OPERATION BEHIND THE CLAPS
Clara Sanchez
May 24 , 2021 , 1:03 pm .
FROM ALEX SAAB TO MARADONA
In 2014, in a book that collects the declassified documents available from various areas of the US government, it was publicly disclosed how the State Department operated in Chile between 1969 and 1973, thus acknowledging its participation in the coup d'état. perpetrated against Salvador Allende. But, in addition, the story of Jack Devine , an undercover CIA agent , became known , telling, forty years later, his functions with the media account, among them mainly the relationship with El Mercurio .
Newspaper to which the CIA gave "around two million dollars, over two years, which allowed them to continue publishing" the stories about nationalization, violent actions and the economic crisis of that time that promoted political destabilization in the country.
Not only that, Devine was also involved in political turmoil, acknowledging the CIA's involvement in this field. This is how it captured middle-class women among its sources. He gave one of them hundreds of dollars to organize demonstrations with empty pots to protest the lack of food. Considered at first "a good idea that at least justified a small investment", eventually becoming the first "March of the Cacerolas" against the Popular Unity.
In the case of Venezuela, it will not be necessary for the United States to declassify documents 40 years later to be able to recognize its participation in the policy of siege against the country, in order to promote "regime change" against President Nicolás Maduro, as well as the evident participation of internal and external actors involved in it.
Here you can identify operators, such as El Mercurio or middle-class women in Chile, particularly on the agri-food system and, therefore, on the population, both constituents of national power, to violate it, or what is equal to reduce or reduce it , in order to collapse the government, generate paralysis and thereby achieve the goal of the United States.
FROM THE "MARCH OF THE EMPTY POTS" TO "THE LAST QUEUE"
And if there is a component for which these operators have constantly attacked Venezuela, it is in relation to the issue of food, whose agenda began to be installed in 2014, when it was wanted to replicate in the country, in the midst of the "guarimbas" violent, "the march of the empty pots" without any justification, because in that year the Venezuelan population still enjoyed food indicators at the highest level.
Indicators that were maintained in 2015, even in the midst of the economic war , induced shortages, long lines to buy basic food and even the phenomenon of "bachaqueo" of these, mainly towards Colombia. Reality that was recorded by the BBC that year: "Whoever looks from the outside may think that, due to a shortage of basic necessities, the Venezuelan is going hungry (...) But you will be surprised when you see that, in most homes Rich or poor, many of these products are in the refrigerators, cupboards and food plates. "
In that year, " the last tail " was the slogan used by the opposition to the Venezuelan government to conquer the National Assembly, from where the application of the United States "sanctions" against the country between 2016 and 2020 was subsequently endorsed.
This National Assembly became immediately and until its last days the executing arm of United States policies against Venezuela, inside and outside the national territory. And from that space, the attack on the subsidized food program at home, known as Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP), created in 2016, was structured.
And it is that the queues to acquire basic foods, on which the media was ridden to keep Venezuela on the international agenda, and the opposition National Assembly (2016-2020) was positioned, began to disappear as the CLAPs were spreading to the length and breadth of the country and food products literally arriving at the doors of the Venezuelan families' homes. The chaos began to fade and it was imperative for the United States, it still is, to prevent the National Government from obtaining greater freedom of action on this issue.
For this, a combination of economic and media terrorism has been operated in conjunction with "economic sanctions."
Economic terrorism, because national and foreign businessmen have been persecuted in one way or another, including their involved companies, in the supply of CLAPs to Venezuela. Supplying the country with an essential good has become a crime not openly declared at first, to generate a dispersed, disguised punishment, whose hunt really hangs over the food program, seeking its discredit, to sow rejection in the population to whom it is addressed, and beyond, on anyone who dares to supply food goods to the country.
To do this, from the National Assembly a network of actors, politicians, media and strategists was woven that constantly prowl over the CLAP, as is done to date with any movement that is executed or smells of food purchases by the government Venezuelan. The excuse, always supported in "dark businesses" that continue to hang on assumptions and presumptions, or like the most recent, "should" or "probably", which are imputed to Maradona, El Diez.
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY (2016-2020), EXECUTING ARM OF THE US IN VENEZUELA
In 2020, in the midst of the global pandemic, it was known that the Mexican companies Libre Abordo and Schlager Business Group, as well as their owners, were "sanctioned" by the United States , accused of exchanging oil for food with Venezuela.
However, it was not the first case. Since 2017, the hunt for the CLAPs has intensified in the media and politically, through the figure of businessman Samark López. In fact, it constituted its first complaint for the National Assembly, the executing arm of the United States in Venezuela, after having rejected its launch in 2016.
The businessman was accused of having sold food to Venezuela from Mexico for the overpriced food program; at the same time that he was accused of being the front man of the then vice president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Tareck El Aissami; the latter, also accused of profiting from food, before the United States accused him of having " alleged ties to drug trafficking " and of evading the "sanctions" of the Treasury Department, and on whom the White House ended up imposing a reward of $ 10 million for its "location." Both were "sanctioned" in early 2017.
In 2020, the United States priced López's head at $ 5 million. A month after it became known that the informant for whom both had been accused had lied and stolen from the US federals 140 thousand dollars that was transporting them, putting the case at risk, and leaving evidence that, from the North American country, it was incurring on bogus charges to pursue his goal of "regime change" in Venezuela.
The truth is that in 2017 they began to be singled out for acquiring food from the CLAP for the country during 2016, and ended up simply accusing them of evading the "sanctions" imposed by the United States, and for which they would have to be prosecuted "to protect the US citizens of the illegitimate Maduro regime ": you read that right," to protect US citizens from Nicolás Maduro, "according to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
THE ILLEGAL ARREST OF ALEX SAAB: BETWEEN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AND THE "INDEPENDENT PRESS"
Another case that has perhaps been better known can be read in Alex Saab and the food blockade of Venezuela . Among the actors involved that have exploited this case is, of course, the National Assembly (2016-2020), the same "independent press" financed by NED, USAID and Foreign & Commonwealth Office, among others, and some other person, such as the outrageous participation of Luisa Ortega Díaz, former attorney general of the Republic, recently dismissed at that time, who amid journalists in Brazil clumsily read a piece of paper that was sent to her with the name of a company to point out, this time, to the President Nicolás Maduro himself to profit directly from the CLAP. And that, at present, is accused in the United States of briberyof a million dollars to a Venezuelan businessman.
All these in a bid to obtain the recognition of the United States, which is pressing for the extradition of Alex Saab to Cape Verde. Once detained during 2020 illegally in that country, by justifying a non-existent red alert from Interpol, and even more so, with a diplomatic designation of Special Envoy since 2018, violating his immunity, as documented by the Foreign Ministry. Venezuelan. While making a technical stop, in the middle of a trip to the Islamic Republic of Iran on behalf of Venezuela, where he was traveling to carry out "steps aimed at guaranteeing the humanitarian procurement of supplies of great need for the country, in the context of the pandemic. by the Covid-19 (…) in addition to the usual ones, for the procurement of food and medicine ",
The "independent press" has devoted long reports to Saab since 2017, so much so that it has become the protagonist of the story, and of course, if the United States has paid special attention to its publications.
The accusation and journalistic sentence against Saab also began for supplying food for the CLAP; However, it is a year and a half later, in October 2018, that the Trump administration announces the start of an investigation against this businessman, who since April of that same year, and not by chance, had been accredited as Special Envoy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, so that "with broad powers it carries out (ra) steps (...) in the search for practical solutions to the complex situations that affect the Republic (...) as a consequence of the commercial and financial blockade to which it has been submitted since 2015 ".
In July 2019, he was "sanctioned" by the Treasury Department, the same day he was formally charged in the Southern District of Florida in the United States for alleged money laundering events that occurred between 2011 and 2015, but it turns out that the accusations , the "sanctions" and the US communiqués only refer to their relationship with President Nicolás Maduro and the CLAP, even in September of that same year the United States announced the increase in pressure on him for the same reasons.
In February 2021, still illegally detained, the Biden administration recognized the people involved in the investigations and the spokespersons who helped unveil what the North American country describes as "the Maduro regime's corrupt use of the subsidized food program. in Venezuela ", and of course, it recognizes the work carried out by the opposition National Assembly a month before the Swiss prosecutor's office announced the closure of the investigation opened since 2018 against Alex Saab for the alleged money laundering, based on the lack of evidence to continue the cause from December 2020.
Of course, something that cannot be hidden in the media and statements by the United States spokesmen is that Alex Saab helped, and apparently continues to help, to evade the "sanctions" that the White House imposes on Venezuela, that is, to evade the blocking.
Although these are three cases, they are not unique, there are several accused, especially in the media by the "independent press" of supplying food to Venezuela. Among these, other Mexican companies that have been exposed to public derision as a form of pressure to put an end to the food supply to Venezuela since 2018.
LIMA GROUP AND UNHCR AGAINST CLAP
In October 2018, an operation was carried out from Mexico during the last days of the Peña Nieto government, more media and political than otherwise.
From the Aztec country the "dismantling of a network that profited from Venezuelan pantries" was announced, which was nothing other than with the CLAPs. No other information was known about the act after that day, until the so-called "independent journalism" appeared again.
The highlight of the matter is that Lira Salas, former deputy attorney general of the Mexican Republic, who made the announcement, affirmed that the CLAP products were finally resold to the Venezuelan population with 112% higher than the real cost of what they were acquired in Mexico, omitting that these were part of a subsidized program that even today families receive at a ridiculous price, compared to the food on supermarket shelves in Venezuela and the inflation that the country is still experiencing.
On the other hand, it concealed the names of the Mexican companies involved in the alleged network, attributing the commitment of a "reparatory agreement" so that they were not sanctioned. The first of the demands was to deliver $ 3 million to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filipo Grandi, who in those days had made a tour of Peru, Colombia and Ecuador to attend to the situation of Venezuelan migrants in these countries.
The second element was more categorical. The Mexican companies not mentioned were required to agree not to directly or indirectly carry out new commercial transactions with the Venezuelan government or third parties through the CLAP program. Even for the acquisition of medicines.
And finally, both the former deputy attorney and the former undersecretary for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Mexican Foreign Ministry, Luis Alfonso De Alva, made it clear that this example against the "crime" was part of a combined action of information crossing, mainly with Colombia, following the then commitment of Mexico to the Lima Group.
The following year, at the beginning of 2019, journalists from Mexico who claim to have documented the alleged fraud in the CLAP program, acknowledged that there were no further reports of the case by the Mexican authorities.
Until 2020, the same journalists, in another report , according to information provided by the Financial Intelligence Unit of Mexico, admitted that the Attorney General's Office of Peña Nieto had made an "illegal pact with CLAP providers" in 2018, whose fine imposed should have been deposited in the Treasury and not delivered directly to UNHCR.
In fact, they stated that the businessmen of El Sardinero assured them, in this case to the Excelsior portal , that together with Armando.info all the reports on CLAP are awarded, that they complied with the "reparatory agreement", "they paid their part "At that time, 750 thousand dollars," they stopped their business with Venezuela "and handed over the food that was confiscated to the Chancellery of the Peña Nieto administration.
But it was not only El Sardinero; with her, three other companies. And later more were added. All with fines payable to UNHCR.
In this case, it was not only Mexico that took action against CLAP and subsidized food for the Venezuelan population, it was a joint operation of the Lima Group, the National Assembly (2016-2020) and "independent journalism" in a combined action pressure on those who supplied food to Venezuela in 2018.
The ultimate goal: to limit shipments and trade with Venezuela, although no one is interested in knowing whether or not UNHCR received the fine that the companies illegally paid.
THE "INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM" ON THE CLAP
Since 2017, "independent journalism" has constantly done its work against the CLAP, from which a list of businessmen and their companies, officials and even the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has not escaped.
The common thread always starts from an "independent investigation", journalistic, which the mass media later disseminate internationally through reports and opinion articles written by the same journalists, without any distinction in the New York Times , El País , Excelsior , Semana , Infobae or any other, in order to establish post-truth and even dictate a sentence of the alleged guilt of those involved.
Subsequently, the defunct National Assembly comes into play, denounces, and the United States applies terrorism and economic "sanctions," thus beginning the hunt for those named.
Data articulates this action. For example, three days before the action that Mexico took, actually against its own food-producing companies in 2018, the New York Times could read an opinion article on hunger in Venezuela and "the corruption plot" in the CLAPs. , whose highest point was materialized by the media on the international agenda, when the Peña Nieto government acted by the Lima Group exploiting the stage set up only for the National Assembly to assume its role .
Another example, where "independent journalism" returned to the ring, was in 2019, again against the same Mexican companies that had been the object of the "reparatory agreement" in Mexico, in 2018.
On this occasion, from El País , these same "independent journalists" published the names of El Sardinero, Rice & Beans and La Cosmopolitana, accusing them of "taking advantage of the sale of the pantries to Venezuela" three months after the United States announced that it would apply " sanctions "(May 22, 2019) against all those involved in the CLAP food program.
Online, particularly the El Sardinero company, the Nuevo Herald was accused of "helping the Maduro regime," and it was even published in the media that the company was "under observation by the US authorities for its alleged participation in the corruption scheme linked to the Venezuelan food import program known as CLAP ".
Adding that the US government had activated "sanctions" prohibiting its companies, but also foreign companies, from doing business with Venezuela, and although the purchase of food was supposedly excluded, this prohibition put suppliers at risk if they participated in the CLAP , in which El Sardinero was "among a handful of Mexican suppliers."
And, of course, in this publication by Nuevo Herald , citing the research published by El País de España a few days before, not only was the El Sardinero company accused of trading food with Venezuela, of which it was generally the only one Sin, the companies that it had used to supply CLAP food were also pointed out: La Costeña, Aurrerá, Maseca, Minsa, La Merced, Abeto, La Ribereña, Clemente Jacques and Arroz Morelos.
In response to this attack, on September 26, 2019, El Sardinero sent a letter to the Nuevo Herald clarifying that its participation "in the manufacture of pantries for a company that, in turn, had the government of Venezuela as a client, was carried out in strict adherence to Mexican laws and complying at all times with the highest quality standards ". However, post-truth was already underway.
In addition, he added that "El Sardinero was not a manufacturer of the products and was not in charge of the transportation of the pantries, he only acted as the person in charge of buying and assembling the so-called CLAP boxes, which included products from the most prestigious manufacturers in the country. ".
For this publication in El País , of August 2019, the journalists of Armando.info and Excelsior , the portals that, in addition, claim to have dismantled the alleged corruption plot "Behind the CLAP" since 2017, were awarded prizes by Tecnológico de Monterrey and FEMSA. As a sign that this food program in Venezuela is of high interest to various actors in the world.
On this occasion, the report against the three Mexican companies was awarded the "Voces de América Latina" award for digital journalism, which was awarded for the first time, resulting in "Los CLAP" the "winning investigation" , including its journalists, and whose award was granted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), through the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Studies, who had signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2018 "with the aim of generating opportunities academic to professionalize the work of human rights defenders and journalists. "
In any case, with the award granted, they also obtained a scholarship for the diploma in "Freedom of expression and the Defense of Human Rights," as part of the online program offered by Tecnológico de Monterrey in collaboration with USAID.
Beyond the award, what needs to be highlighted in this case is the role that USAID has played and plays in the world when the United States considers another country "politically unstable"; Imagine declaring it "an unusual and extraordinary threat" to your national security like to Venezuela.
An example is the years of the Cold War, when USAID enlisted in it , particularly in Vietnam, seeking "stabilization and development" through joint operations between the US military and the Agency's farmers, which since 1967 carried out through the civilian military counterinsurgency program known as CORDS. Where most of its employees stood out until that date.
Once in the hamlets and rural towns, these USAID workers (farmers) offered training and counseling techniques to farm families in their communities, aimed at trying to neutralize the appeal of the VietCong; even the promotion of Agrarian Reform in South Vietnam, as a government initiative based on field research and technical assistance, was funded by USAID, seeking to undermine VietCong recruitment.
Regarding these facts, publicly recognized by the agency, he stated : "It came too late to change the course of the war." However, this "promotion" model applied in Vietnam continues to be a strategy used by USAID to "help" other countries considered "politically unstable" in the world.
ON MARADONA AND "THE SECRET THINGS" TO SUPPLY FOOD TO VENEZUELA
Going back to 2020. After Alex Saab's illegal arrest in Cape Verde, the "independent press" made it clear that he had done his job, and it was time for justice, according to an article published in the New York Times . It seemed from afar the end of the hunt, because with this fact they supposed "a severe blow to President Nicolás Maduro", and finally "the possibility" of the regime change that the United States promotes so much.
However, to the surprise of the world, at the end of the year the death of Diego Armando Maradona, El Diez, El Diego was known, the same as since 2018, in relation to those who criticized him for his resounding support for the Bolivarian Revolution He stated: "They speak from home and have a full plate of food every day. And we are fighting in Venezuela to make that plate fill." And he added: "I have a very big back to hold everything they want to say."
President Nicolás Maduro, in the middle of a small tribute he paid to Diego after his death, commented : "He helped us with some secret things to bring food for the people of Venezuela," and even that he could only say that for now.
That comment was enough for the "independent press" to recharge their batteries against Maradona, to whom they had already dedicated a report in June 2019, although the award was obtained two months later for attacking the three Mexican companies from El País de España . Because it is valid to remember that from May to September of that year, the United States was announcing "sanctions" to everything that smelled of CLAP, while reports on the food program emanated.
In this first opportunity, they were not able to directly accuse Maradona, nor to the businessmen involved, whose sin was to "take advantage" of the friendship with the soccer star to sell food to Venezuela and who "had practically monopolized the corn supplies." to the country, and "word spread" of the payment of sales with Venezuelan gold .
Since January 2021, to the Maradona who is no longer there to hold his big back with everything they want to say, again the "independent press", articulated between Bogotá and Buenos Aires, appears to accuse him of "commission agent" and "lobbyist".
This time it was not that businessmen took advantage of the friendship with El Diego, no; now Diego was part of "a new dark business" of the Bolivarian Revolution for the purchase of food and, therefore, it is necessary to reveal " what Maradona took from Venezuela " under estimates and calculations made in the reports that, according to them , "they reveal the millionaire commissions that the player received".
Behind everything, always far from credibility, Maradona "should have" ended up receiving his commission. They cannot even assure "if it was in gold or in money", but they "should" have received it for the sale of the food and, of course, they cannot stop accusing the National Government of signing food contracts by someone recommended by Maradona "without to know if the contracts were convenient for the country and if the prices at which the food was bought from that company were adequate "and, of course, we must be aware because" probably their heirs will end up benefiting from these businesses with Venezuela. "
And although there is finally talk of audios that confirm Maradona's "shady" business with food for Venezuela, what there really is evidence is that Maradona helped supply food to the country in the midst of the siege, because "the payment method entered into crisis from the blocking of bank accounts by the United States and several European countries, "with which" all accounts (were) blocked "and made" the issue of the blockade very complicated. "
FINAL THOUGHTS
In short, for the "independent press", the National Assembly 2016-2020 and the United States, anyone who sells food to Venezuela, in the midst of the economic, financial and commercial blockade to which it is subjected, only has a supposed shady business, and beyond, it is always profiting from the hunger of the population, to which it is better, above all, not to provide food to allow Nicolás Maduro to remain in power.
And it is that there is an invariable relationship around the CLAP since 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, in which always, behind the media action, political action is unleashed, which finally the United States translates into "sanctions", of course , protected by their "justice", and these are not just these examples.
At the moment, the only thing missing is for the United States to impose "sanctions" on Maradona, but as it is not, it will be on his heirs, who according to the "independent press" will "probably" continue to benefit from their "business" in Venezuela, because, in Ultimately, food is not a humanitarian issue, it is a matter of war.
What the United States will confirm in a few years is whether the operation behind the CLAPs was considered, as in Chile, "a good idea that at least justified a small investment" by USAID and others (according to the proposals of Yrcia Romero , resident of the community of the Nuevo Mundo Communal Council, located in the El Guarataro Sector, San Juan Parish, Caracas), with which this new form of food distribution in Venezuela could be hindered, in the middle of the economic war, where to kill to the Venezuelan population from hunger, and to eat again if and only if the United States achieved its regime change, was a small collateral damage.
Internally, the objective of negatively impacting the CLAP to generate their rejection and cause greater suffering in the Venezuelan population ended, on the contrary, generating "greater social and political organization in the communities" that receive it, aware that "in this economic war situation, it is a hope for all families "and that even" they hope to produce according to their spaces, to solve any eventuality that may arise "(Yrcia Romero dixit ), because if there is something that unleashed the United States blockade it was the need to bet on internal production. That includes the food of the program, and it is no small thing, because it means rebuilding national power.
This research was originally published on the Food and Power website on May 24, 2021 .
https://misionverdad.com/investigacione ... e-los-clap
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