Venezuela

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Sun Mar 31, 2019 4:46 pm

Europe awarded an ultra Venezuelan, why?
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ANDY ROBINSON - 03/30/2019 - 2:55 h

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Lorent Saleh with the Colombian neo-Nazi Eduardo Romero de Tercera Fuerza

Questioning the moral character of the Venezuelan opposition is taboo at this time. That is why, perhaps, few European journalists have asked why Lorent Saleh, a Venezuelan right-wing opposition who has planned attacks in Venezuela, was awarded the Sakharov prize for freedom of conscience along with other leaders of the Venezuelan opposition. But it is a question on which all Europeans should be interested above all in a moment of growing violence of the extreme right on a world scale.

Because, as affirmed by one of the Spanish politicians who promoted Saleh's nomination for the award, Beatriz Becerra MEP of the UPyD party, "the Sakharov Prize is awarded by the European Parliament representing 500 million European citizens and therefore means a moral support of the utmost importance ".

Becerra and the euro deputy of the Popular Party José Salafranca are the two MEPs who, with the support of the then PP government in Spain, pushed for Saleh and other representatives of Venezuela's most combative opposition against Nicolás Maduro to receive the prize in 2017 .

After a stay in Cúcuta on the border of Venezuela and Colombia and after a revealing interview held last Tuesday with the former Colombian president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Juan Manuel Santos (he will be in La Vanguardia this weekend), I have come to the conclusion that the inclusion of Saleh in a group of opponents who received the award is highly debatable. Not only for the 50,000 euros of European taxpayer money that is given to the winners but also for the prestige that a prize conferred, the first winner being Nelson Mandela.

Saleh is a young radical of the Venezuelan opposition. He is a close collaborator of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe who has waged a defamatory campaign against Juan Manuel Santos over the past few years to discredit the negotiations he had with the Colombian guerrilla FARC in order to reach an agreement peace after 50 years of war. Saleh was deported from Colombia by the then Santos government in 2014 after associating with paramilitary and neo-Nazi groups in launching the Nationalist Freedom Alliance party , appearing with the Colombian neo-fascist Eduardo Romero de Tercera Fuerza, and broadcasting a video in the that boasts of having prepared attacks with explosives in Cúcuta and San Cristóbal de Tachira orside of the border. Likewise, photos have been published in which Saleh and another leader of his NGO, Operation Libertad, Gabriel Vallés, appear to be carrying weapons and garments for private use by Colombian military forces.

When I was in Cúcuta last month I was able to see how Operation Libertad used to work at the border in organizing demonstrations in which the strict slogan condemned Castro Chavismo. A former Saleh collaborator who studies law at the Free University of Cúcuta told me that they would be willing to take arms if the supposedly humanitarian operation fails. We publish this article in La Vanguardia, warning about the danger - given the background of Saleh-that a group such as Operation Libertad was at the forefront of the mobilization of citizens who supported the transport of the trucks with help, although few other media made the same warning. Pacifist groups in Cúcuta warned of the danger that paramilitary groups very active on the border and linked to the ultra right, intervened in the operation to provoke violence on the border,

For the 500 million European citizens that - as Becerra explained - implicitly have given their "moral support" to Saleh and perhaps seek more information about their activities, here is a transcription of part of the video in which Saleh threatens to commit attacks on Venezuela (I was provided by the office of former President Santos). "Start a full training, specialist, that training is in Bogotá, there are 10 people, there is a comprehensive plan, from shooting, explosives, strategy, to self defense, parachuting, everything. That is to start after the elections, but we must move the chamos to Bogotá (...) Here we have already achieved some things for the groups at least what are the camping bags, some packs, several things come.

These are surely examples of bravado by a young member of the Venezuelan student movement (formed politically with the help of the same agency USAID that managed the so-called "humanitarian" operation in Cúcuta ). Maybe it would not be worth it to spend more time on a blog for a newspaper whose headquarters is Barcelona. But due to the Sakharov Prize this is already an eminently European issue and, in times of mistrust of European institutions such as Parliament, it is a matter that must be investigated.

After being deported and transferred to Venezuela, Saleh accused Santos of having "kidnapped" him and of being a "partner" of Maduro. " He reported mistreatment of the Colombian police. "They take me on a plane like a drug dealer; they beat me they never let me call anyone; and I was 4 years a month and 7 days; the order was from Juan Manuel Santos, they moved a military plane; They were partners of Maduro, "he said. Saleh has repeatedly said that Santos "kidnapped" him because he "cared more about his Nobel prize than Venezuelan human rights." It is an ironic accusation that the perception that Saleh was the victim of mistreatment by Santos helped Saleh achieve his own prize

The problem is that there are reasons to think that everything said by Saleh regarding the deportation of Colombia is false. In the interview in La Vanguardia , Santos accused Saleh and his collaborators of lying shamelessly and gave me documents that support this accusation. "We deported Mr. Saleh because he was in Colombia illegally; He appeared in military uniforms and was doing politics, which is forbidden; He insulted a senator (from the left) in the middle of the street. There were more than enough reasons to deport him and he was never mistreated in Colombia, "the former president said.

After the deportation, Saleh was imprisoned in Venezuela and reported that he had been subjected to torture in a high security prison in Caracas where he remained for four years. It is likely that this testimony is true if one takes into account the suspicions of the Venezuelan authorities that Saleh was a terrorist. As a prisoner, he was added to the candidates for the Sakharov prize, according to the selection of the Venezuelan Criminal Forum, an opposition body that determines who are political prisoners. In 2017, after strong pressure from the Spanish government of the Popular Party, he was released and transferred to Madrid where Becerra welcomed him. Popular Party leader Pablo Casado in a meeting with Saleh in November 2018 called the radical youth a "defender of human rights."

After receiving the European award and being praised as a fighter for human rights, Saleh made a trip to Mexico in January of this year where he attacked President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador because he had not recognized Juan Guaido as Venezuelan president. Saleh was invited to the Mexican Senate by the conservative National Action Party (PAN), where he denounced a supposed democratic deficit in the congress due to the majority of Lopez Obrador's Morena party. The visit caused incidents in Mexico. Then Saleh returned to Colombia, invited by the government of Ivan Duque, very close to Uribe, in violation of the deportation order of the Santos government that prohibited the entry of Saleh until 2024. Saleh met with Uribe and was interviewed in various media from Spanish television to CNN where, presented in a complimentary manner as a human rights fighter, he repeated the accusations against Santos.

But his new image suddenly lost its luster when he was arrested in Cúcuta for provoking a violent incident in a restaurant and deported again but now by the government of Iván Duque. "Saleh is a fanned person (opportunist) likes to figure and shake and took advantage of the invitation to continue doing what he wanted to do in Cúcuta a few years before; but there was another scandal and it fell to the government (de Duque) to deport him to Spain. In the long run, things are known, "summarized Santos, who considers that the latest incident in Cúcuta supports his own decision to deport Saleh in 2014.. Saleh lashed out again against the Colombian government - now Duque's - for ill-treatment.

Becerra, very selectively specialized in human rights issues, employs an intensive communication policy. He regularly blogs about Venezuela (and about Catalonia, although the Catalan political prisoners do not produce the same moral indignation in the battery of tweets of the MEP than their Venezuelan counterparts). It tweeted wrongly on February 24 that "Maduro is capable of burning the medicines and food that Venezuelans need" after the burning of a truck loaded with "help" from USAID that, as explained by the New York Times, was provoked in all likelihood by a Molotov cocktail of the same protesters against Maduro. Becerra has not rectified.

Despite this communication policy, Becerra declined to respond to a written interview sent to his cabinet in Brussels on Friday after being addressed to his office by the European Parliament's general spokesman. I asked in the email if, - in the light of Saleh's arrest in Cúcuta and Santos' statements about the falsehoods that the former president imputes to Saleh - there are reasons for European citizens to question the delivery of the prize to Saleh.

The spokeswoman for the euro deputy, Anyelita Yanez, a Venezuelan opposition activist, replied: "On behalf of Beatriz I can add that Lorent Saleh has narrated personal and detailed since he arrived in Spain the circumstances of his arrest in Colombia and transfer to the Chavez prisons, (sic). "Santos categorically denies Saleh's testimony about the circumstances of his imprisonment in Colombia and his transfer to the Venezuelan authorities. Two months before the European elections, 500 million European citizens have the right to know who is telling the truth.

http://blogs.lavanguardia.com/diario-it ... -que-88508

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Mon Apr 01, 2019 3:26 pm

GUAIDÓ IS BASED ON A US MANUAL FOR "OPERATION LIBERTAD"

Whitney Webb

31 Mar 2019 , 6:30 pm .

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USAID's new war approach, known as Equipo RED, raises the operation in high risk sites (Photo: Spike Call / MCSC)

Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed "interim president of Venezuela", who has the support of the United States government, recently announced the "tactical actions" that his supporters will take from April 6 as part of " Operation Libertad ", a supposed effort of the organizational base to overthrow the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.

That operation, according to Guaidó, will be led by the "Freedom and Help Committees" which in turn will create "cells of freedom" throughout the country, "cells" that will be activated when Guaidó indicates it on April 6 and protests begin. large-scale premises. Guaidó's declared plan involves the Venezuelan military changing sides, but his insistence that "all options are still on the table" (ie, foreign military intervention) reveals his impatience with the military, who have remained loyal to the military. Maduro during the "interim presidency" of Guaidó.

However, a document published in February by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and highlighted last month in a report by Devex, details the creation of networks of small teams or cells, which would work in a way very similar to the one that Guaidó describes in his plan for "Operation Libertad".

Given that Guaidó was formed by a group funded by the sister organization of USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and it is known that he receives his instructions from Washington, including his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela after the confrontation for "humanitarian aid"; It is worth considering that this USAID document can serve as a roadmap for the next "tactical actions" led by Guaidó that will include "Operation Libertad".

EQUPOS RED
Entitled "Rapid Dispatch Development Teams (RED): Demand Assessment and Feasibility", the 75 page document was produced for the United States Global Development Laboratory, a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort due to the "widespread feeling" among the many military, intelligence and development officers interviewed by the authors of the report, "that the USG is woefully wasted in non-permissive environments and "It is notable that some of the military, intelligence and development officers interviewed by the authors of the report had experience working in a covert manner in Venezuela.

The approach presented in this report involves the creation of Rapid Dispatch Development Teams (RED), which will be "deployed as two-person teams and assigned to 'non-traditional' USAID partners that will execute a combination of offensive-defensive operations and of stability in extreme conditions ". The report further notes that these "non-traditional" partners are the United States Special Forces (SF) and the CIA.

The report goes on to say that "the members of the RED Team would be catalytic actors, who carry out development activities together with the local communities while coordinating with the inter-institutional partners". In addition, he states that "the priority competence of the proposed RED Team development officers is expected to be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super facilitators', observing situations on the ground and responding immediately designing, financing and implementing small-scale activities. "

In other words, these combined intelligence teams, military personnel and / or "democracy promoters" will function as "super facilitators" of "small-scale activities" focused on "social movement theory" and community mobilizations, as the protest mobilizations.

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The ultimate goal of Operation Libertad would be to arrive with ultraviolet cells at the Presidential Palace of Venezuela (Photo: Presidential Press)

The ultimate goal of Operation Libertad would be to arrive with ultraviolet cells at the Presidential Palace of Venezuela (Photo: Presidential Press)
The decentralized nature of RED teams and their focus on the production of "social movements" and "mobilizations" is very similar to the plan of Guaidófor "Operation Freedom". Operation Freedom is scheduled to begin through the "Freedom and Help Committees" that cultivate decentralized "cells of freedom" across the country to create mass mobilizations when Guaidó approves April 6. The final objective of Operation Libertad is that these protests generated by the "cells of freedom" converge in the Presidential Palace of Venezuela, where Nicolás Maduro resides. Given Guaidó's lack of momentum and popularity within Venezuela, it seems very likely that the "catalytic actors" of the US government will be a key part of his next plan to overthrow Maduro in little more than a week.

In addition, an appendix included in the report states that members of the RED Team, in addition to receiving training in social movement theory and community mobilization techniques, would also receive training in "handling and use of weapons," suggesting that their role as "catalytic actors" it could also involve behavior similar to that of Maidan. This is a distinct possibility highlighted by the report's demand that RED Team members be trained in the use of both "offensive" and "defensive" weapons.

In addition, another appendix states that members of the RED Team would help "identify allies and mobilize small amounts of cash to establish community acceptance / relationship", ie, bribes, and would particularly benefit the CIA by offering a form of " covert action of transition in activities of community participation ".

WITH THE BREATH OF BOLSONARO IN THE NECK
Also increasing the spectrum of a connection with Venezuela is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a pilot study of the RED Team. Several of those interviewed for the report stated that "the countries of South America were ready to participate in the pilot phases" of the RED Team program, and added that "these [countries] were infallible places, little reviewed and low profile, where USG civilians access is not rigorous by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive relationship between the United States and the host government. "

This January, Jair Bolsonaro made his debut as president of Brazil, a fascist who has not hidden his intention to align the country with the interests of Washington. During Bolsonaro's recent visit to Washington, he became the first President of that country to visit the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "we have a great alliance with Brazil, better than ever before" and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO.

eduardo-bolsonaro-2.jpg

Eduardo Bolsonaro, son and adviser to the Brazilian president, said that "the use of force will be necessary" in Venezuela (Photo: EFE)
Although Bolsonaro's government has affirmed at the end of February that it would not allow the United States to launch a military intervention from its territory, Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, an adviser to his Brazilian father and congressman, said last week that "the use of Force will be necessary "in Venezuela" at some point "and, echoing Trump's administration, he added that" all options are on the table ". If Bolsonaro's government permits the "use of force", but not a foreign military intervention per se, its proximity to the Trump administration and the CIA suggests that covert actions, such as those carried out by the proposed RED Teams, are the possibility alternate

FRONTIER DESIGN GROUP
The RED Team report was written by members of the Frontier Design Group (FDG) for the USAID Global Development Lab. FDG is a national security contractor and the statement of its Mission on its website is quite revealing:

"Since our foundation, Frontier has focused on the challenges and opportunities that concern" 3D "Defense, Development and Diplomacy and critical intersections with the intelligence community, our work has focused on perverse problems and, sometimes, overlapping, fragile, violent extremism, terrorism, civil war and insurgency Our work on these complex issues has included projects with the United States Departments of State and Defense, USAID, the National Counterterrorism Center and the Peace Institute of the United States"

FDG also states on its website that it also regularly works for the Council on Foreign Relations and the Omidyar Group, which is controlled by Pierre Omidyar, a billionaire with deep ties to the US National Security establishment that was the subject of a recent MintPress News series. According to journalist Tim Shorrock, who mentions the document in a recent investigation focusing on Pierre Omidyar for Washington Babylon, FDG was the "only contractor" employed by USAID to create a "new doctrine of counterinsurgency for the Trump administration" and the fruit of that effort is the "RED Team" document described above.

One of the coauthors of the document is Alexa Courtney , founder of FDG and former liaison officer of USAID with the Department of Defense; former manager of civil counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan for USAID; and former counterinsurgency specialist of the American intelligence contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton.

In addition, according to Shorrock, Courtney's name has also been found "in several contracts of Caerus [Associates] with USAID and the United States Intelligence that were leaked to me on a USB stick, including a $ 77 million USAID project to track ' licit and illicit networks' in Honduras. " Courtney, according to her LinkedIn account , was also recently honored by Chevron Corporation for her "proven leadership and impact on development results." MintPress News recently reported on Chevron's role in the current effort led by the United States to overthrow Maduro and replace him with Guaidó.

SEND USAID
Although Devex was told last month that USAID was "still working out the details to formulate the Rapid Development Development Team (RED)" initiative, Courtney stated that the content of the report had been "very favorably received" by "very high" and "influential" government officials, previous and current, whom I had interviewed during the creation of the document.

For example, one respondent stated that the RED Team system "would restore USAID's long-lost capacity". Another USAID official with 15 years of experience, even in "extremely contrary environments," stated that:

"We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant, anyone who does not think we should be working on combat elements or working with special forces groups (SF) is simply naive, or we will be direct or irrelevant. USAID is going through a lot at this time, but this is an area that we can be useful in. It must happen. "

Since the document represents the efforts of the sole contractor responsible for developing the new counter-terrorism strategy of the current administration, there is every reason to believe that its contents, published more than a year ago, have been implemented or will be used in Venezuela, potentially as part of the next "Operation Freedom", which will begin on April 6.

This is supported by the worrying correlation between a document produced by the CANVAS group, financed by the NED, and the recent power cuts that have occurred throughout Venezuela, which were described by the Government as a "sabotage" led by the States. United. A recent report by The Grayzone details how a September 2010 memo from CANVAS, who trained Juan Guaidó, described in detail how the possible collapse of the country's electricity infrastructure, like the one recently seen in Venezuela, would be "an event decisive "that" would probably have the impact of galvanizing public instability in a way that no opposition group would aspire to generate. "

The document specifically mentions the Simón Bolívar Hydroelectric Plant at the Guri dam, which failed earlier this month as a result of what the Venezuelan government claimed was a "sabotage" carried out by the United States government. That assertion was reinforced by the apparent previous knowledge of US Senator Marco Rubio about the blackout. Therefore, there is a precedent of correlation between this type of documents and the actions produced with respect to the current effort to change the regime of the United States in Venezuela.

In addition, it would make sense for the Trump administration to try to implement an initiative such as the one described in the document, given its apparent inability to launch a military intervention in Venezuela, despite its frequent assertions that "all options are on the table" . In fact, the allies of the United States, including those near Venezuela, such as Colombia, have rejected military intervention, given the past role of the United States in bloody coups and civil wars throughout the region.

Therefore, with their hands tied as far as military intervention is concerned, only covert actions, such as those described in the document on the RED Team, are likely to be activated by the United States government, at least in this case. stage of his current "regime change" effort in Venezuela.

http://misionverdad.com/traducciones/gu ... n-libertad

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Tue Apr 02, 2019 2:41 pm

The coup failed. Venezuelans now brace themselves for slow, punishing economic warfare.
Venezuela protest

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The Canary is currently in Venezuela. This is the latest in our series of on-the-ground articles.

Like in 2002, Washington’s attempted coup has failed to topple Venezuela´s democratically-elected government. On 23 February, as the US attempted to force unwanted ´humanitarian aid´ trucks onto Venezuelan territory, Venezuelan officers kept their composure and almost comprehensively refused to defect.

Now, Venezuelans brace themselves for more slow, punishing economic warfare.


Failed coup
The US-backed coup in Venezuela – which began on 23 January when US president Donald Trump recognised Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó – has plainly failed. Today, few people in Venezuela are under any illusions about who the country’s acting president is and, ironically, Guaidó is now reportedly relying on the security forces of a ‘dictatorship‘ for protection.

On the ground, The Canary has tried to cover opposition rallies, but with little success. Guaidó’s supporters either come out in small numbers and finish protesting before lunchtime or don’t turn up at all. These attempted protests become more embarrassing when, not far down the road, thousands of anti-imperialist protesters assembled to tell Guaidó’s Western backers: “Hands off Venezuela”.

Guaidó, meanwhile, has lost considerable legitimacy in the (generally pro-imperialist) corporate media. In a matter of weeks, he’s gone from Venezuela’s ‘interim president’, to ‘self-declared president’, to simply ‘a 35-year-old engineer‘.

Economic warfare
Since the failed coup attempt, the US government has stepped up its campaign of economic warfare in Venezuela. It has intensified economic sanctions, which are costing the Venezuelan economy billions of dollars and reducing its ability to provide basic services to the country’s population. While the US was once Venezuela’s largest purchaser of oil, the US imported zero barrels during March.

It’s also likely that US-backed sabotage is behind the country’s recent blackouts, which have crippled the economy and resulted in water-shortages in major cities. Also, US sanctions are partially responsible for the recent electrical failures, since they have reduced the country’s ability to maintain and repair their main electrical plant, El Guri.

Callous disdain
The US government is applying sanctions with a callous disdain for Venezuelan lives. On 22 March, a Trump official described them:

It’s sort of like in Star Wars when Darth Vader constricts somebody’s throat, that’s what we are doing to the regime economically.

Elsewhere, US special envoy to Venezuela Elliott Abrams gloated over Washington’s “wide, broad” net of sanctions, adding: “be careful not to get caught”.

In no uncertain terms, Washington’s economic measures are killing ordinary Venezuelans. As former UN independent expert Alfred de Zayas told The Canary:

To the extent that the sanctions are the direct cause of death – maternal mortality, infant mortality, malnutrition, death through lack of access to medicines, insulin, dialysis equipment, etc – they constitute a crime against humanity under article 7 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Lessons from Nicaragua
To understand Washington’s strategy in Venezuela, it’s valuable to look to Nicaragua during the 1980s. After the Sandinista revolution in 1979, the Nicaraguan government implemented various socio-economic reforms aimed at redistributing wealth among the country’s population. Like in Venezuela during the 2000s, these reforms were highly popular and successful. As Oxfam said of Nicaragua:

Nicaragua was…exceptional in the strength of that government’s commitment…to improving the condition of the people and encouraging their active participation in the development process.

In 1983, the Inter-American Development Bank similarly noted that:

Nicaragua has made noteworthy progress in the social sector, which is laying the basis for long-term socio-economic development.

As Noam Chomsky documented, the US responded to Nicaragua’s reforms by sponsoring an armed and economic campaign of terror. In the words of US policy planner George Shultz, the Sandinistas were a “cancer, right here on our land mass”, that needed to be destroyed. Vitally, US politician Alan Cranston said that if the US failed to destroy the Sandinistas, they should be left to “fester in [their] own juices”.

In other words, collective punishment would be exacted upon Nicaraguans for daring to pursue the ‘wrong’ economic model. Today, Venezuelans are experiencing a strikingly similar treatment, with the involvement again of characters like Abrams.

Given Washington’s consistent failure to bully ordinary Venezuelans into toppling their own government, the US government seems determined to make them suffer.

Fears from Venezuela
After an electrical blackout on 29 March, a youth leader in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, asked:

Do you know what tilapia is? It’s a fish that can survive in a stressful environment. They’re like Venezuelans: we’ll suffer through anything.

Another organiser told The Canary, with a wry smile on his face:

This is a message to Trump: your threats are futile, we will win.

Many Venezuelans are aware of US foreign policy history and understand the mechanisms of US imperialism. With this political consciousness and community solidarity, it will be incredibly difficult to break them.

Featured image via the author

https://www.thecanary.co/feature/2019/0 ... c-warfare/
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Thu Apr 04, 2019 11:06 am

Guaido’s Parliamentary Immunity Revoked as Maduro Sacks Electricity Minister
The measure paves the way for criminal proceedings to be brought against the opposition leader.

By Paul Dobson
Apr 3rd 2019 at 8.25pm

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The National Constituent Assembly unanimously approved revoking Guaido’s parliamentary immunity. (Con El Mazo Dando)

Merida, April 3, 2019 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela’s National Constituent Assembly (ANC) has lifted the parliamentary immunity of the self-declared “Interim President” Juan Guaido, opening the door for criminal charges to be brought against him.

Tuesday’s unanimous decision came following a request from the Supreme Court, and included the “authorisation” of the continuation of investigations into the also deputy and president of the National Assembly.

“The investigation [against Guaido] is formally authorised to continue in accordance with our Constitution and laws” said ANC President Diosdado Cabello during the session. Cabello added that justice was “necessary” and what would safeguard peace in Venezuela.

The ANC based their move on article 200 of Venezuela’s constitution which gives the Supreme Court the unique power to rule over parlamentarians’ immunity from prosecution.

Guaido, who was chosen as National Assembly president in January 2019, violated a court-ordered travel ban on February 22 when he crossed into Colombia to lead efforts to force humanitarian “aid” across the border. He later attended a Lima Group meeting in Bogota and travelled to Brazil, Paraguay, Ecuador, and Argentina before returning to Venezuela March 4.

The travel ban against Guaido, as well as an asset freeze, were also reinforced by the ANC Tuesday, both extended “until the investigation [against him] is over.”

Two criminal investigations being led by the Attorney General’s office are currently open, one relating to his unconstitutional behaviour as a public official, and the other regarding his alleged role in what the Venezuelan government describes as sabotage against the electric grid which has led to rolling blackouts across Venezuela in recent weeks.

The opposition leader has also been barred from holding public office for 15 years by Venezuela’s Ombudsman Elvis Amoroso last month. Amoroso pointed towards alleged spending irregularities during Guaido’s time as a deputy.

Following the announcement, Guaido told his followers that the measure was “very serious” and asked them to show their strength “on the streets.”

“When I started this struggle in the student movement I didn't have parliamentary immunity and we confronted the dictatorship on a daily basis,” he told reporters.

“This is simply the political response from some cowards who cannot even give an effective response to problems of water supply around the Presidential Palace,” Guaido claimed, promising to continue his struggle “come what may.”

Guaido has called his followers to carry out a “dry run” of what he has named “Operation Freedom” on Saturday, April 6. While further details are unknown, opposition leaders have claimed that it will bring an end to “the usurpation.”

Foreign governments which have recognised Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate president also reacted to the lifting of his parliamentary immunity, with Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell demanding that “[Guaido’s] freedom and physical integrity be respected.”

US officials also weighed in, with Florida Senator Rick Scott “warning” Maduro that the US “will not stand by” if something happens to Guaido. Fellow Florida Senator Marco Rubio claimed that any attempt to arrest the opposition leader would amount to a “coup d’etat” which would face “consequences.”

The recent statements echo previous warnings from US officials against any attempts by Venezuelan authorities to arrest or bring charges against Guaido.
Marco Rubio

@marcorubio
Replying to @marcorubio
Any effort to abduct @jguaido should be considered a coup d’ etat by every nation that has recognized him as the legitimate Interim President of #Venezuela. And anyone who cooperates with this should be treated as as a coup plotter & dealt with accordingly.

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2019-2025 Homeland Plan approved
Tuesday’s ANC session also saw the approval of the 2019-2025 Homeland Plan (“Plan de la Patria”), setting forward a number of policies and goals to be achieved during President Maduro’s second term. The targets include reaching 5 million homes built by the Housing Mission, having 8,000 communes set up and extending the pension system to the entirety of the elder population.

The session also came on the heels of a minor cabinet shuffle on Monday. Maduro announced that he was activating a Ministry for Science and Technology, separating it from the Higher Education Ministry and nominating Freddy Britto Maestre as the new minister. But the most significant change was the replacement of Electricity Minister Luis Motta Dominguez with Igor Gavidia. Gavidia is touted as someone with extensive knowledge and experience in Venezuela’s electricity sector having risen through the ranks of the state-run electrical corporation, CORPOELEC.

Venezuela has suffered from a number of major power outages in March, affecting most of the territory, following what authorities have denounced as repeated cyber, physical and electromagnetic attacks against the electric grid and the country’s main electricity generator, the Guri Dam in the eastern Bolivar State.

The latest blackouts occurred on Friday and Saturday, with electricity being gradually restored throughout the country. Services such as water pumping and the subway and suburban trains in Caracas, which represent a large demand on the grid, have also been partially restored as of Wednesday.

Venezuela’s electric grid has been plagued by under-investment, lack of maintenance and emigration of qualified personnel, while previous and recent US sanctions have also compounded issues. Sanctions have stopped Caracas from getting spare parts and servicing equipment, shut down access to credit lines, and caused shortages of fuel needed to activate backup thermoelectric plants.

Edited and with additional reporting by Ricardo Vaz from Caracas.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14418
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri Apr 05, 2019 4:11 pm

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Venezuela implements new energy protection system
Posted by Wendy Jarquin | Apr 5, 2019

Venezuela implements new energy protection system
The Government of Venezuela is implementing today a new protection mechanism for the National Electric System (SEN), focused on addressing emergencies and advancing its restructuring and consolidation.

The Sectoral Vice President of Public Works and Services, Néstor Reverol, notified the eve that the Executive built a comprehensive security plan with the purpose of working on the improvement of basic services.

Reverol explained that on instructions from the President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, the methodology defines as work lines the attention of the energetic emergency after the sabotages perpetrated in March against the processes of generation and transmission, with affectations to great part of the national territory and the distribution of drinking water.

The Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace also highlighted the formation of six work commissions with actions aimed at modernizing the National Electric Corporation, with the premise of shielding the sector against future aggression.

For his part, the Venezuelan head of state said that the Bolivarian authorities are working to guarantee the gradual recovery of the SEN in the face of unconventional war perpetrated by the right.

From the Miraflores Palace (seat of the Executive), Maduro affirmed that the attacks are part of an electric power coup in development and against public services to render and confuse an entire country. 'We are in resistance and we are going to win,' he said.

He also recalled that the South American nation has active 51 thousand Integral Defense Productive Units, as well as more than two million militiamen for the protection of vulnerable areas and the support to political and territorial leaders in the distribution of food and supplies in front of attacks

'I make a repeated appeal to all Venezuelans, to the revolutionary and patriotic people, to defend peace in every corner, parish, municipality, avenue, community and neighborhood. We are not going to take away our sovereignty, we are going to replace the SEN with these bestial attacks of imperialism, "the president stressed on national radio and television.

Government plans began their implementation since the Simón Bolívar hydroelectric plant, located in the Guri dam, Bolívar state, was out of service on March 7 due to a series of cybernetic, electromagnetic and physical attacks that left 80 percent without electricity. of the country for six days.

Also, on Monday, March 25, criminal hands caused a fire in the transformers' yard of the main generating plant in Venezuela by using snipers from an elevation near the facility, according to preliminary investigations.

http://barricada.com.ni/sistema-proteccion-energetica/

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Tue Apr 09, 2019 1:39 pm

Electric blackout + economic blackout: implications, risks and opportunities (I)
April 2, 2019 Luis Salas Meeting room 6 Download PDF

Image

By: Luis Salas Rodríguez

Previous note: the following text is the first part of some reflections on the electrical theme based on the current situation but emerged in the framework of an investigation on the subject we had been doing since last year. For practical purposes, we divide these reflections into two parts: this first one, where in general terms we approach the current context and its political but above all economic meaning. And a second one, about how we got to this situation but also and above all how we could get out.

The approach to this last respect is that recovering the National Electric System is not only an emergency in itself, but a condition of necessary possibility but not duly taken into account for economic recovery. And this is important to keep in mind, because despite the delicate situation that recovery has enough potential to generate the necessary multiplier effects and leverage the economic recovery as a whole, especially if it is integrated with the rest of the energy sector. The issue is that this must overcome the short-term and reactive but spasmodic view of the government on these issues, in no small measure otherwise imbued with a kind of "let it go, let go" largely responsible for things to the point they have arrived.

Al momento de publicarse esta nota se anunció cambio de ministro en el área, lo que se acompaña de la reactivación del ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología y creación de un “Estado Mayor Electrico” encabezado por la Vicepresidenta y el Ministro del Interior. Como es sabido, los nuevos ministro nombrados vienen del sector donde han ejercido como Viceministro y presidentes de Institutos. Sobre ambos existen grandes expectativas y buenas referencias. Esperamos estos nombramientos sean para bien y contribuyan a superar esta visión estrecha.

On March 11, on the occasion of the mega-blackout on Thursday 07, we recovered some reflections made in October 2018 about the state of the National Electric System (SEN). Among others, we highlight its extreme level of vulnerability, both in the face of adverse climatic factors (droughts) and sabotage, but also due to operational problems that occur due to the neglect of the sector.

Although the motivations of that editorial on March 11were not exactly the same as that of the October reflections, it is worth saying that the context of the latter was similar and in fact foreshadowed what happened now: and that is that we published in advance partial results of research on the SEN that we had making a decision on the economic issue and particularly on the government's promotion of crypto-coin mining, based on the hypothesis that the high demand for electricity consumption required by this activity would be a serious new disruption factor for the already not optimal operation of the SEN. The advance was made because, in the middle of an act by President Maduro announcing the launch of a strategic plan for economic development by regions in the framework of the callProductive Venezuela and the Recovery, Growth and Prosperity Plan launched in August 2018, there was a massive breakdown of light nationwide, so we considered it appropriate to publish the results in the hope that they served as a necessary alert to what we already saw as a problem to come.

Our conclusion at that time, in addition to what was said about the vulnerability of the SEN, was that the claims contemplated both in the aforementioned Regional Development Plan and also and above all in the Recovery Plan launched in August, clashed with a reality that apparently nobody was taking into account: that insofar as the SEN does not recover, it will not be possible to recover, grow, and much less prosper economically speaking, because for all that we need electricity and a lot .

And now we are here, five months and at least four national blackouts of dimensions never seen after, suffering the complication of what was already complicated: after the attack suffered by the SEN on March 7 it has become more vulnerable, but also, the recurrence of other attacks and the consequences derived from them no longer only question the possibility of growing, but it becomes a "new" and powerful element of exacerbation of the economic and political crisis. On Sunday, March 31, while we were writing this note, President Maduro announced a rationing period of at least one month.

A perfect trap?
Without a doubt, we could say that at the moment we are in the midst of a very dangerous trap: on the one hand, we have the financial economic blockade and the whole set of illegitimate and unilateral coercive measures, which seek to hang from the outside of the country; while on the other hand, the metabilized effects of the economic war, aggravated by the anti-inflationary policy and of exchange stabilization applied by the government and the BCV, whose logic is to subject the economy to a contractionary shock that can be understood as a sort of lobotomy monetary, in the sense that it seeks to "calm" the symptoms of price and exchange schizophrenia but at the cost of keeping the economy quasi-catatonic. But in addition to all this, and as if that were not enough, we now have to deal with the criminal use of sabotage to the SEN as a weapon of war, a use that is facilitated, as already stated by the state in which the SEN was allowed to regress.

the contraction of GDP is around 50%, of which the most severe year was 2016 (-16.5%), when we faced precisely a rationing of electricity and water due to the drought, which together with the fall in the prices of Oil explains the severe contraction. Today, the issue is not oil prices but production and the financial economic bloc, but also, we have to take into account that the economy is already in free fall trapped in a spiral of hyperinflation with contraction. If this continues to be the case, and taking into account the fact that during the first quarter of this year between coup attempts and now electric sabotage, economic activity has been virtually paralyzed, the projections for the end of the year are really alarming,

Sabotage or negligence?
Although that can only be determined by a conclusive investigation by the authorities, all the indications are that the events unleashed as of March 7 are due to sabotage of the SEN victim that day.

Our explanation has already been explained: and in spite of the fact that, in general terms, there are allegations about the operational problems of the SEN, from the technical point of view, it is not feasible that a fall with the magnitude of the one that occurred that day and the subsequent ones due to a collapse of the SEN caused by lack of maintenance.

In this regard, some now claim that subsequent falls are evidence that the SEN was not sabotaged but collapsed. But this seems rather evidence to the contrary, because if we were facing a collapse, in a strict sense, the SEN could not have been recovered after that day, which has happened not once but several times already.

From this point of view, our hypothesis is that those who planned the sabotage to the SEN are aware of their vulnerability. And at this point it should be noted that the main weakness of the SEN is that it is currently a system that is operating supported almost entirely on the generation emanating from Guri, for the particular reason that regional generation capacities in they are largely inoperative.

Speaking percentage, according to our research, to October of last year, more or less 75% of the country's demand was covered from Guri. And this calmly in the present moments can be more, so much so that, in fact, in several official and informal statements it has been said that it is at least 80%.

Under normal conditions, this proportion should be inverse, to the extent that at least 60% of the SEN should rest at this point on the regional generation, both of the thermoelectric and hydraulic (if the latter the one of the Andes where the Uribante is located- Caparo) and even wind energy, because during the government of President Chávez important investments were made in this front given the potential of the coastal areas of the west of the country, which is certainly the region that suffers most from energy deficits. If this optimal state were the case, sabotaging the SEN would be much more uphill. And in the way that was done on March 7 practically impossible, because the possibility of sabotage is provided by the fact that almost all the SEN rests on a single source of generation. And for the same reason,

On the other hand, not only happens that from the technical point of view has been demonstrated in these days that this possibility is feasible, surely being the best proof that the same US government has just approved a set of measures to protect against attacks from that nature via electromagnetic impulse, which makes those who rejected this possibility look ridiculous. If not also that there are statements of opposition spokesmen where explicitly, publicly and communicatively, it is recognized that the fall of the SEN will not cease until the government of President Maduro continues in office, which from the judicial point of view is the public confession of a punishable act, in this case nothing less than terrorism and attacks against civilians in the context of a political conflict.

And no less important: if something has been clear these days with the advances of the investigations of the prosecution and the police, is that the core around Guaidó and Leopoldo López is not only characterized by its criminal and paramilitary fascism, if not also by the mafioso methods when operating to satisfy their economic interests. Thus, the arrest of Juan Planchart has revealed the interests of companies and investors in the electricity sector to which he is even related.. In such a virtue, as happens in the oil sector, the will to destroy the SEN must not only be through the obvious political ends (overthrow the government, etc.,) but by the economic, less obvious but not entirely hidden from becoming corporatively of the sector via privatizations at the price of skinny chicken, in a classic case of shock doctrine such as those that occurred in post-invasion Iraq or Russia after the fall of the USSR.

For the rest it is worth saying that the only "new" in this story is actually Guaidó, because the rest, starting with Leopoldo López and Julios Borges, already formed an active part of the oil sabotage in 2002-2003, where PDVSA was affected so much computer level as an instrumental-manual operating level, which includes destruction of valves, obstruction of oil pipelines, tanks, ships and even oil wells, which in more than one case could have caused tragedies, as in fact was the intention when it threatened to blow off the coast of Maracaibo the current freighter Ex-Pilin Leon Negra Matea taken to avoid out by the authorities. So who says or thinks that this opposition is not able to do that and more is because simply and simply does not take into account for convenience or ignorance recent history.

Finally: in a Forbes magazine article that we reproduce in the editorial on March 11, written by an American computer entrepreneur linked to Yahoo, Google and the World Economic Forum (that is, not at all suspicious of "Castro-Chavismo" , "Populism" or "communism") regarding the debate on the causes of the blackout of 07-M, some points are made that are worth repeating:

"In the case of Venezuela, the idea of ​​a government like the United States interfering remotely with its power grid is actually quite realistic. Remote cyber operations rarely require a significant presence on land, which makes them the ideal operation of undeniable influence. Given the concern of the US government. UU, with the government of Venezuela, it is likely that the US. The UU already has a deep presence within the country's national infrastructure network, which makes it relatively easy to interfere with network operations. The country's obsolete internet and energy infrastructure presents few formidable challenges to such operations and makes it relatively easy to eliminate any trace of foreign intervention . "

And continues:

"The widespread power and connectivity blackouts like the one that Venezuela experienced are a direct part of the modern book of cybernetic plays. The power of court in the rush hour, assuring a maximum impact in civil society and a lot of post-apocalyptic mediagenic images, fits perfectly into the mold of a traditional influence operation. The moment in which such an interruption occurs in a moment of social upheaval in a way that delegitimizes the current government exactly as a waiting government presents itself as a ready alternative is actually one of the tactics described in my summary of 2015. "

"(...) Most countries, including the US , have experienced concerns about their obsolete and increasingly overloaded public service infrastructure. A power plant that shuts down due to faulty equipment or a fault in the overloaded transmission line is more likely to be attributed to underinvestment than to a foreign cyberattack. A failed power line that causes a massive forest fire would be dismissed as poor preventative maintenance instead of deliberate foreign sabotage.

Influence operations are designed to silently push a country toward a particular outcome. The old public service infrastructures offer a perfect vehicle for such operations, since the fault of the network failures usually falls on government officials for not adequately supervising the infrastructure, even when it is owned and maintained by private companies. Cyber ​​attacks against public service companies have the ability to alter all facets of modern life and generate media images without undue risk to the initiating country, which makes them an almost perfect weapon . "

The pertinent thing that these comments is that in fact describes very well a good part of the current debate, where both the blackout of the 7-M and what happened later seeks to be attributed exclusively and maniquentemente to problems of maintenance and incapacity of the authorities, discarding per seand with arguments largely childish and clearly prejudiced sabotage. Only add to them the following: contrary to the oil sabotage of 2002-2003, which was expressly claimed by the then Democratic Coordinator (now MUD) and that it was a huge political cost, and contrary to other electrical sabotages made in countries like Colombia or Peru by guerrilla and paramilitary groups also expressly (which in most cases included blasting with explosives), a sabotage like the one that is being carried out to the SEN necessarily requires not to be reinvidicado by anybody and to make appear the discomforts that generates as the fault of the government because the idea is its delegitimization. In my view, the responsibilities of the government are quite clear in terms of maintenance and lately surveillance, by case: the epic security flaw that led, as has been said, snipers attacking Guri from a hill less than 200 meters. However, it is clear that most of the evidence points to sabotage.

Anyway, let's leave this here for now and in the second part of this note we will make a chronology of the set of things actions and omissions that have brought the SEN to its current state of vulnerability, as well as we will expose some clues that can help us to turn the tortilla and turning this crisis into a beneficial opportunity for the majorities and not for the small groups of exogenous and endogenous businessmen.


http://www.15yultimo.com/2019/04/02/apa ... =hootsuite
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Sun Apr 14, 2019 11:02 am

Venezuela: Western reality and propaganda


Image Is a country isolated that does not recognize Juan Guaidó - the Venezuelan deputy recently taken to the limelight - as "self-proclaimed" President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as the mass media has been repeating for months?

To tell the truth, we are in a completely inverse situation, because in this case we are "we", meaning "West". If we look at the reality of the facts, Guaidó has been recognized only by about thirty governments, all belonging to the western capitalist area and headed by the United States of America . In detail, from the countries of the North American area, from those of Latin America directed by neoliberal governments, from Australia and from'Europe. Which, however, presented itself in random order to the appointment with the coup, failing to reach a common position among its member states. While the France-Germany axis and satellites (including Spain led by a "socialist" executive) immediately aligned themselves with the US maneuver, Italy, for reasons of governmental balance between allies, could not declare formal support for Guaidó; even Tsipras' Greece did not recognize the coup, just as Ireland and Norway refrained from taking a stand. An uncertainty that the European Parliament has tried to put in place, with a motion - unrealistic as far as it is indicative of the reactionary drift of the continental liberal forces - aimed at encouraging the Member States to reject Maduro and uncritically follow the Washington line.Even Japan, a faithful Atlantic vassal in Asia, has preferred not to take parts of the US in this circumstance .

The rest of the world, on the other hand - starting from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, progressive Latin America - has recognized and recognizes, as reason wants, Nicolas Maduro as President of Venezuela. On the question of the alleged legitimacy of Guaidó we are therefore witnessing a macroscopic manifestation of the partiality of the governing and press organs. We find ourselves, in reality, in a small club , which defines itself as an international community when instead it represents only a part, moreover ultraminoritaria, of it. A fact that does not appear in our media: it is quite clear that there is also a sort of Eurocentrisminherent in the dominant bourgeois narrative. Yet, on closer inspection, the UN, which only recognizes Maduro as its legitimate President, certifies it. Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, could not fail to acknowledge, right from the beginning of this affair (see the letter of reply to Juan Guaidó in the image and following the link ) that the majority of the countries of the The General Assembly and the Security Council refused to take Guaidó's claims seriously.

Image

Thus, while the vast majority of UN member countries implicitly or explicitly support Nicolas Maduro, a small minority is with the self-proclaimed Guaidó. In demographic terms, the disproportion is even more impressive: we are talking about governments that represent 80% of humanity, which respects the basic norms of international law, against a remaining minority coup . The forces in the field are therefore clear: there are those who violate the rules of democracy in international relations and those who respect them. Therefore, the question of Maduro's legitimacy does not arise outside the western capitalist area. No one else around the world would dream of questioning a President like Maduro, elected moreover with respect for the same bourgeois legality. There is therefore something more profound that drives us to ignite this crisis and project it onto the front of the scene.

Which dictatorship

Certainly it is obvious to reiterate that international law and non-interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state should be the minimum basis for equal relations between nations. The issue is more complex regarding dictatorship or democracy, understood in a superficial and formal manner as is usually customary in common discourse, compared to what happens in Venezuela. Some argue - in defending the reasons of Bolivarian Venezuela instrumentally accused of being a "dictatorship" or an "authoritarian regime" - that Venezuela "is not at all a dictatorship", but that if it were, we would be hypocritical to hurl ourselves against in that, "we (ie the bourgeois western regimes) trade with other dictatorships", perhaps "far more ferocious" (let us think of the reactionary Arab regimes such as the Gulf monarchies), without this provoking scandal or reprobation. Although this is a discourse in some respects valid in order to challenge the American claims of selective humanitarian interventions, and certainly not without elements of truth, it should be pointed out that this is a narrative however subordinated to a way of seeing political relations within nations peculiar to bourgeois liberal ideology in its "anti-totalitarian" variant. According to this vision, the world would be divided intodemocracies - implied, western-style liberals - and dictatorships, authoritarian or totalitarian (depending on the degree of hostility that we reserve to them), that is, all the rest of the world, without distinction. Even when we trade, we breed or we relate to "dictatorships", we do it from a democratic point of view, which is perhaps wrong, that "forgets its values", but it is still a self-proclaimed democracy. It is clear the a priori, suprematist and almost religious assumption inherent in this, unverified, postulated. And what if the "values" of liberal democracies in bourgeois regimes were precisely those that express themselves in the terrible actions of which the imperialist war is only one of the manifestations?

The question is instead another and should be set in another way: the point is that in Venezuela they took power - during a process of struggle for emancipation carried out by the lower classes - of the socialist, communist, anti-imperialist forces that intend to to overturn the social relationships within that country. Now, these "relations to be overturned" are those that historically link the Venezuelan high bourgeoisie to international monopoly capital, that is, that which belongs to the United States of America. The minimum goal is to redistribute wealth, get millions out of poverty and broaden the scope of democratic participation. From this point of view, it would then be more correct to say that beforein Venezuela there was the dictatorship of the oligarchy which was closely linked to the US imperialists, particularly despotic and authoritarian towards the poor and the workers; today, instead, there is the dictatorship, or, if you like, the power of the popular masses - which are recognized in Chavez's PSUV and in the face of parties and movements that have come to compose the Bolivarian alliance - which seek to extract themselves from this situation of historical subordination towards imperialism, which operates through its local articulation represented by the bourgeoisie and national rights. And it is there that the strategic game is played out and that is why our media and our governments - linked to the great financial capital, the same that Guaidó claims - not being able to accept the emergence of a revolutionary process of this kind, misinform.

So the central point is not, in my opinion, to defend Venezuela on the basis of "our" interpretation of freedom, democracy, etc. from the accusation of dictatorship, stressing, for example, as a reactionary and illiberal regime like Saudi Arabia - rightly cited as a stone a negative comparison to Western liberal-humanitarian hypocrisy - be our ally. The point is that if we really want to use this category of dictatorship declined in a vulgar way as we do today, we should apply it firstto the worst planetary despotism in existence: that practiced by imperialism - which is the United States at its head - with its claim to dictate law wherever it believes its interests are not respected or sufficiently guaranteed, to the point of triggering wars and permanent destabilization responsible for millions of victims. This then could be considered as the true contemporary dictatorship, against which we should throw ourselves with absolute priority.

All this happens because we are in a phase that we could call re- colonization of the world. Of Atlantic recolonization for accuracy: a US-driven project that has now established itself and provides for the reconquest of all those spaces and rebel areas that had escaped the western dominion during the 20th century. Latin America is particularly hit by this expansionist push, given that the imperialist bourgeoisie considers it historically, according to the famous Monroe doctrine, as "the backyard"; where the US administration controls the sub-continent so that the capitalists can freely exploit their resources. Well, during the twentieth century, trials like the Castro revolution in Cuba or the Sandinismo in Nicaragua broke the spell, definitively broken with this colonial claim. Chavismo has done nothing but put itself in the wake of these victorious revolutionary processes, albeit with a less severe break compared to Cuba, where a revolution has been imposed that has completely liquidated the structures of the bourgeois power of Batista (so the appeals that the imperialism had within the country such that it could manipulate domestic politics for subversive purposes), while in Venezuela this did not happen for the moment.

But let's face it: Batista has been for Cuba what Guaidó is today for Venezuela; we are witnessing the same class manifestations: that is, the rich, the dominant social strata of a country bound together with international capital to form an alliance that claims to impose a semi-colonial law on the native populations and on the lower classes.

The gold of Venezuela

The question of the dispute born around the gold of Venezuela is indicative of the unprecedented and unexpected difficulties that a non-aligned country must face. In short: approximately 10% of the Venezuelan reserves, corresponding to one billion dollars in the form of gold out of eight of the total reserves held by the Central Bank of Venezuela, is deposited in the Bank of England. Well, the Bank of England has recently refused to respond to the requests of the Venezuelan government to return these sovereign gold reserves to it.. Why never? No dispute, neither economic nor legal, lies behind this refusal; it was simply and brutally, as was clearly admitted by the interested parties, that the United States of America complied with the injunction that, in preparation for the aggression with Guaidó's self-proclamation, they intended to put the Bolivarian government in even greater difficulty. In practice, it was a theft.

This is a striking example of what we could define without hesitation imperialist banditry .In addition to a humiliation of the country in question, a substantial economic deficit is imposed on it; it is deprived of the levers to be able to dispose of its own wealth in order to make up for economic shortcomings also often dictated by other types of imperialist sanctions. So in hindsight the attack is concentric, at every level, and this episode of the seized gold - we repeat, under US injunction in spite of any law or commercial contract stipulated between the Bank of England and the Venezuelan government - is the mirror of how the dominant capitalist powers, by virtue of their almost monopolistic possession, their yes, the central levers of global economic-financial power, can in a despotic and supremely authoritarian manner, do what they want beyond any control.

Side note: as an ideological cover for this theft, the imperialists subsequently circulated to all the American bourgeois media - and therefore also to cascade here in the province of the Italian empire - elements of language according to which Maduro "risks taking over the Venezuelan gold, wants to escape with the loot, and then the United States would be preventing the dictator from escaping with the country's wealth ", a wealth he would" steal "from a" starving population ". Naturally, this is such a false and imaginative vision that we should not even be here to refute it, if it were not the dominant discourse that invades us and pervades all public space, on a daily basis.

What crisis?

It will never be emphasized enough when it comes to the Venezuelan cris , as it depends heavily on the imperialist rigging in which this country's economy is forced. Certainly there is no doubt that this economy depends very much on oil and presents historic structural weaknesses; that it is certainly burdened by insufficiencies and inadequacies on the part of the government (but which government is free from incompetence?); moreover, it is limited because it does not have a large industrial base, to the point that it can easily be exposed to fluctuations of various types. And yet, despite all these criticalities, the economic crisis in Venezuela is a relative crisis, it is not the absolute crisis of a "devastated country" and "hunger", even though the sanctions and dysfunctions have also touched hard on important sectors - in particular for example in the importation of medicines and in the medical field in general. However, the issue becomes very political, where political and economic actually merge. To make a counter-example in order to illustrate our point of view, let's take Saudi Arabia again: Which, however, does not seem to live any kind of "problem", at least not the same as in Venezuela, since it is simply not strangled by sanctions, threats and maneuvers by those who, thanks to its position as the dominant planetary capitalist center, namely the United States of America that control the world trade and finance with the dollar and the army, can decide arbitrarily and unilaterally who to hit.

There is therefore objectively a question of field positioning that cannot be evaded when we are dealing with these issues. Episodes such as the seizure of sovereign current accounts, gold and unilateral sanctions fall within the scope of a gigantic struggle that is a struggle between imperialism and resistance , but it is also a class struggle at the same time , because as we mentioned above in government Venezuelan does nothing but try to redistribute - and with a certain success - wealth, therefore power, to the lower classes, that is to say the workers, the minorities, a part of the petty bourgeoisie, social parts which for decades have been treated as slaves, without rights of any kind, by an oligarchy that exploited them without restraint. And if there was a lasting success of Bolivarian socialism, it would risk "contaminating", "giving bad ideas" to the masses exploited in other Latin countries crushed by neoliberalism in Washington's service; to give a new impetus to changing social arrangements, thus disrupting the current geopolitical structure in the area; and fracture the domination of the monopolistic capital over the region, fueling in the future a crisis of hegemony in the imperialist centers, deprived of markets and resources to be exploited to feed the profits of the large groups and thus bestow reliefs in the form of subsidies,

Oil and resources

Oil, therefore: John Bolton, Trump's special adviser, made no secret of pointing also to the direct appropriation of that of Venezuela [ video]. However, the crux of the matter lies not in the mere economic hoarding of other people's resources, although this aspect is a part of the whole. The crux of the matter is that oil is indeed a precious commodity for Western industrial and financial supply chains, but above all - and this is what really counts - an economic weapon of mass destruction, to be spent on geopolitical control and therefore of protection of the hegemony of the dominant planetary power. It is not so important to have, at this stage, how to be able to deprive potential competitors, or manipulate their value in order to destroy economies that depend too much on it, or manage the flows and control their logistics in order to blackmail permanently, from a position of absolute strength, any country in the world,

As reality proves it every day, it is a weapon of pressure at the disposal of the dominant cartel - that is, that which belongs to the United States which control the Gulf vassal states (and in this sense, returning to Saudi Arabia , we cannot fail to see it is a simple instrument of the will emanating from the central dictatorship, that of the USA, in the region) - apt to strangle those economies that have not known how to diversify, but which have not done so even knowing they are in the "wrong" field, that is anti-imperialist, of history. In fact, as mentioned Saudi Arabia did not need to diversify, Norway lives very well with its oil income, while for example Russia and Venezuela are heavily affected by this "oil" factor. For this reason, for example, a nation like China (which does not have large oil reserves, although it has other types of reserves) understood at the time that it would have to expand and differentiate its industrial base in order to make itself economically independent, relatively unassailable. of the imperialist centers: sine qua non conditionto successfully promote an autonomous development strategy in the current conditions. So the teaching is that oil is a double-edged sword, but it is a double-edged sword in particular for nations that stand in opposition to hegemonic powers. As always, there is the middle barricade, and it depends on which side you are.

* This article is taken from my speech in the episode 0 of Guerrilla Radio dedicated to Venezuela: " The Venezuela Case ". I highly recommend listening to the podcast especially to investigate the constitutional and economic issues just mentioned in the artillery, in order to have a clearer, more complete and out of imperialist propaganda of the Venezuelan situation.

https://lottobre.wordpress.com/2019/04/ ... cidentale/

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Sun Apr 14, 2019 2:25 pm

ANOTHER INTERNATIONAL DEFEAT: THE IMF DOES NOT RECOGNIZE GUAIDÓ AS PRESIDENT
14 Apr 2019 , 1:10 a.m. .

Image
Finance ministers and heads of central banks present at the IMF spring meeting in Washington (Photo: Archivo)

Without consensus The meeting of the executive committee of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was the most recent chapter of the international tensions around the figure of Juan Guaidó and the forced recognition pursued by the Trump Administration.

As in other instances, Guaidó did not achieve recognition as "president" of Venezuela. The head of the entity, Christine Lagarde, as reported by AFP, "said that the international body has not yet reached an agreement on a possible recognition of Guaidó."

In the final press conference of the spring meeting in Washington, Lagarde added, arguing that "we can only let ourselves be guided by the members, it is not a matter of us deciding, it must be a vast majority of our members that diplomatically recognizes the authorities that contemplate as legitimate ".

Although the Trump Administration tried to include Guaidó as a central part of the event, the global trade war waged by the White House against China and the European Union, the slowdown in the global economy and Brexit, were hot topics that led, logically, to the most of the comments around the meeting.

Almost three months after Guaidó self-proclaimed "president", reactions like those of the IMF are symptoms of which he appears to lose impact on the international front and beyond the campaign of regime change in Washington, there is a tactical recognition of the government Venezuelan.

http://misionverdad.com/TENDENCIAS/otra ... -en-el-fmi

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Wed Apr 17, 2019 1:41 pm

I have been unable to make connection with PSUV links for a couple weeks now. Usually I get:

Failure To Connect To Web Server

This occurs on Twitter & Google Chrome

Ongoing censorship, do ya think?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Thu Apr 18, 2019 1:14 pm

Defending Venezuela: Two Approaches
Posted Apr 16, 2019 by Chris Gilbert

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Recent U.S. attacks on Venezuela have generated a widespread international response. Good willed people from all walks of life have come forward to express their solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution and their opposition to intervention. This is inspiring and leads one to conclude that there is generalized dissatisfaction with the global system and, together with it, a willingness to be critical and work for change.

Naturally these defenses have focused on imperialism, intervention and interference. The overall consensus is “Hands off Venezuela.” This slogan is a good one, since every thinking person today defends democracy, and a condition for democracy is that nations maintain (or attain) their sovereignty. (Nothing could be more antidemocratic than having foreign powers interfere in a country and have them sponsor foreign-appointed pretenders such as Juan Guaidó).

However, this focus on imperialist interference, correct as it is, has sometimes led to an apparent indifference to the content of the revolution and its internal dynamic. One might think that the oversight is actually for the better since internal affairs are “none of our business, but rather the responsibility of Venezuelans.” Yet I think that this sidelining of the internal dynamic and contents of the Bolivarian process is mistaken. Although it has been a pattern of internationalist behavior for some time, I believe it is not necessary and could be even harmful.

From the start, the Venezuelan revolution skillfully interpellated people from all around the world. It said to them: Our struggle is your struggle, your struggle is our struggle. That is not just a tactically useful position but is actually scientifically correct.

For this reason, the Venezuelan revolution declared from the beginning that the problems of neoliberalism, imperialism, and later capitalism, were not unique to Venezuela. They were challenges that peoples from all around the world faced, and it invited people to join in a common struggle.

It follows that, if the problems faced by the Venezuelan revolution are universal ones, then the solutions discovered along the way also have some claim to universality. (A claim to universality, by the way, does not mean that one has the universal solution; it means that a universal solution is being proposed and has to be evaluated.)

These hypothesized solutions developed over time. The Venezuelan revolution first proposed popular, participative democracy to solve the problems created by neoliberalism. Later, it concluded that this kind of democracy had to be extended to the sphere of production to be real democracy, and this led to proposing socialism as the way forward. Finally, the revolution refined its socialist proposal by hypothesizing that communes are the key to realizing democracy in the area of production.

It is important to recognize that the commune is not just a whim, nor is it part of some endogenous “Venezuelan path to socialism,” but rather a solution to a universal problem. This is because capital subordinates society through a diffuse metabolism that is essentially hierarchical, implying that there has to be a diffuse nonhierarchical environment to overcome it. The commune is that proposed nonhierarchical and democratic environment for production and life.

Any or all of these ideas could be wrong. Nevertheless they are solutions proposed to overcome shared problems. Therefore, they propose to be universally-valid solutions for how to overcome imperialism and capitalism.

Coming back to the question of imperialist interference and how to oppose it: It is one thing to show the criminality of imperialist interference—it is indeed criminal—but it is a more powerful gesture to show that popular democracy can confront imperialism (a takeaway being that popular democracy in your own context, be it Nigeria or Nepal, could confront imperialism). Finally, it is an even stronger idea to show that socialism—that is, democratic, self-governed production—could lead to a world without imperialisms (that is, a world in which the imperialist motive would not be operative).

So when intellectuals defend Venezuela, why not put the cards on the table and say that we also defend popular democracy, socialism, and communal production? The orthodox, time-honored answer is that we need the most ample alliance possible and cannot risk offending people who maybe don’t like popular democracy, socialism or communal production.

This argument is a bit like the old claim that we need the support of the progressive bourgeoisie (which, these days, is a bit like looking for the philosopher’s stone or the unicorn). Of course, we may need to choose our words carefully (since some words, such as “communism,” have been victims of so much propaganda that they might alienate the masses). Yet it remains undeniably true that defending popular empowerment and social justice through a complete transformation of the current system would incorporate more people than it would turn off.

So why do spokespeople and intellectuals so often backburner these aspects of the Bolivarian revolution in their discourse and their defenses? There may be motives that are honest, including simple ignorance of the revolution’s contents (which as long as it is not willful ignorance is understandable). Nevertheless, it is extremely probable that many right-wing elements inside or associated with the process, including intellectuals, actually use the crisis to advance their agenda, which involves eliminating the Venezuelan revolution’s proposals for how to achieve social justice and popular power.

These right-wing elements are surely delighted to see the shifting of goalposts that is taking place in the public sphere. Once intellectuals in pro-Bolivarian contexts defended popular democracy and socialism, but now they defend just sovereignty. Perhaps mere shared sovereignty will be the next goalpost they defend.

However, the law of diminishing returns does not have to operate in the field of international solidarity. Internationalism can take the right-wing path of empty or formal defense, in which the content of the Bolivarian process is ignored, or it can take the left-wing path, in which sovereignty is defended along with the social project.

The latter defense is not only the correct one for those who struggle for a better world; it is also the only consistent one, since there is no sustainable basis for national sovereignty in peripheral countries except popular power. Furthermore, a left without the capacity to imagine and project a better world—call it socialist, communal, or self-governing—is a virtually useless one.

https://mronline.org/2019/04/16/defendi ... pproaches/

Leaving aside the nonsense about 'hierarchy' this is good. You see the empty approach all the time from capital's
Loyal Opposition.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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