge_2.jpg
Opposition marchers rally on the Francisco Fajardo highway in Caracas (@Segovia Bastidas / Twitter)
Opposition marchers rally on the Francisco Fajardo highway in Caracas (@Segovia Bastidas / Twitter)
Skirmishes at the Colombian border
Juan Guaido led efforts to force the entry of the so-called humanitarian aid at the Colombian border along with volunteers. They were – at the time of writing - unsuccessful.
International support from US-aligned governments was also prominent on the border, with Colombian President Ivan Duque and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera both present. US President Donald Trump and former Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton also backed Guaido’s efforts via Twitter.
The International Red Cross, however, voiced further criticism of the border actions taken by Guaido, this time denouncing the illegal use of its symbols by Guaido’s followers on both the Brazilian and Colombian borders. The Red Cross had previously joined the United Nations in describing the aid plan as “politicised.”
The opposition leader fled Venezuela to Colombia early Saturday through non-official border crossings, defying a travel ban applied against him two weeks ago by the Supreme Court.
The tense day saw a handful of skirmishes between right-wing activists left in Colombia after Friday’s “Live Aid” concert and the Venezuelan military. Despite the activists flanking the “aid” trucks as they approached the closed border in Simon Bolivar international bridge, the trucks were able to pass the checkpoints, as tear gas and rubber bullets were used to repel the opposition militants, with witnesses reporting the use of molotov cocktails and other weapons in attempts to try to force entry into Venezuela.
In the early afternoon, an aid truck attempting to cross the border in Urena was burnt mid-bridge some distance away from the Venezuelan border checkpoint, with the Venezuelan government and the opposition trading accusations concerning responsibility. No deaths were reported on the Colombian border, but a number of wounded are receiving medical attention.
bridge.jpg
A truck is set on fire on the international bridge connecting Venezuela and Colombia, as Guaido’s followers tried to storm their way into Venezuelan territory (Courtesy)
A truck is set on fire on the international bridge connecting Venezuela and Colombia, as Guaido’s followers tried to storm their way into Venezuelan territory (Courtesy)
Brazilian and Caribbean borders remain closed
At Venezuela’s southern Brazilian border and northern sea border in the Caribbean Sea, efforts at forcing the entrance of the “aid” were equally unsuccessful.
A tense standoff in Pacaraima on the Venezuelan-Brazilian border resulted in trucks coming from Boa Vista being blocked. The region had seen two deaths Friday when indigenous citizens apparently supporting the entry of the “aid” confronted a military convoy en route to the border, and there were unconfirmed reports of four more deaths in the sector Saturday.
In the Dutch overseas territory of Curacao, authorities did not allow the departure of the “aid”-carrying ships without Caracas’ assurances of the safe travel of the ships.
Military remains loyal
Attempts to bring in aid were accompanied by appeals for the Venezuelan armed forces to back Guaido’s efforts. In the early hours of Saturday, three rogue National Guardsmen drove two armoured cars into the barrier on the Venezuelan side of the Simon Bolivar bridge, before fleeing on foot to the Colombian side of the border, only to be joined by another soldier later on. A Venezuelan police officer and an Chilean photo-journalist were wounded in what eyewitnesses described as an deliberate effort to run down civilians near the barrier.
Unconfirmed claims later in the day from Colombian migration offices suggested that 23 Venezuelan soldiers had abandoned their posts during the day, but no more details have been made available.
Venezuelan authorities were quick to dismiss the incident involving the four soldiers as a staged media show by the opposition which looked to sow chaos on the closed border.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14347
BP can you translate this?
https://eladiofernandez.wordpress.com/2 ... ayuda-hum/
Skirmishes broke out on the Colombian and Brazilian borders but efforts to bring in aid have so far been unsuccessful.
By Paul Dobson
Feb 23rd 2019 at 7.09pm
TOPICS
International
Military
Opposition
TAGS
23 January 2019 CoupJuan GuaidoRed Cross
SHORT URL:
https://venezuelanalysis.com/N48P
1976285-n_0.jpg
Venezuelan soldiers patrol the Brazilian border that the Venezuelan government ordered closed on Friday (AP)
Venezuelan soldiers patrol the Brazilian border that the Venezuelan government ordered closed on Friday (AP)
Merida, February 23, 2019 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that Venezuela is breaking diplomatic relations with neighbouring Colombia and gave Colombian diplomats 24 hours to leave the country.
“My patience has run out, we can’t keep allowing Colombian territory to be used for attacks against Venezuela,” he stated to the crowd. “You are the devil himself [Colombian President] Ivan Duque,” he added.
His comments came at a large anti-imperialist rally in Caracas held under the slogan ‘Hands off Venezuela.’
Tensions have reached new heights along the Venezuelan-Colombian border after self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido pledged that aid would enter the country on Saturday “no matter what.” The aid, which is being supplied by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and stockpiled in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, the Brazilian border city of Boa Vista, and on the Dutch Caribbean Island of Curacao, consists of basic food products such as lentils and flour, as well as basic personal hygiene products estimated to meet the needs of 5,000 people for roughly 10 days.
Caracas has denounced the move as a precursor for a US-led military intervention into the country and proceeded to shut down the borders with Dutch Caribbean Islands, Brazil and Colombia on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday respectively. This stance has been supported by both the Chinese and Russian governments, with Russian foreign office spokespersons telling reporters Friday that the “aid” scheme “resembled those in Iraq and Libya.” Moscow also accused Washington of arming the Venezuelan opposition.
concentracion_av_libertador_marcha_paz_230219.jpg
Chavistas turned out in force in Caracas this Saturday (@Manueldelborneo / Twitter)
Chavistas turned out in force in Caracas this Saturday (@Manueldelborneo / Twitter)
During his speech at the end of the rally, Maduro declared that the “coup d’état” initiated by Juan Guaido 30 days ago had been “defeated” and told his followers that they are “on the right side of history” before challenging Guaido to compete in elections.
Maduro also promised to apply justice against anyone who violates Venezuelan law, citing a number of right-wing activists who led isolated incidents of violent protests at the Colombo-Venezuelan border towns of Urena and San Antonio in Táchira State Saturday. The violent protests set fire to a public bus and burnt tyres in the streets in an attempt to open the border crossing.
Finally, Maduro reiterated earlier reports that his team are coordinating US $2 billion worth of “technical humanitarian assistance” channeled through the United Nations, as well as receiving 7.5 tonnes of medicine from Russia.
“Of course there are problems in Venezuela,” he told the crowd, “But who is going to solve them? Mr Trump? Or the Venezuelans?”
Saturday’s pro-government mobilisation in Caracas was one of the largest pro-government rallies seen in recent weeks. There were also rallies of pro-government supporters on the Colombian-Venezuelan border during the day and opposition marches in Caracas and other cities.
bridge_2.jpg
Opposition marchers rally on the Francisco Fajardo highway in Caracas (@Segovia Bastidas / Twitter)
Opposition marchers rally on the Francisco Fajardo highway in Caracas (@Segovia Bastidas / Twitter)
Skirmishes at the Colombian border
Juan Guaido led efforts to force the entry of the so-called humanitarian aid at the Colombian border along with volunteers. They were – at the time of writing - unsuccessful.
International support from US-aligned governments was also prominent on the border, with Colombian President Ivan Duque and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera both present. US President Donald Trump and former Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton also backed Guaido’s efforts via Twitter.
The International Red Cross, however, voiced further criticism of the border actions taken by Guaido, this time denouncing the illegal use of its symbols by Guaido’s followers on both the Brazilian and Colombian borders. The Red Cross had previously joined the United Nations in describing the aid plan as “politicised.”
The opposition leader fled Venezuela to Colombia early Saturday through non-official border crossings, defying a travel ban applied against him two weeks ago by the Supreme Court.
The tense day saw a handful of skirmishes between right-wing activists left in Colombia after Friday’s “Live Aid” concert and the Venezuelan military. Despite the activists flanking the “aid” trucks as they approached the closed border in Simon Bolivar international bridge, the trucks were able to pass the checkpoints, as tear gas and rubber bullets were used to repel the opposition militants, with witnesses reporting the use of molotov cocktails and other weapons in attempts to try to force entry into Venezuela.
In the early afternoon, an aid truck attempting to cross the border in Urena was burnt mid-bridge some distance away from the Venezuelan border checkpoint, with the Venezuelan government and the opposition trading accusations concerning responsibility. No deaths were reported on the Colombian border, but a number of wounded are receiving medical attention.
bridge.jpg
A truck is set on fire on the international bridge connecting Venezuela and Colombia, as Guaido’s followers tried to storm their way into Venezuelan territory (Courtesy)
A truck is set on fire on the international bridge connecting Venezuela and Colombia, as Guaido’s followers tried to storm their way into Venezuelan territory (Courtesy)
Brazilian and Caribbean borders remain closed
At Venezuela’s southern Brazilian border and northern sea border in the Caribbean Sea, efforts at forcing the entrance of the “aid” were equally unsuccessful.
A tense standoff in Pacaraima on the Venezuelan-Brazilian border resulted in trucks coming from Boa Vista being blocked. The region had seen two deaths Friday when indigenous citizens apparently supporting the entry of the “aid” confronted a military convoy en route to the border, and there were unconfirmed reports of four more deaths in the sector Saturday.
In the Dutch overseas territory of Curacao, authorities did not allow the departure of the “aid”-carrying ships without Caracas’ assurances of the safe travel of the ships.
Military remains loyal
Attempts to bring in aid were accompanied by appeals for the Venezuelan armed forces to back Guaido’s efforts. In the early hours of Saturday, three rogue National Guardsmen drove two armoured cars into the barrier on the Venezuelan side of the Simon Bolivar bridge, before fleeing on foot to the Colombian side of the border, only to be joined by another soldier later on. A Venezuelan police officer and an Chilean photo-journalist were wounded in what eyewitnesses described as an deliberate effort to run down civilians near the barrier.
Unconfirmed claims later in the day from Colombian migration offices suggested that 23 Venezuelan soldiers had abandoned their posts during the day, but no more details have been made available.
Venezuelan authorities were quick to dismiss the incident involving the four soldiers as a staged media show by the opposition which looked to sow chaos on the closed border.
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14347
BP can you translate this?
https://eladiofernandez.wordpress.com/2 ... ayuda-hum/
Re: Venezuela
The importance of smart mobiles in the signaling of targets for missiles and landing of airborne troops: The US is delivering Solarin mobiles from Israel, within the humanitarian aid in Venezuela.
February 23, 2019
Trucks with MILITARY humanitarian aid, entering Venezuela. Carriers of Solarin mobiles.
Solarin-4
The Solarin mobiles bought by the Pentagon will allow Venezuelan civilians and even military men to point out by their satellite signal - abandoning or carrying them - the exact points to indicate targets for missiles, and later air landing of airborne troops. The use of exclusively satellite imagery has been shown to be limited and deficient, hence the use of physical signaling with Solarin before the invasion.
"US Military prohibited from buying cell phones of Chinese origin ".
This will be the first deployments Usa within Venezuela. But apart from the commanders will be troops from various countries of South America and Spanish-speaking combatants.
-
The war between Chinese Huawei mobiles not traceable (at least before the 2019, where it seems that they reached an agreement after the arrest of the CEO of Huawei in the US), competes with the mobile Solarin of Sirin labs .
Solarin seems to be going to become the telephone of the invasion of Venezuela today. Trucks with "military humanitarian aid" ... are crossing the border from BRAZIL .
Israel's involvement with the US is an inherent part of the takeover of Venezuela and Belize.
Sirin Labs is an extension of INTEL microchips manufactured in Israel with American money. Chips that carry all the missiles on the market, minus the Chinese (that's why Turkey wanted them), which are capable of altering the route and targets assigned to each missile in flight.
Factory of Intel and Sirin Labs.
-https://eladiofernandez.wordpress.com/2 ... ayuda-hum/
Google Translator
I think the assumption of US 'boots on the ground', in anything but subversive action, is premature. Significant assets are not in place, show me 50K grunts...absolute minimum, this ain't Afghanistan.
Also, concerning the burning truck, I saw video showing a molotov thrown by one of the gusanos accompanying the trucks went awry, must have slipped, went almost straight up then fell apart, flaming, on to the truck.
February 23, 2019
Trucks with MILITARY humanitarian aid, entering Venezuela. Carriers of Solarin mobiles.
Solarin-4
The Solarin mobiles bought by the Pentagon will allow Venezuelan civilians and even military men to point out by their satellite signal - abandoning or carrying them - the exact points to indicate targets for missiles, and later air landing of airborne troops. The use of exclusively satellite imagery has been shown to be limited and deficient, hence the use of physical signaling with Solarin before the invasion.
"US Military prohibited from buying cell phones of Chinese origin ".
This will be the first deployments Usa within Venezuela. But apart from the commanders will be troops from various countries of South America and Spanish-speaking combatants.
-
The war between Chinese Huawei mobiles not traceable (at least before the 2019, where it seems that they reached an agreement after the arrest of the CEO of Huawei in the US), competes with the mobile Solarin of Sirin labs .
Solarin seems to be going to become the telephone of the invasion of Venezuela today. Trucks with "military humanitarian aid" ... are crossing the border from BRAZIL .
Israel's involvement with the US is an inherent part of the takeover of Venezuela and Belize.
Sirin Labs is an extension of INTEL microchips manufactured in Israel with American money. Chips that carry all the missiles on the market, minus the Chinese (that's why Turkey wanted them), which are capable of altering the route and targets assigned to each missile in flight.
Factory of Intel and Sirin Labs.
-https://eladiofernandez.wordpress.com/2 ... ayuda-hum/
Google Translator
I think the assumption of US 'boots on the ground', in anything but subversive action, is premature. Significant assets are not in place, show me 50K grunts...absolute minimum, this ain't Afghanistan.
Also, concerning the burning truck, I saw video showing a molotov thrown by one of the gusanos accompanying the trucks went awry, must have slipped, went almost straight up then fell apart, flaming, on to the truck.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Venezuela
Maria Faría, the daughter of a would-be Hugo Chávez assassin, illegally barged into Venezuela’s embassy in Costa Rica and declared herself ambassador. The embarrassing stunt highlighted everything wrong with Juan Guaidó’s reality-show government.
While tweeting that she had taken charge of Venezuela’s Embassy in Costa Rica on February 20, Maria Faría demonstrated that she was more familiar with the conventions of social media than those dictating international diplomacy.
“In fulfillment of the diplomatic functions, assigned by President Juan Guaido”, tweeted Faría, referring to the US-appointed leader of Venezuela’s parallel coup government, “we assume control of the administrative headquarters of the Embassy of Venezuela in San Jose”.
The surprise announcement came early Wednesday morning from inside the Embassy, leading many to wonder how Faría, or “@Mandyfaria26” — who describes herself in her Twitter bio as the “Diplomatic Representative for the Venezuelan Republic” in Costa Rica — was able to secure access to the Embassy.
A senior Venezuelan official told the Grayzone that Faría and her entourage were able to access the building by paying its owner to hand over the keys.
Once inside, Faría seemed to believe she could tweet her way to legitimacy, just as the presidency of her boss, Juan Guaido, had been announced on Twitter by US President Donald Trump.
But getting her foot in the door would be the least of Faría’s challenges. Within hours the young diplomatic wannabe had managed to offend her host country and demonstrate her lack of qualifications for the job.
The fail-daughter of an exiled coup plotter, her clownish behavior was hardly unique to a government that existed only in cyberspace and the fever dreams of John Bolton. Beyond its illegal occupation of the Costa Rican embassy, Guaido’s gang had no Foreign Ministry, let alone any physical address to govern from.
A month into their shadow puppet government, the attempt to barge into the consular space exposed the desperation behind their search for legitimacy.
“Strong rejection of the performance of … María Faría”
Faria’s first day as the Twitter-proclaimed ambassador quickly deteriorated into a humiliating debacle.
Costa Rica might have recognized Guaido as President of Venezuela on January 23rd, but her brazen move took the country’s Foreign Ministry by surprise. Speaking to reporters, Costa Rican Vice Minister Lorena Aguilar announced that her office “deplored the unacceptable entry” into Venezuela’s Embassy in Costa Rica “by diplomatic personnel of the government of interim President Juan Guaidó.” Aguilar went on to express a “strong rejection of the performance of the diplomatic representative María Faría”.
On February 15th, Costa Rica gave diplomats representing the internationally recognized government of Nicolas Maduro 60 days to leave the country — meaning they legally represented Venezuela in San Jose until April 21st. Aguilar accused Faria of disrespecting that diplomatic deadline with her stunt.
In a letter to reporters, Faría’s staff apologized for cancelling a press conference scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, announcing she will spend Thursday discussing her unilateral takeover of the Embassy with Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel Ventura Robles. It was safe to assume the meeting would include a crash course in international law for the ambitious social media diplomat.
When Venezuelan diplomats representing Maduro’s government arrived at the embassy on Wednesday, they were greeted by a swarm of opposition supporters blocking its entrance. Several videos posted on social media showed crowds angrily clashing with the dignitaries as they attempted to enter their workplace and perform official duties.
The ghosts of terrorist past
Multiple journalists took to social media to note that two of the men who led the attack on the embassy appeared to be the sons of Eduardo Manuitt, the former governor of Guarico state in Venezuela. Manuitt is a former Chavista who turned against the movement after the United Socialist Party of Venezuela refused to support his daughter’s efforts to succeed him as governor. He had been in hiding since 2009 in order to avoid an arrest warrant over corruption charges alleging he pocketed government funds while in office.
But the Manuitt boys were not the only children of shady characters involved in storming Venezuela’s Embassy in Costa Rica. In fact, the new “diplomatic representative” Faría hails from a family of failed coup plotters.
In 2005, Faría’s father, retired National Guard Colonel Jesus Faría Rodriguez, was sentenced to nine years in prison for his involvement in the Daktari Farm case, a foiled plot to attack the military and assassinate then-President Hugo Chavez with Colombian paramilitary men disguised in Venezuelan military garb. Colonel Faría’s brother, Dario, and nephew, Rafael, were also sentenced in the case.
In 2006, the elder Faría miraculously escaped from prison, along with Dario and Rafael. A Denver Post article from that year features a photograph of young Maria Faría bearing a poster calling for her father and his relatives to be freed.
Thirteen years later, she would join in the family tradition of clumsily botched attempts at sedition.
Government by Instagram
Little is known about what qualified Maria to represent the Venezuelan people from San Jose, or about her professional career at all. An article published in El Nacional at the time of her father’s prison escape revealed that the colonel had “three children: two boys and a female who has just graduated as an accountant”.
The Faría family virtually disappeared from the public eye after the prison break. In fact, Maria only posted her first Instagram photo on February 1st, weeks after Washington’s coup attempt was underway.
Instagram posts she published since that day combine gushing pro-Guaido sentiment with right-wing talking points about US humanitarian aid and photos of a woman who appears desperate to look the part of an international power-player. Her ambitions culminated with her Twitter proclamation of control over the Venezuelan Embassy in Costa Rica. But then reality set in.
According to Costa Rica’s Vice Foreign Minister, Faría’s entry to the Embassy “injures elementary diplomatic norms of respect and trust in relations in the international community, and above all, in international law.”
These words perfectly summed up the whole absurd spectacle of the Washington backed coup attempt.
While Guaido may have fooled some when declaring himself president from the streets of Caracas, Faria learned the hard way that it would take more than social media optics campaigns and bribery to declare herself a diplomat. But within Guaido’s right-wing gaggle, there seems to be little interest in the rule of law. It is a collection of unknown backbenchers, amateurs, and elite hooligans that equate Twitter proclamations with governmental legitimacy.
At least in this respect, Faria is the perfect representative.
Top Photo | Maria Faría, the daughter of a would-be Hugo Chávez assassin and self-proclaimed Venezuelan ambassador to Costa Rica. Screenshot | YouTube | CB24
Anya Parampil is a Washington, DC based journalist. She previously hosted a daily progressive afternoon news program called In Question on RT America. She has produced and reported several documentaries, including on the ground reports from the Korean peninsula and Palestine.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/venezuela ... ca/255401/
I don't care what others say, this is a 'shit show' until proved otherwise.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Venezuela
Mystery of the Venezuelan gold: Bank of England is independent of UK govt – but not of foreign govt
George Galloway
George Galloway was a member of the British Parliament for nearly 30 years. He presents TV and radio shows (including on RT). He is a film-maker, writer and a renowned orator.
Published time: 29 Jan, 2019 15:38
Edited time: 1 Feb, 2019 07:47
Pirates don't have to look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. They can fly the Union Jack rather than the skull and crossbones. They can be called the Bank of England rather than the Jolly Roger.
The 'Old Lady of Threadneedle Street' is a port in a stormy world for all kinds of countries in which to moor their national wealth. And it's not even necessarily voluntary.
After the fall of the communist regime in Albania, I had a brief tenure as joint chairman of the Britain-Albania Society with the Tory MP Steve Norris. He and I had to move mountains to try and persuade the British government (which then entirely controlled the Bank of England) to give the Albanians back their gold, which had been seized by the British during Second World War.
This week's brigandry – unnoticed by any commentator I read – took place in an era when the Bank of England is officially independent of government control. And yet it was triggered by a phone call from a foreign government official.
The bank's decision to seize – a polite word for steal – more than a billion dollars' worth of Venezuelan gold was reported to have been ordered by the governor after a call from US National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – not even the president himself.
Bank of England refused to return $1.2bn in gold to Venezuela – reports Bank of England refused to return $1.2bn in gold to Venezuela – reports
If I'm right, then this decision to damage – hopefully irreparably – the safety of deposits in the Bank of England was taken by an unelected, unaccountable Canadian citizen (who only got his British citizenship in November). He is here today but gone tomorrow as the governor of the Bank of England. The foreign policy of the state – whose bank it is – was thus at least anticipated if not usurped by Bolton, a minor official of a foreign country. Was that what the Tory champions of Brexit had in mind when they campaigned for Britain to "take back control"?
Of course the governor, Mark Carney, will have known that Bolton was pushing at an open bank vault door and that Britain is no more independent from the United States than the Bank of England is independent from the British government.
In addition, no Caribbean crocodile could shed tears more insincere than those currently being shed by British politicians for the "poor suffering people" of Venezuela. After all, what kind of monster could seize a billion dollars from "poor and suffering people"?
In around 72 hours last week, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was transformed from somebody hardly anyone in Britain had ever heard of, into the new "Hitler on the Nile."
This appellation was first applied in post-war Britain to President Nasser of Egypt when he nationalized the Suez Canal. Unfortunately for the imperium, this was actually in Egypt, the country of which he was the president. After all, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, it wasn't Britain's fault that God put Britain's canals in other people's countries.
And there have been many since: Yasser Arafat, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar Assad, Slobodan Milosevic, Vladimir Putin, and more.
The transformation has been astonishing to watch, even for me, who has been active in politics for 50 years.
Venezuela plot thickens… UN should be probing Washington and allies for regime-change crimes Venezuela plot thickens… UN should be probing Washington and allies for regime-change crimes
All the carefully tended gardens of NGOs, "independent journalists," and experts all flooded forward with their long-husbanded narratives about the perfidy of the Chavez revolution in Venezuela. They did universally suffer two disadvantages however: none of them could even pronounce the name of the man in a street in Caracas whose self-proclaimed presidency they were recognizing. And none of them appeared to know that the US had been imposing a medieval siege of sanctions, sabotage and subversion against Venezuela. At least none of them mentioned it.
None of them, like in every other foreign regime-change operation they'd pushed for, had the remotest idea of what would happen in Venezuela if they succeeded, not least how the many millions of armed Chavez supporters might take to their government being overthrown by foreigners. It is hard to work out whether these journalists and politicians demanding civil war on the world's biggest oil-fields are criminally insane, just criminals, or whether they can plead diminished responsibility on the grounds they didn't actually know what had already happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, etc.
The demonization of Venezuela across even those Western countries which scarcely have functioning governments themselves has been a tidal wave. The pitiful resources Venezuela has invested in solidarity work in Britain – or if they did invest it no-one can explain where it went – was summed up by the complete refusal of the Venezuelan Solidarity Campaign to put someone up for my RT show Sputnik last week, referring me to the Cuba Solidarity Campaign next door.
They, in turn, suggested the Englishman who ably edits the British newspaper, the Morning Star. Seldom can a big and important oil-rich country – vulnerable to Western invasion as it has predictably turned out to be – have bothered to make so few friends.
Events on the ground in Venezuela will decide what happens next, however. In my view, there will be many cutlasses flashing and slashing before this is through. And just like in all the other cases I've referred to, the outcome will prove to be the opposite of what the hirelings of the imperium now imagine.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/450061-venezue ... k-england/
George Galloway
George Galloway was a member of the British Parliament for nearly 30 years. He presents TV and radio shows (including on RT). He is a film-maker, writer and a renowned orator.
Published time: 29 Jan, 2019 15:38
Edited time: 1 Feb, 2019 07:47
Pirates don't have to look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. They can fly the Union Jack rather than the skull and crossbones. They can be called the Bank of England rather than the Jolly Roger.
The 'Old Lady of Threadneedle Street' is a port in a stormy world for all kinds of countries in which to moor their national wealth. And it's not even necessarily voluntary.
After the fall of the communist regime in Albania, I had a brief tenure as joint chairman of the Britain-Albania Society with the Tory MP Steve Norris. He and I had to move mountains to try and persuade the British government (which then entirely controlled the Bank of England) to give the Albanians back their gold, which had been seized by the British during Second World War.
This week's brigandry – unnoticed by any commentator I read – took place in an era when the Bank of England is officially independent of government control. And yet it was triggered by a phone call from a foreign government official.
The bank's decision to seize – a polite word for steal – more than a billion dollars' worth of Venezuelan gold was reported to have been ordered by the governor after a call from US National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – not even the president himself.
Bank of England refused to return $1.2bn in gold to Venezuela – reports Bank of England refused to return $1.2bn in gold to Venezuela – reports
If I'm right, then this decision to damage – hopefully irreparably – the safety of deposits in the Bank of England was taken by an unelected, unaccountable Canadian citizen (who only got his British citizenship in November). He is here today but gone tomorrow as the governor of the Bank of England. The foreign policy of the state – whose bank it is – was thus at least anticipated if not usurped by Bolton, a minor official of a foreign country. Was that what the Tory champions of Brexit had in mind when they campaigned for Britain to "take back control"?
Of course the governor, Mark Carney, will have known that Bolton was pushing at an open bank vault door and that Britain is no more independent from the United States than the Bank of England is independent from the British government.
In addition, no Caribbean crocodile could shed tears more insincere than those currently being shed by British politicians for the "poor suffering people" of Venezuela. After all, what kind of monster could seize a billion dollars from "poor and suffering people"?
In around 72 hours last week, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was transformed from somebody hardly anyone in Britain had ever heard of, into the new "Hitler on the Nile."
This appellation was first applied in post-war Britain to President Nasser of Egypt when he nationalized the Suez Canal. Unfortunately for the imperium, this was actually in Egypt, the country of which he was the president. After all, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, it wasn't Britain's fault that God put Britain's canals in other people's countries.
And there have been many since: Yasser Arafat, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar Assad, Slobodan Milosevic, Vladimir Putin, and more.
The transformation has been astonishing to watch, even for me, who has been active in politics for 50 years.
Venezuela plot thickens… UN should be probing Washington and allies for regime-change crimes Venezuela plot thickens… UN should be probing Washington and allies for regime-change crimes
All the carefully tended gardens of NGOs, "independent journalists," and experts all flooded forward with their long-husbanded narratives about the perfidy of the Chavez revolution in Venezuela. They did universally suffer two disadvantages however: none of them could even pronounce the name of the man in a street in Caracas whose self-proclaimed presidency they were recognizing. And none of them appeared to know that the US had been imposing a medieval siege of sanctions, sabotage and subversion against Venezuela. At least none of them mentioned it.
None of them, like in every other foreign regime-change operation they'd pushed for, had the remotest idea of what would happen in Venezuela if they succeeded, not least how the many millions of armed Chavez supporters might take to their government being overthrown by foreigners. It is hard to work out whether these journalists and politicians demanding civil war on the world's biggest oil-fields are criminally insane, just criminals, or whether they can plead diminished responsibility on the grounds they didn't actually know what had already happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, etc.
The demonization of Venezuela across even those Western countries which scarcely have functioning governments themselves has been a tidal wave. The pitiful resources Venezuela has invested in solidarity work in Britain – or if they did invest it no-one can explain where it went – was summed up by the complete refusal of the Venezuelan Solidarity Campaign to put someone up for my RT show Sputnik last week, referring me to the Cuba Solidarity Campaign next door.
They, in turn, suggested the Englishman who ably edits the British newspaper, the Morning Star. Seldom can a big and important oil-rich country – vulnerable to Western invasion as it has predictably turned out to be – have bothered to make so few friends.
Events on the ground in Venezuela will decide what happens next, however. In my view, there will be many cutlasses flashing and slashing before this is through. And just like in all the other cases I've referred to, the outcome will prove to be the opposite of what the hirelings of the imperium now imagine.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/450061-venezue ... k-england/