Turmoil in Venezuela

[AutumnW]

Dennis,

The wikipedia article, if I read it correctly, is clear that Chavez (or socialism) did not cause the economic problems in Venezuela, that things improved radically for a number of years. It was oil prices tanking, with subsequent economic sanctions placed by U.S. sanctions that have done the most harm.

Your greater point, that wikipedia is not always reliable, as it can be used as a tool by propagandists as well as any mainstream news, is well taken.

[Hervé]

'Weaponizing human rights': UN chief Bachelet's Venezuela report follows US regime change script

Anya Parampil The Grayzone
Sat, 06 Jul 2019 09:18 UTC

Former UN special rapporteur Alfred de Zayas slams UN High Commissioner Bachelet's report on Venezuela as a politicized collection of baseless accusations by "advocates of regime change"

When United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet traveled to Venezuela earlier this year, she met with an array of citizens who lost family members to right-wing violence in the country.

Among them was Inés Esparragoza, whose 20-year-old son, Orlando Figuera, was doused with gasoline and lit on fire by an opposition mob during violent anti-government riots, known as guarimbas, in May 2017.

"He was stabbed, beaten and cruelly burnt alive," Esparragoza declared before Bachelet in March.

"Simply because of the color of his shirt, the color of his skin, and because he said he was Chavista."

While Esparragoza poured her family's torment out before the former Chilean president, Bachelet scribbled notes and glanced down at horrific photos which captured the moment masked men attacked Figuera. As the young man knelt to the ground, a gang of anti-government thugs poured petrol over his body before lighting a match.

"I call on the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to make justice," she said. "These are not peaceful protesters, they are bloodthirsty."

https://videos.files.wordpress.com/a...achelet_hd.mp4

Yet shockingly, when Bachelet released her long-anticipated report on the situation in Venezuela on July 5, it was as though that meeting never took place.

Apparently unmoved by the testimony of Figuera's grieving mother, or anyone else's story of injury and suffering, Bachelet made no mention of opposition violence in her report. Her failure to properly detail the plight of Venezuelans who have suffered at the hands of anti-government rioters was just one of many glaring omissions which has one of the top international legal experts to have served at the UN calling the high commissioner's objectivity into question.

Alfred de Zayas became the first UN rapporteur to visit Venezuela in 21 years, traveling to the country in 2017 to examine the social and economic impact of unilateral coercive measures applied by the US. He determined US-led sanctions were largely to blame for the country's hardship, accusing Washington of waging "economic warfare," and comparing its harsh measures to "medieval sieges of towns."

De Zayas was no less scathing towards Bachelet's report, slamming it as a politicized document that depended heavily on unfounded claims by activists dedicated to Maduro's removal. "The new Bachelet report is methodologically flawed, as were indeed the earlier reports, relying overwhelmingly on unverified allegations by opposition politicians and advocates of regime change who are only interested in weaponizing human rights," the former special rapporteur told The Grayzone.

"The same occurred with the reports of [former UNHCHR] Zeid [Raad Al Hussein]," de Zayas continued, referring to Bachelet's predecessor.

"The lack of professionalism on the part of the UN secretariat is a disgrace and should be exposed by civil society."

"I was not a UN employee with a salary, and no one could give me instructions," de Zayas noted,

"A high commissioner is not independent and is subject to political pressures. I endured pre mission, during mission and post mission mobbing. A rapporteur is obliged to be independent. Sure enough, I was pressured, intimidated, insulted by non governmental organizations and even colleagues, but I was able to proceed with my investigation and reflect what I saw and learned on the ground. I am not an ideologue. There are many in the U N secretariat."

Prior to serving as UN high commissioner, Bachelet was a career politician in Chile, where she became the country's first female president in 2006. She was the most centrist figure among the leaders of the progressive "pink tide" that momentarily washed across Latin America. This January, a years-long corruption investigation into her son's land deals was closed.

Conveniently ignoring the impact of US sanctions
Just three short paragraphs in Bachelet's 16-page document are dedicated to the crushing sanctions the US and its allies have imposed against Venezuela since 2015. She went on to write off the claim "that due to over-compliance, banking transactions have been delayed or rejected, and assets frozen, [hindering] the State's ability to import food and medicines" as the government merely "assign[ing] blame" for its difficulties.

Bachelet's dismissal of the destructive impact of sanctions on the Maduro government overlook years of sustained economic attack on the Venezuelan economy by the most powerful nation on earth. With the Obama administration's move to declare Venezuela's government a "national security threat" in March of 2015, Venezuela's economy and its ability to restructure its debt have been under systematic attack.

As the independent Venezuelan outlet Mision Verdad reported, "Venezuela was catalogued by the French financial company Coface as the country with the highest risk in Latin America, similar to African countries that are currently in situations of armed conflict... From 2015 onwards, the country-risk variable began to increase artificially in order to hinder the entry of international financing".

Even mainstream outlets like The Wall Street Journal have acknowledged that the measures applied by the US "have made banks more reluctant to touch accounts that might relate to Venezuela for fear of sanctions violations." WSJ even noted that Goldman Sachs was criticized in 2017 "when it was revealed that the company bought about $2.8 billion in Venezuelan bonds, which were seen as a lifeline to the Maduro government".

According to the US government's own summary of Venezuela related sanctions, unilateral measures introduced by the Trump Administration in 2017 and 2018 "restrict the Venezuelan government's access to U.S. debt and equity markets" and "[prohibit] transactions related to the purchase of Venezuelan debt".

Considering these restrictions and Washington's move to freeze what National Security Advisor John Bolton estimated to be $7 billion worth of Venezuela's US-based assets, it's hard to understand how Bachelet so easily dismissed the idea that sanctions have contributed to the economic crisis. As The Grayzone reported this May, the US State Department openly bragged about its ability to destroy Venezuela's economy in a factsheet published on its own website, which it quickly deleted out of apparent embarrassment.

Among the "key outcomes of US policy" listed in the document was the fact that oil production in the country had been drastically reduced.

"If I were the State Department I wouldn't brag about causing a cut in oil production to 763,000 barrels per day," Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy research told The Grayzone at the time.

"This means even more premature deaths than the tens of thousands that resulted from sanctions last year."

In April, Weisbrot co-authored a report which documented 40,000 preventable deaths that occurred between 2017 and 2018 as a direct result of US sanctions. This groundbreaking report was also ignored by Bachelet, who had far more resources at her disposal to investigate its disturbing conclusions and perhaps prevent thousands more deaths.

While Bachelet did concede "sanctions are exacerbating" Venezuela's economic woes, she argued that the current crisis predated those measures, thus transferring blame onto the policies of a besieged government.

The author of this article recently participated in a panel discussion during which Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations, Samuel Moncada, addressed accusations like these.

Anya Parampil ✔ @anyaparampil
· Jul 5, 2019

Replying to @anyaparampil
.@mbachelet frames the notion that sanctions have hurt the government's ability to import food as the gov "assign[ing] blame". She also claims the current economic crisis predates sanctions and therefore is the fault of the Venezuelan government.

Anya Parampil ✔ @anyaparampil

I recently addressed this very point along w Ambassador @SMoncada_VEN. I note the fact that Venezuela's economy is still largely controlled by the private sector, while Ambassador Moncada highlights faulty logic: "if we are committing suicide, what do you need sanctions for?"
4:09 AM - Jul 5, 2019

(click on picture to see video)

Responding to the widely repeated accusation of economic mismanagement, Moncada asked, "If we are committing [economic] suicide, what do you need sanctions for? The problem is they are applying sanctions as never before. So they actually think that sanctions have an aim and an end result, and they are trying to implode the country."

Moncada also explained how the 2015 oil crash impacted Venezuela's economy, insisting that "we tried, perhaps erroneously, to keep the very same social support policies going without the oil" wealth on which the government traditionally depended. The international oil market collapsed in 2015, just months after Reuters reported US Secretary of State John Kerry met with Saudi King Abdullah in order to discuss plans to increase petrol production.

Anya Parampil ✔ @anyaparampil
· Jul 5, 2019

Replying to @anyaparampil
I recently addressed this very point along w Ambassador @SMoncada_VEN. I note the fact that Venezuela's economy is still largely controlled by the private sector, while Ambassador Moncada highlights faulty logic: "if we are committing suicide, what do you need sanctions for?"

Anya Parampil ✔ @anyaparampil

I also explain that since 2015, sanctions have prevented Venezuela from paying its debt & assert the only reason to sanction the country's top diplomat (@jaarreaza) is to support regime change. @SMoncada_VEN notes crash in oil market also contributed to current crisis.

4:18 AM - Jul 5, 2019

(click on picture to see video)

Former special rapporteur de Zayas agreed with that determination, telling The Grayzone, "the initial cause of the economic crisis was, of course, the dramatic fall in oil prices. The current crisis is 'made in the USA' and corresponds directly to the sanctions and financial blockade."

Bachelet claimed Venezuela's oil industry was "already in crisis before any sectoral sanctions were imposed," discounting the ebb and flow of the international market. She also noted a "drastic reduction of oil exports" between the years 2018 and 2019, but stunningly failed to connect the decline to US sanctions unleashed in January 2019 which specifically aimed to prevent Venezuela's oil industry from exporting products to the outside world.

By the logic of High Commissioner Bachelet, Maduro is so incredibly incompetent or evil that he refused to pay his country's bills and destroyed its entire oil industry singlehandedly in an effort to starve his own people.

Attacking Venezuela's food distribution program with baseless claims
In 2016, the government of Maduro introduced the Local Committees for Supply and Food Distribution program, or CLAP, to offset the impact of sanctions and the economic crisis brought on by falling oil prices. Today, the program provides food and sanitary supplies at almost no cost to six million families - a whopping slice of Venezuela's population.

According to Bachelet, Maduro did not initiate this program to feed the most vulnerable among his country's population, but in order to promote "intelligence gathering and defence tasks." She provided no supporting evidence for her claim.

Bachelet also baselessly claimed that the food delivery program was used in a politically prejudicial manner, asserting that some families "were not included in the distribution lists... because they were not government supporters."

Bachelet's attack on CLAP came just as the Trump administration threatened to target the food delivery program with sanctions.

The claims made by Bachelet during an abbreviated tour of Venezuela stood at stark odds with the findings of multiple media outlets, Venezuelan citizens and foreigners who recently traveled to Venezuela to witness CLAP distribution.

Terri Mattson of CODEPINK spent three months living with a family in Venezuela earlier this year and was also on the aforementioned panel with this author and Ambassador Moncada.

"It's a fantastic program and it's helping people who would not otherwise have access to food," Mattson remarked.

"My neighborhood... was predominantly opposition. Those people got food just as we in the chavista household got food. The food was distributed through the community council, the community council was majority opposition... everyone got food, everybody participated in the weekly community council meetings."

Anya Parampil ✔ @anyaparampil
· Jul 5, 2019

Replying to @anyaparampil
Bachelet says the gov's CLAP program, which provides food & supplies to 6 million households on a bi-monthly basis, is used for "intelligence gathering" & denied to families who support the opposition. This is a dangerous lie at a time when US is threatening to *sanction* CLAP.

Anya Parampil ✔ @anyaparampil

As a reporter who recently witnessed the incredible local organization required to deliver CLAP, I can say these are outright falsehoods. But don't take my word for it, listen to Terry Madsen of @codepink & another US citizen who recently traveled to Venezuela dispel that lie:

3:35 AM - Jul 5, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy

(click on picture to see video)

Bachelet's assault on CLAP will undoubtedly be used to justify the US government's attempts to sanction the program and further contribute to the starvation of Venezuelans. If a critical food distribution program is undermined from the outside, what other outcome can be expected but more hunger?

Ironically, Bachelet's critique of CLAP directly contradicts the recommendation at the end of her report, which requested that the government "take all necessary measures to ensure availability and accessibility of food, water, essential medicines and healthcare services," to average Venezuelans. Yet she did not demand the US government end the sanctions it has imposed against the country, this rendering the fulfillment of her recommendation nearly impossible.

"The government of Venezuela has demonstrated that it is already doing its utmost to ensure availability and accessibility of food and medicine," former special rapporteur de Zayas said in response, "what the high commissioner should have demanded is the immediate lifting of US and EU sanctions."

Bachelet's recommendations amount to an all-out attack on the structure of Bolivarian revolution. If implemented, they would not only amount to the dismantling of the government's structure, but would likely lead to society-wide chaos and mass starvation.

Echoing US propaganda on Venezuela's colectivos

Besides assailing the CLAP program, Bachelet called for the government to "disarm and dismantle pro-government armed civilian groups" known as colectivos, accusing them of "exercising social control".

Her comments echoed sensationalist US corporate media headlines as well as allegations by John Bolton and Florida Senator Mark Rubio, who have attempted to brand colectivos as violent gangs personally controlled by President Maduro.

This March, The Canary's John McEvoy spent two weeks living with a colectivo in Caracas. The British reporter found that the groups serve an entirely different purpose than the one relayed back to the Western public by corporate media and centrist leadership.

"After the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998, colectivos mushroomed across Venezuela with the wide scale devolution of power to local communities," McEvoy explained, "their demonisation in the corporate media serves a distinct purpose: to delegitimize Venezuela's grassroots democratic movements."

"As across Latin America, social organisations in Venezuela are deemed incompatible with the opposition's US-backed neoliberal project," the reporter continued. "They are consequently dehumanised, delegitimize, and attacked by a compliant media that categorically ignore their roots, popularity, and social value."

With this context, Bachelet's call for the colectivos to disarm appears to equal a demand that the country surrender its last line of defense against an ongoing regime change operation that has featured assassination attempts and threats of a full scale military invasion.

When Bachelet met with victims of guarimba violence this March, many hoped it meant those voices ignored by mainstream western media would finally be heard on the international stage. Yet the high commissioner decided their stories were unworthy, instead offering up a document which reads like a hand out from the US State Department.

And like clockwork, the State Department seized on Bachelet's report to drive its unilateral campaign for regime change, but this time with the stamp of UN approval and behind the guise of a respectable center-left political leader.

Anya Parampil is a journalist based in Washington, DC. She previously hosted a daily progressive afternoon news program called In Question on RT America. She has produced and reported several documentaries, including on-the-ground reports from the Korean peninsula and Palestine.

Related:

• What the Press Hides From You About Venezuela — A Case of News-Suppression

• Video: An Ocean of Lies on Venezuela

[perolator]

Posted by Dennis Leahy (here)

Posted by perolator (here)
... U.S. sanctions have to be taken into account. However, sanctions, as of 2019, will impact the country in full producing devastating consequences. I don't care about sanctions. Any method to weaken the narco-tyranny is welcome.

The full report says a big truth: “the economy of Venezuela, particularly its oil industry and food production systems, were already in crisis before any sanctions were imposed.”

"Sanctions." I'll bet the average person has no idea what "sanctions" means to the USA and to its victims. Most people don't care. "Sanctions" does not mean that a nation gets cut off from their supply of plutonium or even gunpowder, it means that the citizens of the nation are directly targeted by economic war, to try to force them to overthrow their government. "Sanctions" is cutting off the food supply, the water supply, the influx of medicines. "Sanctions" is cutting off a country's main exports (in North Korea, the USA 'sanctioned' textiles from export, and minerals...)

Venezuela has the largest gold deposits in the world, and the largest oil reserves in the world, so the way to hurt the citizens of Venezuela the most would be for the USA to disrupt oil exports and state mining and the 'gold sector.'

I note that the concept that Venezuela was "already in crisis" is mentioned in Wikipedia (US state-sponsored propaganda), as well as each of the pro-USA-Empire websites I visited to try to find a list of sanctions. A key piece of propaganda. Just like the, "he gassed his own people!" BS, used extensively by the USA imperialist war machine propagandists, the USA propagandists must establish that the USA is not just making an imperialist land-and-resource grab of Venezuela, but that rather that the USA - out of the kindness of its heart - is going to hurt all Venezuelan citizens as much as possible until they die or do what the USA wants, ...because the USA loves the people of Venezuela so very much?

I'm not really addressing any of this to you, perolator. I'm not trying to change you, you've made it clear that you are OK with literally anything the USA Empire does, including swallowing all of Venezuela's assets, as long as they murder all the poor people and depose Maduro. My words were for others, that might not know that "sanctions" is Modern USA Warfare, Phase I, and is targeted directly at whatever hurts citizens the most - ("devastating consequences.")

Hi Dennis

I don't want to argue with you.
I left Venezuela in 2016. Obama released the first batch of sanctions in 2015. Infrastructure was failing (running water, gas, electricity) in a steady manner as a byproduct of corruption and mismanagement, not sanctions. "Economic war" is a Venezuelan government false argument. I am not even angry at your communicational guerrilla tactics. 2019 sanctions are the "poor people" disruptive ones, not targeted sanctions as before.

Have you ever lived under sanctions? Do you have close relatives in Venezuela? Have you ever lived in Venezuela the last 20 years? if yes, you know what you are talking about.

If not, please investigate objectively.

P.S. The Venezuela "allies", i.e. Russia, Turkey et. al., are removing 50 tonnes of gold monthly (estimate). At least the U.S. was paying cash for the oil.

Did you know gold was not extracted before because the land is a national park, one of the biggest jungles of South America, one of the ancient rainforests of the world and the wicked government allowed extraction of the gold damaging the jungle, the ecosystem, the Caroni river nascent (Guri dam source), using toxic mercury and the worst methods with no regulations and no respect for the land? When the russians return home, they will leave a patchwork of mercury-polluted ponds and sand dunes, a landscape denuded of trees and other vegetation. To get the gold, they strip the land of trees or suck up river sediment and then use toxic mercury to tease the precious metal out of the dirt. The results are environmentally catastrophic.

Read. It does not hurt.

[Franny]

Maximum pressure is a Trump regime euphemism for unlawful political, economic and financial collective punishment against a sovereign state, its leadership and population — for not bending to Washington’s will.

Binding international law Fourth Geneva’s Article 33 prohibits it, stating:

“No (one) may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed.”

“Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”

“Pillage is prohibited. Reprisals against (individuals) and their property are prohibited.”

Fourth Geneva and other international laws to which the US is a signatory are automatically constitutional law.

The US under Republicans and undemocratic Dems operate by their own rules exclusively, time and again breaching the UN Charter and other binding international laws, norms and standards — by waging war on humanity at home and abroad.

Venezuela and Iran are in the eye of the Trump regime’s “maximum pressure” storm, the world community collectively and UN doing nothing to challenge its lawless actions.

In May 2018, Pompeo issued the following Orwellian statement, saying:

“The United States stands with the brave people of Venezuela as they strive for a return to dignity and democracy (sic).”

Fact: The Bolivarian Republic is the hemisphere’s preeminent social democracy, the majority of its revenues directed toward providing vital services to all its people — polar opposite how the US and other Western states operate.

Fact: US policy toward Venezuela from the Clinton co-presidency to Trump has been and continues aiming to replace its democratic rule with US-controlled fascist tyranny.

Fact: That’s what Trump and hardliners infesting his regime are going all out to institute short of hot war — so far. While unlikely, by no means is it ruled out.

Fact: Key for the US is controlling Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, the world’s largest, along with sending a message to the world community that nations unwilling to bow to its will face the force of its wrath.

Effective August 5 by executive order, Trump unlawfully ordered an embargo of Venezuela, prohibited by international law unless ordered by the UN Security Council. No nations may legally take this action on their own.

Under Trump’s executive order, nations, entities or individuals maintaining normal relations with Venezuela, their legal right, face (unlawful) US sanctions and other harshness.

On Tuesday, neocon hardliner Bolton said

“(w)e are sending a signal to third parties that want to do business with (Maduro). Proceed with extreme caution.”

Anyone continuing normal relations with Venezuela “risk(s) (their) business interests with the United States.”

He called support for Maduro by Russia, China and other nations “intolerable.” He mocked talks between government representatives and opposition elements in Barbados as “buying time (sic),” adding:

“We will not fall for these old tricks (sic),” again stressing “all options are on the table.”

In July, Trump’s envoy for regime change in Venezuela Elliott Abrams said he’s “absolutely” confident of Maduro’s ouster by yearend.

Trump Regime Imposes Illegal Embargo on Venezuela

Asked how Caracas intends to respond to Trump’s new executive order, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said:

“I’m going to paraphrase Donald Trump…All options are on the table.”

A Foreign Ministry statement said

“Washington has issued another executive order that aims to formalize the criminal economic, financial and trade embargo already underway, which has caused severe harm to Venezuelan society in recent years,” adding:

“The ruling elite in the United States aim to grant legal status to the embargo of all assets and properties belonging to the Venezuelan state.”

Venezuela’s UN envoy Samuel Moncada asked Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council to intervene against the Trump regime, saying:

“This is an act of war by the United States. Venezuela is not a threat to anyone and the United States is fabricating this aggression just to take the oil.”

On issues of war and peace, the UN is a virtual appendage of US imperial policies. US Security Council veto power prevents the body from censuring its unlawful actions.

Separately, Moncada denounced “the racist-ever (US regime) in the history of this continent…trying to fabricate a war on Venezuela,” adding:

“The militarization of the relations with Venezuela is one of the dangers that we are trying to expose.”

The Trump regime is an enemy of “international peace,” Bolton (and its other hardliners “enem(ies) of dialogue.”

On Tuesday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called new Trump regime actions against Venezuela “economic terror,” adding:

“Such steps have no legal basis either in terms of international or domestic Venezuelan law. Obviously, the White House is driven by the ideology of intolerance and dictatorship, which are put above the interests of Venezuelans.”

She stressed that Moscow will continue to support legitimate President Maduro.

Russia’s upper house Federation Council International Affairs chairman Konstantin Kosachev denounced Trump executive order on Venezuela, calling it an act of “international banditry.”

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi earlier warned that more sanctions on Venezuela “will only bring the law of the jungle…It is up to the people of a country to decide its internal affairs” — free from foreign interference.

Beijing supports Venezuela, Wang earlier saying the relationship with Maduro will be maintained “no matter how the situation evolves,” adding at the time:

“China will continue to support the search for a political solution in Venezuela through dialogue with the government and the opposition, so as to keep the country stable and the people safe.”

Trump’s action upped the stakes. His regime instituted similar actions against Iran.

In a letter by its UN envoy Takht-e Ravanchi to Secretary General Guterres, he said the following:

“Infatuated with rogue, unreasonable conducts at the international level, this well signifies that the US regime despises diplomacy, which is one of the greatest achievements of humanity to preserve and uphold peace and security among nations,” adding:

“It reveals the deeply-rooted hypocrisy of the United States’ authorities in their different but paradoxical claims.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran deems such illegal action a flagrant infringement of the fundamental principles of diplomatic law, in particular the principle of inviolability and immunity of high-ranking foreign officials, including immunity of incumbent ministers of foreign affairs, as a universally accepted norm and rule of customary international law.”

“The US’ illegal action is also in brazen violation of Article 105(2) of the United Nations Charter regarding the privileges and immunities of representative of Member States in exercising their functions in connection with the United Nations.”

“In this context, any restriction on discharging the duties of Ministers of Foreign Affairs is also in contravention of the Convention on the Privileges and immunities of the United Nations, the well-established customary principles enshrined in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and the Agreement regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations.”

“Likewise, it is in contradiction with many relevant consensual resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly, the latest of which is resolution 73/212 that, by underlining the obligation of the United States for the observance of the privileges and immunities of the missions accredited to the United Nations, ‘which cannot be subject to any restrictions arising from the bilateral relations of the host country, urges the host country to remove without delay any restrictions applied (and) ensure respect for such privileges and immunities.”

“Coercing nations into complying with the United States’ illegal demands threatens multilateralism, as the foundation of international relations, and sets a dangerous precedent, paving the way for those who aspire to rather divide, not unite, nations.”

Ravanchi called on the international community and world body to condemn unlawful US actions — maybe someday, not any time soon.

Today is the most perilous time in world history because of US rage for dominion over planet earth, its resources and populations by whatever it takes to achieve its imperial objectives.

*

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Stephen Lendman, Global Research, 2019

[Hervé]

Venezuela and Iran in the Crosshairs of Murderers Inc – Who is Next?

by Peter Koenig for The Saker blog
August 09, 2019

Imagine just for a moment, the World would stand up in unison, sick and tired of the aggressive killer arrogance of the United States and her vassals – and their joint war-force called NATO – and this World, our World, what’s left of it when you deduct Washington and its Brussels allies, would at once block every shipment of everything destined for the ports of the United States of America; every sea port, airport and road port. Hermetically. Nothing would enter. Nothing, no food, no medicine, no electronics, no cars – no nothing. And nothing could leave. No exports, no petrol, no grains, no meat, no pharmaceuticals and foremost, no weapons. Nothing.

And now, take your mind a step further – and imagine the same – exactly the same, a total and full blockage of Israel – nothing would enter, no food, no fuel, no medication, no machinery and especially no weapons – and nothing would leave; a full and total blockage.

This would of course be totally illegal; illegal and unacceptable, by any international law, by the standards of the UN Charter, by the Human Rights Laws and Directives – by any ethical values of human morals. Wouldn’t it? – Yet, this is exactly what these countries are doing, have been doing for decades, sanctioning to strangle and murder entire populations into death or submission. The US with Cuba; Israel with Palestine. And the coercion and strangulation go on, unabated.

The longest embargo – illegal, inhuman and outright criminal – Washington imposed on Cuba – 60 years. Because Cuba has chosen socialism as her form of state and government. Cuba survived and will never give in to the tyrant of the north.

Now the US is expanding her palette of killing by impunity to dominate and subjugate nation after nation which they do not consider bending sufficiently to the dictate of their masters. Venezuela has been targeted for two decades, ever since former President Hugo Chavez was democratically elected in 1998; and Iran, ever since the US-imposed Shah was deposed in 1979 – exactly 40 years ago – by Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Both Venezuela and Iran are rich in natural resources, especially hydrocarbons but also in gold, rare earths and other precious metals and stones.

Contrary to what one would like to imagine, international world bodies, like the United Nations and her sister and associated organizations remain just about silent. When a high-level official utters some benign criticism of the US or Israel – it flairs up for a moment in the ‘news’, then it disappears again, as if it never happened. And indeed, nothing happens. They – the US and Israel – go on with their crimes in impunity.

The latest is an open declaration of economic warfare by Washington, a total embargo on Venezuela; the embargo is now being turned into a naval blockade. Similar steps are to be taken for Iran. That literally means that no merchandise – no matter how vital for survival, like food and medication, is allowed into Venezuela. Three days ago, the US seized, totally illegally, a cargo ship attempting to deliver food and medication to Venezuela – in the Panama Canal, territory which the US does not own or control anymore.

The ship was carrying soy cakes, from which Venezuela was to produce food. Never mind, that the cargoes are fully paid for by Venezuela. And this seems to be just the beginning. Vessels leaving Venezuela with petrol deliveries to client countries are also targeted for blockage, thus confiscating, or rather stealing, Venezuela’s main source of income on which she intends to survive and feed and provide health care for her people. This, in addition to the more than 130 billion dollars total Venezuelan assets confiscated – stolen – by the US worldwide .

And nobody says beep. Almost. Yes, there are some collective protests by countries in solidarity – like key members of the Sao Paulo Forum, as well as more than 60 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM – total 120 members) that have become especially active in recent years in defense of Venezuela within the United Nations. Protests and protest declarations also take place by ALBA members, a Latin American trade alliance (ALBA – Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, 11 members [Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Ecuador, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Grenada and the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis]).

But most interesting are the hypocrites, those who write and scream that Venezuelans are starving to death, that the Maduro government neglects its people – yet these accusers-in-falsehood – let the US and her vassals strangle Venezuela and steal her foreign assets, including foreign reserves and gold, food and medical imports – they are saying zilch, nada, nothing. Just watching.

To top it all off, the Human Rights Commissioner, Madame Michelle Bachelet, Hypocrite-in-chief, who recently visited Venezuela, at the invitation of President Nicolas Maduro, on a Human Rights mission, and who delivered a devastating report about Venezuela’s HR, full of lies, half-truths and outright omissions, not mentioning with one word the US inspired coup attempts, the US-funded opposition and its bloody atrocities on the Chavista population, and the strangulating and starving by the US and US-dictated European sanctions – Madame Bachelet now came forward condemning the naval blockade. Great. But she did not stand up against the deadly embargo by the US and the European Union. – What credibility remains for the Human Rights Commission? – The world can see it – it’s all bought, coerced into submission, like so many other UN agencies by the Murderers Inc.

If we are not careful, they are soon going to rule the globe. Thanks god, for Russia and China – which are also subjects of US-EU sanctioning and targeted for take-over. But they are a tiny little bit too big and too strong for this sort of games by the decaying US empire and her obedient rats on the sinking ship.

Similarly, the European Union – despots as they have been for hundreds of years as colonialists in Africa, Asia and Latin America – and continue in a modern colonial role through economic control of much of Africa – this very EU, has been sanctioning Venezuela for years on the orders of Washington, naturally, who else? – Now they condemn the naval blockade, but continue their routine sanctions regime.

According to a study carried out by the Washington DC based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), under guidance of Mark Weisbrot, CEPR co-director and Jeffrey Sachs, economics professor, Director, Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University, New York, US and EU sanctions have cost some 40,000 Venezuelan lives. This mainly since August 2017, when Washington escalated its unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela and her state oil company, PDVSA, cutting them off international financial markets.

Yes, the world would have plenty of reasons to stand up and dish out similar naval and air blockades against the US and Israel. Just as a teaser to begin with, and if that doesn’t send a strong enough wake-up message, perhaps such embargoes should be considered on a longer-term indefinite scale. It’s illegal. But we are living in a world where international laws don’t count – where laws are made, as we go, by the self-declared hegemon, the US of A, and her symbiotic Middle East ally, Israel. – So, why not nudging the legal, moral and ethical order back into balance?

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

[Hervé]

Adding Context to ‘News’ about Venezuela

by Eric Zuesse for The Saker Blog
August 11, 2019

This past week’s meeting of the U.S.-and-Canada-created anti-Venezuela Lima Group of nations failed to achieve the U.S. regime’s intention of organizing a coalition of its members to participate in a U.S.-led invasion to overthrow Venezuela’s Government and install Trump’s choice, the self-styled ‘interim President’ of Venezuela, Juan Guaido, to rule there. Although 100 nations had been invited, only 60 attended, and the U.S. regime wasn’t able to obtain even one ally for an invasion. John Bolton (U.S. National Security Advisor) and Wilbur Ross (U.S. Secretary of ‘Commerce’ — mainly U.S. oil companies) represented U.S. President Trump at the meeting, which started on August 5th. The meeting ended with no official announcement. It was a humiliating defeat for the U.S. regime.

Below is a report about this meeting, by Agence France-Presse, a typical U.S.-allied ‘news’-medium. The italicized additions in brackets in and near the article’s end are essential historical context; it’s taken from Wikipedia’s article “International sanctions during the Venezuelan crisis”, and thus also isn’t from me. This way, the reader will be able to see what the ‘news’-report here leaves out, which is essential background in order for readers to know the reality that stands behind this particular ‘news’ report. The minor typos in the original report are also left unchanged; the entire article is unchanged, except that I boldface the passages toward the end, which passages are subsequently contextualized immediately below them. Afterward, I shall add my own comments, in order to provide a fuller context:

——
http://archive.is/pNGYl
https://www.france24.com/en/

US warns off Venezuela’s supporters as Lima meeting opens
Date created: Tuesday 6 August 2019, 06/08/2019 – 20:07

AFP, Lima (AFP): Washington warned third parties on Tuesday to avoid doing business with the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro, as delegates from some 60 countries met in Lima to discuss ways of ending the crisis in South American nation.

The warning came one day after President Donald Trump ordered a freeze on all Venezuelan government assets in the United States and barred transactions with its authorities.

“We are sending a signal to third parties that want to do business with the Maduro regime: proceed with extreme caution,” said Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton, speaking in Lima.

“There is no need to risk your business interests with the United States for the purposes of profiting from a corrupt and dying regime.”

The Trump administration is determined to force Maduro from power and support opposition leader Juan Guaido’s plans to form a transitional government and set up new elections.

The sanctions drew an angry response from Caracas, which denounced the US move as “another serious aggression by the Trump administration through arbitrary economic terrorism against the Venezuelan people.”

Crisis-wracked Venezuela has been mired in a political impasse since January when Guaido, speaker of the Natinal Assembly, proclaimed himself acting president, quickly receiving the support of more than 50 countries.

Tuesday’s meeting was called by the Lima Group, which includes a dozen Latin American countries and Canada, most of which support Guaido.

The Lima meeting comes as representatives of Maduro and Guaido are involved in “continuous” negotiations mediated by Norway.

The first round of talks were in Oslo in May, and three further rounds have taken place in Barbados.

Caracas claims the US sanctions show that Washington and its allies are “committed to the failure of the political dialogue” because “they fear the results and benefits.”

Bolton, who is in the US delegation alongside Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, said Maduro was “not serious” about talks.

He said Trump’s move “authorizes the US government to identify, target and impose sanctions on any persons who continue to provide support” Maduro’s “illegitimate regime.”

He said it would “deny Maduro access to the global financial system and to further isolate him internationally.”

Venezuela’s opposition considers Maduro a usurper over his re-election last year in a poll widely viewed as rigged.

They want him to stand down so new elections can be held — but Maduro, with support from the country’s powerful military, refuses to go.

Maduro says the talks must lead to “democratic coexistence” and an end to what he describes as an attempted US-orchestrated “coup.”

But on Tuesday the White House was emphatic: the “dictatorship must end for Venezuela to have a stable, democratic, and prosperous future.”

The United States would “use every appropriate tool to end Maduro’s hold on Venezuela,” White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.

Oil-rich but cash-poor Venezuela has been in a deep recession for five years.
[“President Barack Obama signed the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014, a U.S. Act imposing sanctions on Venezuelan individuals held responsible by the United States for human rights violations during the 2014 Venezuelan protests, in December of that year.[13][14] It “requires the President to impose sanctions” on those “responsible for significant acts of violence or serious human rights abuses associated with February 2014 protests or, more broadly, against anyone who has directed or ordered the arrest or prosecution of a person primarily because of the person’s legitimate exercise of freedom of expression or assembly”.[8]”]

Food and medicine shortages are routine, and public services are progressively failing.
[“As the humanitarian crisis deepened and expanded, the Trump administration levied more serious economic sanctions against Venezuela on 28 January [2019], and “Maduro accused the US of plunging Venezuelan citizens further into economic crisis.”[3] Rafael Uzcátegui, director of PROVEA, added that “sanctions against PDVSA are likely to yield stronger and more direct economic consequences, and that “[w]e should remember that 70 to 80 percent of Venezuela’s food is imported, and there’s barely any medicine production in the country.”[3]”]
——

Eric Zuesse's COMMENTS:
The U.S. regime’s sanctions against Venezuelans were aimed at producing such distress amongst the population so as to cause them not to vote for Maduro.

It didn’t work.

The sanctions had the intended effect of distressing Venezuelans, but this deprivation drove so many of the most anti-Maduro Venezuelans to leave the country so that the sanctions failed to force the expected “regime change.” It drove too many of his enemies out.

The U.S. regime is therefore trying even-stronger measures to grab the country.

Trump is dictating to Venezuela that “the dictatorship must end.” He has even chosen the person, Guaido, who is to replace the current nationally elected President, whom the U.S. regime has long been trying to oust.

Guaido has never even been a candidate in any national Venezuelan election, but he was trained in the U.S., and has always cooperated with the U.S. Government’s repeated efforts to take control over Venezuela.

Venezuela has never invaded nor even threatened the United States. This coup-attempt is purely an effort for imperialistic conquest of Venezuela, but it is cloaked in ‘democratic’ and ‘humanitarian’ lies, for fools, like America’s invasions and coups typically are.

Only idiots can’t see what the U.S. pattern is here, especially after the lies that had suckered Americans in 2003 to support “regime-change in Iraq.”

Trump is continuing Barack Obama’s policy, which continued that of George W. Bush. Whatever changes in personnel occur within the U.S. regime, the regime itself remains basically the same, though its theatrics change, and that’s enough change to satisfy most Americans that we live in a democracy.

Virtually all of the U.S. Congress supports these efforts to conquer Venezuela, and this fascism includes all of the Democratic Party’s Presidential candidates. Therefore, none of the candidates are being challenged about their votes supporting this (or any other) attempted conquest by the U.S. regime.

The neoconservative policy is bipartisan in America, though the personnel do change, from the representatives of one group of billionaires, to the representatives of another group of billionaires. And the vast majority of Americans think that it’s good, or at least okay — even after all of the lies have been exposed, they still approve.

Of course, most Italians, Japanese, and Germans, thought favorably about their Government’s imperialistic conquests, during WW II; but Americans became opposed to that when we were hit by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war against us. This time around, we are the Japanese, and the Germans, and the Italians. Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way, but it has happened.

The U.S. is today the world’s leading fascist nation. And very few Americans recognize that it’s the way that things did turn out. Very few Americans know that we live in a fascist nation — today’s leading fascist nation.


AFTER THAT NEWS-REPORT:
The next day, August 7th, Venezuela’s Telesur headlined “EU Opposes Recent US Total Blockade Against Venezuela” and reported that Trump had failed to get the EU — his biggest hope for destroying Venezuela short of militarily invading it — to accept even that proposal.

The EU said

“We oppose the extraterritorial application of unilateral measures.” They further said

“A negotiated outcome remains the only sustainable way to overcome this multidimensional crisis.”

The EU couldn’t muster enough fascists to go along with anything that the U.S. regime proposed. At this point, Trump isn’t far from the moment when he will need either to abandon his effort to grab Venezuela in this round, or else spring a blitz invasion without allies. Even if he calls off the effort, that would only be temporary.

Perhaps if and when he is re-elected, he will feel freer just to send in thousands of troops, tanks, and missiles, to get the job done. However, if Russia stands firm, then such an invasion could spark WW III. He would have to decide whether grabbing the world’s largest oil reserves is worth that risk. Meanwhile, he will almost certainly continue to try to make life as difficult as possible for the Venezuelan people, all the while blaming Maduro for their misery.

This has been the basic American plan, since well before Trump occupied the White House. At this stage, an American President is just a figurehead for one or another faction of America’s 607 billionaires, and it seems that whereas some of them demand conquest of Venezuela, none of the others opposes such a conquest. The only issue, therefore, for the American regime, is how and when to do that.

On August 8th, Venezuela, Iran, China, and Russia, held “war games” at Kaliningrad, Russia, on the Baltic coast, which military exercises had been organized by Russia, perhaps in order to indicate to Washington that a U.S. invasion against any of these four would be militarily responded to by all of the four. This symbolic act warns the fascist, and fascist-accepting, regimes: Your imperialist alliance has 60 nations, but is fractious; ours, on the other hand — all resolute supporters of national sovereignty, and therefore opponents of imperialism — has 4 nations, but we are united.

Consequently, though “US warns off Venezuela’s supporters as Lima meeting opens,” Venezuela’s three allies here answered that verbal threat immediately after the Lima Group meeting, by a joint action, which symbolized that they are ignoring it.
—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

[Hervé]

MSM ignores massive anti-sanctions protest rallies in Venezuela

RT
Tue, 13 Aug 2019 10:51 UTC

Anti-sanctions march in Caracas, Venezuela. August 10, 2019. © Reuters / Manaure Quintero

Leading English-language news organizations have provided extensive and dramatic coverage of anti-government protests in Venezuela, but mostly ignored large-scale rallies against US sanctions, which took place over the weekend.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans flooded the streets of the country's capital, Caracas, on Saturday to denounce the economic blockade and sanctions imposed by the US. Many were wrapped in national flags and sported red shirts, typically worn by the supporters of the government. The rallies were held under the slogan 'No More Trump'.

The mainstream media stayed largely silent on the massive anti-sanctions rallies. This is a striking contrast to the extensive and often dramatic coverage the leading English-language news organizations have provided during anti-government protests, led by opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Ruptly ✔ @Ruptly

'No more #Trump' protest led by #Maduro#Venezuela

1:16 PM - Aug 11, 2019

CNN gave a brief mention to the 'No More Trump' protests on its Spanish-language website, CNN en Espanol, but the company's English-language service, CNN International, ignored the story altogether. As did the New York Times, whose weekend coverage passed over Venezuela entirely, but found space for an opposition march in Moscow.

The event did get some attention from Latin American public broadcaster Telesur, as well as other smaller left-leaning publications such as the British Morning Star, but they were outliers in the world press.

President Nicolas Maduro had earlier called on "all Venezuelans" to gather at the city's squares to sign a manifesto, decrying US pressure and affirming the will to "defend independence, peace and sovereignty" of the country. The government said it expects to collect more than 13 million signatures by early September, after which the document will be delivered to the UN as proof of what people think about the sanctions.

In January, opposition politicians declared Guaido, who leads the nation's parliament, 'acting president' of Venezuela, challenging Maduro. The move was dismissed by the government. The opposition has since staged several large-scale protests, some of which spiraled into riots and clashes with police. More than 100 protesters have died in the ensuing violence.

Guaido is openly backed by the US, its allies in Europe and the majority of South American states, including Venezuela's neighbors, Colombia and Brazil. Nations like China, Russia, Iran and Turkey continue to recognize Maduro as the legitimate leader of the country.

[Hervé]

US crimes against Venezuela amount to economic terrorism

Tommy Sheridan Sputnik
Thu, 15 Aug 2019 14:43 UTC

Venezuelan masses protesting Trump-USA © AP/Ariana Cubillos

It was an internationally significant event worthy of widespread coverage but my hunch is few, if any, of you reading this column will have heard of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit which took place in Caracas, Venezuela, on July 20/21st.

The weekend ministerial meeting brought together 120 member nations as well as seven observer countries, ten multilateral international organisations including the United Nations (UN), and fourteen specially invited nations.

The elected President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, addressed the opening session and outlined the broad and honourable aim of NAM, a voluntary international bloc of countries second in size only to the United Nations. Referring to the desire to end US global domination, unwanted interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations and rejection of intolerable wars and armed conflicts Maduro said:

"The construction of a world without hegemonic empires, a world of peace, of respect for international law, is neither an odyssey nor an unrealistic utopia..."

This assembly of free and sovereign nations representing 120 governments across the world united in condemnation of the unilateral decisions of successive US Governments to impose brutal and deadly economic sanctions on Venezuela cynically designed to cause economic chaos and hardship for ordinary people in the hope that they will turn their anger on the elected socialist government. Washington currently imposes cruel economic sanctions on a number of NAM member countries including Syria, Nicaragua, China, Iran, North Korea and Zimbabwe.

Their economic blockade of socialist Cuba has spanned the 60 years since the Cuban revolution and been condemned consistently by the United Nations General Assembly as an illegal act amounting to economic warfare. Barack Obama refused to lift those sanctions despite their illegal character but he did relax some of the restrictions on travel and contact. Donald Trump has shamefully re-imposed them.

America despises the continued existence of a socialist country 90 miles from its Miami coastline, committed to free universal healthcare, education and housing. While the rich and powerful US exports bombs and denies millions of its own citizens health provision, socialist Cuba exports doctors, nurses and medical missions to poor and disaster struck areas across the world and guarantees all of its citizens quality healthcare. Cuba's decision to prioritise healthcare over warfare has resulted in life expectancy in Cuba being higher than in America. A fact which should shame and embarrass the richest and most powerful country on the planet.

Anxious to prevent the spread of socialist economies prioritising health and education over armaments and personal greed the US has imposed economic sanctions and sought to engineer internal unrest and military coups in Venezuela since the election of charismatic socialist Hugo Chavez in 1999.

A failed coup in 2002 saw US-sponsored opposition groups amongst the rich minority bring violence to the streets of capital Venezuela's capital Caracas and the arrest of Chavez. But after 48 hours the ordinary people arose from the poor barrios areas around Caracas and united with lower-ranking army personnel to free Chavez and reinstate him in office.

The economic sanctions against Venezuela continued throughout the Chavez era but to little effect as the vast oil reserves within the country were deployed to raise the standard of living across the country and lift tens of millions out of extreme poverty. Proper housing, healthcare and education used to be the preserve of only the rich minority but are now rights enshrined in the new Bolivarian constitution which the people together wrote in a mass exercise in democratic engagement throughout 1999.

After Chavez succumbed to cancer in March 2013 his trusted comrade and Vice-President Nicolas Maduro assumed power before being democratically elected in 2015. However a dramatic collapse in oil prices completely undermined the Venezuelan economy and they had to seek loans on international money markets to raise funds for the purchase of essential foodstuffs, medicines and manufacturing equipment.

The US could smell the opportunity to try and strangle the Venezuelan economy and uprated sanctions to deny Venezuela access to funds and slowly but surely the economy descended into chaos with shortages of food and medicines becoming commonplace.

These economic sanctions were ratcheted up and tightened by Trump but have no international legitimacy whatsoever. The United Nations (UN) has condemned them as contrary to international law and therefore illegal. They have been called 'economic warfare'. Thorough academic research has estimated that these sanctions have led directly to the loss of 40,000 lives, including thousands of children, in the last 18 months alone.

According to the UN Rapporteur sent to Venezuela on their behalf to compile a UN Human Rights Council Report in 2017 and 2018 the United States has used the illegal sanctions and financial blockade against Venezuela to create a humanitarian crisis and are therefore criminally liable for the increased deaths of children and the infirm denied vital medical supplies directly because of the sanctions.

His damning report stated categorically that the US sanctions kill and therefore America should face prosecution at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Alfred de Zayas, UN Human Rights Rapporteur, complained earlier this year that although he has written 13 separate Reports on humanitarian disasters and crisis across the world including Sudan, Somalia and Palestine and all were reported and used by the international media his Report on Venezuela has been ignored and not one single mainstream channel has interviewed him about it.

In November 2017 one US bank blocked the transfer of funds to pay for 300,000 doses of insulin. Another retained $1.65 billion Venezuela had paid for the purchase of food and medicine. Another blocked the transfer of over $9 billion profits generated by the US subsidiary of the publicly owned Venezuelan oil company. In May last year, Wells Fargo bank in America cancelled a payment of $7.5 million from Brazil to Venezuela for the supply of electricity and also blocked a $7 million purchase of dialysis supplies for patients in Venezuela, including thousands of children.

Alfred de Zayas condemns these economic sanctions as not just illegal under international law but also immoral as they are directly responsible for increased child mortality, maternal mortality and deaths due to shortages of life-saving insulin:

"Venezuela had succeeded in bringing millions and millions out of extreme poverty. Nobody cared in the 1980s and 90's that there were millions of Venezuelans dying of hunger and malnutrition. No one cared. It was a government palatable to Washington and a government that was a right-wing government. The moment that a left-wing government came into power priority number one in Washington was to topple it."

No wonder the mainstream media don't want to talk to this guy. His Report was compiled after spending several months in the country speaking to real people all across Venezuela and reading credible reports from others. He is not spouting the corporate bull**** fed to the big news outlets by Trump, Bolton, Pompeo and Mike Spence.

The elected President of Venezuela won 6.2 million votes in 2018. The right-wing opposition urged a boycott. Yet Nicolas Maduro's votes represent 31% of the registered voters of Venezuela. That is the exact percentage of the vote Barack Obama was elected on in 2008. No one suggested Obama was democratically illegitimate.

Last week the US disgracefully decided to turn their illegal economic sanctions and financial blockade into a full-blown embargo and empowered themselves to punish any third party country who trades with Venezuela. It has been described as modern-day 'banditry'. It is also economic thuggery and callous warfare which the world should be condemning robustly.

Instead, John Bolton, the warmonger who drove the Iraq invasion based on lies and deceit, was last week addressing a meeting in Lima announcing the increased economic warfare against Venezuela to representatives of the 52 countries who have fallen into line and recognised the puppet Juan Guaido, installed from Washington in January this year. He has little and reducing support within Venezuela and therefore the threat of military intervention remains on the table according to these warmonger reprobates.

Yet when the mainstream press and media talk about 'international community support' for US puppet Guaido you would think it was the majority of the 'international community'. It isn't. It is not just a minority it is a white minority of imperialist colonizer nations and non-white nations are erased from the international community.

The US has managed to bully 54 nations into supporting their illegal and immoral sanctions and external interference policy but 120 nations have stood steadfast in support of international law and recognition of the sovereignty of nations. Thankfully support within Venezuela for the democratically elected President remains strong but that won't stop America trying to force regime change to get their grubby and blood-soaked hands on Venezuela's vast oil reserves, the largest in the world.

Terrorism is reviled across the world but economic terrorism can be just as deadly and destructive. The US is an economic terrorist and it should be condemned, shunned and prosecuted for its actions not supported.

I leave the last word to Venezuela's UN Ambassador and NAM Presidential Commissioner Samuel Moncada when he addressed the NAM summit a few weeks ago:

"In the world there are 193 countries and the United States [in backing self-declared "Interim President" Juan Guaido] cites only 54. Here there are 120, the international community is defending Venezuela (...) Two-thirds of the United Nations believes that the government of Nicolas Maduro is the legitimate government of Venezuela..."

Hands Off Venezuela and its legitimate President Nicolas Maduro!

[Hervé]

...

... meanwhile, in the neighborhood:

Failed state made in the USA: Ex-president of Honduras and coup victim Zelaya tells all

RT
Sat, 17 Aug 2019 13:56 UTC

Zelaya at a protest against the US-backed Hernandez government. © Reuters / Jorge Cabrera

President Jose Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was deposed from power in a military coup after joining a progressive alliance of Latin American leaders and he has "absolutely no doubts" the US was behind his ouster, he tells RT America.

"The US warned me: If you sign the Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas (ALBA), you're going to have problems with the US. I signed it, and six months later, I had problems," Zelaya told RT America's Rick Sanchez.

"They kicked me out."

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AvQNPsSZZZc

Washington "wave[s] their flags of human rights abroad, but they only apply those concepts to those they consider to be adversaries," Zelaya says, pointing to his record of poverty reduction and economic growth - "I had the best indicators of human development in Honduran history!"

Because of the company he kept - working with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Ecuador's Rafael Correa, and other progressive US bogeymen to further Honduras' economic development - the US "had an allergic reaction" and moved to take him out, he says.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ePKRQhbm300

"I didn't have problems with the US," Zelaya insists. "They simply didn't accept the competition, because these transnational companies live off monopoly, they live off concessions. When you give them competition in the free market, they stop being capitalist. They become retrograde, authoritarian, and they play coups, wars, invasions."

Zelaya was removed from power in 2009, deposed by heavily armed soldiers who came to his home while he was in his pajamas, in a coup Hillary Clinton's State Department refused to call a coup.

Honduras has been sinking into chaos ever since. His progressive reforms such as building schools, adopting a pension system for the elderly and raising the minimum wage have been rolled back, and homicide rates had soared 50 percent by 2011. Trade unionists, journalists, judges, human rights and environmental activists have been targeted for extrajudicial killings.

His efforts to return to power have also been thwarted, once again by the US, he says. After his party won the 2017 election with nearly three quarters of the votes counted, it was the US ambassador who appeared with 5,000 boxes of ballots to declare another candidate the winner. Even the pro-US Organization of American States called for a new round of elections. Instead, the government suspended the constitution and imposed 10 days of martial law, after which the US recognized the rigged results.

"And with that, they impose a dictatorship in Honduras... that's what we're protesting against."

Zelaya says the US sees Honduras "not as a colony or a province. They see us as an empty landscape where they invest and where they impose their rules."

He does not blame only the Americans for the suffering of Honduras, however.

"The Hondurans are guilty, the ones that bow down and kiss the boots of the US, the US military, or kiss up to the capitalist chiefs of Wall Street."


Related:

• US gives the world a free choice: Dollar debt or death - Keynote speech by Michael Hudson

• Pornographic Democracy

[Hervé]

...

... about the MSM silence on Honduras and Brazil beside Venezuela:

'How is that non-news?' Lee Camp reveals why MSM chooses to ignore Honduras and Brazil unrest

RT
Sat, 17 Aug 2019 16:46 UTC

© REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera; Ricardo Moraes 8

Americans are bombarded with non-stop news on Hong Kong and Moscow rallies, but how come mass protests in Honduras and Brazil aren't high on the agenda? Lee Camp looks at why the US corporate media are keeping mum on the subject.

Honduras, a Latin American nation of nine million people, has been hit by massive unrest, with people venting anger at pro-US President Orlando Hernandez. The wave of violent demonstrations saw the US diplomatic mission attacked by protesters - but the American mainstream media didn't say a word about it, Camp pointed out, speaking on Redacted Tonight.

"Protesters are literally burning the US embassy because we installed a f******d [Hernandez] rule over them, how is that non-news?" he wondered.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=X9fgNgksXTY

Hondurans are rightfully furious about "the neoliberal austerity measures supported by our country and the IMF." It caused massive layoffs, increased costs of basic goods and essentially made their lives suck down there, Camp reminded viewers.

But as long as their government is pillaging the people appropriately, our government is cool with it.

All in all, Honduras isn't the only unrest-hit country overlooked by the US corporate media. Brazil, "the largest of countries Americans don't care about," has been rocked by a massive strike led by trade unions. Over 45 million people there - "can you imagine 45 million Americans agreeing on everything?" - are protesting against the right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and his controversial pension reform.

But this is "not a story your corporate media will cover," and for obvious reasons, Camp offered. On the one hand, it may not look good for the White House administration, including a particular president. On the other hand...

The American workers might think, 'what if WE have a general strike?'

[Bill Ryan]

This might deserve a different thread [Edit: now started here]: but there have been widespread popular protests in Puerto Rico, that ousted Governer Rosselló — who was forced to resign.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=MSkuuRHxXyY

[spade]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jN5LZR4ejkg

1st of an 11 part series of what's it like in current Venezuela with no talking heads. Interesting to watch.

[Hervé]

The Venezuelan Disinformation Campaign

Voltaire Network
6 September 2019

français Español italiano Português Deutsch Türkçe

In August 2018, the international press reported on a massive exodus of Venezuelans fleeing the famine and chavist dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro. There were 18,000 to cross the border each day. At the time, the UN predicted that there would be 5.3 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees throughout Latin America by the end of 2019. There was a major crisis.

Alas! These figures were pure propaganda: the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees has just published its official statistics as at December 31, 2018.

• 57% of the world’s refugees came from Syria (6.7 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million) and South Sudan (2.3 million).

• Venezuelan refugees represented only 341,800 people (many of whom have since returned to their country).

The campaign of media disinformation, relayed in all the allied states of the Pentagon, was initiated in preparation for the destabilization operation targeting the Venezuelan State that began in December 2018. It was intended to convince the nationals that they no longer had a future at home and the people abroad that President Maduro was illegitimate.

This is a clear application of the theory of "migrations as weapons of war" [1].

Translation Roger Lagassé

References:

[1] “Strategic Engineered Migration as a Weapon of War”, Kelly M. Greenhill, Civil War Journal, Volume 10, Issue 1, July 2008.

"Understanding the Coercive Power of Mass Migrations,” in Weapons of Mass Migration : Forced Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy, Kelly M. Greenhill, Ithaca, 2010.

“Migration as a Coercive Weapon : New Evidence from the Middle East”, in Coercion : The Power to Hurt in International Politics, Kelly M. Greenhill, Oxford University Press, 2018.

[Hervé]

Trump Regime Training Paramilitaries to Attack Venezuela?

By Stephen Lendman Global Research,
September 06, 2019

Washington wants Bolivarian Venezuela transformed into a US vassal state — to eliminate its social democracy and gain control over its vast oil reserves, the world’s largest.

On Wednesday, the Trump regime earmarked over $120 million for Colombia.

Masquerading as “humanitarian assistance” for Venezuelans in the country, what’s planned may be something similar to US Central American paramilitary wars in the 1980s.

Edward Herman once explained that if US imperial aims go unchallenged, its ruling authorities will “continue to escalate violence (against targeted nations) to preserve military mafia/oligarch control” — state terrorism on a global scale.

If the Trump regime intends waging a cross-border paramilitary war on Venezuela, the toll could be horrendous.

In the 1980s, over 50,000 were slaughtered in El Salvador, more than 100,000 in Guatemala, over 200,000 in the country earlier and since the 1990s, thousands more in Nicaragua.

Mass slaughter was compounded by torture, rapes, mutilations, disappearances, and assassinations — on the phony pretext of combating communism.

Today US Latin America regime change tactics are directed against Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela’s social democracy, a notion its hardline ruling authorities abhor and want eliminated everywhere.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said

“alleged Venezuelan refugees (are) receiving training (in Colombia) to provoke violent acts in Venezuela,” adding:

Many were “transferred to a British military base in Guyana, but the truth is that these are people who came to receive training and integrate sabotage and spy groups.”

Guyana and Venezuela share a common border. US and UK troops are in the neighboring country on the phony pretext of aiding its government.

According to US Air Force General Andrew Croft,

Failed Trump Regime Coup Plot Against Venezuela Continues

“Guyana is going to become a larger player in this region, both economically and politically in the future, so it’s important that we are closely tied with them,” adding:

“What we leave is an enduring, physical presence in addition to the partnerships that we build.”

“Guyana sits in a strategic location on the north edge of South America and on the Caribbean.”

“That’s what makes it important. Also, as political change happens in the nation and they become more aligned with us, it’s important for us to make those personal relationships not only through the embassy, but also through the military and the Guyana defense force, which is currently about 3,000 strong with the intent to nearly double it in the upcoming years.”

US and UK troops in Guyana are involved in Trump regime efforts to replace Venezuelan social democracy with US-controlled fascist puppet rule.

Zakharova stressed that US forces in nations bordering Venezuela are all about “caus(ing) destabiliz(ing) and violent acts” cross-border.

On Wednesday, Venezuelan President Maduro said the US is plotting a new conspiracy against the Bolivarian Republic from neighboring Colombia, adding:

“Yesterday, I declared the orange alert level for all branches of the Armed Forces…to protect the sovereignty and peace of Venezuela.”

“And the military forces are already being deployed (to the Colombian border). Now, we are going to deploy our rocket air defense system from 10 September to 28 September.”

Days earlier, Maduro said large-scale military drills will be held near Venezuela’s border with Colombia to protect against hostile cross-border actions.

In late August, the Trump regime established a so-called Venezuela Affairs Unit (VAU) in Bogota, Colombia.

Its mission is all about aiming to oust legitimate Venezuelan President Maduro, wanting hardline/anti-democratic US-controlled puppet rule replacing him.

Several cross-border attacks were foiled, including an attempt to detonate an explosive at the Justice Palace in Caracas.

On Thursday, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez accused Trump regime-designated puppet/usurper in waiting Guaido of transferring Venezuelan bonds to the US and other nations, adding:

“The Venezuelan people know who Juan Guaido is. He does not (represent) a political project. (He’s a front man for) a criminal group.”

In July, Venezuela’s Minister of Communication Jorge Rodriguez said two Guaido security guards were seized, trying to sell stolen National Guard weapons ahead of the failed April 30 coup attempt.

The above offenses and many others beg the question. Why hasn’t Venezuela held Guaido accountable for his lawless actions — notably sedition and treason against the state?

*

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Stephen Lendman, Global Research, 2019

[Hervé]

Venezuela prosecutors probe opposition leader Juan Guaido for ‘high treason’

RT
Published time: 6 Sep, 2019 16:36
Edited time: 6 Sep, 2019 17:06
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© Reuters / CARLOS GARCIA RAWLINS

A criminal investigation has been launched into Venezeulan opposition leader Juan Guaido and several key advisers after the government led by President Nicolas Maduro accused them of acts of treason.

Venezuelan Prosecutor general Tarek Saab announced the move on Friday. Guaido was allegedly involved in negotiating away Venezuela’s “historical claim” to the territory of Esequibo, which is formally under the administration of Guyana.

On Thursday, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez offered evidence in the form of phone records in which adviser Manuel Avendaño allegedly discussed with Venezuelan- American diplomat Vanessa Neumann relinquishing claims to the Esequibo region.

“The criminal organization headed by Juan Guaidó had initiated concrete actions to illegally appropriate Venezuela's assets, financial resources, Venezuelan gold, Venezuelan debt, to enrich themselves and to serve transnational interests,” Rodriguez said.

A vestige of South America’s colonial history, the dispute over Esequibo is long in the making, dating back centuries to squabbling between the Spanish, Dutch, and eventually British Empires. In the 20th century Venezuela and Guyana have been trying to settle the matter through UN. More recently, however, conflict over the territory has been tied to natural resources, eyed by companies like ExxonMobile.

Last year, a standoff broke out between the Venezuelan Navy and vessels of the energy firm searching for oil in the region with Guyana’s permission, forcing the surveyors to turn back.

[Hervé]

Mastercard Blocks Two Venezuelan Banks

A Chinese contractor has also suspended work on an oil expansion project.

By Ricardo Vaz and Lucas Koerner Global Research, September 08, 2019

Venezuelanalysis.com
6 September 2019

US-based financial services company Mastercard has cut service to two Venezuelan banks sanctioned by the Donald Trump administration.

Effective this past Wednesday, clients of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces Bank (BANFANB) and the Agricultural Bank of Venezuela have been cut off from Mastercard’s international payment platform.

The move comes just weeks after a US executive order freezing Venezuelan government assets in the United States and prohibiting all dealings with the Venezuelan state and its associated entities. The decree authorizes Mastercard, Visa, and other financial service firms to continue activities in Venezuela until March 22, 2020. Mastercard has yet to issue a public statement regarding its unilateral decision.

For its part, BANFANB issued a statement Wednesday accusing Mastercard of committing a “flagrant violation of our clients’ human rights.”

The state bank further announced that as of Wednesday evening it had succeeded in reconnecting its credit cards to 60 percent of the Venezuelan banking system.

The Agricultural Bank of Venezuela has yet to issue a public statement.

Earlier this year, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) likewise sanctioned Venezuela’s Central Bank and three other state banks.

In response to Mastercard’s pull-out, Venezuela’s National Superintendence of Banks held meetings Wednesday with banking and financial service representatives to discuss progress in building an independent financial infrastructure. Several payment platforms are under development, including the Suiche Nacional and the C2P, while a biometric payment system is currently in a trial period.

Mastercard’s decision came on the heels of a Chinese oil contractor halting expansion work in Sinovensa, a joint venture between Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and its Chinese counterpart, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). China Huanqiu Contracting and Engineering Corporation, an affiliate of the CNPC, reportedly notified Sinovensa it was suspending work from September 3, citing US $52 million in unpaid invoices.

Sinovensa had recently announced plans to expand a crude blending facility by 57 percent, to a total output of 165,000 barrels per day (bpd). The joint venture is located in Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt. At the time of writing there has been no official confirmation from PDVSA or the CNPC.

Venezuela’s oil industry has seen output decline sharply in recent months as a result of corruption, brain drain, a lack of maintenance and mismanagement, and especially US sanctions.

An oil embargo imposed in late January blocked all imports of Venezuelan oil by US refineries, leading output to fall by over a third in February and March. The embargo was expanded in August to all sectors of the Venezuelan economy, with the US Treasury also threatening secondary sanctions against foreign companies that trade with Caracas.

The latest measures have resulted in the CNPC cancelling three oil shipments in August, reportedly worth around 5 million barrels. A joint venture involving US oil giant Chevron is likewise in danger, with a sanctions waiver due to expire in October.

The fallout from the latest sanctions coincided with a report from the opposition-controlled National Assembly that monthly inflation was 65.2 percent in August.

According to the legislative body’s finance commission, inflation crept back above the 50 percent hyperinflation threshold for the first time since February. The country had previously suffered 16 consecutive months of hyperinflation. The Venezuelan Central Bank released figures in May after a three-year hiatus, likewise dating the end of hyperinflation in March, but no further statistics have been released since.

August’s price rises came alongside an over 100 percent devaluation of the bolivar, both in the black market and the official exchange rate. The Venezuelan Central Bank lifted foreign exchange controls in May, allowing banks to set up “exchange tables,” but the measure has not deterred the continued devaluation of the official currency.

The liberalization of exchange controls, alongside a constriction of the quantity of bolivars in circulation, have been credited for the slowdown of inflation in the first half of 2019. However, some economists have warned that the measures have led to a contraction of demand, resulting in longer-term stagnation.

*

Ricardo Vaz reporting from Lisbon and Lucas Koerner from Venezuela.

The original source of this article is Venezuelanalysis.com
Copyright © Ricardo Vaz and Lucas Koerner, Venezuelanalysis.com, 2019

[Hervé]

Major Venezuelan oil company registers office in Moscow, facilitates oil trade with China, India

RT
Thu, 12 Sep 2019 00:25 UTC

Cutouts depicting images of oil operations are seen outside a building of Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA in Caracas, Venezuela. © Reuters / Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Venezuelan state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, has registered its office in Moscow. The move comes after Russian state oil major Rosneft last month became the main trader of Venezuelan crude.

"We've registered PDVSA in the Russian jurisdiction," Venezuela's minister for oil Manuel Quevedo told reporters on Wednesday. In July, Quevedo stated that Russia had asked PDVSA to register its own legal entity in the country to help ensure the work of the Moscow representative office of the company.

The PDVSA office was opened in Moscow in March, on the instruction of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro. It replaces the company's Portuguese branch.

According to the SPARK system, on August 6 PDVSA Rusia LLC was officially registered in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (USRLE). Its owners are Venezuelan PDV EURO-ASIA SA (98%) and its Cuban subsidiary PDVSA Cuba (2%). PDVSA Rusia's main activity in Russia is registered as business and management consulting.

PDVSA's registry in Moscow comes after Rosneft became the main trader of Venezuelan crude in August, facilitating shipping of the country's oil to China and India. It took some 40% of PDVSA's exports in July and over 66% in August, according to the firm's export programs and the Refinitiv Eikon data. This came as an attempt to help Venezuela, where oil accounts for more than 95 percent of export revenue, to ease losses due to US sanctions.

Washington imposed its first batch of sanctions on Venezuela's oil industry in January, in an attempt to oust President Nicolas Maduro, whose re-election in late 2018 was viewed by the United States and some Western governments as illegitimate. Instead, they recognize Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the country's rightful head of state.

Both Russia and China, Venezuela's second largest oil buyer, have called the US sanctions against the Latin American country unilateral and illegal.

In August, Washington imposed a new set of sanctions on Venezuela, with warnings that it would take measures against any company which is "materially assisting" Maduro's government. The US administration also froze all Venezuelan government assets in the United States.

Due to sanctions, overall exports of crude and refined products by PDVSA and its joint ventures declined last month to some 770,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 992,565 bpd in July and 1.13 million bpd in June, according to Reuters data.

[Hervé]

Leaked photos of US-puppet Guaidó with Colombian narcoparamilitaries emerge

Paul Antonopoulos Fort Russ News
Fri, 13 Sep 2019 00:00 UTC

Venezuelan opponent Juan Guaidó took pictures with Colombian narcoparamilitary leaders while reportedly receiving help from them to cross his country's border with Colombia in February.

The photos were made public by the accusation of Wilfredo Cañizares, activist and leader of the Colombian Non-Governmental Human Rights Organization Foundation for Progress in the North of Santander (FPNS). According to Cañizares, the mysterious passage of Guaidó from Venezuela to Colombia was made with the help of Colombian criminals.

On the occasion, Juan Guaidó went to the neighboring country to attend an event called Venezuela Aid Live, whose purpose was supposedly to bring humanitarian aid to Venezuela from Colombian territory in February this year, but revealed just to be a big financial scam. Guaidó had been banned by the Venezuelan courts from crossing the border.

In the photos posted on Wilfredo's Twitter, you can see Guaidó with Albeiro wolf Quintero, known as Brother, and John Jairo Durán, known as El Menor, both leaders of the Los Rastrojos criminal organization. The photos were taken on February 22, the day before Guaidó attended the event that took place in Cucuta, Colombia.

WILFREDO CAÑIZARES @wilcan91

Lo dijimos desde el primer día: la entrada a Colombia el 23 de febrero del sr @jguaido fue coordinada con los Rastrojos. Aquí están alias el brother armado, y el segundo al mando de este grupo paramilitar, alias el menor.

1:14 PM - Sep 12, 2019

"We said it from day one: the entrance to Colombia on February 23 of Mr @jguaido. It was coordinated with the Stubble. Here are the armed brother, and the second in command of this paramilitary group, aka the youngest," Wilfredo said on Twitter.

From day one we said that Juan Juan Guaidó took pictures with Colombian narcoparamilitary leaders's entry on February 23 in Colombia was coordinated with Los Rastrojos. Here are Brother Armed and the second in command of the paramilitary group, El Menor.

Criminal organization
According to Alberto Ravell, spokesman for Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan deputy and opponent did not know who were the people who helped him cross the border.

Los Rastrojos is a criminal organization that profits from drug trafficking and the illegal gold trade in Colombia, reported the Semana Web site.


Related:

• Guaido under treason investigation in Venezuela over backroom Essequibo bargaining revelations

• Right-wing opposition losing ground in Venezuela as popularity of US puppet Guaidó sinks

• Putin to Guaido: Time to get back to reality

• The meteoric rise and fall of failed CIA darling, Juan Guaido

• Guaido says Washington should help steal US refiner Citgo from legitimate Venezuelan government

• Venezuelan traitor Guaidó asks US military for 'strategic planning' help to invade his own country

• Guaido ready to enact grassroots uprising straight out of US regime-change operations manual

[Hervé]

Driving to Colombia? New photos show Juan Guaido in car with ‘drug cartel gangster’

RT
Published time: 20 Sep, 2019 08:37
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FILE PHOTO. Juan Guaido during a news conference in Cucuta, Colombia February 23, 2019. ©REUTERS / Luisa Gonzalez

A Venezuelan official has published photos that he says are further proof of ties between the country’s self-proclaimed ‘interim president’ Juan Guaido and a drug cartel member, who allegedly helped him sneak into Colombia.

In January, Guaido declared himself the rightful head of state in Venezuela and has since made several failed attempts to actually seize power in the Latin American nation, with Washington backing the effort. During one of them in February, he traveled to neighboring Colombia to attend a concert and lead a column of trucks containing US-provided ‘humanitarian aid,’ which was ultimately stopped by Venezuelan border guards.

Last week, a Colombian NGO published photos showing the would-be president and two other people, who were identified as members of Los Rastrojos, a paramilitary criminal organization operating on the border between Venezuela and Colombia. It was alleged that Guaido had crossed the border with the help of the gangsters.

On Thursday, more photos apparently confirming the theory were published in Venezuela. One shows a smiling Guaido hugging a bulky man identified as Jonathan Orlando Zambrano Garcia, aka ‘Patron Pobre,’ a Los Rastrojos mid-tier commander. He was driving Guaido, who could be seen sticking out of an open door of the car.

William Castillo B @planwac

#NuevasImágenes. Ya lo de las "incómodas" fotos de Guaidó con los paracos y narcos parecen imágenes de la Convención Anual de Los Rastrojos Corporation. No faltó ni uno de los jefes para anotarse en la fiesta de selfies con el mimado de Iván Duque.

6:33 PM - Sep 19, 2019

Guaido’s clothes in the photos are the same that he wore during his trip to Colombia in February. The images were first revealed by ‘Con el Mazo Dando,’ a TV program hosted by Diosdado Cabello, an influential Venezuelan MP.

Cabello also reported that Los Rastrojos had tried to kill a man known as ‘El Menor,’ one of the two cartel members shown alongside Guaido in photos that emerged last week. He said that assassins had failed to find him and instead killed his parents and two other family members in what he called an obvious attempt to cover up the scandal.

After the initial allegation emerged, Guaido denied that he had received any help from Los Rastrojos and said the two members were among hundreds of people with whom he posed for selfies after crossing the border. Colombian authorities, who support Guaido’s claim in Venezuela, confirmed that the two individuals were members of the organization, but said that the opposition leader was not accompanied by any criminal during his visit to the country.

The ties between the man in the new pictures and Los Rastrojos, however, are less clear. According to Colombian newspaper El Espectador, Colombian border guards don’t believe him to be part of the criminal organization.

Los Rastrojos are one of several paramilitary groups operating in the border area. They are involved in various crimes including illegal mining, racketeering, trafficking of drugs and gasoline, kidnappings and assassinations.

[Hervé]

National Unity in Syria and Venezuela

by Thierry Meyssan Voltaire Network |

Damascus (Syria) | 24 September 2019

As we alone announced at the beginning of the month, a decisive step towards peace was made simultaneously in Syria and Venezuela on September 16th. The two nations no longer force themselves to negotiate with terrorists, but their governments have undertaken to build a new regime in conjunction with their patriotic opposition.

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Presidents Bashar al-Assad and Nicolás Maduro.

The future of Syria and Venezuela are being played out simultaneously and in parallel. This is normal, because the origin of these conflicts is not local, it is the strategy of the Pentagon of destruction of the state structures, first in the "Enlarged Middle East", then in the "Basin of the Caribbean" "(Rumsfeld / Cebrowski doctrine [1]).

The situation and capabilities of the two states are very different, but their resistance to global imperialism is identical. Hugo Chávez (president from 1999 to 2013) was the voice of the peoples of the periphery in the face of the ambitions of transnational corporations. Disappointed by the Non-Aligned Movement through which, at the end of the Cold War, some members became vassals of the United States, Chavez had thought with President Bashar al-Assad to refound the Movement of free allies on a new basis [2]. To those who wondered about the time needed to carry out this ambitious task, the Venezuelan President responded by anticipating that his Syrian counterpart would take his place on the international scene. He also added, in the five-year plan from 2007-2013 that he authored, instructions to all the administrations of his country to support this distant political ally: Syria [3].

The war raged for eighteen years in the wider Middle East and for eight years in Syria. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are already destroyed. Yemen is hungry. Regarding Syria, a government in exile has been recognized by the United States and a handful of its allies. All the country’s assets in the West have been seized. An alternative government replaced the constitutional government with the Arab League. And the regional vassals of the Pentagon have placed themselves under NATO’s orders.

The premises of the war are already well advanced in the Caribbean Basin, particularly in Nicaragua and Cuba. Regarding Venezuela, a self-appointed president has been recognized by the United States and a handful of its allies. All Venezuelan assets in the West have been seized. An alternative government replaced the constitutional government with the Organization of American States (OAS). And the regional vassals of the Pentagon have reactivated the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Tiar).

The war is ending in Syria because the Russian military presence makes it impossible to send new troops against the country; whether they are regular US soldiers, mercenaries officially engaged by the Pentagon, or jihadists unofficially engaged by NATO allies. But the victory of the Syrian Arab army against tens of thousands of foreign mercenaries does not mean peace.

Peace is possible in Syria as in Venezuela only on the condition that society, fractured by the war on the one hand or by war preparations on the other, be repaired. In Syria, this involves the drafting and adoption of a new constitution, as provided for by resolution 2254 four years ago. In Venezuela, this will happen by creating a national unity regime associating Chávistes and patriotic opposition. In both cases, the difficulty is to remove the mercenary opposition who, paid by the United States or their allies, will stop at nothing, and to mobilize the patriotic opposition, always present in the country and concerned with preserving the nation.

With the agreement of President Trump and despite opposition from Pentagon generals and State Department diplomats, Syria and Venezuela advanced on this path on September 16th. On the same day, Iran, Russia and Turkey announced the constitution of the "Syrian Constitutional Commission" [4], and Venezuela announced the opening of a "Dialogue Table" bringing together representatives of the Government and the patriotic opposition [5]. This replaces the negotiations that the constitutional government had conducted in Barbados, in the presence of Norwegian mediators, with the representatives of the self-proclaimed President, Juan Guaidó; negotiations that he had already declared "exhausted" and that he himself had left. Identically, the Syrian Constitutional Commission has put an end to the negotiations that the government had been conducting for years with the "moderate" jihadists under the auspices of the UN.

In Syria, the principle of the National Union has gradually been imposed since the beginning of the war. In 2014, President Assad managed to organize a presidential election in accordance with international standards of democratic regimes. But this is a novelty in Venezuela where all are not yet convinced. A previous attempt at union, initiated by Pope Francis, had failed. This time, in a few hours, the negotiators managed to agree on almost everything claimed by Juan Guaidó, but he refused to act. The Chávists have ceased to practice the empty chair in the National Assembly; the Electoral Commission is undergoing reform; the deputy speaker of the National Assembly, who was detained, has been released; etc.

This considerable advance was made public during the absence of the US National Security Adviser. The replacement of John Bolton by Robert O’Brien favors a new conversation in Washington. The two men have the same ideological references, "American exceptionalism", but opposite styles: the first threatened the whole Earth with war, the second is a professional negotiator.

The European Union and the Lima Group, who do not have the pragmatism of President Trump, condemn these advances because supporters of terrorism are excluded: the "moderate" jihadists and Juan Guaidó’s Guarimberos.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation Roger Lagassé


References:

[1] The Pentagon’s New Map, Thomas P. M. Barnett, Putnam Publishing Group, 2004. “The US military project for the world”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 22 August 2017.

[2] “Assad and Chávez call for the creation of a Free Allied Movement”, Voltaire Network, 29 June 2010.

[3] Proyecto Nacional Simón Bolívar. Primer Plan Socialista (PPS) del Desarrollo Económico y Social de la Nación (2007/2013), Presidencia de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela.

[4] “Joint Statement by Iran, Russia and Turkey on the International Meeting on Syria”, Voltaire Network, 16 September 2019.

[5] «Venezuela : Mesa Nacional», Red Voltaire, 26 de septiembre de 2019.