Venezuela

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:23 pm

Hands off Venezuela!

Communist and workers’ parties issue declarations against the US recognition of a puppet president in Venezuela, expressing solidarity with the Venezuelan people.

ICP, 25 January 2019

Following US President Donald Trump's recognition of the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as ‘the legitimate president of Venezuela’, Canada, Brazil, Colombia governments, the EU and other US allies declared their support. Communist and workers’ parties are issuing declarations against US imperialist intervention and in solidarity with the political will of the Venezuelan people in their pursuit for equality and socialism.

The Initiative of Communist and Workers' Parties of Europe issued a solidarity statement with Venezuelan people and the CP of Venezuela. The Secretariat of the Initiative said that ‘the coup d'etat is a continuation of the planned longterm campaign of destabilization of the country to promote the imperialist designs in the Latin America region and to overthrow governments that are not likable to the USA-NATO and the EU’. The Initiative expressed internationalist solidarity with the working class and the people of Venezuela and declared that its support with their struggle against imperialist plans in their country and in the region, with all our forces the CP of Venezuela and its struggle in favor of the rights and interests of the workers of the country ‘to abolish capitalist exploitation, for Socialism’. For full statement see link.

The Party of Labour of Austria (PdA) condemned the attempt of the pro-imperialist and right-wing opposition to install a puppet president through a coup. The Central Committee of the PdA expressed that it particularly saluted ‘the members of the Communist Party of Venezuela, which has recently also suffered deaths as a result of the hired killers of the big landowners’. The PdA called on the anti-imperialist forces to resist the imperialist coup attempt also in Austria and demanded from the Austrian Federal Government not to take part in the breach of international law by the USA and its allies. It also demanded from the Austrian Federal Government to act in the EU in such a way that the legitimate government and the legitimate president, Nicolas Maduro, continues to be regarded as Venezuela's state leadership. For full statement see link.

The Communist Party of Brazil (PcdoB) strongly condemned the position of the Brazilian government that proclaimed in an official note the recognition of the "president in charge of Venezuela". The statement of the National Political Commission of PCdoB named the position of the Brazilian government as ‘subordinate to the position of the United States’. The statement said that the position of the Brazilian government ‘represents a qualitative and profoundly negative change in Brazil's role in the world’ and underlined that the provocation of the US ‘uses a neighbor of the size of Brazil in South America to justify such attempts’, representing a very serious danger of a military conflict in Latin America, in a region neighboring the Amazon, where geopolitical interests related to petroleum sources are disputed. The PCdoB reminded that Brazil has not been engaged in military conflicts with its neighbors for 140 years. The PCdoB declared that it remains in solidarity with the principles of ‘respect for self-determination, nonintervention and peaceful settlement of conflicts'. For full statement see link.

The Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) from Cyprus denounced the externally instigated attempt to impose on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela a government subordinating to the US. The Central Committee of AKEL underlined that the immediate recognition of the self-proclaimed "president" by the US government and certain Latin American governments ‘fully reveals the devious plans against Venezuela with the clear goal of the country’s rich oil and other natural resources passing under the control of US capital’. The statement pointed out to the intention of US to to destroy the example set by Venezuela in defending the rights, dignity and independence while subduing all resistance to the plans for the military control of South America by the US and its allies. The CC of AKEL reiterated its solidarity with President Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan people, the Communist Party of Venezuela and demanded the government of the Republic of Cyprus to denounce the flagrant violations in the internal affairs of Venezuela. For full statment see link.

The Communist Party of Ecuador (CPE), in view of the criminal and interventionist attitude of the US government 'trying to impose an illegitimate, unconstitutional and undemocratic President in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela', reiterated its strong support for the legitimate government of President Nicolas Maduro Moro in defense of 'the sovereignty and independence of the fatherland of Bolívar'. Signed by GS of the CP of Ecuador, Winston Alarcón Elizalde, in the name of the Central Committee of the CPE, the statement called the Ecuadorian people to demonstrate publicly in defense of the people and the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. For full statement see link.

The French Communist Party (PCF) condemned international interventions and pressures aimed at raising a "strategy of chaos" in Venezuela. The PCF expressed its support for the 'interests of the people of Venezuela, of peace and national dialogue'. The PCF called upon the French Government for 'coordinating an international mediation within the framework of the United Nations'. In the statement of the PCF, Emmanuel Macron's support for this operation for destabilizing Venezuela in respect to the "dangerous choices of Trump and Bolsonaro" was defined as scandalous. For full statement see link.

The German Communist Party (DKP) shared a press release titled "No recognition to the coup regime in Venezuela!" mentioning that the incidents are similar to what happened in April 2002 when USA inteded a coup against Hugo Chávez. According to the press release, the immediate recognition of USA, the affiliated OAS and some of the right-wing governments of the neighbouring Latin American states of Juan Guaidó seems like a coup plan that is organized together. The DKP said that this attempt is against the democratic order of Venezuela that has been established through numerous elections and referandums since 1999. Appealing to the Federal Government, the DKP warned against following the false politics of the US government and against the diplomatic recognition of the coupists.

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) strongly condemned the raw intervention of the USA, of their allied governments in Latin America, of the Organization of American States (OAS) and of the EU in the domestic affairs of Venezuela. The Communique of the Press Bureau of the CC of the KKE said ‘the developments in Venezuela are an affair of the people of the country, and it’s the people that has the responsibility to defend its interests and to choose the leadership of the country’. The KKE expressed its solidarity ‘with the Venezuelan people, who is experiencing capitalist exploitation and crisis, stands by the side of the CP of Venezuela (PCV) that is struggling in favor of the rights of the working class, so that the people live without exploitation and imperialist interventions’. For full statement see link.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) strongly denounced the US intervention in the internal affairs of Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.The statement pointed out the fact that ‘the US has been trying to destabilise the democratically elected government of Venezuela through various means, including the imposition of inhuman economic sanctions and threatening military intervention'. It underlined that these are 'brazen acts of violation of the UN Charter'. The CPI(M) declared its support for the people of Venezuela in resisting all US attempts to destabilise the country and appealed to ‘all the democratic and peace loving people worldwide to stand in solidarity with the people of Venezuela in their struggle against US interference and in defence of their sovereignty’. For full statement see link.

The Communist Party of India (CPI) strongly condemned the blatant intervention of US imperialism in the internal affairs of Venezuela and called upon ‘the peace loving democratic sections of the people of India to extend solidarity and support to the people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela’. The National Secretariat of the CPI said that the plan of regime changes in Venezuela, Nicaragua and in other progressive countries in Latin America is going for a long time. According to the statement, ‘The imperialist design of creating dual powers in Venezuela will deepen the social divide and undermine the authority of the State thereby endangering its sovereignty.’ The CPI stated urged the government of India not to support any effort of Trump administration to destabilize the elected governments in Latin America, reminding the ‘long standing friendship and mutual cooperation with Venezuelan people’. For full statement see link.

The Communist Party of Israel (CPI) strongly condemned the blatant intervention of US imperialism and its allies and asserted that ‘the United States is seeking to take advantage of Venezuela's economic problems, which were essentially also caused by its embargo policy, to roll back into the age of right wing and fascist puppet regimes’. The Central Committee of the CPI said ‘The imperialist design of creating dual powers in Venezuela will deepen the social divide and undermine the authority of the State thereby endangering its sovereignty’. While declaring support for the Venezuelan people and President Maduro, the CPI urged the governments of Israel and other Middle East countries not to support any effort of Trump administration. For full statement see link.

Communist Party, Italy issued a statement expressing solidarity with Maduro, President of Venezuela. On behalf of the Communist Party, General Secretary Marco Rizzo expresed his solidarity with President Maduro against the coup attempt openly supported by the US. In his statement, Rizzo called the attempt as a ‘A criminal imperialist interference whose aim is to overthrow a government that has the support of the workers and the Venezuelan popular classes’. The GS of the CP expressed his hope that Italy will not give in to the pressure of Trump and that the government will not give any recognition and legitimacy to the coup player Guaidò. Rizzo declared that the Communists in Italy are ready to mobilize in defense of the Venezuelan people's right to self-determination against any imperialist interference.

The Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) condemned the attempts of the US to undermine the security and stability in Venezuela by seeking various means to change the democratically elected regime. The International Relations Committee of the LCP said that the recognition of a transitional president by the US ‘who has not even been a rival to elected president Nicolas Maduro after supporting a failed military coup’ is an open call to trigger a civil war in the country to undermine the Bolivarian regime and ‘restore power of the looters’. The statement underlined that the US wants to address its political and economic crisis at the expense of the people suffering from its interventionalist policies. The LCP called to mobilize all means of solidarity and support for the Venezuelan people and its legitimate leadership under President Nicolas Maduro. For full statement see link.

The Communist Party of Mexico (PCM) firmly condemned the imperialist interference of the US Trump administration and the OAS against the sovereignty of Venezuela, express solidarity with 'the people, with the working class, and with the Communist Party of Venezuela in the struggle for respect for their self-determination'. The statement of the Central Committee of the PCM said ‘the popular dissatisfaction, the economic crisis whose effects the Venezuelan people suffer, is on the one hand the result of destabilizing actions of imperialism; but on the other hand it also happens precisely because there has not been a rupture with capitalism, but only its reform is attempted’. The PCM underlined that ‘It will be a task for the people and the working class of Venezuela to go ahead and decide their own course -if that is their will- since capitalism is a dead end and it is an imperative to fight head-on against the system of exploitation’. For full statement see link.

The Paraguayan Communist Party condemned the open interference of the US and its regional allies of the OAS and the Lima Group, including the fraud president Mario Abdo Benítez by recognizing the self-proclaimed "president", Juan Guaidó. The Political Commission of the Paraguayan CP declared that the crisis in Venezuela can not be attributed to a government or a process but ‘a systemic crisis of the capitalist mode of production’. According to the statement, ‘the characteristics of that crisis at present are marked by the high levels of social disintegration, the difficulties of relations between people and the intensification of violence and class struggle’. The Paraguayan CP said, ‘the coordinated attack between US and European imperialism, the media and regional rights seeks to misinform and confuse the peoples, thus preventing them from having the power to forge the way out of that crisis and to build a model alternative society’. The Party expressed support, especially to the CP of Venezuela, ‘who despite maintaining differences with the Venezuelan government and raising their complaints firmly’, have been able to accompany their people in their struggle. The statment underlined that the context of crisis meant a challenge to all communists and requires taking lessons in order to recover the conception of the world ‘without exploiters or exploited’. For full statement see link.

The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) vehemently condemned ‘the new putschist operation’ led by the USA and also condemned the stance of the Portugese government ‘tailing along after the European Union and the most reactionary circles, who are aligned with the unacceptable operation of destabilization and subversion against Venezuela’. The PCP stressed that 'defending national interests and those of the Portuguese communtiy requires that the Portuguese Government takes a firm sovereign attitude which, strictly abiding by the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic and International Law, must respect the sovereignty and independence of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and must reject, and not align itself with, the escalation of interference and aggression against that country, which is spearheaded by the USA and supported by the EU'. For full statement see link.

The Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE) strongly condemned the movements against the Venezuelan Government and exposed that these aim ‘to replace a government which is hostile to the interests they represent' seeking to build up a regime that will comply with them and plunder the many natural, human and economic resources found in Venezuela. 'It is one more offensive of imperialism which, even though it has not ended up – yet – in war, like in Syria or Libya, it does pose the same goals than in these cases’ said the statement. The International Department of the PCPE highlighted that ‘the solution to the problems of the Venezuelan people is no other than defending themselves by moving forward in the path of revolution which opposes the interests of the majority to the interests of those who want to wreak havoc to gain profits, by not allowing any obstacles nor brakes in that path’. For full statement see link.

The People’s Liberation Front (JVP) Sri Lanka condemned the reactionary coup ‘to implant a renegade as the president of Venezuela’. In its statement, the Department of Foreign Relations of the Central Committee of the JVP Srilanka declared that it stands with Venezuelan people at this time of their fight against the coup of the right-wing reactionaries of Venezuela. The JVP underlined that ‘Venezuela’s voting technology is said to contain several security mechanisms for audits and verification of results, which have been accredited by national and international observers including the Carter Center’. In the name of the progressive and left-oriented people in Sri Lanka, the JVP declared that it totally backs the progressive people’s struggle against US imperialism and expressed its solidarity with the heroic resistance of the Venezuelan people to protect the Bolivarian Revolution led by late Hugo Chávez.

The Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS) condemned the coup attempt led by the US under the leadership of its ultra-jingoist president, Donald Trump, and expresses its unwavering support for the democratically elected President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. The CPS said that this attempt deserves widespread condemnation by the whole international community. ‘It is now a well-documented fact that the United States has been pushing for unlimited access and control of Venezuelan oil – the largest oil reserves in the world. To do that, they need to impose a puppet president, like they have attempted in this latest incidence’ said the statement. The Communist Party of Swaziland called upon the working class of the world to rise up in defence of the people of Venezuela, against imperialism. For full statement see link.

The Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) issued a solidarity statement saying ‘the USA, the main enemy of the peoples of Latin America, tried to attack Venezuela once again, by declaring the country an extraordinary threat to security, despite the fact that all the interventions that it has tried over the years have been repelled by the people and repeatedly failed.’. The Central Committee of TKP expressed that the threats of US imperialism will not be enough to delegitimize the Bolivarian Republic and its elected official representatives and said ‘The future of Latin America is in the struggle for equality and socialism in the tradition of standing against imperialism’. For full statement see link.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) from the United States declared that ‘Venezuela is on a knife’s edge’. The International Relations Department of the PSL said ‘We are witnessing once again a classic example of U.S. imperialism and its proxies attempting to carry out an illegal regime change operation against a progressive government. People all over the world need to stand in solidarity with Venezuela in this critical moment’. Pointing out to the possibility of a military action against Venezuela, the PSL reminded that the US had made similiar attempts in the past in overthrowing Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973. According to the PSL ‘Venezuela is in fact being targeted because it has a socialist government that challenges the dominance of western corporations and refuses to obey the dictates of Washington’. The PSL called the people to take up to the streets in several cities througout the United States saying “U.S. hands off Venezuela!” For full statement see link.

The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) declared that the intervention is a clear violation of international law, national sovereignty, and independence. ‘The actions are consistent with their disdain for democracy in all its forms, and their trampling on constitutional and democratic rights in the U.S. as well as internationally’ said the statement. It underlined that the people of the US should be ‘especially sensitive to this given foreign interference in our own 2016 elections and its impact on the outcome’. The statement of CPUSA reminded that both Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez had repeatedly shown their willingness to maintain friendly relations with the US and its people, ‘even going so far as to help poor communities in the US by providing them with discounted heating oil’. The CPUSA called on all members and friends of the Party to immediately contact their senators and representatives to demand an end to this illegal and dangerous intervention. For full statement see link.

The New Communist Party of the Yugoslavia (NKPJ) issued statement with the slogan ‘Yankee Go Home!’, strongly condemning the recent movements against the Venezuelan Government and the people. The International Department of the NKPJ said,‘During the last 5 years different U.S. administrations have been implementing a sophisticated destabilization plan against Venezuela to overthrow a democratic elected government. To combat this initiative Washington has applied all kinds of economic sanctions in order to create chaos in the internal market of Bolivar’s homeland. At the same time, they have created a deadly alliance with 12 Latin American governments in the “Lima group” and have recruited the European Community’. The statement pointed out the economic blockade of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the backbone of the Venezuelan economy, the commercial and financial blockade is hitting hard the quality of life of the Venezuelan people. For full statement see link.

http://icp.sol.org.tr/international/hands-venezuela

The statement of the Communist Party of Mexico (PCM) is unfortunate and arrogant. Where is support for PSUV? Where is your revolution, PCM? This is the foolishness of left coms & trotskyists.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 30, 2019 6:38 pm

Compare & contrast:

Today, Estado Falcon
Image

also today:
Image

The contrast ain't only in the size of the crowds...
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 31, 2019 6:41 pm

Opposing Imperial Aggression: A Democratic Front in Defense of National Sovereignty
The Bolivar and Zamora Revolutionary Current examines the US-led coup attempts and what is to be done.

Image
Demonstration in support of the Bolivarian government. (CRBZ)

By Bolivar and Zamora Revolutionary Current - CRBZ
Jan 31st 2019 at 2.21pm

https://venezuelanalysis.com/N4Y5
The United States, leading the hybrid war against Venezuela, has taken the first steps of what they imagine will be the final offensive against our country. They have been announcing actions to be taken, which we should understand, and we should organize and act against them. First of all, they have declared the escalation of the economic war with the seizure of US $7 billion, corresponding to Citgo, US subsidiary of PDVSA. They want to go all the way in asphyxiating our economy. The right-wing has celebrated each and every measure, both the attacks and the meagre handouts promised: $20 million, a tiny part of all that has been and has yet to be stolen.

Secondly, they have have gone to great lengths to diplomatically isolate the government, getting their allies on board the intervention bandwagon. The European Union, from its arrogant colonial position, will recognize Guaido as interim president within a few days. This will consolidate the bloc around the United States, its foreign policy and interests.

Thirdly, internally, they are looking to create institutional fractures, in particular within the National Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB), relying on the effects of a threat of a direct war, alongside psychological and communicational warfare. To achieve their goal they need to break the FANB.

Faced with this situation we need to deploy our efforts in every battleground. On the political front, we need to bring forward a democratic front in defense of national sovereignty, comprised of all forces willing to confront the intentions of a servile right-wing that does not recognize any national interest, and those of imperialism which looks to dominate us in every aspect.

This necessary political unity needs to be open so that every force has a voice, can bring its ideas, as well as strengthen the correlation of forces. This will amount to concrete efforts in the territories, involving militias, youth and women groups, etc. In other words, it has to go beyond discourse.

The moment we are living through demands urgency: unity, unity and more unity. The time has come for political, civic-military unity, for the deployment of all the strength of Chavismo, of the patriotic Venezuelan people who are not willing to witness the right-wing hand over the country with a smile, as the United States prepare its next actions to dominate and asphyxiate us. The time is now.

Translated by Venezuelanalysis.com.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

Source: CRBZ

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14281

Kick ass and take names
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 31, 2019 9:19 pm

Wasn't sure where to put this. Dated but relevant.

Interview with Ex-CIA Collaborator: “The CIA’s Plans in Venezuela Are Far Advanced”
In a recent interview in Havana, a former CIA collaborator, Cuban Raúl Capote, revealed the strategy of the CIA in Venezuelan universities to create the kind of destabilizing opposition student movement the country is currently facing. He also discusses media manipulation, and alleges that one of the U.S. diplomats that President Maduro expelled from Venezuela last September was in fact a CIA agent.

By Raúl Capote / Chavez Vive Magazine
Mar 25th 2014 at 11.02am

Image
Raúl Capote (Chavez vive magazine)

https://venezuelanalysis.com/Zae
In a recent interview in Havana, a former CIA collaborator, Cuban Raúl Capote, revealed the strategy of the CIA in Venezuelan universities to create the kind of destabilizing opposition student movement the country is currently facing. He also discusses media manipulation, and alleges that one of the U.S. diplomats that President Maduro expelled from Venezuela last September was in fact a CIA agent. The following translation and notes were made by Sabina C. Becker. Original interview in Spanish here.

Raúl Capote is a Cuban. But not just any Cuban. In his youth, he was caught up by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). They offered him an infinite amount of money to conspire in Cuba. But then something unexpected for the US happened. Capote, in reality, was working for Cuban national security. From then on, he served as a double agent. Learn his story, by way of an exclusive interview with the Chávez Vive magazine, which he gave in Havana:

Q. What was the process by which you were caught up?

It started with a process of many years, several years of preparation and capture. I was leader of a Cuban student movement which, at that time, gave rise to an organization, the Saiz Brothers Cultural Association, a group of young creators, painters, writers, artists. I worked in a city in southern-central Cuba, Cienfuegos, which had characteristics of great interest to the enemy, because it was a city in which an important industrial pole was being built at the time. They were building an electrical centre, the only one in Cuba, and there were a lot of young people working on it. For that reason, it was also a city that had a lot of young engineers graduated in the Soviet Union. We’re talking of the last years of the 1980s, when there was that process called Perestroika. And many Cuban engineers, who arrived in Cuba at that time, graduated from there, were considered people who had arrived with that idea of Perestroika. For that reason, it was an interesting territory, where there were a lot of young people. And the fact that I was a youth leader of a cultural organization, which dealt with an important sector of the engineers who were interested in the arts, became of interest to the North Americans, and they began to frequent the meetings we attended. They never identified themselves as enemies, or as officials of the CIA.

Q. Were there many of them, or just always the same person?

Several. They never presented themselves as officials of the CIA, nor as people who had come to cause trouble, or anything.

Q. And who do you suppose they were?

They presented themselves as people coming to help us and our project, and who had the ability to finance it. That they had the chance to make it a reality. The proposal, as such, sounded interesting because, okay, a project in the literary world requires that you know a publisher, that you have editorial relations. It’s a very complex market. And they came in the name of publishers. What happened is that, during the process of contact with us, what they really wanted became quite evident. Because once they had made the contact, once they had begun frequenting our meetings, once they began to promise financing, then came the conditions for being financed.

Q. What conditions did they demand?

They told us: We have the ability to put the markets at your disposal, to put you on the markets of books or sculpture or movies or whatever, but we need the truth, because what we’re selling in the market, is the image of Cuba. The image of Cuba has to be a realistic one, of difficulties, of what’s going on in the country. They wanted to smear the reality of Cuba. What they were asking is that you criticize the revolution, based on anti-Cuba propaganda lines, which they provided.

Q. How big was these people’s budget?
They came with an infinite amount of money, because the source of the money, obviously, we found out over time from whence it came. For example, there was USAID, which was the big provider, the overall contractor of this budget, which channeled the money via NGOs, many of them invented just for Cuba. They were NGOs that didn’t exist, created solely for this type of job in Cuba, and we’re talking thousands and thousands of dollars. They weren’t working on small budgets. To give you an example, at one time, they offered me ten thousand dollars, just to include elements of anti-Cuba propaganda, in the novel I was writing.

Q. What year are we talking about?

Around 1988-89.

Q. How many people could have been contacted by these people, or captured?

In reality, their success didn’t last long, because in Cuba there was a culture of total confrontation with this type of thing, and the people knew very well that there was something behind that story of them wanting to “help” us. It was nothing new in the history of the land, and for that reason, it was very hard for them to get to where we were. In a determined moment, around 1992, we held a meeting, all the members of the organization, and we decided to expel them. They weren’t allowed to attend any more of our meetings. Those people, who were already coming in with concrete proposals, and also preconditioned economic aid they were giving us. What happened is that at the moment we did that, and rejected them, we expelled them from the association headquarters, then they started to particularize. They began to visit with me, in particular, and other comrades as well, young people. With some they succeeded, or should I say, they succeeded in getting some of them out of the country as well.

Q. What kind of profile were they looking for, more or less, if any kind of profile could be specified?

They wanted, above all at that time, to present Cuba as a land in chaos. That socialism in Cuba had not managed to satisfy the needs of the population, and that Cuba was a country that socialism had landed in absolute poverty, and which, as a model, no one liked. That was the key to what they were pursuing, above all, at that time.

Q. How long were you an agent of the CIA?

We were in this initial story until 1994. Because in 1994, I went to Havana, I came back to the capital and here, in the capital, I began to work for the Union of Cultural Workers, a union which represented the cultural workers of the capital, and I became more interesting yet to them, because I went on to direct — from being a leader of a youth organization with 4,000 members, to directing a union with 40,000 members, just in the city of Havana. And then, it gets much more interesting. Contacts followed. In that period there appeared a woman professor from a new university who came with the mission of kick-starting the production of my literary work, to become my representative, to organize events.

Q. Can you give her name?

No, because they used pseudonyms. They never used real names. And that type of work, promoting me as a writer, was what they were very interested in, because they wanted to convert me into a personality in that world. Promoting me now, and compromising me with them in an indirect manner. And then, in 2004, there arrived in Havana a person well known in Venezuela, Kelly Keiderling. Kelly came to Havana to work as Chief of the Office of Press and Culture. They set up a meeting. they arranged a cocktail party, and at that party I met with 12 North American functionaries, North Americans and Europeans. They weren’t only North Americans. All of them people with experience, some also inside the Soviet Union, others who had participated in training and preparation of the people in Yugoslavia, in the Color Revolutions, and they were very interested in meeting me. Kelly became very close to me. She began to prepare me. She began to instruct me. I began to receive, from her, a very solid training: The creation of alternative groups, independent groups, the organization and training of youth leaders, who did not participate in the works of our cultural institutions. And that was in 2004-5. Kelly practically vanished from the scene in 2005-6. And when I started to work, she put me in direct contact with officials of the CIA. Supposedly, I was already committed to them, I was ready for the next mission, and they put me in touch with Renee Greenwald, an official of the CIA, who worked with me directly, and with a man named Mark Waterhein, who was, at the time, the head of Project Cuba, of the Pan-American Foundation for Development.

This man, Mark, as well as directing Project Cuba, had a direct link to Cuba, in terms of financing the anti-revolutionary project, as well as being involved in working against Venezuela. That is, he was a man who, along with much of his team of functionaries of that famous project, also worked against Venezuela at that time. They were closely connected. At times it took a lot of work to tell who was working with Cuba, and who was not, because many times they interlocked. For example, there were Venezuelans who came to work with me, who worked in Washington, who were subordinates of the Pan-American Foundation and the CIA, and they came to Cuba to train me as well, and to bring provisions. From there arose the idea of creating a foundation, a project called Genesis.

Genesis is maybe the template, as an idea, of many of the things going on in the world today, because Genesis is a project aimed at the university youth of Cuba. They were doing something similar in Venezuela. Why? The idea was to convert universities — which have always been revolutionary, which have produced revolutionaries, out of those from which many of the revolutionaries of both countries came — and convert them into factories for reactionaries. So, how do you do that? By making leaders. What have they begun to do in Venezuela? They sent students to Yugoslavia, financed by the International Republican Institute (IRI), which was financed by USAID and by the Albert Einstein Institute, and sent them, in groups of ten, with their professors.

Q. Do you have the names of the Venezuelans?

No, we’re talking of hundreds being sent. I spoke with the professor, and watched one group and followed the other. Because they were working long-term. The same plan was also in place against Cuba. Genesis promoted, with in the university, a plan of training scholarships for Cuban student leaders and professors. The plan was very similar. Also, in 2003, they prepared here, in Havana, a course in the US Interests Section, which was called “Deposing a leader, deposing a dictator”, which was based on the experience of OTPOR in removing Slobodan Milosevic from power. And that was the idea, inside the Cuban university, to work long-term, because these projects always take a long time in order to reap a result. For that reason, they also started early in Venezuela. I believe as well — I don’t have proof, but I believe that in Venezuela it began before the Chávez government, because the plan of converting Latin American universities, which were always sources of revolutionary processes, into reactionary universities, is older than the Venezuelan [Bolivarian] process, to reverse the situation and create a new right-wing.

Q. Did the CIA only work in Caracas?

No, throughout Venezuela. Right now, Genesis has a scholarship plan to create leaders in Cuba. They provide scholarships to students to big North American universities, to train them as leaders, with all expenses paid. They pay their costs, they provide complete scholarships. We’re talking 2004-5 here. It was very obvious. Then, those leaders return to university at some time. They’re students. They go to end their careers. Those leaders, when they end their student careers, go on to various jobs, different possibilities, as engineers, as degree-holders in different sectors of Cuban society, but there are others who go on constantly preparing leaders within the university. One of the most important missions of the university leaders was to occupy the leadership of the principal youth organizations of the university. In the case of Cuba, we’re talking about the Union of Communist Youth, and the University Student Federation. That is, it was not to create parallel groups at that time, but to become the leaders of the organizations already existing in Cuba. Also, to form a group of leaders in the strategies of the “soft” coup. That is, training people for the opportune moment to start the famous “color revolutions” or “non-violent wars”, which, as you well know, have nothing to do with non-violence.

Q. What were they looking for in a professor, in order to capture them?

Professors are very easy. Identify university professors discontented with the institution, frustrated people, because they considered that the institution did not guarantee them anything, or didn’t recognize their merits. If they were older, even better. They didn’t specify. Look for older persons, so you can pick them. If you send a scholarship plan, or you send it and, first crack, they receive an invitation to participate in a great international congress of a certain science, they will be eternally grateful to you, because you were the one who discovered their talent, which has never been recognized by the university. Then that man you sent to study abroad, if you’re from his university, and participating in a big event, and publish his works, and constructing him a curriculum. When that person returns to Cuba, he goes back with a tremendous curriculum, because he has participated in a scientific event of the first order, has passed courses from big universities, and his curriculum reaches to the roof, then the influence he could have in the university will be greater, because he could be recognized as a leading figure in his specialty, even though in practice the man could be an ignoramus.

Q. And how effective were these types of captures, that type of missions they came to accomplish here?

In the case of Cuba, they didn’t have much of a result. First, because there was a most important reason, because I was the one directing the project, and I, in reality, was not an agent of the CIA, I was an agent of Cuban security, and so, the whole project passed through my hands, and they thought I was the one who would execute it. And the plan always passed through the work I was able to do, and what we did was slow it down as much as possible, knowing right away what was being planned. But just think, the goal of their plan, they were calculating for the moment in which the historic figures of the Revolution would disappear. They were figuring on a five- or ten-year term, in which Fidel would disappear from the political scene, and Raúl, and the historic leaders of the land. That was the moment they were waiting for, and when that happened, I was to leave university, with all the support of the international press and that of the NGOs, USAID, and all the people working around the CIA’s money, and that there would arise an organization which would present itself before the light of the public, as an alternative to what the Revolution was doing. That is what was to have happened with the Genesis Foundation for Freedom.

Q. What is that Foundation?

The Genesis Foundation for Freedom was to have a discourse, apparently revolutionary, but the idea was to confuse the people. The idea is that they would say they were revolutionaries, that what they wanted was to make changes in the government, but, when it comes to practice, when you get to the essence of the project, when you ask yourself “What is the project?” the discourse was, and the project was, exactly the same as those of the traditional right-wing. Because the changes they promoted, were the same that the right-wing, for a long time, has been promoting in the country. In practice, they almost had their big opportunity, according to their criteria, in 2006, when the news came out on TV that Fidel, for health reasons, was stepping down from his governmental responsibilities, and they have always said that the Cuban Revolution would die when Fidel died. Because the Revolution was Fidel, and on the day Fidel was no longer there, either by dying or leaving government, the next day the Revolution would fall. And they calculated that there would be internal confrontations, that there would be discontent with this or that. Calculations that I don’t know where they got them from, but they believed it. And in that moment, they believed that the time had come to act.

Q. We’re talking about 2006. What was the plan?
They called me automatically. We met, the CIA station chief and I, here in Havana. Diplomatic functionaries also showed up, and one of them said to me, we’re going to organize a provocation. We’re going to organize a popular uprising in a central neighborhood in Havana. There will be a person going there to rise up for democracy, and we’re going to execute a group of provocations, in different locations, in such a way that Cuban security forces will be forced to act against these people, and later we’ll start a big press campaign and start explaining how all of this will function. The interesting part of that, what really caught my attention, was this: How was it possible that a functionary of the US Interests Section could have the power to call upon the principal media, and that those people would obey with such servility? It was really attention-getting. The idea was — and I even told them this — what you’re telling me is just crazy. This man you mentioned to me, called Alci Ferrer — the guy they picked, a young agent, a doctor — they picked him to be the ringleader of the uprising. I told them, that guy won’t budge anyone. No one is going to rise up in the centre of Havana. The date they picked was none other than Fidel’s birthday, and they told me that day! And I said, Look, buddy, if that man, on that day, decides to go make proclamations, or to start some kind of uprising in the middle of Havana, the people are going to respond harshly. It’s even possible that they might kill him. Why, how could you put him in a humble working-class neighborhood to start those things, the locals…And he told me, flat out, the best thing that could happen for us is if they kill that man, it would be perfect, and they explained to me what would happen. All he had to do was provoke. They would go into the street, and there would be a clash there. If that happened, the press would do the rest, and they told me, we’re going to start a huge media campaign to demonstrate that there is chaos in Cuba, that Cuba is ungovernable; that in Cuba, Raúl is unable to hold the reins of government; that the civilian population is being killed; that students are being repressed in the street, and the people in the street, that the police are committing crimes. What a resemblance to Venezuela! It’s not a coincidence. It’s like that.

Q. So, what was supposed to happen in those circumstances?

Once all the opinion matrices were created, and all the media matrices had constructed that image, the whole world was supposed to have the image of Cuba as a great disaster, and that they’re killing the people, that they are killing them all. Then, my organization was to complete the final task.

Q. What was the final task?

Well, to gather the international press, in my capacity as a university professor, and as a writer, and as a leader of that organization, that I go out publicly to ask the government of the United States to intervene in Cuba, to guarantee the lives of the civilians and to bring peace and tranquility to the Cuban people. To speak to the country in the name of the Cuban people. Just imagine that!

That plan fell apart on them. It gave them no result, but as you could see, later, the way the war in Libya went, and the way it was set up. More than 80% of the information we saw, was fabricated. They’re doing the same in Syria, and they’ve done the same in Ukraine. I have had the opportunity to converse with a lot of Ukrainians, since they were in the bases. People in favor of uniting with Europe. I tried to talk with them these days. Trying to find out, what are those processes like? And they were surprised at the images which were transmitted around the world. What happened in Miami, and they themselves said so, but we’ve been protesting there, but those things that appear on TV, that was a group, or rather, there were sectors, there were places where there were right-wing groups, of the very far right, where there were incidents of that type, and where they burned things, but the greater part of the demonstrations didn’t have those characteristics. Or that this is, once more, the repetition of the scheme, using all the communication media.

Q. The relationship between the CIA and the embassies, in the respective lands, are they direct, then?

Yes, completely direct. In every embassy in Latin America, all the US embassies have CIA officials, working within them, using the façade of diplomatic functionaries.

Q. From what you know, is there a greater CIA presence in the region?

Well, at a certain moment, Ecuador was a major power in that, it had a strong concentration of them, and of course, Venezuela, because in 2012, when I attended the Book Fair in Caracas, all those people who had worked with me against Cuba, all the CIA officials, including Kelly Keiderling, were in Caracas at that time. And I was on a TV show, on VTV, where we talked about this subject, being very careful, because we were talking about two countries who have relations. That’s not the case with Cuba, or rather, Cuba has no relations with the United States. That’s a declared enemy. But we were talking about functionaries who had diplomatic relations, and it was very awkward to do it, without having concrete proofs you could present. However, the interview happened, and the denunciation was made of what was going on. Kelly Keiderling is an expert in this type of war. I have not the slightest doubt. When one follows the itinerary she has, in the countries where she’s been, and when I was in that type of conflict.

She has toured a series of countries in the world where very similar situations have occurred, like what she tried to do in Venezuela. And when you analyze Venezuela, and what has happened nowadays and the way in which she has acted, I think that in Venezuela, the characteristic that has been that they are tremendously aggressive in the manipulation of the information. Tremendously aggressive. To the point where you say it’s a blunder, because there are images which are so obviously not from Venezuela. I saw a very famous one, in which a soldier appears with a journalist, with a camera.They are Koreans. It’s an image from Korea. They’re Asian. They don’t look like Venezuelans at all. Also, the uniforms they wear. They’ve been very aggressive with that image which has projected what’s going on in Venezuela to the world. The greater part of the world’s people, this image is the one they’re seeing, of what they’re trying to say.

Q. They control the media. Do you know any case of any journalist which has been, as you have seen, known or unknown, which you have seen in the process of training?

No.

Q. CNN, for example?

No, there was a guy who had a lot of ties to me at the time here, who served as a link for meeting an official from the CIA., Antony Golden, of Reuters. But, all right, he was an element independent of Reuters. CNN has always been very closely linked to all these things. CNN, from its first moments of operation, above all this latest step, and above all, CNN en Español, has been an indispensable tool for these people, but the problem is that you have to understand one thing: to understand what’s going on, and to be able to mount a campaign, you have to understand that nowadays, there is no TV station that acts on its own. There are the conglomerates, and the communications conglomerates — who directs them? Because, for example, Time Warner and AOL, and all those big communications companies — cable TV, movie TV, TV in general — who is the boss, in the end? Here it’s Westinghouse, there it’s General Electric. The same who build warplanes, the same US arms industry, the same people who are the owners of TV networks, movie studios, publications, book publishers. So, the same guys who produce warplanes, the cookie you’ll eat at night, that presents an artist to you, are the same who rule the newspapers of the entire world. Who do these people answer to?

Q. When you see what’s happening in Venezuela, and you compare it with what you did here [in Cuba], what conclusion can you draw?

It’s a new strategy, which they’ve been developing based on the experience they’ve had all over the world, but I see, I’m convinced, that they’ve only gotten results when people in those places don’t support the revolution. They managed it with Milosevic, because Milosevic was a Yugoslavian leader whose image had fallen far, thanks to things that happened in Yugoslavia. The same happened in Ukraine, because Yanukovych was a man with very little popular support, and it has given results in other places where the governments had little support from the people. Wherever they have a legitimate government, a solid government, and people disposed to defend the revolution, the plan has failed on them.

Q. And what phase do they enter when the plan fails?

They’re going to keep on doing it, they’ll go on perfecting it. We are the enemy. That is, Venezuela, Cuba, everything going on in Latin America as an alternative. We are the dissidents of the world. We live in a world dominated by capitalism. Where that new capitalist way of being dominates, so that now one can’t even call it imperialist, it’s something new, something that goes way beyond what students of Marxism wrote in history years ago. It’s something new, novel. It’s a power, practically global, of the big transnationals, of those megalopolies they’ve created. Therefore, we are the enemy. We are presenting an alternative project. The solution that the world proposes to us, is not that. We know how to do it, and Cuba, Venezuela, the ALBA countries, have demonstrated that it can be done, that one or two days more are nothing. The Cuban revolution has been in existence for 55 years, and with political will, it has achieved things that the US government, with all the money in the world, has been unable to do. So that’s a bad example.

And I’ve told my students: Can you imagine that the Indignants in Spain, the thousands and millions of workers out of work in Spain, that the Greeks, that all those people in all the world, know what we’re doing? Can you imagine that these people get to know who Chávez is? Or who Fidel is? Or of the things we’re doing here? Or the things we’re doing with so few resources, only the will to make revolution and share the wealth? What will happen to capitalism? How much longer will capitalism last, which has to spend billions of dollars, every day, to build its image and fool the people? What would happen if the people knew who we really are? What is the Cuban Revolution, really, and what is the Venezuelan Revolution? Because, if you talked to a Spaniard and asked him about Chávez, and he gives you a terrible opinion of Chávez, because it’s what they’ve constructed in his mind/ And you meet an unemployed person who tells you that Chávez is a bad guy, because the media have convinced him of that, but if these people knew how things really were! So they can’t allow that such formidable enemies as ourselves should be there, at the door.

Q. From the viewpoint of the national sovereignty of our people, how can we stop the CIA? We’ve already talked about the consciousness of the people, which is fundamental in these types of actions, but, in the concrete, how does one foresee the CIA’s work? What can be done? What recommendations do you have?

I think of a thing that Chávez said, and that Fidel has always said, that is the key to defeating the empire, and that is unity. It’s not a slogan, it’s a reality. It’s the only way you have of defeating a project like that. A project that comes from the Special Services and from capitalism. One can only do it with the unity of the people.

Q. Are we talking about the civilian-military?

Yes, unity in all senses. Unity based in diversity, in the peoples, but unity as a nation, unity as a project. Wherever the people are divided, there is another reality.

Q. Where do they have to concentrate? In what area must they concentrate forces to defend us from this type of actions, this type of attacks?

The army to defeat that is the people. I believe that the Cuban experience has taught that very well. There are experiences in the world which mark you very clearly. What has happened in the world, when the people have not been protagonists in defence of the Revolution? And when the people have been protagonists, what happened? And there’s the case of Cuba. We have managed to defeat the CIA and the empire millions of times, because the people have been the protagonist.

Q. Does the CIA use the databases of the social networks, and that sort of thing, to define their plans?
They’re the masters. They’re the masters of that. Fine, there are the denunciations of Snowden and all that has come out of Wikileaks, and all those things that are no secret to anyone, because we suspected, but it’s been demonstrated. It’s been demonstrated that the servers, the Internet, are theirs. All the servers in the world, in the end, die in the North Americans’ servers. They are the mother of the Internet, and all the networks and services are controlled by them. They have access to all the information. And they don’t hesitate to record it. Facebook is an extraordinary database. People put everything on Facebook. Who are your friends? What are their tastes, what movies have they seen? What do they consume? And it’s a source of firsthand information.

Q. Have you been in contact with Kelly Keiderling, after what happened in Venezuela?

No, I haven’t had contact with her. I don’t know what was her final destination, after what happened (she was expelled from Venezuela for meeting with and financing terrorists).

Q. With the experience she has, how far was she able to penetrate into Venezuela, and Venezuelan universities?
I am certain that she got quite far. She’s a very intelligent agent, very well prepared, very capable, and very convinced of what she’s doing. Kelly is a person convinced of the job she is doing. She is convinced of the justness, from her point of view, of what she is doing. Because she is an unconditional representative of capitalism. Because she comes from capitalism’s elite. She is organic of the actions she is doing. There is no contradiction of any kind. And, based on the experience of her work, of her capability, I am sure that she managed to get very far, and gave continuity to a job which is not just for now, it’s a job she will go on doing for a long time, to reverse the process in Venezuelan universities. What’s going on is that up to whatever point they can reach, in the long term, that is what will show the Bolivarian process, in the measure of which the people are aware of what could happen. If that fascist right wing becomes uncontrollable, it could get into power again.

Q. What kind of person who has contacts, who could reach the people, such as by being an activist in a movement, could be captured by the CIA?

They will find them, they will try to do it. If it’s a young person and a leader, they will try to capture them for their interests. We have to train our leaders. We can’t leave that to spontaneity, we can’t leave that to the enemy. So, if we leave them to the enemy, those are spaces which the enemy will occupy. Any alternative project that we leave unattended, any alternative project that we don’t realize the necessity of getting close to, that is a project that the enemy will try, by all means, to take advantage of. Using the enormous amount of money they have for that, which has no limits, in terms of resources to be used, because they are playing with the future and, above all, the young are the key.

The good thing is that the young are the present of Latin America. The Latin American revolution which is there, which is everywhere, is of the young. If not, fine, it will never have results, and if you manage to make young people think differently, if you succeed in getting these youngsters to believe that savage capitalism is the solution to all their problems, then there will be no revolution for Latin America. It’s that simple.

Source: News of the Restless

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1 ... R5_uHzSeyc
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 31, 2019 9:41 pm

Venezuela - Coup Attempt Part Of A Larger Project - Military Intervention Likely To Fail
The Trump administration has launched a large political project to remake several states in Latin America. The Wall Street Journal headlines:

U.S. Push to Oust Venezuela’s Maduro Marks First Shot in Plan to Reshape Latin America
The Trump administration’s broader aim is to gain leverage over Cuba and curb recent inroads in the region by Russia, Iran and China

The plan includes regime change in Venezuela, Nicaragua and eventually Cuba. The removal of any Russian or Chinese interest is another point. It is a multiyear project that has bipartisan support. It will likely require military force.


The targets: Raúl Castro of Cuba, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
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The project seems to echo the "New Middle East" plan then Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice launched in 2006. It largely failed due to U.S. incompetence but left behind severely damaged states.

That the U.S. is going for such a wide ranging plan in the western hemisphere might explains why Trump is pressing to end the other military projects in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

The starting shot for the new plan, the U.S. led coup attempt in Venezuela, is already in trouble. The U.S. selected puppet Juan Guaidó had called for demonstration in support of his coup that were supposed to take place yesterday. But even the NYT, which propagandizes for each and every regime change operation the U.S. undertakes in Latin America, could find only little evidence of support:

Mr. Guaidó also took part in protests on Wednesday at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, where he was swarmed by international reporters. Wearing a white lab coat, he linked arms with medical students and marched with them up a roadway, before speeding off on the back of a motorbike.
The demonstration was one of a handful in the city on Wednesday, though on a smaller scale than some recent demonstrations. Some workers walked out of their jobs for hours in protest against Mr. Maduro and his government, gathering on corners through the capital.

Videos from Venezuela showed a crowd of some hundred people in the better off quarters of Caracas. Meanwhile pictures of several pro-Maduro demonstrations in various cities showed much larger crowds. New demonstrations will be held on Saturday and are likely to show similar results.

The Washington Post claims that anti-government protests took place in two of the more destitute areas of Caracas. But the report contradicts itself. It starts:

As the opposition campaign to oust President Nicolás Maduro dramatically escalated, the warren-like streets of the Puerta Caracas slum filled with pot-banging, anti-government demonstrators. A culture center run by Maduro loyalists was burned down. Hungry, beaten-down residents felt a rush of hope.
Then night fell, along with the boot steps of government forces.

Maduro called the arsonists “fascist criminals,” and residents in the western Caracas enclave paid the price. Mask-wearing special forces, locals said, swarmed the neighborhood last week, kicking in doors, rounding up young people and imposing an effective curfew.

Twenty propaganda filled paragraphs later we learn that the described arson of a culture center took place before the coup attempt happened and likely has nothing to do with it:

The uprisings began the night of Jan. 22, with residents of Puerta Caracas banging pots and lighting dumpsters on fire. Around midnight, neighbors say, a group of hooded boys threw molotov cocktails at the culture center.
Early Wednesday, family members said, Abel Pernia, 19, was heading to a doctor’s appointment when armed intelligence police officers grabbed him, shoved him against a wall and handcuffed him.
...
... [more] protests erupted in Petare last Wednesday and continued until dawn. A group set fire to barricades, threw stones and attacked an outpost of the National Guard. Security forces repelled them with tear gas as residents chanted “we don’t want food boxes! What we want is for Nicolas to leave!”

Neighbors said that criminal gangs were among the crowd and created havoc by violently confronting the police. The response was immediate.

The coup attempt which was launched on January 23. The arson incident took place on January 22. The following day the police came and arrested people involved in it. More gang riots followed.

The whole story has nothing to with the coup attempt or with general protests against Maduro. It is about gang crime in some slum quarters. Gang fighting has long been a problem in Caracas. A special police force, the FAES, was set up in 2017 to get it under control.

That the Washington Post has to use an unrelated incident to proclaim that the poor people support the coup attempt shows how little real evidence it has to support that propaganda claim.

The public in Venezuela is evidently not supporting the foreign induced coup attempt. A recent poll shows that more than 80% of the people are against sanctions and other international interventions to remove President Maduro. 80% also support talks between the government and the opposition which Maduro repeatedly offered but which the coup plotters reject.


It is very unlikely that civil disobedience or demonstration will be able to remove the government of Venezuela. The opposition simply does not have enough people on its side to create more than inconveniences.

It is also not the plan.

It is obvious that the U.S. wants a violent conflict. Either the Venezuelan military will have to launch a coup or the violence will have to be brought in from the outside.

The military has for now declared that it is not willing to do anything against the government. Other measures will have to be taken. That the Trump administration selected Elliott Abrams, Ronald Reagan's "Assistant Secretary of Dirty Wars", as special envoy to its puppets is telling:

The choice of Abrams sends a clear message to Venezuela and the world: The Trump administration intends to brutalize Venezuela, while producing a stream of unctuous rhetoric about America’s love for democracy and human rights. Combining these two factors — the brutality and the unctuousness — is Abrams’s core competency.
An oped by the U.S. selected dude, who was created by the U.S. regime change machine, was published in today's New York Times:

Juan Guaidó: Venezuelans, Strength Is in Unity
To end the Maduro regime with the minimum of bloodshed, we need the support of pro-democratic governments, institutions and individuals the world over.

Notice the "minimum of bloodshed"? One wonders how many 100,000 dead will do.

Guaido explains the murky legal foundation for his claims to presidency:

I would like to be clear about the situation in Venezuela: Mr. Maduro’s re-election on May 20, 2018, was illegitimate, as has since been acknowledged by a large part of the international community. His original six-year term was set to end on Jan. 10. By continuing to stay in office, Nicolás Maduro is usurping the presidency.
My ascension as interim president is based on Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution, according to which, if at the outset of a new term there is no elected head of state, power is vested in the president of the National Assembly until free and transparent elections take place. This is why the oath I took on Jan. 23 cannot be considered a “self-proclamation.” It was not of my own accord that I assumed the function of president that day, but in adherence to the Constitution.

The early election in May 2018 was held on demand of the opposition parties some of which, urged by the U.S., did not take part in it. There is no evidence of fraud that lets one doubt the results. Maduro won among several candidates with more than 60% of the votes. One might argue that has more legitimacy than some other elected people.


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Not liking the outcome is not a reason to declare an election illegitimate.

If Maduro's first term ended on January 10 why took it Guaido, as head of the National Assembly, thirteen days to find that Maduro's second term was 'illegitimate'? Moreover, if article 233 is used as justification to temporarily usurp the presidency then Guaido has the duty to hold new elections within 30 days. So far he has not even called for them. His reasoning is not convincing at all.

Guaido goes on to say that he needs support of the military. But this does not sound like he has it:

The transition will require support from key military contingents. We have had clandestine meetings with members of the armed forces and the security forces. We have offered amnesty to all those who are found not guilty of crimes against humanity. The military’s withdrawal of support from Mr. Maduro is crucial to enabling a change in government, and the majority of those in service agree that the country’s recent travails are untenable.
He further claims, like the Washington Post above, that the gang violence before the coup attempt shows that Maduro has lost all support:

Mr. Maduro no longer has the support of the people. Last week in Caracas, citizens from the poorest neighborhoods that had been Chavista strongholds in the past took to the streets in unprecedented protests. They went out again on Jan. 23 with the full knowledge that they might be brutally repressed, and they continue to attend town hall meetings.
Guaido ends by calling for external support for his endeavor.

What he needs are billions of dollars to build up some mercenary army that will help him to overthrow the government.

The U.S. seized Venezuelan assets but will have trouble to hand them to Guaido. The main asset is CITGO, which owns refineries and gas stations in the United States. But CITGO is deep in debt. Its refineries depend on the heavy oil from Venezuela. If might well go into bankruptcy in which case the debt holders will take it over. At least 49.5 % will go to the Russian company Rosneft. The legal process will take years.

So how much U.S. money is Trump willing to invest in his plan?


Venezuela will have trouble to defend itself against a foreign military attack. The Maduro government is not the most competent, the military is quite corrupt, and money is scarce. China and Russia may support it with some additional loans, but are otherwise unlikely to come to its help. Cuba and Nicaragua may be willing to send troops but have little else to offer.

But the Bolivarian movement in Venezuela has millions of supporters. Most are poor people who would lose out under a new rightwing government. While the Venezuelan military may be corrupt and not very willing to fight, many people will surely take up arms to defend the gains they made under Maduro and Chavez.

It might be relatively easy to invade Venezuela and to defeat its regular military. But the following occupation would be a very difficult endeavor. The Pentagon has seen how this worked out in Iraq. It will likely warn against the use of any U.S. troops in Venezuela. Other countries will likewise be careful not to get into such a mess.

The CIA and the coup plotters can hire thousands of throat cutting thugs to do some extreme damage to Venezuela. But they have little chance to win more than a completely destroyed country.

Might that be the real aim? Is the project for the New Middle East Latin America one of complete destruction?

Posted by b on January 31, 2019 at 01:59 PM | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/01/v ... -fail.html

Ain't sure about b's evaluation of the Venezuelan military, though we saw how seriously the US corrupted the Iraqi military in the prelude to the invasion. And at this point in the escalation the armed thugs gonna get sat on hard, no more 'mr nice guy'.
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri Feb 01, 2019 2:07 pm

No To War In Venezuela – U.S. Peace Council
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SIGN THE STATEMENT HERE -----> www.nowaronvenezuela.org

Desplácese hacia abajo para leer la versión en español.



No U.S. War on Venezuela!

Support National actions on Saturday, February 23 - the one month anniversary of U.S. attempted coup.



We cannot be silent in the face of the latest U.S. aggression against the Venezuelan people.



Nicolás Maduro is the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, chosen twice by the people as part of an internationally observed electoral process. Since the 1998 election of Hugo Chávez, the United States has been relentless in its pursuit of regime change in Venezuela. With Donald Trump in the White House, these efforts have escalated to threats of all-out military violence, the plundering of billions of dollars in wealth from the Venezuelan people and pushing a multitude of outrageous lies in the global media.



For hundreds of years, the U.S. has waged war against the people of the world through coups, invasions and economic warfare. Juan Guaidó is a U.S. puppet. He is not a representative of the Venezuelan masses. The idea that a person can swear themselves in as president at a rally in the interest of “defending democracy” is laughable. The right wing in Venezuela claim the Bolivarian elections are rigged because they refuse to participate in them. Instead they engage in voter intimidation using violence reminiscent of Jim Crow terrorism against African-Americans in the Deep U.S. South.



U.S.-led sanctions and currency manipulation are responsible for the suffering in Venezuela. Marco Rubio and right-wing media guide the Venezuelan opposition from Miami. The U.S. cannot stand for any country on the planet to enjoy its natural wealth or the fruits of its labor independent of Wall Street and the Pentagon. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world and is rich in gold and other mineral wealth. Iraq war architect John Bolton said that regime change in Venezuela would be a tremendous opportunity to gain more profits for Wall Street. We believe him.



Since the Bolivarian Revolution in 1998, massive strides have been taken to uplift the working class, Afro-Venezuelans and Indigenous populations in Venezuela. The working poor have made tremendous gains because the government implemented policies and passed laws to fight racism, sexism, homophobia and economic inequality. Despite sanctions and sabotage, Venezuela has maintained a transparent and democratic system through many elections. Venezuela provides aid to struggling people worldwide through subsidized fuel and by leading the way with progressive labor laws. Their gains are part of the global struggle waged by workers and the oppressed against the wealthiest and most powerful capitalists on the planet.



Therefore, we demand:



● The U.S. immediately cease all hostile actions against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela — lift all sanctions, stop backing a coup, cease efforts to destroy the Venezuelan economy and respect the right of the Venezuelan people to self-determination.

● All countries involved in the plunder of Venezuelan wealth immediately return what they have stolen to the democratically elected government of Venezuela and its people.

● Wall Street must immediately pay reparations to the Venezuelan people for their suffering under genocidal sanctions and currency manipulation.



In the internationalist and liberatory spirit of Simón Bolívar, we pledge to mobilize and fight on the side of Venezuela’s right to sovereignty, understanding that the gains won under the Bolivarian Revolution are gains for all the world’s workers and oppressed.
Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri Feb 01, 2019 2:14 pm

The PCMLV Regarding the Complex Scenario of Venezuela and Its Consequences
by worker
As the leadership of our party has been stating in various national and international documents and places, the fundamental contradictions are becoming sharper. This has been seen with greater impudence in recent days by the action of the US government and its lackeys. Every moment the imperialist policy becomes clearer, which makes it possible to remove any possible doubt about the effects of the interventionist, aggressive and anti-popular action against the peoples of the world, of the region, and now against the Venezuelan people. This politics has caused serious damage to the economy and the population, relying for its implementation on the native bourgeoisie, the local and regional instrument that affects, in the first place, the working majorities.

The administration of the ultra-reactionary Trump has counted on the support of some sell-out governments that act against the right to self-determination, endorse the condemnable action of the puppet Almagro in the OAS, as well as of all the instruments at the service of the monopolies. Meanwhile they apply anti-people measures designed by the IMF to increase the exploitation and repression against the majorities in their countries. This makes it clearer every day to all revolutionaries on which side we should be at this moment.

The main contradiction in this regional situation is, in general, between imperialist oppression and the struggle for liberation from this dependence. In particular this becomes a struggle between imperialism, mainly US imperialism, which has traditionally maintained its domination, and the interests of the exploited majorities. These sometimes support reformist, revisionist projects and other times support the revolutionary line. This depends in large part on the application of the correct tactics, which for the true communists is the line of the Third International. At 100 years since its foundation, this remains in full force, with the tactic that promotes the unity of forces to confront the great imperialist capital and the embryos of fascism, unifying the proletarians in the march towards the total liberation of the oppressed of the world.

In Venezuela, the struggle against the US-EU imperialist bloc is progressing well, with ever increasing direct struggles involving different social classes. Mainly this is expressed in the major media in the struggle between the traditional pro-Yankee bourgeoisie, which intends to retake control of the government at all costs, and a many-sided tendency, with manifestations of national demands. This has shown itself close to the China-Russia bloc, leaving the objective of the proletariat and the popular masses in second place. But we must state that we are on the street, in the main struggles, in the debate and mobilization. This opens up great possibilities to strengthen the popular line of struggle for national liberation and socialism. It poses an immense challenge to the forces revolutionary; we are working continuously to consolidate higher levels of organization and mobilization of the revolutionary popular movement.

We Marxist-Leninists have the duty to continue gaining the confidence of the people for the consolidation of the political current of class independence. This demands the accumulation of its own forces and in alliances to organize resistance against the US-EU imperialist bloc, as well as in the struggle to improve the living conditions of the popular majorities. This helps them to identify their enemies, capitalism and imperialism as its higher phase, as the cause of their hardship, as well as internal and foreign accomplices. The Venezuelan proletariat is advancing under various difficulties, being clear on the achievement of the strategic objectives of the working class, the peasants and the people, with a position of critical support together with demands on a government under attack by imperialism.

We are adjusting our tactics with the most objective view of the circumstances, and our party, from the very terrain of the struggle, has understood that we are not only living through a complex political situation, marked by the consequences of the economic crisis, an increasing imperialist aggression, by errors of past and present government policy, by weaknesses of the revolutionary movement. Despite this the revolutionary movement has grown over the past 20 years, but in addition to the present situation, there is a structural problem of the bourgeois state. This state has shown a process of decomposition, which can be seen in the inability of the contestants to subdue their opponent and the emergence of a parallel power. This shows us that this conflict of the structural base will not be solved in the short term and that it opens the possibility for fundamental changes. That is why we must also work on the strategic perspective.

The events of these last days affirm our thesis on the decomposition of the State, as well as the role of the US-EU imperialist bloc and its lackeys. Even with contradictions, as a result of their internal struggles, they maintain a line of conduct to take advantage of the economic, political and social disturbances that Venezuela is experiencing, contributing to the process of decomposition of the State. This process is deepening every day, leading to a negotiation to distribute the country's wealth among the imperialist powers, to foreign aggression, a coup d'état or even a revolutionary situation. This is a consequence of the struggle among the different tendencies in conflict and the emergence of popular actors, as happened at other periods in the history of the country.

Faced with these scenarios, which are leading to situations of violence, we call on all revolutionaries, patriots and democrats, on the workers of the world, on the peasants and worthy people, to prepare the conditions of concrete solidarity, being certain that the Venezuelan people are resisting and struggling. They will continue resisting and fighting under any scenario; the working class, we Marxist-Leninists and especially our party are working to organize the defense, based on the legitimacy of the actions that the proletariat will take to safeguard their interests and those of the majorities, convinced that the contradictions present in the region are creating the conditions for a struggle that is expanding, and to work for the unity of the working class and peoples on the basis of tactics of a regional character in order to confront the main and common enemy of our peoples without dispersing the forces by attacking scarecrows.

Socialism Is Only Built with the Worker-Peasant Alliance in Power and the People in Arms

Political Bureau of the Marxist-Leninist Part of Venezuela

Caracas, January 2019
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri Feb 01, 2019 2:17 pm

Communiqué of the Communist Party of Spain (M-L), CPE(m-l)
by worker
Communiqué of the Communist Party of Spain (M-L), CPE(m-l)

ON THE ATTEMPT OF A COUP D’ETAT IN VENEZUELA

Venezuela is experiencing an extremely serious period due to the attempt of its oligarchy to force a coup d'état, openly sponsored by Yankee imperialism and its allies, taking advantage of the deep economic and social crisis that the country is experiencing and the weakness of the Maduro Government.

Behind this new attempt is the US, which has always considered Latin America and the Caribbean as its back yard. The list of reactionary coups sponsored by Yankee imperialism and its partners is endless. Throughout the second half of the 20th century and up to today, the imperialist hand has been behind a long series of violent protests that have caused countless suffering to the working class and fraternal peoples: Brazil and Bolivia (1964), Peru (1968) , Chile and Uruguay (1973), Argentina (1976), Paraguay (1989), Haiti (2004), etc., are some examples. The imperialist army itself intervened directly in Cuba (Bay of Pigs, 1961), the Dominican Republic (1965-66) and Panama (1989).

Today, the worsening of the capitalist crisis is causing the sharpening of the commercial, political and also military struggle among the great imperialist powers to gain spheres of influence. They have never left Colombia, and in Chile, Argentina, etc., the most reactionary right-wing that is submissive to the Yankee dictates is again occupying the governments, taking advantage of the profound contradictions that have ended up overturning the experiments of social transformation led by the reformist bourgeoisie, which in no case put in question the power of the national oligarchies.

However, despite the serious contradictions of the extensive reformist movement that promised a new direction for the Latin American laboring classes from one end of the subcontinent to the other, without actually changing the power structure in their countries, what is at stake now is the submission of the brotherly peoples to the dictates of US imperialism, their submission to the Yankee boot, and the imposition of the stark dictatorship of capital in all of them.

No, it is not Bolsonaro, Macri, Piñera, Duque or Guaidó who will bring social justice and peace to the region; its objective is different: to put an end to the dreams of the small and middle bourgeoisie and to re-impose the open dictatorship of capital. The example of Cuba proves that it is only possible to sustain social changes when the instruments of control of the economy are snatched from the oligarchy, and only insofar as they are subjected to popular control.

In Spain, monarchist governments have never been neutral in Venezuela: the friendship between Felipe González and the champion of corruption, Carlos Andrés Pérez, who led the privatization of Venezuelan public enterprises causing a social crisis with dramatic consequences, had its continuity in the support of the Aznar Government for the Military Coup attempt that Venezuela suffered in 2002. Nor are they neutral n these dramatic hours that the Venezuelan people are going through.

We Spanish workers cannot, therefore, be neutral. The statement of the reactionary Minister of Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, subjecting the position of the monarchist state to the decision of the EU, negates once again the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people and sanctifies the imperialist interference in the affairs of that brother country, in order to leave its people alone to face the forces of reaction and imperialism. For his part, the reactionary national leader Casado, President of the PP [People’s Party, Spain], who a few weeks ago offered Trump the use of Spanish soil as a permanent base for the Southern Command and African Command of the Yankee army, has declared his full support for the reactionary coup in progress, expressly requesting imperialist intervention in the internal affairs of Venezuela. The declarations of these and other servants of capital aim to give a veneer of legitimacy to what is nothing but a new interference by Yankee imperialism.

We must fight this new attempt at a reactionary coup and express our solidarity with the Venezuelan workers and people, whom they want to subject once again to the dictates of imperialism and the open dictatorship of their corrupt oligarchy.

Our Party expresses its full support to the Venezuelan workers, to the revolutionary organizations and, in particular, to our sister party (Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Venezuela – PCMLV), which under the harshest conditions is promoting a real change that guarantees popular control of the State.

STOP THE IMPERIALIST INTERFERENCE IN VENEZUELA!

STOP THE COUP D’ETAT!

SOLIDARITY WITH THE WORKING CLASS AND THE PEOPLE OF VENEZUELA!

January 24, 2019

Executive Committee of the PCE (m-l)
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Sat Feb 02, 2019 1:42 pm

I thank the people of Miranda, Carabobo, Portuguesa and Monagas for the extraordinary mobilizations today #01Feb. They are signs of love, commitment and dedication for the Homeland of our Liberators. Long live the Bolivarian Revolution!

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Courtesy Nicolás Maduro @maduro_en
12h12 hours ago
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Sat Feb 02, 2019 11:30 pm

Today:

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compare & contrast:

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which side are you on?
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