A THINK TANK REARMS THE US "ROAD MAP" AGAINST VENEZUELA
20 Jan 2023 , 5:23 pm .
In Washington there is a discussion of method and format regarding the strategy on Venezuela, and not a paradigm shift in relations (Photo: CrisisGroup)
The days of teacher protests these weeks take place in a climate where, along with the inflationary pressure of the beginning of this 2023, they seem to be linked to a type of mobilization that has been gradually expressing itself, at the national level, with unions and other actors " visible" of "civil society", against the background of the advances and tensions around the government-opposition dialogue process in Mexico.
In the midst of this, the definitive collapse of the "Guaidó project", the reckoning of Voluntad Popular with the G3 and the loss of initiative of the opposition in general, seem to force a correction of the approach to Venezuela. This time, the attempted amendment does not come from the traditional decision-making circles of the White House or the State Department, but rather from well-engaged intellectual apparatuses in Washington's corridors of power such as the influential Wilson Center.
OFFICIAL CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE STRATEGY?
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, commonly referred to as the Wilson Center, published in December 2022 its report " Venezuela in 2023 and Beyond: Charting a Different Course ."
Product carried out by the Working Group for Venezuela within the Program for Latin America, the report is signed by the American academic Abraham F. Loewenthal as a result, according to him, of "virtual group discussions, interviews with the group as a whole or individual members carried out carried out with Venezuelan actors and experts, a number of previous papers , and the extensive exchange of perspectives between us" (pp.3-4), referring to the list of names accompanying the document.
Co-signed by 19 signatories (including its author), the report consists of 28 pages and 17 sections outlining what, strictly speaking, is the vision of the Washington DC-based think tank on establishing a strategy and path of actions to follow for the resolution of the "Venezuelan conflict".
The Wilson Center is funded by the US Congress and is an integral member of the complex educational system and network of government study centers named in honor of former US President Woodrow Wilson.
This think-tank also receives extensive funding from Fortune 500 corporations. Its list of donors is made up of individuals (the godmother of the R2P doctrine, Anne Marie Slaughter), institutions of the Executive Branch (the State Department), embassies (such as that of Qatar), to business empires such as Amazon, Chevron, PepsiCo, Northop Grumman, ExxonMobil or JP Morgan Chase, according to their 2021 sponsorship registry .
The data itself already tells us conclusively what is the scheme of interests around the alleged "resolution" of the "Venezuelan conflict." But something could give the entity even more political value and operational weight. In the absence of a delineated or specific policy in official terms of the United States with respect to Venezuela, this document seems to come closer, more than anything else, to that: an official document on the possible steps actually conceived and existing by Washington with respect to Venezuela.
Another element to highlight, which establishes another signifier in relation to the language around the report itself and what it says itself, is the type of main author. Abraham Loewenthal is a political-academic animal deeply embedded in the think tank -academic establishment and political-corporations system .
His profuse resume includes practically all the "weight" universities within the system (Harvard, Oxford, Brown, Princeton), as well as the network of think tanks and think tanks (CFR, Brookings Institution, Inter-American Dialogue). . He is also a member of the Research Council of the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy, the NED. He specializes, among other fields, in globalization, governance, Latin America and, with particular emphasis, in transitions from authoritarian governments to democracy .
In this way, as the main speaker (but not the only one), the political language and its signal system is clearly established. And, indirectly, the document can achieve a rank of official status that other working papers would hardly do.
Bonus fact: Antony Blinken is also a member of the Wilson Center.
THE CONTENT
The essential premise of the work is that there is no other way to get out of the "dead end" of the Venezuelan question other than through a negotiation process, one through which agreements are made that affect "the interests of both the government Venezuelan and the democratic opposition" (p.4), noting that these are not magic formulas that will resolve the "deep resentments among Venezuelans" or that guarantee an immediate economic recovery (p.5).
On the other hand, the working paper indicates that the new objective of the opposition is no longer to seek accelerated regime change, but rather, under the supervision of the United States, it presents itself as an opposition that seeks to address and resolve "humanitarian emergencies," the human rights, "reconstruction of the economy" and, especially, an aspired framework of governability and consensus towards elections (presidential, regional and municipal, in 2024 and 2025) that are "fair" and "internationally monitored", as as the Wilson document states. The think tank refers exclusively to the Unitary Platform as "the opposition."
To that extent, Loewenthal et al assert that any escalation of "coercive measures" is not only not justified, but rather "would intensify hostilities" (p. 11). Likewise, from the United States, they point out the need to create bipartisan support that definitely moves away from maximum pressure to, instead, "encourage negotiations, build coexistence, protect human rights, facilitate effective democratic governance, and promote economic recovery." (p.15).
Already at this point, if we also add the definitive implosion of the "Guaidó strategy", the United States seems to formalize, in terms of forms, the end of the operational logic that marked the years of direct confrontation of the Trump administration.
It can be affirmed that it is an indirect recognition of a succession of failures that force the recognition of the Bolivarian Government, and President Nicolás Maduro, as undeniable actors and impossible to avoid. However, up to here the more or less friendly premises or "humanization" of the adversary could be identified. But despite the mitigations, it can be detected that the semantic field of the regime change logic remains.
It can be clearly seen in two elements: the first is the characterization of "the crisis" and the government, and secondly, the final objective of the negotiations.
In the first element, it is a stagnation whose sole responsibility has been the Chavista governments, where the role of a "robust civil society" that participates in the process at different levels and the supervision of the "international community" is urgent in order to "reinstitutionalize" (p.6) the disorder of a government and an "entrenched" power group (p.11), which still to this day, according to the report, closes media outlets, commits environmental crimes, violates human rights, etc. .
In the second, the working paper fails to completely hide that the fundamental objective is a "political transition" (p.5) with a "transfer of power" (p.2), and "reconstruction" (p.14 ) political and national, then in the search to overcome a "traumatic period that has done a lot of damage to Venezuela, destabilized the region and damaged millions of compatriots" (p.20), according to the usual canons of the catechism liberal, codified in the ideological framework of the Democratic Party.
Thus, in the first, the report not only recommends, but also sees fit that as long as the process of dialogue and negotiation continues, the "sanctions" are not lifted from the main political actors of Chavismo and that, if progress is not made, they can be quickly "reinstituted" ( snap back ) at the time of any intransigence, but not before recommending through the international actors around the dialogue an apparent relaxation as an "incentive".
In both cases, already at this point, it can be affirmed that the report abandons what could be "new" to reproduce the usual commonplaces, since what is apparently strategic once again becomes simply a series of open pressure tactical resources.
Anyone more or less familiar with conflict resolution methods understands that an essential premise is that no one "wins", and this is decidedly not the case: at least as an aspiration there is a clear desire for one of the parties to be victorious. .
It is, then, a discussion of method and format, and not a paradigm shift in relationships.
Beneath the apparent humanitarian concerns and societal well-being, the central political objective, regime change, operates, manifestly using its central lever: elections. For this, it will be necessary to counterpoint part of the content with other elements visible and verbalized from other instances.
THE "ROAD MAP" WITHOUT CONCILIATORY PACKAGING
The change in approach and form in the United States-Venezuela relationship and, within that, the elements of form that have effectively been modified, could be said to precede the Wilson Center report to a certain extent, which, despite being more eloquent, descriptive, and intellectually Finished as it may be, it cannot be assumed as the alpha and omega of the "plan" of the supervised opposition.
The notion of the elections, first of all, the presidential ones of 2024 and, at least in principle, the regional ones of 2025 as the turning point and the overton window to, now, achieve regime change can also be seen in other places . of enunciation in matters of opinion and also in policies of institutions of the United States system with greater continuity or not subject to contingencies, which could affect the executive branch at times.
On September 15, 2022, Marcela Escobari, USAID Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, offered testimony to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Venezuelan "case."
After establishing the same usual picture about the "Venezuelan crisis" where migration, "authoritarianism", little freedom of the press, corruption, ineptitude and repression stands out without surprise, the official closes with the way in which USAID will bet on the "democratic transition" in Venezuela.
It is worth saying that the portrait (and the sources) of both Escobari and the Wilson report are essentially the same, with the same level of data to establish the discourse and justify the actions to be taken. However, it is not the only thing in which they agree, apart from the fact that Escobari's intemperate and apocalyptic style marks a considerable distance from Loewenthal's in the document reviewed up to here.
In this sense, Escobari affirms that there are three areas from which USAID seeks to operate towards the "democratic transition" in Venezuela, also having as its center the electoral days of 2024 and 2025. Following the same and exact path, where the improvement of electoral conditions is a governing principle, USAID makes it clear, first, that it will support the opposition.
According to Escobari, the "subnational" (sic) elections, that is, the regional ones of 2021, demonstrated that according to this logic it is possible to use the vote resource despite not being free, according to her, to demonstrate that objectives can be achieved by electoral means.
He also amusingly claims that the opposition won a landslide victory with the January 2022 elections in Barinas, but that is just an ornament.
What does matter about his statement is certifying that for the United States and the Biden administration, the double electoral defeat in Barinas is the definitive and clear demonstration of the model to follow. This, in terms of opinion, has been more or less a constant that can be found, for example, at the level of opinion from the US brokerage media.
This is the central point, which must be complemented with the other two that also establishes bridges with the Wilson document. Support for "independent media" and "democratic civil society" as the way to keep branding and denounce the government, and, in the same direction, the same with "human rights defenders who document the repression."
The Wilson Center, for its part, recommends, varying the approach somewhat, the importance that in principle the government and the Unitary Platform "design and agree on the processes that document systematic violations of human rights, the suppression of democratic liberties and grotesque corruption", something that, as they recommend, should be done in consultation "with both Venezuelan and international activists and human rights defenders", as well as the victims, laying the groundwork for an alleged reparatory justice (p.17).
For USAID, which since 2018, the year in which the floodgates were opened through the UN to different modalities of "humanitarian aid" as a mechanism primarily for political decompression, by September 2022 had announced having allocated 367 million dollars in "additional humanitarian assistance." In the same sense, the NED declares, according to its last rendering of accounts (2021, in February they will publish the one of 2022) to have publicly allocated under its standards the bulky figure of 4 million 324 thousand 293 dollars, since it is an increase of approximately one million dollars from the previous year .
What could establish the question of to what extent, in reality, these presumed dividends are actually being destined to assist people in extreme precariousness, in poverty or despair (which has a lot to do with the also well-known picture of economic depression product of the "sanctions") and how much, in reality, is being allocated to the "strengthening" of that "democratic civil society", "human rights defenders" or "independent media".
And here we come, at this moment of comparative analysis, to what is perhaps one of the essential premises of the Wilson document, which we will quote in extenso :
"Part of this effort [to build conditions to negotiate and move towards the 'transition'] should be in public diplomacy: not to open confidential conversations to the public eye, but to provide periodic reports that build trust in the negotiators [of the Unitary Platform and the Bolivarian Government] and its work. The democratic opposition should not lose sight of the probable usefulness of organizing street demonstrations, not to overthrow the government, but to increase the leverage of the opposition. Combining pressure and concessions, in different ways in different times, it is sometimes a valuable strategy for negotiations" (p.19).
This affirmation, naturally, forces us to contrast the events more or less by accumulation that have been manifesting from the unions and other instances of organization by sector of Venezuelan society in recent days, offering a depth of field to said movements and actions.
Actions that, yes, are based on concrete and tangible elements of reality, such as the value of the salary and consequently the economic difficulties, in an international framework where many possible steps have been announced in terms of progress from the dialogue, among them the release of a significant number of sequestered funds that should be allocated, in a coordinated manner, to alleviate difficulties in education, health and service infrastructure.
Already at this point, the preliminary conclusion can be established that it is not the humanitarian situation that mobilizes all this, but political calculations based on a tactical logic of smart power that combines real concessions with pressure mechanisms within the framework of the pre-existing context. electoral, at a time when the conventional partisan instances are frankly in crisis and reorganization, incapable of directly building an agenda and a political climate.
The creation of a non-organic political climate demands a period of maturation, and the dispersion due to internal disputes and other current implosion factors does not seem to facilitate unity of command, the construction of agreements or the harmonization in the execution of an agenda. specific, as it was possible to carve, for example, throughout 2016 with the first half of 2017 with a climax that reached the insurrectionary.
The situation analyzes of some opposition firms themselves admit in broader terms a general climate of demobilization, something that according to the political scientist Ricardo Sucre Heredia, for example, permeates the entire national scene, even if it is expressed in different ways and Chavismo demonstrates other more mobilized or mobilizing elements.
Sucre Heredia is based on the latest opinion studies by Delphos and Datanálisis carried out at the end of last year. With all the biases to consider in this kind of study, however, he admits to passages like these, taken from his latest report on January 16 :
"Another result is that the willingness to protest against the government and for public services dropped. In the first, from 41% to 21% between July and November 2022, and in the second, it went from 55% to 37% respectively, which "It would explain why the protests over the services went off the news. They don't make much noise anymore. In general, people don't want to go out and protest."
In the light of this sample, both from the analysis and from what is presented in it based on the Delphos study, the question can be raised as to where the drivers of heating the street are in recent days.
Since the middle of last year, with the reactions and protests of the "Onapre instructions", there has been evidence of a unionization of the conflicts. Structures that, for the most part, have historically been controlled by parties or elements of the opposition, today, at least in theory, outside the partisan structures of the dispersed opposition.
The year 2014 began with a scenario that resonates in this particular aspect: the parties, in general terms, in frank withdrawal after the electoral defeat of the municipal elections at the end of 2013, but that by the railing well-known anti-political actors, along with structures prepared and trained for the occasion, such as the "student movement", managed to establish the recognized agenda of violence and conflict.
Regardless of the fact that the discourse itself around the "what to do" of the opposition and of the United States at this moment in general lines focuses on the negotiations for the electoral appointment, the union demonstrations (today teachers), at least in principle and in their organizational nucleus, they seem to have a degree of organization and method that goes beyond the framework of spontaneous actions.
In some regions of the country, where they seemed to have a greater mobilizing effect, these action programs were programmed for actions throughout the week, in several municipalities, with different degrees of intensity and scope, and in search of the constitution of conflict committees, on this occasion "in all educational institutions", seeking to accumulate strength and channel discontent with broader-based perspectives.
At these three levels studied, that of the think tank , that of the US state body and that which is reflected in an incipient and still somewhat disintegrated way in the street, they seem to be sketching between the doctrinal floor and direct action, the political floor or for gearing mechanisms of pressure, or, perhaps, with non-manifest objectives and purposes, but not ruled out in terms of conflict, all, the three analyzed, with the "higher" purpose of change of government and, more broadly, of regime historical and sociopolitical.
"No route is risk-free within such conflicting circumstances. Even so, the risks of fully exploring a path towards democratic governance, respectful coexistence and the economic recovery of Venezuela should be taken by all relevant actors, after so many years of polarization, repression and deprivation. The time for a total effort to negotiate solutions to the multiple crises in Venezuela is now. That is our central message" (p.23), concludes the Wilson Center document.
https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/un-t ... -venezuela
DO UNION PROTESTS CONSTITUTE THE NEW CONFLICT AGENDA?
Feb 1, 2023 , 2:20 p.m.
The trade union displaces the opposition political parties (Photo: Tairy Gamboa / Crónica Uno)
The union mobilizations that began with force this year try to present them with a single background and context: the precariousness of life and the tragic depreciation of the value of wages in international currency. But, is it impossible to assume that behind this process there are other elements that could suggest the idea of a new conflict agenda that is being structured, in a framework where, after several years, the opposition political parties reached their historical lowest point? ?
Here, perhaps, some points that illuminate other deliberately obscured areas of the current political moment.
1. PUTTING A FACE ON IT: THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF THE AGENDA
The panorama of the opposition parties is an unhappy neurotic desert. And this truth is not certified from the pseudo-official expiration of the "interim"; It already came from before and that vacuum was and is confirmed by all political observers: the government, the United States, its satellites, the population in general and especially the parties themselves, thus the latter operate with the usual dishonesty.
The fetish of regime change by violent means, extra(or para)political as the only way, the "pressure and break" with foreign support, the half-hearted acknowledgment of both defeat and the existence of its formal antagonists (the government), has placed them in the harsh situation today, where not even for the primaries they find a stable viability in the pursuit of objectives.
As a result of wear and tear, failure and self-humiliation, the inability of the opposition establishment to grasp the political moment and adapt to its new coordinates is daily patented. The relative stabilization, mainly political and, for a period, economic, further accentuated this operational and emotional drift.
However, neither in politics nor in war are the gaps lasting, and since the middle of last year the focus has been shifting.
For some opposition analysts who are less tormented by the maximalist paths of express overthrow, "we must address 'the problems of the people' to achieve freedom, not the other way around, in the specific situation of Venezuela." These realistic positions affirm and permeate a layer of professional political opinion that reaffirms and demands gradual, alternating actions, but with the desire that the parties themselves be the ones to channel the situation.
At the center of this criticism and this proposal, it is pointed out that the hegemonic parties (now under the G3 + Voluntad Popular fracture) were not able, since 2013, to structure a "political fabric" that is organically threaded to the problems of society outside the parties and, therefore, is unable to redirect the "energy" of the socioeconomic malaise of the moment.
Since mid-2022, a turning point can be identified where another sphere of "organized" society began to exceed the very framework that, from 2013 to 2021, more or less, was the monopoly of the G4 as almost exclusive representation of the opposition. policy.
The reaction and response to the Onapre instructions and what affected benefits and other elements used to being reflected in collective contracts, especially of the public administration, and within it, in the teachers' union, made that together with the demonstrations legitimate protests against the precariousness of benefits that the instructions brought, these organized instances, presumably non-partisan: unions and unions, would also express themselves with a greater organizational presence.
This was not a flash in the open sky either (as will be seen later), but from that moment on and to date, political attention and mobility has effectively been shifting towards these instances, in itself pointing to the parties (and the economic circles that traditionally accompany them) as part of the problem, part of the elite in the current economic framework, with the duality of currencies and the elements of inequality inherent in the circulation and access of the dollar.
As an aggravating circumstance, the fracture of the unstable balance of the band in which the dollar was against the bolivar accentuates and certifies both the true and unquestionable evils that afflict the country and the ability to use them as an instrument of "struggle" and organization.
"Doing politics with the rules of the authoritarian system to beat it, in two dishes, rather than approving an instance that is not supported in Venezuelan political history," says the analyst quoted above.
Another dissonance further defines the vectors of the conflict, while it is embedded in another situation of concrete inequality that has also been accumulating over time: the division between Caracas and the rest of the country, where the precariousness of life and the elements that accentuate everything else are expressed with greater forcefulness and drama.
First it was the "rebellion of the regions", a reflection within the partisanship that threatened a rupture between the leaderships of Caracas and the regions in the framework of the 2021 elections (with their results), and now the breeding ground of critical mass and force in a centripetal movement, from the periphery to the center, from the outside to the inside, if Caracas is considered as the latter. And this is offered by the material conditions, and the stridency with which they express themselves with greater force outside the capital.
However, it is from the beginning of this year that the "political face" that leads the agenda assumes the definitive contours of the conflict agenda. It is already ceasing to be a plan in search of a political subject. Said "subject" is a trade union and unionized expression, as "vanguard expression" of "civil society" has assumed that role.
Teachers, labor unions of various kinds, public employees (organized or not) plus retirees and pensioners are that manifestation. Some traditional political leaders and the Communist Party do not overcome their habitual condition of vulgar appendage.
2. THE TRADE UNION DISPLACES THE PARTIES: THE (NOT SO DISCREET) HINGE WITH THE POLITICAL
There is no more pressing problem in the country than the value of the salary (in bolivars) and the consequent crisis of purchasing power. As well as tracking the main causes of this being the case, perfectly traceable in the economic shocks resulting from the siege of the country during years of disruption, the enormous decrease in income, the national proscription of the "international" financial system (American-European) , etc.
But it is also true that the central elements of economic recovery and access to goods resulting from the dual currency have also accentuated the inequality gap with respect to the possibilities of living for those who depend exclusively on the violated bolivar.
To this, perhaps, should be added the discursive aphasia inherent in the access capacity of "premium Venezuela" while its various ostentations are manifested, at outrageous levels, on social networks. The dark side of the "Venezuela has been fixed" meme.
"Today the 24 states of the country are mobilized and we are giving a clear message to Nicolás Maduro: the workers demand salaries and pensions indexed to the cost of the basic basket. We are not going to accept those agreements between Fedecámaras and the Government , which violates our right to have a dignified wage. We are going to continue announcing the mobilizations".
These statements (where the emphasis is ours) were issued by Ana Rosario Contreras, president of the College of Nurses of Caracas on January 23, somehow encapsulating the central line of the discourse that has unfolded throughout the mobilizations of the month of January.
In this, the line of contact of the conflict is clearly delimited: the new "them and us" is an alleged "pact" between "the tops" of the public and private sectors, the speaker from exclusion and the abandonment. He places these "political subjects" on the scene and the scenography.
But this declarative sample is taken in essence by those who point it out, but in any case that wants to look for the ways of enunciating the discourse of the moment, they will find, in terms of demands, with exactly the same guidelines: salary and "death" pensions, basket basic, dignified life and adjusted to the Constitution (article 91), indexation and, of course, the resignation of the President.
But by adding an edge that hasn't been commented on, we can give it a greater depth of field and situate it not exclusively as a protest movement and find the mood of the conflict agenda itself.
Beginning with the most basic, in the light of this and other discourses, the deliberate and concrete omission of foreign causes of economic hardship (a decade of war and sanctions) are already beginning to situate, politically, that same place of enunciation that is wanted. to make it seem as if they were alien to the political and against a supposed politicization, emphasizing clearly "social" elements.
Needless to say, the impact this has had in the medium and long wave of our recent history in critical sectors for the nation, fundamentally supported by public spending, such as health and education, where any report with devastating indicators can be established. mendaciously omitting a large number of really existing causes but not mentioned.
"January ends with Venezuela on fire on all four sides after protests for better wages," reads a headline in La Patilla on January 30. Said note, signed by the "correspondent" of the portal, makes a national review of said mobilizations, collecting statements and descriptions of situations throughout the entire national geography, of course without qualifying the true degrees of intensity (variable when verified) in the whole country. The important thing is to establish the narrative: "Venezuela on all four sides."
Any agenda of conflict and demands is inescapably based on truthful, concrete and specific elements of discontent (the value of the salary and the dollarized bodegónica inequality), but, in the same way, it is no less true that on this basis it is embedded and straddled. political methods of action and organization. There are plenty of precedents, both in Venezuela and in the world.
And at any point in this scenario, it is not difficult to imagine that all the central elements for which the demonstrations are initially justified go, as is customary, to a very second level, if not to proper oblivion.
This one, from everything reviewed, does not seem to be very different. National mobilizations sustained over time, with accumulation of force and regional coordination in terms of modes and tactics of action (communications; creation of "conflict committees"; collection, registration and documentation of the problem by specialized organizations).
Something of this magnitude requires a level of training, coordination (operational and logistics) and, also, very important, budget. Marches based exclusively on the desperation of demands are one thing, and maintaining street actions for a month, at the national level, with prospects of escalating ( heading towards a national strike ) and with a considerable degree of media exposure setting the tone for protests, is quite another. story. On the organic expressions that function as a base, there is also a degree of artificiality that is not yet entirely evident.
Like any operation of this nature, the integrity of the pact of verisimilitude and the narrative resources are essential to preserve cohesion, both at the operational and symbolic/discursive levels.
At this point and under this signal system there are several operational advantages.
1) The Bolivarian Revolution has never had a successful policy at the level of unions and colleges (public and/or private), 2) the forcefulness of the claim (salary and precariousness) goes faster than macro explanations (Venezuela it is still sanctioned and at war) and, 3) since 2018, under the pretext of "humanitarian aid" mediated by the UN, a huge amount of financial resources have entered, not auditable, which have hardly been allocated to the alleged aid. This opening of floodgates finances astroturfing that today has matured and is starting up.
This scenario also presents novel elements. In the first place, the center of the claim (at least until now) places the State at a lower speed between the explanation of the crisis, how it is lived and why it is denounced.
Secondly, it has been said, it involves political actors that until now, either operated in the background or were relegated to decoration and set design, leaving the conventions of the formally political in the background, but "without becoming a call to 'Remove Maduro' immediately. And once the specific labor objectives are achieved, the reminder may be motivation for other mobilizations," as another virginal and aseptic opposition observer wrote in the middle of last year.
Lastly, it operates on a new aestheticization that now jumps completely from the party patiquín to an apparently grassroots leadership (taking Guaidó, on the same plane of the phenotypic, as the intermediate point between one and the other), trying to do the same effort of novelty that covers up or conceals what is strictly political.
The most complete and successful synthesis of this picture is, by far, the teacher and union leader Elsa Castillo. She is charismatic, intelligent, a face of the people and (being retired) with the ability to mobilize. However, Mrs. Castillo also represents the limits of the construct: she comes from the union branch of Voluntad Popular and does not deny the possibility of herself being presidential, of the opposition launching a " broody hen " as a candidate against Nicolás Maduro.
"I can sympathize with whoever I want. I am an adult, I am of legal age. I have not denied anyone when I had political militancy, and at this moment I do not have it. I would say it, period, because whoever He has a political militancy, he has a conviction, " Castillo told journalist Vanessa Davies.
Seen in this way, in a certain sense, it is difficult to avoid the historical resonances that this mobilization and representation scheme harbors with the Polish Solidarity union in the 1980s, itself an apparently innovative and "autonomous" movement but with a powerful economic and direction of the United States and the transatlantic West.
3. BUDGET AND "HUMANITARIAN AID"
On the one hand, USAID clearly says that since 2018 it has begun to finance and give money to NGOs that could channel the different "humanitarian aid" throughout the Venezuelan geography in different programs. Only, according to their own figures, in food, health, hygiene, "economic recovery and market systems" and protection, 293 million 900 thousand dollars have been disbursed up to 2022 , and here what is explicitly stated is hardly reviewed, of a figure that reaches 500 billion in global terms.
On another front, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says without any shame that in 2019 (one year after the floodgates opened) a billion dollars was allocated in alleged "humanitarian aid" (p.366 of his horrific memoirs).
On the other hand, the NED, in 2021, put almost 5 million dollars into the country. It remains to be seen, when they publish the numbers for 2022 in the second week of February, how far the figure reached last year, but disaggregating some of the 2021 items, we could get closer to an idea of how much has been "invested", precisely, in training and "formation" in the action fronts that today dominate the public arena.
Of the 47 fronts or foci to which financing was allocated, highlighting only four of them, it is possible to have a notion of the scope and priorities where the NED is focused.
The highest number of the disaggregated, coming from the International Center for Private Enterprise (CIPE), one of the four central components of the NED, consists of 353 thousand 38 dollars with the purpose of "developing an enabling environment for democracy", producing activities that "build consensus" that offer "spaces for democratic dialogue at local and regional levels". It is worth saying that this is also to activate "popular support for democracy and develop leadership in the private sector and civil society."
The CIPE is also, let's say, the business and privatization arm of the NED, with special emphasis on union activity.
Second in terms of investment volume ($300,000) is the item "promote democratic values of citizenship through community initiatives," sponsored by the International Republican Institute (IRI), another of the central arms of the NED. Here, IRI partners seek to support "community resilience," by teaching "community members skills to implement" initiatives that promote "values that strengthen economic freedom, social cohesion, and independent decision-making…ultimately contributing to to the preservation and recovery of democratic spaces in the country, which are essential in any democratic transition".
Another sufficiently descriptive item, even if it is not among the three highest amounts, is the "reinforcement of regional networks of citizens", which with 143 thousand dollars (in 2021) intends to "strengthen and mobilize a national network of citizens in support for democratic change in Venezuela. Citizens will engage in national and regional activities to promote a peaceful and constitutional resolution to the crisis in Venezuela. Through on-site assessments and training workshops, regional citizen platforms will be articulated and strengthened."
A fourth item to review would be the $160,000 that year was allocated to "strengthen and empower a network of women leaders" in eight states (which he does not specify) in low-income communities to train other women in "democratic values." , support them in the leadership network and monitor the human rights situation.
These four points, in the absence of space to analyze the remaining 43, already give us news of the type of action scheme (quite common, by the way) that the NED proposed in 2021 and that it probably escalated in 2022.
Seen this way, when some things seek to dazzle and shock more than necessary, in an environment where the lack of resources is precisely denounced, it is enough to see where the money is going, especially if it is accompanied by the surname "humanitarian".
Faced with a sequence of weighty political and economic events that involve political dialogue in Mexico, the release of funds to address urgent emergencies precisely in sectors such as health, education and services, against the backdrop of the pilot execution of the agreement With Chevron and Venezuela and with the presidential election calendar in just one year, the progressive heating of the street with seemingly forceful arguments, everything seems to be clearer.
Every time when these pressure tactics were explicitly recommended in what up to now represents the road map thought in Venezuela within this macro context.
It's a plan. It's a schedule. It has its actors. And it's running.
https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/las- ... -conflicto
Google Translator
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Goicoechea Confesses Total Money Kidnapped by Washington Via Local Puppets
FEBRUARY 3, 2023
Far-right Venezuelan politician Yon Goicoechea. Photo: RedRadioVE.
This Thursday, February 2, during an interview conducted by Carla Angola in Miami, far-right politician Yon Goicoechea revealed that there is $40 billion being consciously withheld by the opposition, in a new edition of the corruption confessions by the far-right sector of the Venezuelan opposition.
This money was referred to in relation with what the United States keeps blocked with the unilateral coercive measures that continue to affect all the Venezuelan people. Unlike most opposition parties and their representatives, Goicoechea noted that eliminating the so-called interim government was a mistake because it violates access to money stolen by Juan Guaidó and his accomplices.
“I understand that today this is the situation,” he said. “In Venezuela—which is one of the poorest, most miserable, impoverished, ruined and humiliated countries in the region and on planet Earth—there are tens of millions of dollars at stake, which is the only money Venezuelans have, so that, in a moment of democracy, we can restart and reboot the country’s economy,” he added impudently, failing to mention the role he and the far-right sector he represents played in accruing the economic crisis that Venezuela suffered between 2015 and 2019.
Goicoechea further added that, politically, the elimination of the interim government favors Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and legally forces them to seek and argue for new ways to “protect assets,” meaning, in reality, forcing the opposition to find new ways to put that money in their hands to enrich themselves.
Guaidó admitted spending $150 million of public funds
The Venezuelan leader Juan Guaidó recently said that his fictional “interim government,” eliminated by decision of the opposition itself, managed a budget of about $150 million of public money in four years, frozen by the White House and placed in its hands.
“All that was used in public funds is more or less the budget of a municipality in the capital for one year,” Guaidó said in a press conference, without providing any details in how the money was spent.
Guaidó proclaimed himself “interim president” of Venezuela in January 2019 with the support of then-US President Donald Trump, who led a failed offensive to overthrow President Maduro, using sanctions, threats of intervention in the territory, and even assassination attempts.
Since then, the US and its allies have put millions of dollars of illegally seized money from Venezuela in the hands of Guaidó.
(RedRadioVE) by Dubraska Esteves, with Orinoco Tribune content
https://orinocotribune.com/goicoechea-c ... l-puppets/