"State Department Announces New "Long-standing" Policy Against Backing Coups" --Asst. Sec. Jen Psaki
State Department Announces New "Long-standing" Policy Against Backing CoupsPublished on Mar 11, 2015
After Venezuela accused the United States of plotting another coup, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki rejected the claim as "ludicrous." She said, "As a matter of long-standing policy, the United States does not support political transitions by non-constitutional means." The response from reporters may surprise you.
On Democracy Now!, we get reaction from Miguel Tinker Salas, professor at Pomona College and author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela
VIDEO WATCH HERE from DU V&MM.... "I Ching Carpenter" for posting the State Department Presser with Assistant Secretary Jen Psaki from "Democracy Now" Link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017251123
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we go to Claremont, California, where were joined by Miguel Tinker Salas. He is a professor at Pomona College in Claremont. Tinker Salas is the author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela and the forthcoming book, Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know.
Miguel Tinker Salas, welcome back to Democracy Now!
MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: Good morning. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: And I want to play for you a recent exchange between State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki and Matt Lee, a reporter with the Associated Press.
REPORTER: President Maduro last night went on the air and said that they had arrested multiple people who were allegedly behind a coup that was backed by the United States. What is your response?
JEN PSAKI: These latest accusations, like all previous such accusations, are ludicrous. As a matter of long-standing policy, the United States does not support political transitions by nonconstitutional means. Political transitions must be democratic, constitutional, peaceful and legal. Weve seen many times that the Venezuelan government tries to distract from its own actions by blaming the United States or other members of the international community for events inside Venezuela. These efforts reflect a lack of seriousness on the part of the Venezuelan government to deal with the grave situation it faces.
MATT LEE, AP Reporter: Sorry. The U.S. haswhoa, whoa, whoathe U.S. has a long-standing practice of not promotingwhat did you say? How long-standing is that? I wouldin particular in South and Latin America, that is not a long-standing practice.
JEN PSAKI: Well, my point here, Matt, without getting into history
MATT LEE: Not in this case.
JEN PSAKI: is that we do not support, we have no involvement with, and these are ludicrous accusations.
MATT LEE: In this specific case.
JEN PSAKI: Correct.
MATT LEE: But if you go back not that long ago, during your lifetime even
JEN PSAKI: The last 21 years?
MATT LEE: Well done. Touché. But, I mean, look, does "long-standing" mean 10 years in this case? I mean, what is
JEN PSAKI: Matt, my intention was to speak to the specific reports.
MATT LEE: I understand, but you said its a long-standing U.S. practice, and Im not so sure howdepends on what your definition of "long-standing" is.
JEN PSAKI: We willOK.
REPORTER: Recently in Kiev, whatever we say about Ukraine, whatever, the change of government in the beginning of last year was unconstitutional, and yet you supported it. The Constitution was not
JEN PSAKI: That is also ludicrous.
AMY GOODMAN: That was State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki being questioned by reporters. Professor Miguel Tinker Salas, if you could respond to both that exchange and also Josh Earnest, White House spokesperson?
MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: I would have loved if that kind of exchange would have got broader diffusion in the U.S. press, but the fact is that it hasnt. And we continue to have the belief that the U.S. does notis not involved in unconstitutional change in Latin America. And as a historian, the record speaks just the opposite, from 53 in Guatemala to the Dominican Republic, to Chile in 73, and through the support of the Argentine military dictatorships and Brazil, and, if we want to go even closer, to 2002 in Venezuela, when the U.S. actually did support a coup against the democratically elected Hugo Chávez, the shortest coup in the world, and the coup that brought Chávez back to power, and then again in Honduras in 2009, and, not shortly thereafter, in Paraguay with Lugo, where they said it was a democratic transition, when in fact it was an unconstitutional shift in power. So, again, the notion that the U.S. has not supported both military coups directly or through what they call soft power is really ludicrous.
And, in fact, we should turn the question around. If they want to support democracy, I think the best thing the U.S. can do in the case of Venezuela and other countries is to pull back and let things develop on their own. I think you have a very strong opposition in Venezuela. It can speak for itself. You have a government force and other social forces that are organized in those countries. And I think the best thing, in the case of Mexico and in the case of Venezuela, is for the U.S. to stop intervening and to allow these countries to resolve their own
FULL TRANSCRIPT AT:
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/3/11/is_venezuela_really_an_extraordinary_threat
newthinking
(3,982 posts)if it were not so serious.
How can Psaki say that with a straight face?
Thanks Koko!
uhnope
(6,419 posts)What was the last coup that the USA backed? It's been a while (and please don't start with the Nuland Cookies Ukraine lies or unproven CT about Venezuela in 2002). I don't think we're including publicly announced actions here (like the war in Iraq, which I organized protest rallies against BTW) or our public policy on Syria now. So the "long standing" in this statement could be accurate.
About the support for coups in the distant past, which were disgraceful (Chile etc.)--it doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't a policy against backing coups, it could just mean there was an exception to policy in those cases. And if not, again, we're going well back into the last century.
For the record, I despise much of US foreign policy history in the past, especially in Central/South America in the 70s and 80s and as mentioned the entire Bush admin debacle (though I support the assistance to Poland's Solidarity movement of Lech Walesa). But we have to acknowledge that since the collapse of the USSR, the US has been a bit more above-ground in its foreign policy (for better or for worse).
yurbud
(39,405 posts)even the compliant White House press corps couldn't take such a blatant lie and insult to their intelligence to their faces.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)yurbud
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