Terrorism in Venezuela

[JackRiddler]

Venezuelan society is under violent attack by the right wing and the oligarchy, with support from the United States government and related institutions (like the CIA front known as the NED).

The aim is to return the country to far darker days of extreme poverty and repressive politics enforced by violent crackdowns and death squads. But higher profits for the oligarchs.

Imagine the U.S. with a long-running, successful, genuinely progressive government: but the Tea Party types are shooting people at rallies, and they have the full support of more than half the media, which are worse than FOXNEWS.

Unfortunately, because there is "bipartisan" support for the Venezuelan right wing in the U.S., how this plays out on DU is rather different than in if there was a right wing uprising in the U.S. itself.

http://zcomm.org/znetarticle/terrorism-in-venezuela-and-its-accomplices/

Terrorism in Venezuela and Its Accomplices

By Steve Ellner
Source: Venezuelanalysis.com
May 17, 2014

The private media and important actors both at home and abroad including Washington have downplayed, and in some cases completely ignored, the terrorist actions perpetrated against the Venezuelan government over the past three months. Among the latest examples of terrorism news that have been underreported abroad is the assassination in late April of Eliézer Otaiza, an historic leader of the Chavista movement and the president of the city council of Caracas. Another is a series of reports issued by Interior Secretary Miguel Rodriguez Torres with a wealth of documents – including videos, emails, phone call registries, and phone call recordings – that establish connections between terrorist activity and sectors of the Venezuelan opposition.

An example of how the charges of opposition-promoted terrorism get brushed aside is the opening remarks of Robert Menendez, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in hearings to study proposed sanctions against Venezuela. First, Menendez enumerates numerous charges of government human rights violation based on statements by various individuals who are anything but impartial (such as Moisés Naím, who was Planning Minister under the government that Hugo Chávez staged his coup against in 1992). Then Menendez goes on to minimize the seriousness of the widespread violence carried out by the opposition. After recognizing “there has been violence on both sides,” he adds “but we should be perfectly clear that the primary responsibility for the excessive, unjustified use of force rests with the Maduro Administration.”

Anyone who gets their information solely from these sources could easily reach the conclusion that with the exception of a few minor excesses, which are normal and inevitable in protest movements of this sort, what is happening in Venezuela represents a flagrant violation of human rights on the part of the government.

Objectively speaking, the overall picture created by the discourse of political adversaries and the media’s coverage encourages the radical fringe of the opposition that is engaging in violence on an extensive scale. In this sense, those who downplay the importance of the opposition-promoted violence and exaggerate or fabricate actions of security forces to control the protests consciously or unwittingly serve as accomplices of those responsible for destructive activity.

Read more
http://zcomm.org/znetarticle/terrorism-in-venezuela-and-its-accomplices/

[NobodyHere]

1. I've always known that the US government was funding Maduro!

No one could've wrecked Venezuela's economy any faster!

[JackRiddler]

3. Case in point: U.S. is supporting the Venezuelan right-wing.

Thanks for your post, which illustrates of the problem on DU. As long as you're supporting a foreign version of the Koch brothers, and as long these have U.S. government support, then it's all good.

Of course, your use of confusionism might work, so I should also mention that contrary to your silly joke, the U.S. government is, of course, actually funding and officially advocating a side in the Venezuelan conflict: supporting the groups that seek to overthrow and reverse the Bolivarian revolution.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. "violent attack by the right wing and the oligarchy, with support from the United States government"

Thanks, Obama!

[JackRiddler]

4. Bush, Obama...

Here as in a few other things, the policy hasn't changed much.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

6. Yeah! Just look at him!

Smiling to Chavez's face and shaking his hand; all the while secreting the dagger he'd soon plunge into Chavez's back. He's a master conniver that one! Tricky, manipulative and not to be trusted. All in the name of RW oligarchic imperialism. I'll bet Obama is holding up the Keystone XL just so he has an excuse to steal Venezuela's oil!

[JackRiddler]

7. U.S. government giving millions to Venezuelan parties.

It doesn't matter if Obama once or twice shook Chavez's hand -- not when the U.S. government continues to finance the attempts to violently overthrow the elected government of Venezuela and reverse the Bolivarian revolution.

The facts:

Anti-government protests in Venezuela that seek regime change have been led by several individuals and organizations with close ties to the US government. Leopoldo Lopez and Maria Corina Machado- two of the public leaders behind the violent protests that started in February – have long histories as collaborators, grantees and agents of Washington. The National Endowment for Democracy “NED” and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have channeled multi-million dollar funding to Lopez’s political parties Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular, and Machado’s NGO Sumate and her electoral campaigns.

These Washington agencies have also filtered more than $14 million to opposition groups in Venezuela between 2013 and 2014, including funding for their political campaigns in 2013 and for the current anti-government protests in 2014. This continues the pattern of financing from the US government to anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela since 2001, when millions of dollars were given to organizations from so-called “civil society” to execute a coup d’etat against President Chavez in April 2002. After their failure days later, USAID opened an Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) in Caracas to, together with the NED, inject more than $100 million in efforts to undermine the Chavez government and reinforce the opposition during the following 8 years.

At the beginning of 2011, after being publically exposed for its grave violations of Venezuelan law and sovereignty, the OTI closed its doors in Venezuela and USAID operations were transferred to its offices in the US. The flow of money to anti-government groups didn’t stop, despite the enactment by Venezuela’s National Assembly of the Law of Political Sovereignty and National Self-Determination at the end of 2010, which outright prohibits foreign funding of political groups in the country. US agencies and the Venezuelan groups that receive their money continue to violate the law with impunity. In the Obama Administration’s Foreign Operations Budgets, between $5-6 million have been included to fund opposition groups in Venezuela through USAID since 2012.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10641

This is a matter of (non-secret) policy and funding.

The U.S. imperialist project of subjugating Latin American countries and trying to destroy their economic and political independence goes back centuries. It cannot be reduced to personalities or your preferred beliefs about the person who happens to be the president of the U.S. government at this time. Obama is a wholly unremarkable continuation of this, as was also obvious after the military coup d'etat in Honduras. He could have been different by doing something different.

Otherwise, a note to any third parties reading this: note how some people use ridicule and mocking scenarios but entirely avoid the facts, since these are clear: The U.S. government has a side in Venezuela.

[malaise]

5. It never stops

The imperialists take what they want - by any means necessary.
Look out for during the World Cup in Brazil when people are distracted.

[JackRiddler]

8. No, it keeps coming back.