Turmoil in Venezuela

[Hervé]

Venezuela isn't Syria... but America's war tactics are the same

Eva Bartlett RT
Wed, 15 May 2019 17:36 UTC

© Getty Images/Anadolu Agency/Carlos Becerra; Global Look Press/ZUMAPRESS.com/Erik Mcgregor

Since Juan Guaido declared himself Venezuela's interim president, rhetoric emanating from Washington has grown increasingly familiar.

It echoes the bombastic & hollow humanitarian-crisis type of war propaganda which has been used repeatedly in resource-rich nations, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Syria. And now we're seeing it in Venezuela.

The regime-change recipe is straightforward: demonize the leadership and those who defend the country; support an opposition that is inevitably violent and whitewash their crimes; sanction the country & attack the infrastructure to create unbearable conditions; create fake news about humanitarian issues; possibly wage false flag incidents to incriminate the government; control the narrative; and insist that intervention is necessary for the well-being of the people.

In Libya, black Africans are being sold as slaves in a country devastated by Western fake humanitarianism and bombings.

Venezuela has for years been defiantly resisting the economic and propaganda wars, led by the US and Canada, as well as coup d'état and assassination attempts, only to see the anti-Venezuela rhetoric once again ramped up in recent months.

In spite of the wreckage trail that America's regime change efforts have left over the decades throughout Latin America and the world, when comparing tactics against these countries and now again against Venezuela, some people surprisingly insist that this time it is different.

Venezuela isn't Syria, they say. This time, they argue, it really is about a 'corrupt regime,' and 'human rights' - or in the case of Venezuela, a 'humanitarian crisis'... as if the US has ever had the best interests of any people, including their own, at heart.

They ignore the West's murderous sanctions against Venezuela and the propping up of the violent 'opposition' - an opposition that has burned civilians alive - as well as the millions of dollars spent supporting it.

Then there's the more recent violent actions against Venezuela, like the February 23 attempt to ram aid trucks into Venezuela, and the April 30 US-backed coup attempt by Guaido and Leopoldo Lopez (a violent right-wing opposition leader) - an attempt clearly rejected bymasses of Venezuelans.

Colectivos, the new 'Shabiha'
Prior to 2011, the Western corporate media actually had many positive things to say about Syria's leadership, praising President Assad as an open-minded reformer. When the regime-change operation kicked off, Assad and allies were number one enemies. In both Venezuela and Syria, presidents Maduro and Assad were legitimately elected and retain wide support among the population.

Yet, the Western corporate media and the politicians they echo routinely deem both countries to be "dictatorships" and the elected presidents illegitimate - while backing unpopular and undemocratic puppets they seek to put in place.

But demonizing the government isn't enough; supporters of the government likewise are targeted, or simply disappeared. In Syria, supporters are called shabiha, inferring they - yes, millions of them! - are paid thugs of the government, and thus negating their voices.

It is an utterly disingenuous tactic used to silence the voices of the masses - along the lines of Western corporate media calling those of us who actually question, let alone go to the places in question, 'conspiracy theorists.'

Venezuela's shabiha are the colectivos, and are likewise depicted as government-backed thugs, and designated by the US' actual thugs as 'terrorists.'

These collectives are organized, grassroots groups of people who come together as educators, feminists, pensioners, farmers, environmentalists, to provide healthcare in their communities, among other things, or in defense of their nation.

While smearing collective grassroots groups, Western corporate media and barking politicians like Marco Rubio and John Bolton whitewash the actual crimes of armed opposition supporters. One such recent example was opposition members setting fire to a Caracas PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) headquarters, leaving a note cursing colectivos.

In Venezuela, I spent time with the leader of a youth collective of 170 families. The collective helps the community's youth with their needs and organizes activities for them, as well as providing affordable produce to the local community. During the power outages, this same colectivo supported hundreds of families in obtaining drinking and washing water, and in storing perishable foods.

On March 30, I joined hundreds of members of a motorcycle-taxi union colectivo driving their motorcycles through and around the capital in a show of support for their country and defiance against foreign intervention. These were women and men making a statement with their physical presence: they would not allow their country to be attacked, from within or without.

One of the organizers, acutely aware of how colectivos are portrayed, told me, "We are not terrorists, the terrorists have come with that lackey opposition," and went on to say that governments bring terrorism to Venezuela.

Another man at the motorcycle demonstration said, "We are suffering because of terrorism that has been implanted through a US puppet named Juan Guaidó. We say to you Guaidó and we say to you Trump: 'You took away our water, you took away the light, but you ignited our soul, and we are determined to defend the country with our lives if it is necessary.'"

The same bikers later joined up with the tens of thousands of Venezuelan civilians who took to the streets in a festive show of support for President Maduro. Two weeks prior, on March 16, I'd walked for a few hours in another such mass demonstration, filming demonstrators, hearing their opinions on the non-president Guaido, on their support for Maduro, and on their refusal to see their Bolivarian project be destroyed.

Earlier that day, circling around for an hour on the motorcycle-taxi I had flagged down, I searched for opposition supporters who were meant to have converged in multiple points across the city as per Guaido's calls to take to the streets. In one of the locations I instead found Maduro supporters, and finally in other locations found handfuls of supporters, then a couple dozen supporters in the opposition stronghold, Altimira.

In Syria, mass demonstrations supporting President Assad occurred from the early months of 2011 and in years following.

Sanction the country & attack its infrastructure
The US and Canada have for years put Venezuela under crippling sanctions, a form of collective punishment.

UN Special Rapporteur Idriss Jazairy on May 6 noted the hypocrisy of imposing devastating sanctions and related economic measures and yet it is claimed these help the Venezuelan people.

UN expert Alfred de Zayas aptly calls sanctions a form of terrorism, "because they invariably impact, directly or indirectly, the poor and vulnerable."

US talking heads downplay the drastic effects of sanctions, but the reality of their effect is staggering.

A recent report estimated that sanctions caused 40,000 deaths in 2017-2018, with 300,000 more Venezuelans at risk. Recently, a six-year-old boy needing a bone marrow transplant and treatment (provided by an association in agreement with the PDVSA, Venezuela's oil and natural gas company), died as a result of his treatment being denied due to US sanctions on PDVSA.

When I arrived in Caracas in March, it was three days into the first of two major power outages in Venezuela that month. Of the first, the Venezuelan government maintains that the US targeted Venezuela's power grid, through cyber attack, using electromagnetic pulse devices, and by physical attacks.

Targeting electrical infrastructure isn't a foreign concept for the US, and during the first outage, even Forbes wrote that, "the idea of a government like the United States remotely interfering with its power grid is actually quite realistic."

Hours before the power cut on March 7, Marco Rubio foresaw that Venezuela would "enter a period of suffering that no nation has confronted in modern history."

In Syria, since 2011 terrorists have targeted electricity stations and power plants. Syrians in Aleppo lived for years without electricity, deprived of power after terrorists took control of the district housing the power plant. Those who could afford it bought generator electricity by the ampere.

Following the 2006 Israeli bombing of Gaza's power plant, Palestinians suffered years of power outages for 18 or more hours a day. At present, Gaza has eight hours of electricity per day.

Clearly, the concept of attacking infrastructure like electricity and water is one the US and allies are intimately familiar with, in order to creating hellish living conditions for the people of the country being targeted.

Starvation & garbage eating crisis
In Syria, every time an area occupied by Al-Qaeda and Co. is being liberated, corporate media screams en masse about starving civilians, thrusting the blame on the Syrian government when in fact every time hunger has been the result of terrorists hoarding and controlling food and aid.

The starving civilians propaganda has resurfaced in Venezuela, with Western media claiming an epidemic of empty-shelved stores and people eating from garbage.

Jorge Ramos, a Univision journalist, claimed to have filmed three men eating out of a dumpster very near - even minutes from - the Venezuelan presidential palace, Miraflores. In reality, Ramos filmed in Chacao, an opposition stronghold nearly 7km from the palace, more like half an hour away in Caracas traffic.

In late March, I walked with a youth colectivo leader I'd gotten to know around the barrio below his Las Brisas district in western Caracas.

To illustrate his point that the Western hype about mass starvation was nonsense, he knocked on doors in the lower-class district asking people we met if they were starving, and whether they'd eaten today. Most we met were confused by the odd question (clearly they haven't seen Rubio's Twitter feed).

In the hilltop housing complex of Ciudad Mariche, locals likewise were adamant that there isn't a humanitarian crisis. One man told me: "We're not starving. We have many general problems, but not starving. This is not a humanitarian crisis. Say to your governments, this isn't a fight against Maduro, this is a fight against a people that are trying to be free."

Any state other than the US in Syria, Venezuela, 'illegal'
According to the bully of the world, only the US has the right to intervene in sovereign nations, in spite of the fact their uninvited intervention is illegal.

The US has threatened Venezuela's allies, including Cuba and Russia, bizarrely claiming Russia was intervening in Venezuela without the government's consent, a claim which runs contrary to the bilateral agreement Russia and Venezuela have.

The hypocritical posturing of the US hasn't dented Russia's alliance with Venezuela, with Moscow announcing the intent to create a "UN coalition of countries to 'counter' the eventual invasion of Venezuela by the US."

In any case, like Syria, Venezuela will not be overtaken so easily, with its armed forces of 200,000 and its nearly 2 million militias preparing to defend their land.

[perolator]

Venezuelan army to keep PdV tankers on course

Venezuelan army troops have been deployed aboard 15 oil tankers owned by state-owned PdV to fend off mutinies and ensure that cargoes destined mainly for Cuba are delivered, according to officials from PdV, the defense ministry and the presidential palace.

The effective militarization of PdV's tankers reflects government concerns that dissident crew could thwart Venezuela's oil exports by sabotaging tankers or diverting cargoes, especially at a time of acute fuel shortages inside Venezuela. But the campaign could leave tankers vulnerable to search and seizure by warships patrolling the Caribbean, one expert warned.

Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro ordered the defense ministry to launch Operation Sovereign Petroleum that seizes vessel control from officers following a 1 May incident in which the PdV-owned Manuela Saenz tried to defy oil ministry instructions to deliver a diesel cargo to Cuba.

The captain of the Manuela Saenz and several crew members were immediately arrested by the government's intelligence agency Sebin and accused of treason. The arrested personnel have not yet been arraigned before a civilian court.

A defense ministry official said they could be prosecuted in military courts if they are formally indicted on treason charges.

The 15 tankers now under permanent army control include the Manuela Saenz, Icaro, Negra Hipolita, Eos, Luisa Caceres, Rio Orinoco, Rio Apure, Rio Caroni, Paramaconi, Proteo, Nereo, Zeus, Hero, Yare and Yavire. The Rio Arauca is also on the list, but the vessel is currently seized off the coast of Portugal.

The tankers include eight Lakemax tankers built for PdV in the 1990s by South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries to transport crude from Lake Maracaibo in Zulia state and Puerto La Cruz in Anzoátegui state to US clients.

Since US sanctions were imposed on PdV on 28 January, these tankers have been used to transport oil to Cuba, and for floating storage and cabotage in Venezuelan waters. In the past the tankers were also used to transport cargoes to PdV´s storage facilities in the Dutch Caribbean, and some, such as the Icaro, have previously been seized by creditors.

The merchant marine captains and crew currently aboard the tankers will continue to operate the vessels with up to four army troops per tanker acting as observers to ensure the tankers and cargoes are not sabotaged, and any dissidence among the crew is suppressed, the defense ministry official said.

The army security teams placed aboard the tankers are equipped with side arms and Russian-made AK-103 automatic rifles, the official said. "The security personnel are prepared for any contingency that could arise aboard the tankers."

The soldiers took position on the vessels without incident over 16-19 May, the defense official added.

Eduardo González, chief executive of PdV´s shipping arm PdV Marina, was present at the army deployment aboard the Icaro and Teseo tankers anchored near the Amuay terminal at the 940,000 b/d CRP refining complex in Falcon state, a PdV Marina official tells Argus.

Since US sanctions against PdV were imposed in January 2019, the company has sought to circumvent their impact on its export and import operations by engaging in offshore ship-to-ship cargo transfers, and instructing tankers to switch off their transponders.

Venezuela's top civilian authority on the country's armed forces, Rocio San Miguel, said the Maduro government's decision to deploy army troops aboard PdV's tankers "turns them into military ships" potentially at risk of being intercepted, boarded and inspected by non-Venezuelan warships patrolling in Caribbean waters.

The oil ministry and PdV declined to comment, referring inquiries to the defense ministry.

Venezuela has a two-decade-old agreement with close ally Cuba to supply oil to the island in exchange for the deployment of Cuban specialists in security, healthcare and sports, among other fields. The country's political opposition has long argued that PdV is giving the oil away.

The US government last month started sanctioning some tankers and shipping companies involved in transporting Venezuelan oil to Cuba, which Washington blames for propping up the Maduro government.

---
I am biting my tongue on this "organized, grassroots groups of people who come together as educators, feminists, pensioners, farmers, environmentalists, to provide healthcare in their communities, among other things, or in defense of their nation"

Awwwww, how cute

Operation Sovereign Petroleum is all about sending oil to Cuba... I think some white powder is going forward also -my personal opinion-

[Bubu]

Good to see that the people of the world are now aware of how this rogue government of the world operates. I read somewhere that Putin with the possible aid of China Iran India and many others are helping small nations that is targeted by this rogue government. Of course they should because if they dont, they will find out someday the vast part of the world had been converted into anti Rusian anti... . I think most of the world leaders are by now aware of this fact. We see all the copy pasted strategies like false flags or "lets go to war and save the world against this villain", miserably failed again and again. It seems that they can no longer come up with another idea that can work. Thus the copy pasting. The ship is sinking. god save the queen.

[Gracy]

Might the following have something to do with why regime change is so badly needed in Venezuela? Besides who controls her natural resources?

This is the story of Venezuela in black and white, the story not told in The New York Times or the rest of our establishment media. This year’s so-called popular uprising is, at its heart, a furious backlash of the whiter (and wealthier) Venezuelans against their replacement by the larger Mestizo (mixed-race) poor. (Forty-four percent of the population that answered the 2014 census listed themselves as “white.”)

Four centuries of white supremacy in Venezuela by those who identify their ancestors as European came to an end with the 1998 election of Hugo Chavez, who won with the overwhelming support of the Mestizo majority. This turn away from white supremacy continues under Maduro, Chavez’s chosen successor.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14318

[Franny]

It might have something to do with that, it might be about the oil.

This is a quote of the last 2 paragraphs.

The putsch in Venezuela is run by the wealthy, internationally connected minority operating by a regime-change plan designed by neocon retread John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser — a plan to control Venezuela and its oil, as Bolton openly proclaims.
Ah, yes, the oil. It’s always the oil. And Venezuela has plenty to seize: the world’s largest reserves.

Posted by Gracy May (here)
Might the following have something to do with why regime change is so badly needed in Venezuela? Besides who controls her natural resources?

This is the story of Venezuela in black and white, the story not told in The New York Times or the rest of our establishment media. This year’s so-called popular uprising is, at its heart, a furious backlash of the whiter (and wealthier) Venezuelans against their replacement by the larger Mestizo (mixed-race) poor. (Forty-four percent of the population that answered the 2014 census listed themselves as “white.”)

Four centuries of white supremacy in Venezuela by those who identify their ancestors as European came to an end with the 1998 election of Hugo Chavez, who won with the overwhelming support of the Mestizo majority. This turn away from white supremacy continues under Maduro, Chavez’s chosen successor.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14318

[perolator]

@Gracy May,

It is obvious Trump, Bolton and their allies want the oil. Cuba also wants the oil (and have been served steadily for 20 years for free or peanuts) and China, among others. Caribbean islands also want cheap/free oil. Russia wants the Venezuelan oil industry destroyed because Venezuela is a direct competitor.

My country CAN extract, store, refine and distribute oil and its derivatives without any external aid. Venezuela was the third oil exporter of the world. Venezuelan scientists patented a process called Orimulsion to obtain a bitumen-based fuel. Most skilled oil experts had to leave the country.

The problem is my country is ruled by armed and merciless narco-thugs. Most Venezuelans want them out.

That's a fact.

The South-American white supremacy theory portrayed by venezuelanalysis.com, a known pro-bolivarian-enchilada outlet, is nonsense.

The original inhabitants of Venezuela were Amerindians, predominantly Caribs and Arawaks. The majority (about 68%) of the present population is mestizo (mixed race). Approximately 21% are European, primarily Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and German. Blacks account for an estimated 8–10%, and Amerindians for about 2%. Arab peoples are also represented in the overall populace.

Read more: https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/...#ixzz5onptDEmZ

Almost all presidents (including Chavez) were also mestizo. Almost all families have "chino" and "negro" members, and racism is less than an issue compared to the U.S.

Have a nice day.

[Gracy]

Posted by perolator (here)
The South-American white supremacy theory portrayed by venezuelanalysis.com, a known pro-bolivarian-enchilada outlet, is nonsense.

Huh, Greg Palast is known throughout independent media as one of the few true, old school journalists out there still doing it right, are you saying hes just full of it?

Max Blumenthal is another such old school journalist. what do you make of his research on the history of Juan Guido, his movement, and his relationship with US led regime change organizations? Just a quick 5 minute interview on rt.
https://videodesc.com/max-blumenthal...regime-change/

Here is the original article he's speaking of i found it very interesting. love to hear your thoughts on that as well.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-ma...leader/254387/

[Hervé]

Posted by Gracy May (here)
[...]
Max Blumenthal is another such old school journalist. what do you make of his research on the history of Juan Guido, his movement, and his relationship with US led regime change organizations? Just a quick 5 minute interview on rt.
https://videodesc.com/max-blumenthal...regime-change/

Here is the original article he's speaking of i found it very interesting. love to hear your thoughts on that as well.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-ma...leader/254387/

See post # 149 (on page 8 of this thread) where that article is posted in full... you can follow the thoughts from there....

[Gracy]

Oops i must have missed that. Thank you Herve i'll go check it out!

[Daughter of Time]

I know several people from Venezuela. I've asked them their opinion on the current crisis in their native country since these people have relatives in Venezuela. Of course, I didn't expect them to know much other than what MSM tells them... and so it is...

Every one of these individuals fully believe that Maduro and his corrupt government is fully to blame for everything. Of course, there is truth in this... but no one wants to even entertain the idea that some countries north of South America and the powers that run the world might have something to do with it!

... and the ignorance and brain washing rages on!

I know this is not an enlightening or very informative post, but I wanted to share the result of my conversations with these people.

[perolator]

Posted by Gracy May (here)
Oops i must have missed that. Thank you Herve i'll go check it out!

I just read this Greg Palast article with its doctored pictures. If I were not Venezuelan, I had not noticed the distorted faces of Dario Vivas, Diosdado Cabello and other members of the phony and illegal constituent assembly. How some people are shown with bigger, darker, clearly altered faces for impact?

The picture above is from teleSUR, and fortunately it is not doctored. They look mostly mestizo, as most Venezuelans are.

This picture is from a session of the legal national assembly. Notice most people are mestizo also.

I admit I am against socialism, and I loathe Venezuelan "robust socialist experiment" with all my soul. Therefore, it is likely you do not believe me. Anyway, if you really want to know, from an unbiased point of view about Venezuela's ethnicity read the book "Café con leche: Race, Class, and National Image in Venezuela" from Winthrop R. Wright. From the description:

For over a hundred years, Venezuelans have referred to themselves as a café con leche (coffee with milk) people. This colorful expression well describes the racial composition of Venezuelan society, in which European, African, and Indian peoples have intermingled to produce a population in which almost everyone is of mixed blood. It also expresses a popular belief that within their blended society Venezuelans have achieved a racial democracy in which people of all races live free from prejudice and discrimination.

There is some racism, thanks to the twisted mind of Chavez and their people, to divide what it were a country with almost no racism. Fortunately, the class struggle did not flourish; when they (military and government) became the rich and famous, they stopped propelling class struggle.

By the way, Greg Palast may be an excellent journalist to you, but *not* regarding the situation in my country. He is just like Max Blumenthal, Abby Martin, Eva Bartlett et al.

[AutumnW]

You can't reason with people who are politically ignorant. Take the situation of all of the homeless in the U.S. and Canada. So many people "tut tut. Their primary problem is drug addiction."

You will never hear the willfully ignorant discuss the logical progression of homelessness and how it is partly a result of big Pharma and the oxycontin debacle. Nor will you hear an informed discussion by the ignorant about the social and political forces at play that are directly responsible for all the crystal meth related addictions. (Read the book Methland)


When a society is pressured both from the inside (collapse in oil prices) and from the outside, by sanctions that deprive it of capital required to trade with U.S proxies, that country is forced to trade and develop stronger relations with countries that lie outside of that economic sphere. In the case of Venezuela, Cuba is the most obvious choice followed by Russia and China.

Those of us in Canada saw very dire consequences in oil producing regions when oil prices collapsed from 147.00 per barrel to 29.00 per barrel in 2008. This was partly due to political machinations in the U.S and Saudi Arabia but also just a natural consequence of supply and demand.

Anyway, it was pretty bad but some people still blamed the federal party in power for job losses. Oil prices were set internationally and a collapse in price affected a petro-state in alarming ways. It was not the federal government's fault that this happened. And it is wrong to blame Maduro for that as well. It had nothing to do with him.

I DO blame our former federal government for not encouraging more diversity in the economy and not looking at the big picture and preparing for worst case scenarios.

But...when you are on top of the world and the money is flowing like water, diversification seems unnecessary and it is also costly and involves government involvement in seeking venture capital

That's a tough job and distraction when the moneyed class want yield on investment rght away rather than years down the road. It also requires governments have too many balls in the air at once which is also difficult. And all this in Canada, a developed firs world country that was not being economically pressured by the biggest power on the planet. In that respect, things were stable and we only had supply and demand issues to deal with.

Further to that ALL societies steeped in despair and poverty gravitate towards the drug trade. People get high when they are unable to channel their energy in other directions. Plus, it brings money into a system that is starved for it.

Perolator, you aren't seeing the big picture and I don't know why. If you dislike Cuba so much you are going to just LOVE the U.S if it takes over...but then again, it may not affect you or your friends, if they are a member of the tiny upper WHITE class. If not...hoo boy.

[perolator]

Posted by AutumnW (here)
Perolator, you aren't seeing the big picture and I don't know why. If you dislike Cuba so much you are going to just LOVE the U.S if it takes over...but then again, it may not affect you or your friends, if they are a member of the tiny upper WHITE class. If not...hoo boy.

@AutumnW, In my country there is no tiny upper WHITE class. The upper class is not tied to an ethnicity. My friends and family are ranging from the blond blue-eyed from Venezuelan andes to the afro-black from Venezuelan coast.

Let's wait and see. I am hoping the narco-government is forcibly removed from the country, U.S. intervention or not.

[AutumnW]

Perolater,

In your case, this may be true, but I trust Greg Palast's take on this and see no reason why I shouldn't. Those who oppose Maduro have more European ancestry in their blood. Why would your country be any different than any other former European colony?

[perolator]

Posted by AutumnW (here)
Perolater,

In your case, this may be true, but I trust Greg Palast's take on this and see no reason why I shouldn't. Those who oppose Maduro have more European ancestry in their blood. Why would your country be any different than any other former European colony?

Well, I do respect your thoughts.

What you are saying though, is not true. Those millions of souls who oppose narco-Maduro and Co. are simply Venezuelans, not "the wealthy white". Those lucky ones who had European ancestry took advantage and fled from the madness years ago. Some of them, mostly from Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Syrian, Libyan, Lebanese, Turkish and Italian ancestry are struggling to survive. All of the population is subject to crime, power and gas outages, lack of medicines, damaged infrastructure, high price and scarcity of food and services.

[Hervé]

Trump Regime Targeting of Venezuela’s Food Distribution Program. Starve Venezuelans into Submission?

By Stephen Lendman Global Research
May 24, 2019

Region: Latin America & Caribbean, USA
Theme: Law and Justice

President Nicolas Maduro initiated Local Provision and Production Committees (CLAPs) in early 2016.

The program distributes subsidized food to around six million Venezuelan families, around two-thirds of the population, part of the nation’s participatory social democracy.

From inception with Obama in office, the US falsely claimed the program is used as a political weapon against opposition interests.

It’s nothing of the sort, all Venezuelans in need able to receive aid regardless of their political affiliations.

The CLAP program is administered by neighborhood committees connected to communal councils, social organizations operating nationwide, including community, environmental and feminist groups, others involved in cultural, education and various other activities.

Their common theme is defending Bolivarian social democracy they want preserved and protected, notably serving the rights and welfare of all Venezuelans as constitutionally mandated.

The nation’s Social Development and Popular Participation Ministry, later the Communes Ministry, mobilized activists to form government funded communal councils, encouraging ordinary Venezuelans to become involved in defending the revolution from internal and external efforts to undermine it.

In 1999, Chavez instituted revolutionary social change. Maduro carries his torch, participatory social democracy the way it should be, entirely absent in the West, fantasy democracies in these countries, not the real thing — notably how the US and its EU allies operate.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Trump regime is preparing criminal charges and sanctions against Bolivarian Republic officials involved in the food distribution CLAP program.

What’s apparently coming has nothing to do with combatting what the Journal called

“a large-scale money-laundering operation run by the government,” adding:

“[The Trump regime] is preparing to allege in criminal charges and sanctions that Venezuelan officials and private contractors, including a Colombian businessman, have laundered billions of dollars in state funds meant for the food program and other state operations, the officials and other people familiar with the matter said.”

In April, Maduro slammed the accusations, calling them a smear campaign to undermine Venezuela’s ability to import food, stressing his government “will never surrender” to US pressure, threats and intimidation tactics.

What’s going on? Do Trump regime hardliners want to starve Venezuelans into submission? They continue going all out to topple Maduro and eliminate Bolivarian social democracy by waging war by other means, featuring unlawful sanctions and other hostile actions.

In its article, the Journal cited no evidence proving allegations made, just baseless remarks by named and unnamed Trump regime officials, including from Justice Department criminal division head Brian Benczkowski, saying:

The Venezuelan government and military commanders “are using the CLAP program to steal from it, launder money, and for political control (sic).”

According to an unnamed Treasury Department official, “…Maduro insiders continue to seek illicit revenue streams (sic), even as the Venezuelan people and economy sink deeper into despair,” adding:

“We are alerting financial institutions (that Maduro) is using sophisticated schemes (sic), including the diversion of humanitarian assistance (sic), to evade sanctions and maintain its grip on power (sic).”

Neither official backed allegations made with evidence because none exists.
Throughout Bolivarian Republic history, US regimes falsely charged its officials and entities with illicit drugs trafficking, including against Minister of Industries and National Production Tareck El Aissami.

He debunked false accusations against him and the Venezuelan government, saying its “fight against drug cartels achieved the greatest progress in our history and in the western hemisphere, both in terms of the transnational drug trafficking business and their logistics structures,” adding:

Under his public security corps leadership, “Venezuelan anti-drug enforcement authorities…captured, arrested and brought 102 heads of criminal drug trafficking organizations not only to the Venezuelan justice but also to the justice of other countries where they were wanted.”

The CIA has been involved in illicit drugs trafficking throughout nearly its entire post-WW II history. So are major US and other Western banks, laundering dirty money, boosting their profits.

Langley relies on involvement in drugs trafficking for a significant portion of its revenues. Venezuela leads the hemisphere in combatting this scourge.

The CIA in cahoots with organized crime and major Western financial institutions constitute ground zero for the global proliferation of illicit drugs, vital information major media suppress.

Accusations against Venezuela’s CLAP program are fabricated. It’s not a money laundering operation to enrich Bolivarian government and military officials.

Activist Gloria La Riva, former US Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) presidential candidate, observed how the CLAP program works firsthand, saying the following:

“Outrageous lies against the government of President Nicolas Maduro are being published or broadcast on a daily basis by the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, etc…to justify” unjustifiable Trump regime actions against Venezuela, adding:

“This battering ram of false propaganda hides a more insidious truth: The US government is the biggest reason for the shortages, with the strangling sanctions it has imposed.”

“Major Venezuelan and US corporations have engaged in a concerted production, an act of war, and in this war the attacks are increasing daily.”

Maduro’s government “has gone into overdrive to help the population resist the economic war, by expanding the scope and reach of the historic missions begun by the revolution’s leader Hugo Chavez” — including food distribution through the CLAP program to millions of Venezuelans in need.

A woman showed La Riva the food box her family receives monthly. It “contain(s) six pounds of rice, six pounds of black beans, two pounds of lentils, two liter bottles of oil, two bags of milk, 2.2 pounds of sugar, 10 pounds of corn flour, the essential ingredients of arepas, mayonnaise, catsup, two cans of tuna fish,” she explained.

“CLAP supplies (also) include chicken, meat, and 36 eggs per month,” said La Riva. The program involves entire communities, local coordinators administering it.

Trump regime claims about Venezuelan officials siphoning off funds earmarked for the program are refuted by its recipients.

Nourishing food reaches millions of Venezuelans on a regular basis. False Trump regime accusations about the program, along with sanctions and other measures apparently coming to target it are all about wanting to undermine what’s vital for millions of Venezuelans — aiming to starve them into submission.

There’s no ambiguity about how the US operates, demanding other nations bow to its will or face the full force of its wrath.

It’s an agenda risking humanity-destroying nuclear war by going too far — where things are heading if not challenged and stopped by the world community.

*

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)

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


Related:
CIA Dirty Hands All Over the US Coup Plot Against Venezuela

[perolator]

According to the above, evil Trump wants to target noble Venezuelan food distribution program.

How bad.

I have a question for whom it may concern and:
@Herve
@AutumnW
@Dennis Leahy
@Tintin
@Paul
@Joe
@Gracy May
@latte
@Bubu
@Daughter of Time - by the way, we Venezuelans abroad are not ignorant, much less brainwashed. You have to have some respect for those people who had to abandon their country, leaving everything behind.

This question is addressed also to all the glorious "journalists" defending narco-Maduro's regime.

What do you prefer: going to the local grocery store, Walmart, K-Mart, order online your food whenever you want OR having to wait, Fatherland card handy, to get a monthly box stuffed of some food of doubtful quality, from an undisclosed origin, without any sanitary revisions, and containing what the government considers good and healthy for you?

I will wait for your answers.

I want to share this with you. And no, It was not written by me.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-CLAP-box-in-Venezuela

On paper, CLAP means Comité Local de Abastecimiento y Producción (Local Committee for Production and Supply), and they are intended to make sure every person from their communities get the Government-subsidized boxes of basic goods such as milk, corn flour, vegetable oil, etc. Sounds awesome, right? Well…

ON PAPER.

In reality, it’s not so cool. But let’s go back a little.

Before the oil boom of the late 2000s, Hugo Chavez, that ugly ass walking cancer, put in place an economic policy called exchange control, which means you cannot buy or sell any currency other than Bolívares unless it’s from and to the government. Naturally, as basic economic says, a black market emerged, and a so-called black dollar, at about 50% to 100% more than the official exchange rate. It all still stands to this day, but they replaced the system about 3 or 4 times, with multiple exchange rates and a corruption mess that ended up taking about $1 trillion from our country.

You read that right, ONE TRILLION DOLLARS. Poof! Gone, just like that.

After a lot of years of corruption, legal corruption and political and privatized stupidity, the oil crisis started. Prices went down, along with our cash reserves, our gold reserves and every Venezuelan’s way of life. Why? Because the Intergalactic Leader Hugo Chavez and his followers cheered as he took private property from honest men and corrupt opposition idiots alike, and expropriated more than half of Venezuela’s food industry, fertile lands, cattle farms and the like. If it was a factory and somebody with connections to the Bolivarian Government or the PSUV (Chavez’s Party) wanted it, it was gone.

Obviously, PSUV is mostly made of thugs and lazy ass malandros who can’t make anything themselves so they gotta steal it. There are a few bright minds such as Jorge and Delcy Rodríguez, but they use it to, well, steal and hold power. So just educated thugs.

Down that path we went, and we went from importing about 30% of our food to now somewhere about 80%, and if the only USD available come from the Government, the end up in off-shore accounts in Andorra or the Cayman Islands. So food producers have to make magic to produce or their companies will be expropriated too, and, add price control to our no-access-to-USD-recipe and you get…

You guessed it! Scarcity.

But don’t worry, you just have to blame the USA and the private sector and raise your military’s salaries at about 400% a year, plus bribe them with cars and phones and allow them to extort the people, and of course give some of those $1TN to the Electoral Council officials and you have nothing to worry about. And, whenever you’re running low on cash, you can print it! It won’t cause major economic disruption! I promise. The 700% inflation we had last year wasn’t due to it, it was because of the American Empire!

Yeah, Nicolás, ripping off the Central Bank’s independence was a great idea. Thanks, Huguito.

So yeah, after all that, plus a rate of 120 murders for every 100.000 people, we Venezuelans have a lot to worry about. If you don’t get mugged or murdered while going to the super market, you won’t find rice or corn flour or anything else. And if you do find it in the black markets, it will get at least twice as expensive by the week. Yeah.

How does this whole thing have anything to do with the CLAPS?

Well, as it turns out, Mexico and Colombia sent some food to Venezuela, and Maduro and his team just came up with something awesome! They give them to loyalists to be sold in their communities. So, if the official exchange rate for basics is 10 bolívares for every USD, and it costs somewhere around 15.000 bolívares, every CLAP box is sold at around $1.500.*

Yeah, CLAP boxes are the product of years of mismanagement, corruption and stupidity, all inside an ugly ass cardboard box. And it’s only sold to communities with government loyalists, so it’s also a tool to extort an already hungry people.

---

* this was written in 2017. The guy talks about the cost of each CLAP box to the country, i.e. the hidden costs that makes the people involved in this "noble cause for the people" ultra-billionaire.

Even Wikipedia has the right information.

By the way, CLAP boxes are also marketed to the "White Supremacists/Upper Class" at 5x (average) the price. Business is business. In the States neighboring Colombia, CLAP boxes are distributed by ELN guerrilla.

Those boxes were banned (not being distributed anymore) from Mexico and Colombia. There are corruption cases opened in those countries. Now, those boxes are brought from Turkey, one of the “Allies” receiving gold as payment.

[Nel]

To those who don't believe, take a trip to Venezuela and find out for himself (See to believe).

[Hervé]

...

A sword of many edges...

I guess some people believe Maduro is insane enough to starve his people and foster festering nests of revolution...

But, if not him, who? And Why?

When one gets an idea of who Stalin and the Bolshevik were the puppets of, and Kissinger a mouthpiece for, then a totally different worldview begins to emerge...

Posted by Hervé (here)
...

Regarding the Rothschilds/Rockefellers consortium:

Posted by Hervé (here)
For an idea on the “big” picture…

Below are excerpts from the work of whistle blower Sue Ann Arrigo.

These give the blue print for what’s happening currently to this planet on the 3D level

Here is how the implemented strategy has worked in the past:

Rothschilds/John D. Rockefeller, Sr. funded the Bolshevik Revolution

Per his writings in the Archives, John D. Rockefeller helped fund the Bolshevik Revolution to get the wealth of the Czars, the labor of the Russian people, and much the Southern Oil fields in Russia. That wealth changed its name from Czarist, to Russian Government owned. Ignore the names, what happened to it? Did the people of Russia get it? No. The Rockefeller Archives show that he built a private army in Russia, much like the Brown Shirt army later. His accountant said that for each 2 cents that he spent to build that Army he got a dollar back. That Army was not staying up late to knit socks to sell. They were beating people up and committing assassinations, massacres, and mayhem to terrorize the populace into submission. And he was bribing officials to get what he wanted. He was apparently famous for that in the US as well. See www.reformation.org/rockefeller-bribery.html .

[...] the Rockefellers charged about 18% interest on the money that they loaned Lenin for the Revolution. The way that agreement was set up made all of the loot that Lenin could seize in Russia, the Rockefellers/Rothschilds.


[…]That meant that Lenin and Stalin could never get out of debt unless they could work people nearly to death to produce the goods Rockefeller/Rothschilds wanted. People thought that the ridiculous factory quotas the Russians tried to accomplish were the result of communism. That was not what I thought after reading the Archives. The Rockefellers were setting the quotas and delighting in the profits. They also delighted in giving the Russians quotas they could not meet as a way of humiliating them.

[…] I sent him [Gorbachev] copies from the Archives of documents that showed those policies had been forced upon Stalin by Rockefeller. While the people of Russia starved, Rockefeller was also insisting that Stalin sell him the grain at the price and amounts previously agreed to. But Rockefeller did not need that grain. And Rockefeller was, to a large extent, responsible for the bad policies that caused the poor crop yields and meant that selling that same amount of grain overseas ensured famine. It appeared to be a deliberate attempt, not just to get grain cheaply, but to starve people. The private journals of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. confirmed that. The Rockefeller Family seemed obsessed by the desire to kill people off, including by starvation. The Rockefellers have long backed population control measures fairly publicly. That was not a secret, nor their funding of ‘eugenics’ research’. See http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/omegafile29.htm , http://www.eugenics-watch.com/eugbook/,euod_ch1.html , http://illuminati-news.com/nazi-california.htm. But, the behind the scenes maneuvers on how they were committing those Crimes Against Humanity were secret. To them Communism was a lovely excuse to steal the wealth of the rich Russians and then kill off the poor who were not working in their factories. The factories and the oil fields had the name of the Soviet Union on them, as if they belong to the Russian Govt.. But an examination of the chain of command structure and the flow of money made it look like the Rockefellers et al were already well on their way to being Kings of the World.

Let me give you an example of that so you can understand how this system worked in practice.

John D. Rockefeller, Jr., wanted to crash prices in South America of a type of goods to force his competitors into closing. If I remember correctly, the country was Argentina and the goods were stainless steel cookware--pots and pans, bowls, and cutlery. They were items peasants had to buy to live. They were also heavy and it made absolutely no sense to ship them from Russia since they were already made in adequate quantities by factories in that country. But they were not Rockefeller’s factories so a part of the markets’ share of money was not going to them. That was an anathema to John. D., Jr. He wanted to own everything and everyone, or kill them.

So, he wrote a letter to Stalin and told him how much and what kind of each item he wanted. It was a huge order, perhaps several Latin American countries worth. Rockefeller was going to dropped the prices of the goods to drive the Latin American factories out of business. Then he would buy them cheaply. Having a monopoly he would then raise the price of the goods to steal even more from the peasants. His journal shows that he intended to cause their children to starve, if at all possible. It was not an unintended consequence of his business practices. I saw instances in which he was willing to lose money to make others starve. It was really quite sad to read about the life of a man who was so desperately unhappy that this was what it took to distract him from that fact.

[...]

Stalin got the order and wrote back saying that he could not meet those deadlines in 2 months time. Rockefeller wrote back saying he had to ‘or else’.

I wanted to know what the “or else” was.

Later I came across invoices for the guards of Stalin which Rockefeller was paying. They were not just regulars, they were a special outfit chosen by Rockefeller. They were not ethnically the same as Stalin. It appeared that they had been chosen by Rockefeller to have no qualms about killing Stalin, if ordered to do so. The head of them was writing reports on Stalin’s activities to John D. more often than Stalin was writing to John D. After looking into it even further than I have said, I concluded that John D.’s threat to kill Stalin was a credible one.

Stalin was humiliated in more ways that one by trying to fill that order in time. He did not succeed, as hard and as desperately as he tried. He was a week late. Furthermore, this was during the height of the German attack on Russia, about a month before the battle of Stalingrad when the order was completed. It meant that steel and railway transport that would have gone into making of rifles did not. Russian soldiers went into the battle of Stalingrad, Stalin’s namesake, with only about 35% of them carrying a rifle! They had to rush forward into battle defenselessly or be shot in the back. Only after one of their buddies got killed could they pick up a fallen weapon to defend themselves. That caused a huge rift among them which they could not solve. It was designed to destroy their team spirit and turned them against each other.

The Battle of Stalingard was almost a defeat for the Russia people because of what John D. did. His journal showed that he intended for the battle to be a Russian defeat and allow him to spread the war all across Russia. He agonized on the pages of his journal about whether his timing was right and the order big enough. He wanted the fighting to continue all across Russia and not just lead to a Russian capitulation. He wanted to destroy all the shop keepers and small enterprises that had not yet been nationalized and brought under his control. His journal said that he cried at his loses when the Russians bravely managed to force the Germans to retreat. But he did not call them brave in his journal and I will not repeat the derogatory phrases. Skull and Bones calls people not in it Barbarians, will they help the Rockefellers plan and execute mass murders, such as at Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps. It is clear that they have some problems in their thinking.

[…]

Then, from a different quarter, about those same events in Russia:

Posted by Hervé (here)
[...]

And you new Czar, cursed by the little father, you shake the hand of the black dictator.

Look at the sea, It will be red with blood.

[...]

The new Tsar [Stalin] kills the true sons of the little father. He sports the eyes of a wolf. But the wolves are at the border.

[...]

The new Tsar has betrayed, he thought he had lost. He killed his men before the nails trampled them. And by his cowardice millions fall. But his honored body will be removed from the sanctuary.

[...]

We fight, but from the mountains, red and white flowers climb down, Europe, these are your best sons, who one day will be betrayed.

Because the leaders they believe they shot down will control again, always the same.

They shot down the money puppets, not the money masters. And they will be seduced by the new Tsar, who defeated despite the betrayal, with his fierce red flame.

The sons of Luther in Europe. War of weapons, wars of the passions. The youngs from the mountains have new flags, which the powerful will tear out through deceit. Beware the sons of Luther and the sons of the new Tsar. They want a world battered for the last meal. France, rise up the Cross of Lorraine. Europe, brandish your songs louder than the sound of the guns.

[...]

[Hervé]

Allies granted the blind eye? US silent on Colombian general’s alleged links to civilian killings

RT
Published time: 29 May, 2019 11:18
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FILE PHOTO: Colombian soldiers patrol a beach as delegations arrived for the Americas Summit in Cartagena April 12, 2012. © Reuters / Joaquin Sarmiento

While US and Columbia rail against Nicolas Maduro’s “dictatorship” in Venezuela, Washington appears to be unconcerned by new evidence linking Colombia’s top general to scores of civilian killings.

Leaked documents recently obtained by the Associated Press suggest that General Nicacio Martinez Espinel, the head of Colombia’s army, participated in a cover-up of extrajudicial and civilian killings more than a decade ago.

Washington, which has cited alleged human rights abuses as part of its campaign to topple the socialist government of Venezuela, has remained curiously silent about the scandal unfolding in Colombia. Coincidentally, Bogota is a key partner in Washington’s efforts to bring about regime change in Caracas.

Colombia receives hundreds of millions of dollars in US foreign aid each year, distinguishing itself as Washington’s go-to ally in the region. Between 2000 and 2016 Congress appropriated some $10 billion in aid to the South American nation.

RT’s Caleb Maupin explored why Washington’s deep concern for human rights in South America appears to be rather selective.

[video at link]


Related:

• Colombia harbors Venezuelan opposition, opens doors to defectors