Bulletin
Special
Bolivarian Government Ministry of People’s Embassy of the Bolivarian of Venezuela Power for Foreign Affairs Republic of Venezuela
volume 9, 2019
-VENEZUELA EXPRESSES IT’S CATEGORICAL REJECTION OF DIPLOMATIC ASYLUM AND DETENTION OF JULIAN ASSANGE --THE SITUATION IN VENEZUELA BRIEFING IN THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL --OVER 40 GROUPS CALL ON CONGRESS TO OPPOSE SANCTIONS AND MILITARY INTERVENTION
VENEZUELA DENOUNCES THE VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND CHARTER OF THE OAS BEFORE PUPPET ENDORSEMENT APPOINTED BY TRUMP “You have converted the OAS into an empty shell that has violated its own principles and you’re now proving that our decision to resign was the correct one. We are leaving the OAS and we will never come back.” -Venezuela representative to OAS-
Content 1) EDITORIAL 2) THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES (OAS) ENCOURAGE THE FRACTURE OF VENEZUELA 3) BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA DENOUNCES THE IMPUDENT AND CRIMINAL VIOLATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE CHARTER OF THE OAS 4) THE SITUATION IN VENEZUELA BRIEFING IN THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL 5)THE WHITE HOUSE PUSHES THE BOLIVARIAN NATIONAL ARMED FORCES (FANB) FOR A COUP AGAINST PRESIDENT MADURO’S GOVERNMENT 6) ELECTRIC SABOTAGES AGAINST VENEZUELA 7) VENEZUELA EXPRESSES IT’S CATEGORICAL REJECTION OF DIPLOMATIC ASYLUM AND DETENTION OF JULIAN ASSANGE 8) IS THE US WILLING TO ACCEPT A DEFEAT IN VENEZUELA? 9) OVER 40 GROUPS CALL ON CONGRESS TO OPPOSE SANCTIONS AND MILITARY INTERVENTION
Editorial With 18 votes in favor (six less than the 24 statutory votes required for such decisions), the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) approved a resolution on appointing Gustavo Tarre Briceño as alleged “Permanent Representative” of Venezuela to the organization, “designated by the National Assembly, until new elections are held”. The legitimate representative of Venezuela before the OAS, Asbina Marín Sevilla, denounced the measure as illegal and “means the end of the validity of the Foundational Charter”. In total, 9 countries voted against, there were six abstentions and one absentee. However, after different actions of Guaidó against the Maduro government, the selfproclaimed has lost significant support from the international community and within Venezuela.
MONROE DOCTRINE IN PRACTICE:
THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES (OAS) ENCOURAGE THE FRACTURE OF VENEZUELA A session of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) was again convened to discuss the Venezuelan issue. As on other occasions, the session violated one of the guiding aspects of the founding charter of the regional body: to discuss and / or make decisions about a member state, in this case Venezuela, without their consent or approval.
With "Operation Freedom" questioned in its effectiveness by different sectors, the Permanent Council of the OAS, again mobilized by the United States, emerged to save the skin of Guaidó at the last minute. That at a local level because, in regional terms, the illegal "designation" and the strength of Tarre as "ambassador of Venezuela" is a way of responding to the strengthening of the alliances between Venezuela, Russia and China, while reinforcing their positioning as actors strategic in the continent.
This time the intention was of much greater severity than the previous ones, because it was sought to "designate" illegally Gustavo Tarre Briceño, "sent" by Guaidó to the OAS, as the "formal representative" of the country before the agency.
An oxygenation maneuver identical to the pattern of international aggressions tested in previous years, such as the violent color revolution of the year 2017 that left hundreds dead on the streets of Venezuela in what has been called a civil war trial, which had as immediate antecedent a resolution of the OAS that supported violence as a political option for anti chavism.
From there, this space of Latin American politics has been reactivated with the idea of reviving the agenda of violent regime change that Washington leads alongside the radical sectors of local anti-Chavism. After the White House special envoy, Elliott Abrams, indicated a few days ago that a military intervention would be premature, the figure of Guaidó has been the subject of innumerable criticisms among his followers, which has evidenced a reduction in his ability to mobilize street and a marked isolation of international media.
At that time the story used consisted of the "alteration of the constitutional order", after the specific legislative functions assumed by the country's highest court to strengthen relations with Russia in the oil field, an action impossible to carry out from the National Assembly for its situation of "desacato" and by its 3
position of institutional shock and financial blockade against the Venezuelan government.
A power with which the OAS does not count, although it does see that it does.
At that time the month of April also began. The order of factors and the alignment of the OAS with an operation that undermines mercenary and paramilitary factors (as in 2017), now under the so-called "Operation Freedom", should serve as early warning for what could be developed this week in the field.
Other representatives who spoke against the resolution, such as the case of Nicaragua and Bolivia, supplemented that a decision of this nature should not be decided under a simple majority of 18 votes (as it actually happened) and that the issue should be dealt with, according to the OAS status, in an Extraordinary Assembly where the foreign ministers of the member states are present.
The OAS, from its Permanent Council, is once again aligned with the intentions of unleashing a war in Venezuela, legitimizing it from the international front.
Jamaica added an amendment to the draft resolution to include that the "appointment" will only be "until presidential elections take place". Thus, the main Caribbean ally of Washington, where it also inserts its geopolitics of destruction of the Caricom-Alba-Petrocaribe axis, qualified what is in reality an update of the doctrine of Inter-American intervention: that the OAS recognizes a designated "ambassador" by a legislative body, representing "a self-appointed government", following the words of the representative of Dominica. There were 18 who approved an illegal resolution that, in perspective, generates an update of the doctrine of inter-American intervention, which has its most forceful and expressive origin in the constitution of the "Inter-american Peace Force" that militarily invaded the Dominican Republic (1965 ), to guarantee the permanence in power of those who struck the coup against Bosch.
BRIEF DEVELOPMENT OF THE SESSION The meeting was led by the US ambassador, Carlos Trujillo, who assumed the functions of president of the Permanent Council. And a minor fact is that he did it in English, thoroughly highlighting the origin of the organization and the interests to which it ultimately responds. In the face of the motion for a resolution under which Tarre was appointed as "Venezuela's ambassador" to the OAS, contrary reactions emerged, based on international law and the OAS statutes, on the part of the ambassadors of Mexico, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Suriname, Antigua and Barbuda, among other member states, which qualified this action as dangerous for the future of the organization.
Meanwhile, Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Dominica, Grenada, Mexico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Uruguay, Barbados, El Salvador, Guyana, Nicaragua, San Cristóbal and Nieve, between abstentions and votes against, expressed their doubts and rejection with respect to the legality of the resolution. The geographic composition of the US coalition, as well as the coalition that continues to bet that the conflict does not explode, precisely aligned in the Alba-Petrocaribe axis and in the Montevideo Mechanism, delimit the map of operations of the regional siege and continues to test the commitments of the most hostile states (Colombia, Brazil and Canada) for further escalation in aggressions in the immediate future.
They all used arguments explaining how the resolution violated the legal limits of the OAS and how a decision of that nature did not correspond to the Permanent Council. He highlighted the participation of the Mexican representative, Jorge Lomónaco, who offered a chair of international law when describing the scarcity of legal criteria of the resolution presented for not complying with the OAS's status. For Lomónaco, that the OAS recognize an "ambassador" of a state power, in the Venezuelan case the National Assembly, sets a negative precedent in the region. In other interventions he affirmed that the paralysis of the organism becomes more acute.
This correlation of forces at the regional level has remained frozen since 2016, the year in which Washington began to apply the Democratic Charter to Venezuela, which, through its alliances and the rational position of sovereign countries, has evaded a more cruel diplomatic siege. and invasive.
For his part, the Uruguayan representative, Hugo Cayrús, affirmed that there is no tool in international law that determines the legitimacy or not of the officials of a certain State. He emphasized the good behavior of the UN, which should follow the OAS, by not recognizing the "parallel government" of Juan Guaidó since it is not among its functions to provide legitimacy or not to any State. 4
MOVEMENTS IN PARALLEL AND PERSPECTIVE The "appointment" of Tarre Briceño implies the demolition of international law as a parameter of channeling the Venezuelan conflict, on that "inter-American" scale where the United States operates with total impunity, arms and validates coups and experiences new intervention mechanisms.
began processing his departure from the OAS for committing actions such as those of today. Therefore, this way of using force selectively, the same as in the field of the concrete is replicated in the recent electrical sabotage and in a logic of generalized survival that became the planned destruction of the economy of the country, it would seem to be the guideline and orentación that marks in the future what happened today in the OAS.
Parallel to the session, Trump "received the credentials" from Carlos Vecchio, who recognized him as an "ambassador" of the government of Guaidó before the United States. The secretary, Mike Pompeo, announces a tour of several Latin American countries to strengthen the international alliances of the intervention and Elliott Abrams moves to Spain and Portugal to drag the European Union (and the UN Secretary General, António Guterres) a more warlike action.
In short: to advance in a policy of apartheid against the basic functions of Venezuelan diplomacy, in order to replace them with "representatives of Guaidó". Close the diplomatic siege through a militarization of relations with Venezuela (and its diplomatic corps) at the regional level. Wherever it is seen, it is an action that seeks to emulate the formula "One Country, Two Governments".
Movements that although diffused as "diplomatic", under the always antipolitical mantra of "free elections", indicate a return of the state of international relations at the time of the diplomacy of the gunships. It is, while the development of an international program of illegal sanctions is verified to take Venezuela to a social hecatombe, but above all in what happened yesterday in the OAS, it could validate that expeditious acknowledgments of "ambassadors of Guaidó" are carried out in hostile countries, using violence against diplomatic offices in the country, as in Costa Rica recently.
The incitement to fragment and bring to a state of anarchy the Venezuelan State is manifest and is amalgamated with the worst moment of the Libyan, Syrian or Balkan conflict, in which the Western powers led a cruel geopolitics and social fracture through the spaces of international decision that they controlled, granting a selective legitimacy to the mercenary fronts that they financed to take territorial control (physical power). That last variable that decides who wins, although it has failed, continues to be financed. What happened today was a practical exercise of the renewed Monroe Doctrine, in its neocon version, and the OAS was the best place to carry it out, from where it can administer the club and the carrots with greater freedom. The doubts about "Operation Freedom", the relative displacement of the figure of Guaidó in the Western press, as well as the recent geopolitical movements of Chavism, have caused Washington to dynamite the OAS calculating that a cascading effect of sanctions in the immediate present will lead to a conflict inside the FANB or a de facto coup that will allow for a "humanitarian intervention".
Adding this maneuver in the OAS, with the similar ones that the United States captains in the IDB, IMF, UN, G7, among others, seeking the recognition of "officials of Guaidó", shows the geopolitical intention of keeping Venezuela aligned with the institutional framework global managed by Washington.
In advance, they captured the representation of Venezuela in the OAS to validate the various anti political options always explored and financed by the United States. Finally, Gustavo Tarre is identified by the PanAm Post as a person close to Guaidó who conspires against military intervention. This being the case, it is to be expected that the diverse interests of local anti chavism will collide around Tarre, increasingly less
Venezuela has been grouped in new instances, building its own axes and external relations with countries not assimilated by the Western powers. Two years ago he 5
A new leap into the void before the multipolar world with which Venezuela decided to join. Two years ago, Venezuela expressed interest in leaving the organization.
influential, but which will logically lead the usurper to promote the option of war from the OAS forum, in order to directly confront the Mechanism of Montevideo as a proposal for dialogue. The map of the positions of the countries in this line is already well known and point to an extreme polarization in the OAS, inducing its paralysis against the Venezuelan issue. Precisely pursuing that goal, Washington steps on the accelerator to find a new momentum that will reinforce the figure of Guaidó, intimidate the Venezuelan government and intensify the financial and diplomatic asphyxia as a method for regime change.
www.misionverdad.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy
6
The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela denounces before the international community and the peoples of the world the impudent and criminal violation of the International Law and the Charter of the Organization of American States, during the Extraordinary Session of the Permanent Council of the OAS held on April 9th, 2019, in which a group of Washington satellite Governments have endorsed a political puppet appointed by Donald Trump. It is one of the unfortunate decisions made in the long-standing history of legal and political outrages of the above Organization, and a vulgar blackmail and pressure against the member States in order to satisfy the desires of Washington neo-Monroe policy. Along with the illegal approval of a political puppet, whose spurious existence resulted from the transgression of the legal order of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the OAS validates the coup plan initiated last January 23rd, and intends to create conditions in order to deep the interfering aggression against our country, including the threat of a military intervention. With this decision - bringing the OAS into more and more disrepute and lawlessness- the US and its satellite Governments demonstrate that they never counted on the required majority of the member States to attack Venezuela and, at the end, they were forced to take away from the organization all its principles. The Bolivarian Government of Venezuela, faithful to its republican and democratic principles, its Constitution and International Law, emphasizes that it shall not acknowledge any political emissary, whatever the entitlement or appointment granted before the OAS, that has not been appointed in accordance with the constitutional provisions, meaning, by the highest representative of the National Executive Power and Head of State of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro Moros. In that sense, the Government of Venezuela informs that every action, decision and/or agreement bilaterally or multilaterally adopted before the Organization of American States with the participation of a political puppet usurper, shall be considered by the Venezuelan government as a null and void act. Therefore, the Venezuelan State shall not be obliged to fulďŹ ll any of the provisions agreed upon with a proconsul appointed by Washington, much less to compensate in any area, a State or group of States that engage with illegitimate representatives who pretend to act on behalf of the Venezuelan State, without ignoring the bilateral and multilateral treaties and agreements previously agreed by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Before the evident failure of the coup initiated last January, Trump’s administration has moved its political pawns in the continent in order to bring down the democratic will of the member States and give legal character and doubtful oxygen to the aggression against Venezuela. Washington has forced a criminal decision and initiated a dark route that shadows the future of the relations between the States in the continent. The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela conďŹ rms its unwavering decision to abandon the Organization of American States next April 27th, 2019, in accordance with the demand made two years ago and within the framework of the relevant procedures, considering that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela can no longer be a member of an organization kneeling before the imperial and supremacist interests of the US administration. Caracas, April 2019
7
The Situa�on in Venezuela Briefing in the United Na�ons Security Council New York, April 10, 2019
ADDRESS BY AMBASSADOR SAMUEL MONCADA, VENEZUELA’S PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED NATIONS
8
Mr. President,
(...) and if we can do it something to accelerate it, we must do it, but we must do it understanding that this is going to have an impact on millions of people who are already having difficulties in finding food and medicines (...) We cannot do this and pretend that it will not have an impact, we have that to make a hard decision, the desired end justifies this severe punishment."
1) Mr. Pence is misleading the United Nations. Yesterday the Organization of American States (OAS) did not accept the designation of a new representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. What happened yesterday was that they accepted the designation of a representative of the National Assembly, but it is not clear what that person can do, as the OAS is an Organization of States, represented by National Government, and not of National Assemblies. This legal absurdity took place as a result of the desires of Mr. Pence’s government to carry out a coup d’état in the OAS and another in Venezuela. As such, we suggested that all parties become well-informed over what was adopted yesterday in Washington. We warn that Mr. Pence’s government will try the same trick here, within the General Assembly, and we trust that it will fail.
c) On March 7, 2019, Senator Marco Rubio stated that “Over the next few weeks, Venezuela is going to enter a period of suffering no nation in our hemisphere has confronted in modern history.” d) On March 22, 2019, John Bolton noted: “It's sort of like in Star Wars when Darth Vader constricts somebody's throat, that's what we are doing to the regime economically.”
Mr. President,
4) This is about deliberate economic destruction; it is the systematic application of aggression with the use of financial instrument, undue pressure, and the use of dominant market positions to influence the banking sector, private businesses and other nations that engage in legal trade with Venezuela, including even U.N. agencies. All with the goal of isolating the country from international trade and financing systems. If it were true that the Venezuelan government is killing its people, why would they need a massive wave of extortion to increase suffering? The interest in a social implosion is not ours; it is of those who wish to invade us.
2) The humanitarian situation in Venezuela needs to be resolved, but if we err in the diagnosis, we will also err in the treatment. The situation, as has been affirmed here, is the result of human actions. But what has not been said is that these actions are part of a plan for economic destruction designed by the government of the United States and its ally, the United Kingdom, with the goal of strangling the national economy, causing maximum social suffering, eroding the capabilities of our nation to sustain itself and, ultimately, to spark an implosion that will allow for a foreign military intervention based on the nefarious notion of the responsibility to protect, which has been used as an excuse for colonial invasions of countries that have oil.
5) It is a plan in which banks, insurance agencies and ships are used with a destructive power comparable to weapons of mass destruction, but without having those responsible face justice and without them suffering the moral sanctions they deserve. On January 30, 2019, John Bolton said “My advice to bankers, brokers, traders, facilitators, and other businesses: don’t deal in gold, oil, or other Venezuelan commodities,” while on March 29, 2019, Elliott Abrams said “We impose our sanctions. What does the regime do? The regime tries to figure out other ways to get around them. It tries to find new customers. It tries to find new sources of imports. So, what do we do? We watch carefully, and we can see ships moving and we can see new contracts with new companies, and when we do, we talk to shippers or we talk to refiners or we talk to governments and we say you should not be doing that. That’s what we’re doing.”
3) This is a gigantic, inhumane experiment of unconventional warfare. A policy of calculated cruelty that violates human rights on a massive scale, reaching the point of committing crimes against humanity, all with the goal of justifying pillaging and looting, imposing a local, subordinate government and, in our case, using a racist ideology that arose over 200 years ago, when the United States was a slave-owning nation, which today they promote in violation of international law. We refer to the infamous Monroe Doctrine. Listen to their own words. a) On January 9, 2018, spokespersons from the State Department declared “the pressure campaign is working... And what we are seeing … is a total economic collapse in Venezuela. So our policy is working, our strategy is working and we’re going to keep it.”
6) A repugnant aspect of this criminal policy of mass destruction is that it is accompanied by theft and pillaging that has cost our nation over $137 billion. While they deprive our people of essential goods, provoking maximum suffering, they rob the
b) On October 12, 2018, Ambassador William Brownfield said: “We must treat this as an agony, a tragedy that will continue until it finally reaches an end 9
the international community interested in alleviating suffering. However, what we are witnessing is a new wave of economic extortion that severs our country’s financial flows abroad and impedes action by the United Nation’s own agencies, which at this time have not found a way to receive our money and process the purchases required to meet the needs of our population. Do you know why? Because the Trump administration is waging a terror campaign against commercial and financial agents that touch Venezuelan money. What the United States has attempted to do so far is not humanitarian aid, but a covert operation without the consent of Venezuela, violating our territorial integrity, with a continuous threat of use of force, and openly inciting a military uprising and civil war. This is Mr. Abrams’ specialty.
Venezuelan people of over one hundred billion dollars. The profits from our refineries are used to pay debts to oil companies friendly to the Trump administration. Its friends with Venezuelan sovereign debt bonds receive special licenses to collect their profits from money stolen from our people. They announced a plan to put the country into debt by $70 billion and to use that money to pay for non-certified debts in suspicious financial dealings. We cannot forget that the Bank of England, which stole $1.2 billion in old from our people using the excuses that they do not recognize President Nicolás Maduro and that they are complying with the Trump sanctions. The Bank of England is not an independent institution, as its government affirms; rather it acts as the enforcement arm of policies of conquest and pillage of the governments of Trump and Theresa May. It is the same colonial policy of the British Empire of over 200 years ago.
Mr. President, 10) This Security Council, according to the provisions of Articles 24, 34 and 39 of the Charter, has the responsibility to maintain international peace and security and to determine the existence of threats to peace or acts of aggression. As such, we request that it determine:
Mr. President, 7) This is the true cause of the Venezuelan situation; there is no other. Certainly, our people our suffering and our government, as the Secretary General can certify, working intensely with the United Nations system to increase both the number of cooperation projects as well as the volume and capacities of those projects, particularly in the health, food, education, electricity and transportation sectors. The same is happening with regards to cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose president met yesterday in Caracas with our Head of State to move forward in a direct mechanism that facilitates true neutral, impartial and independent aid. The same can be said of friendly countries who have provided assistance in peace and in respect for our sovereignty.
a) The legal basis on which the United States and United Kingdom apply a program of economic destruction on Venezuela, without the express authorization of this Council. b) The legal authority to apply the so-called secondary sanctions on countries that legally trade with Venezuela. c) The legal basis on which the United States threatens Venezuela with the use of force.
8) An element that can not be underestimated by those who wage war on Venezuela is the strength of our national spirit, which grows in the midst of these difficulties. The macabre experiment of destruction is aiming to prove that economic crime does work, that peoples can be broken and will surrender in the face of an oppressive foreign power. However, they got it wrong in Venezuela. The induced collective suffering is being resisted with the growing organization of our people. Our National Bolivarian Armed Force has not fractured and is more united than ever. Our workers are reacting to the attacks against our vital infrastructure with a discipline that the aggressors had never seen. Yes, there are trouble, but they are not leading to a civil war. Today, our people are setting an example for the world on how to fight for peace.
d) The legal authority on which the United States and United Kingdom can appropriate our riches, making profits through extortion with the mass violation of the human rights of our people. e) The legal basis on which the United States can intervene in affairs that are essentially under the internal jurisdiction of Venezuela. 11) To conclude, the diagnosis for the current situation is the result of a campaign of aggression by the United States and United Kingdom. The treatment cannot be a new dose of aggressive interventionism with a humanitarian façade. The solution is not found in donations from those criminals who wish to portray themselves as saviors; it is not in channels of humanitarian aid designed to provoke armed conflicts; it is not in Donor Conferences that obscure the looting of our nation. The treatment is in returning the money stolen
9) It would be logical to think that the efforts of our government to overcome the difficulties caused by aggression would be recognized and supported by 10
2) We should note, fortunately, that Venezuela has not been a recent victim of either a natural catastrophe or an armed conflict. The migration that we see today in the region, which is encouraged by extremist statements and by a psychological war that instills terror regarding the certainty of the future in Venezuela with the goal of weakening the morale of our people, is of an economic kind and is the direct result of a plan for the programmatic destruction of our economy.
from Venezuela; in the end of the commercial and financial blockade of our people; in the end of the sabotage to our infrastructure through covert operations; in the end of threats of military intervention; and in the end of threats against Venezuelans who wish to engage in dialogue. We must stop Trump’s war. This Security Council must fulfill its mission, guaranteeing Venezuela its right to peace.
Thank you.
RIGHT TO REPLY TO THE ADDRESS BY THE DELEGATION OF PERU TO THE UNITED NATIONS ON THE ISSUE OF VENEZUELAN REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS
3) We cannot allow a human right like freedom of movement to be securitized or politicized. On the country, this very Security Council would be engaging in a double standard in not promptly convening a session on the humanitarian and security crisis on the border, as declared by Trump on March 15, 2019.
1) Even when they are surprisingly ignored by reports referred to here in this session, including those drafted by U.N. agencies, the criminal, unilateral sanctions have also resulted in an irrefutable increase in the migratory flow of Venezuelans, although we differ on the number mentioned here, considering that there has been a lack of due rigorousness in the methods to acquire such information, nor the timely and verifiable provision of migration data by receiving country.
www.mppre.gob.ve
11
THE WHITE HOUSE PUSHES THE BOLIVARIAN NATIONAL ARMED FORCES (FANB) FOR A COUP AGAINST PRESIDENT MADURO’S GOVERNMENT The White House, assuming the role of programmatic driver of the displacement of Chavism in the country, insistently calls for a coup in Venezuela.
Venezuela. However, there is no clarity about all the elements on the table with which the White House initially instrumentalized the possibility of military intervention.
They have called on the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) itself to do the work "from within", in a set of appeals that come from the highest presidential level, with Donald Trump, and from there in cascade to a group of officials of the executive and the US Congress in a measured way.
John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence and Marco Rubio, all on the front line, have developed the narrative that the FANB is called to give a blow to President Nicolás Maduro, for which "they have the support" and also with "the amnesty "from Washington for those actions that in theory" would return Venezuela to the democratic order ".
These events could be considered unprecedented in the future of the politics of the continent if we understand that they reproduce, with the particularities of our time, the calls to coups and interventions in the region in the old way. Since the rise of Trump, Washington has implemented a very aggressive narrative in which he has supported the rather serious possibility of intervening militarily in Venezuela to capture political power.
In these statements it is clearly stated that Washington delegated to the Venezuelan military a position of force that the White House has not yet exploited, due to various reactions and counterweights in the internal politics of the United States and the region, which openly reject the military possibility against Venezuela because of the repercussions that this would have inside and outside the oil nation.
Analysis from different directions suggests that Washington is using a position of progressive and very aggressive force simultaneously on several fronts, especially with the economic asphyxia against
The possibility of intervention, through regular or mercenaries routes in Venezuela, is now in question, showing the fact that when this new phase was launched suddenly, Washington hoped that there 12
From this point, the only functional use of the narrative of the call to the Venezuelan military that still persists, is to create the conditions for the appearance of paramilitary and mercenary forces that would be presented by the Trump administration as "legitimate" and "democratic" forces. that have been separated from the Venezuelan government. A clearly reusable input, if we understand that in Syria and Libya there was a recent history, being expressions of the development of mercenary wars with American bill in our time. Thus, the symptom of the official US discourse remains focused on Venezuela through the consistent promise of a rupture that does not begin to occur, but that continues to be assured. These elements generate doubts, because in that sense the Venezuelan government is still focused on giving as true the threat against Venezuela and continues advancing in the coupling of its internal military structures and in its active collaboration with Russia for such purposes.
would be a riot of the Venezuelan military through the riot, the commotion and the Maduro deposition. The narratives and calls to the Venezuelan military evolved from intimidation, then to the request and now they acquire a tone of appeal, since the political and military institutional fabric of the Venezuelan government has been cohesive.
Simultaneously, time passes. The artificial figure of Juan Guaidó looks increasingly limited in Venezuelan politics and is losing practical effects. The FANB remains undiminished and Washington persists in its strategy although its times have been long.
We are facing the presumption of the development of a wrong agenda, consolidated under a management of expectations also wrong. That is to say, Washington could give as credible the promises of its agents in Venezuela who assured that the military would leave to depose Maduro if Trump made the call.
Dismissing President Maduro was not nor is it an instant matter. And such a matter is even more complicated if the White House has expected the Venezuelan military to do the work for and for them. www.misionverdad.com
This now places Washington in the awkward position of redesigning its siege strategy to Venezuela without a major internal military skirmish, an issue that increases all its political and operational costs to continue.
The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy
13
ELECTRIC SABOTAGES AGAINST VENEZUELA A few days before his self-proclamation, the president of the National Assembly in contempt, Juan Guaidó, ordered a minute of silence in honor of Óscar Pérez and his six companions who a year ago were executed in the massacre of El Junquito by orders of those who currently usurp power in Venezuela. " In this way, Guaidó tried to hero Óscar Pérez, who died in a confrontation with the security forces, after he declared himself in revolt against the constitutional authorities of Venezuela in mid-2017.
stolen helicopter. Later, Fort Paramacay was assaulted in Carabobo, an operation led by ex-captain Juan Carlos Caguaripano, today imprisoned. According to the ex-military officer, Oswaldo García Palomo, who was a long time fugitive from justice for collaborating with this group, these actions led to an attempted coup d'etat before the presidential elections, called Operation Constitution, and the failed assassination of August 2018 made by an armed cell of ex-officers directed from Miami. The official investigations indicate that the financier of the latter was Osman Alexis Delgado Tabosky, an entrepreneur based in the state of Florida and with contacts in the political-criminal world that conspires in favor of a violent exit in Venezuela.
Almost a month later, on February 18, Donald Trump at a rally at the University of Florida, surrounded by fugitives from justice like the banker, Eligio Cedeño, and the leader of Voluntad Popular, Carlos Vecchio, took the stage to the mother of Óscar Pérez to honor him because he "gave his life for the freedom of his people". In this way, in the same advertising maneuver, Trump and Guaidó whitened Óscar Pérez as an ethical and moral model to be followed by those who oppose the Venezuelan State.
The circle closes on many sides with the latest revelations of CNN and Bloomberg on the role of Colombia and the United States in both operations. In this context, it is also striking that the criminals recruited for the failed assassination were trained at the Atlanta hacienda in the municipality of Chinácota, Norte de Santander, an area controlled by El Clan del Golfo, a paramilitary organization in Colombia.
It is quite evident that Pérez publicly led an armed cell of ex-members of the Venezuelan security forces with the name of religious inspiration "The Sword of God". The first armed action of this group was the attack with grenades and shots to the Ministry of Interior, Justice and Peace and the Supreme Court of Justice, from a
Thus, Venezuela, like Nicaragua in the 1980s, groups against itself the same brokerage of neoconservative 14
politicians, religious fundamentalists, criminal cartels, Miami financiers, and members of a fraction of the deep state that wants the Bolivarian Republic to modernize its policy of intervention to return strongly to the global sphere.
That same Saturday, Rodriguez affirmed that the members of these armed cells were trained in Colombia and reported the arrest in Carabobo of Wilfrido Torres Gómez, lieutenant of the paramilitary organization Los Rastrojos. These new revelations have little novelty because it was President Nicolás Maduro himself, who in December reported that in military bases in Colombia more than 700 mercenaries were trained for an irregular war in Venezuela.
SABOTAJES, ARMED CELLS AND NEW MERCENARIES This Wednesday night, President Nicolás Maduro revealed in the program Con el Mazo Dando that the fire in the patio of transformers of the El Guri hydroelectric plant was allegedly due to the firing of a sniper, located at a safe distance to carry out the attack. . After a series of sabotages to the electrical service, originated in electromagnetic pulses and cyber attacks, a physical damage of such magnitudes has the characteristics of having been carried out by terrorists advised in the matter.
In this context, the financial media Bloomberg published that on February 23, 200 Venezuelan ex-soldiers, led by retired General Clíver Alcala, tried to open the way with "armament" to the humanitarian trucks, led by the Venezuelan opposition. According to the newspaper, Colombia at the last moment avoided military aggression to "avoid a bloodbath in an event presented as peaceful." Despite that, Guaidó tried to present the fire of humanitarian aid, by his followers, as a necessary pretext for the international community to endorse a violent departure in the country.
The situation is complex after other information that circulates since Saturday: the formation of a group of around 49 mercenaries, dispersed in groups of between eight and ten people. Those who were also recruited in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to execute high-profile assassinations and attacks against public services such as the electric system, the Metro and the Caracas Cable Car, the capital of the country.
THE NICARAGUAN MIRROR AND THE DENUNCIATION OF RUSSIA In 1979, as soon as the Sandinista National Liberation Front took power in Nicaragua, the first armed actions were registered without at least a month. Among them, highlighted sabotages, terrorist attacks and military incursions, from Honduras, totalized in 392 from 1980 to 1982. At that time, in Honduras were already trained Somocista ex-guards, mercenaries, criminals and extreme right-wing fanatics to conform what later became known as the Nicaraguan Contra.
The Minister of Communication, Jorge Rodríguez, reported that this group was recruited mostly in El Salvador, one of the epicenters of the dirty war of the 80s, where the Salvadoran gangs coexist with the clan d'Aubuisson in charge of the squadrons of the death that hit Central America with high profile murderers like that of Monsignor Óscar Arnulfo Romero.
Approved in 1981 for its irregular financing by Ronald Reagan, the Nicaraguan Contra became the advertising, military and geopolitical operation par excellence of the United States to reorder national and international politics in its backyard, post-Vietnam syndrome. The objectives of this maneuver were to "rehearse military strategies and destabilization, in addition to refining a worldview and elaborating moral
Roberto d'Aubuisson, a deputy and son of the founder of the far-right party Arena, was accused in 2013 of leading the Salvadoran sniper group that tried to generate violence in the protests of Henrique Capriles Radonski against the results of the presidential elections. 15
Given this, the evolution of this behavior is that if a blow is not achieved, through the fracture of the civic-military union, it is derived from the support of an irregular war or military intervention. An extra-political option that anti-Chavez calls the best way to end the Fifth Republic, which together with the "parallel government" seeks to outsource to foreign actors functions of the State such as financial management of assets, diplomatic representations, and the monopoly of violence .
justifications for intervention", according to Professor Greg Grandin, author of the book The Empire of Necessity. This operation had many characteristic elements, such as the outsourcing of training in Argentine repressors, experts in dirty war, but one of the most damaging to the population was the permanent sabotage of public services and the production of the country. According to a CIA manual, published by former agent Philip Agee, the objective of these attacks was to paralyze the military-industrial complex to aggravate the effects of the embargo and the war against Nicaragua. The context of Venezuela today has some parallels with this historical antecedent.
Thus, in addition to working on the dismantling of the Venezuelan State, the road map of Guaidó needs a Contra that in the medium term allows it to ensure the administration of oil laws for US corporations to "invest" in Venezuela. In this framework, the Minister of Communication, Jorge Rodríguez, revealed that in the conversations between Guaidó and his chief of office, they even talked about dividing Venezuela in half to keep one of those two territories.
Russia, who in 2017 predicted the start of the April guarimbas in January, denounced on March 7 that the "main task of Washington in the current stage is to prevent the stabilization of the political situation in Venezuela at any cost". According to the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, María Zajárova: "The United States has drawn up a backup plan that tries to introduce illegal armed groups in Venezuela in order to carry out sabotage and subversive activities." Like a self-fulfilling prophecy; a few hours later the electric service was stopped by cyber attacks and electromagnetic pulses according to official information.
The outcome of Óscar Pérez's story, like that of Caguaripano and García Palomo, shows that the path of terrorism can work for a while, through infiltration, but that the start of a large-scale irregular war is played on a piece of land controlled by the Bolivarian National Armed Forces. In a context in addition, in which the organizational device of Chavism, around President Nicolás Maduro, is prepared much more for this scenario than a Juan Guaidó that in his last speech is obfuscated by the lack of commitment of his followers to start some new guarimbas as in 2017. But it is one thing to talk about a war, quite another to start it.
GUAIDÓ AND WHERE THE CONFLICT IS DIRECTED The linear trajectory of Guaidó can only be explained, as was said at the beginning of this article, if it is preceded by the figure of Óscar Pérez, presented as a martyr of the struggle against Chavismo. The road map of the transition statute, a social pact tailored to the United States, is the last act of a great course that is followed by the Venezuelan opposition to dismantle the institutional mechanisms that regulate the political conflict in Venezuela. At the same time, diplomatic spaces such as the Organization of American States are instrumentalized so that they only serve to promote an extra-constitutional solution in the country where Chavismo is not known as a political force.
www.misionverdad.com
The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy
16
17
Venezuela expresses it’s categorical rejec�on of diploma�c asylum and deten�on of Julian Assange London Metropolitan police arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London. He has been holed up in the Embassy of Ecuador in London since 2012 in order to avoid a warrant against him. Ecuador withdrew Assange’s diplomatic asylum on the 11th April 2019 leading to his arrest.
a shameful dishonor to his human rights and International Law, putting his life at imminent risk. His arrest by the police in a diplomatic place, as if he were a criminal, is a serious violation of the constitutional rights of a citizen who has been granted Ecuadorian citizenship and, as such, enjoys full rights.
The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro Moros, on behalf of the Venezuelan Government and People, categorically rejects the atrocious decision to deprive Australian-Ecuadorian citizen Julian Assange of the right of diplomatic asylum, as well as his subsequent arrest in London, clumsily and shamefully executed by British police officers.
Venezuela joins the million world voices and consciences that demand the British Government respect for Julian Assange’s integrity and human rights. Julian Assange must not be surrendered to the USA. His life is threatened in that country due to a rigged legal process. In fact, charges against him have not yet been revealed and there is a clear intention to end his life.
Julian Assange is a persecuted politician of the US Government. His crime has been revealing before the world the darkest and most criminal face of the “Regime Change Wars” perpetrated by the US imperialism and, in particular, the massive assassinations of civilians and blatant violation of human rights in Iraq.
Out of respect for the right of asylum and international Law, Julian Assange must be freed immediately; his life and integrity must be protected and respected. www.mppre.gob.ve
Julian Assange is an activist for freedom of information and speech, a universal right of humanity. His ominous bringing to justice and potential extradition to the US is
18
Is the US willing to accept a defeat in Venezuela?
The assault must be short, the Maduro government was not in a position to resist. On that certainty, the United States (USA) unleashed a strategy to overthrow it: it built Juan Guaidó as president 2.0, endowed it with a fiction of government, an international recognition, an articulated narrative among the media, an acceleration of economic sanctions at different levels . From the superposition of the variables, the different results had to be given, until reaching the forced negotiation or the exit. The course of events was not as it appeared on paper. The first and foremost was the breakdown of the Bolivarian National Armed Force (Fanb), a core element that had to happen and did not succeed. For that, a series of tactics were downloaded, from the internal conspiracy with the support of dollars, visas, and guarantees, to the strategy of the latent threat of possible intervention by the US. A combination of bluff, that is to say of discharged pistol pointed front, with dates of condensation to try the break, as it was on February 23.
19
strategic development of the US in the geopolitical dispute. A defeat in Venezuela would be attributed to the administration, in a pre-electoral period, and would be double: the permanence of Maduro, that is, the inability to align the key point of the Latin American continent, as its implication in the international picture.
The second event that should occur, with less capacity for definition in the objective, was the massive support of Guaidó in the streets. His speech states that 90% of the population supports him. The images of his ability to mobilize show that the first impulse of January 23 day of his self-recognition recognized by a tweet by Donald Trump - lost strength. One of the main reasons is the crisis of expectations because the promise of an immediate outcome did not occur. Another is that it was an artificial, mediatic, diplomatic construction, which failed to summon beyond the historical social base of the right, marked by the cut of class, geographical, material conditions of life, idiosyncrasy, and imaginaries. The opposition is too much like itself.
The latter has taken particular strength in recent days, in the voice and tweets of different US spokespeople, such as Elliot Abrams, special manager for Venezuela, Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, John Bolton, national security adviser, and Craig Faller, chief of Southern Command Their different declarations have shaped a narrative that places Venezuela as the base of operations of Russia, Iran, Cuba and China, and the Maduro government as subordinate to each one of those governments and their respective intelligence services, military, in particular the first three.
The third point was the attempt to overturn the popular sectors to the streets, for which the blackouts and their consequent lack of water were the most favorable provoked scenario. The result was not the expected either: the extended image was that of a majority in search of solving the problems, individually, collectively, articulated to the government. The protests, driven almost entirely by the right, were small and without irradiation capacity. Each of these variables has feedback points. The crisis of expectations is due, for example, to the realization that the Fanb has not been broken, that Guaidó speaks of an immediacy that does not happen, and of the conclusion that when none of the three results are given, then all that remains is to ask for the international intervention headed by the United States. That same interventionist narrative also moves those who could see in Guaidó's proposal an alternative to the current political and economic situation. Calling the majorities to achieve an international force action meets obvious barriers.
On that stage construction, the US has announced the next steps. Pompeo will go to Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Colombia, Abrams to Spain and Portugal, and have convened the third meeting of the United Nations Security Council to address the issue of Venezuela. The objectives for each of the movements have not yet been announced, although it is possible to foresee that there will be a private and a public dimension of the agreements. On the second, it could be to advance what appears to be an objective of the US: to declare the Venezuelan government as a transnational organization of crime, and to classify the "collectives" - a form of popular Chavez organization - as terrorist groups, which, affirmed Bolton, "undermine the Constitution and the territorial integrity of Venezuela." New possible actions emerge from each element.
The overthrow of Maduro does not seem possible in the relationship of national forces. He has shown that the assault will not be short, and that Chavez, who is more than a government, is in a position to resist. If it were a national issue, Guaidó would lose strength until he entered the list of opposition leaders marked by the weight of defeat. The problem is that this new coup attempt was built on a point of no return: a US construction of a façade of parallel government, later recognized by the European Union, Great Britain, Israel, Canada, right-wing governments of America Latina What to do with Guaidó if the plan does not give results due to the initial calculation error? The question is for the US, its current administration in the Donald Trump-neoconservative combination, and what is called the Deep State, that is, the real, invisible power structures that constitute and guarantee the
This increase in pressures, blockades, isolation, does not yet pose, beyond the repeated "all options are on the table", the possibility of military intervention. The 20
same Abrams returned to move away that hypothesis the past Thursday. How do you think then escalate to achieve the outcome with the combination of these actions? The US needs to define ways, capabilities of operations in the territory, internal agreements and diplomatic. On this last point the position of the European Union, in the voice of Federica Mogherini, maintains that it must "prepare the ground for free and transparent presidential elections to be held as soon as possible".
Would the US be ready for a negotiated outcome with possible permanence of Maduro? At the moment they do not seem so, nor to a defeat in Venezuela, which would be, as they have already explained, geopolitics. Wednesday will be the meeting of the Security Council convened to address this point. The right in turn called mobilizations. The painting is still moving. www.telesurtv.net The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy
21
Over 40 Groups Call on Congress to Oppose Sanc�ons and Military Interven�on
Several US groups are pressuring Congress to oppose sanctions and military intervention against Venezuela.
US attempts to oust the Venezuelan government have been escalated in recent months. Following opposition leader Juan Guaido's self-proclamation as "interim president" on January 23, which was reportedly orchestrated in Washington, the US foreign policy establishment threw its weight behind what was seen as the "final push" against the Maduro government. This escalation has seen US officials outright reject all international dialogue initiatives meant to defuse the political crisis, impose successive rounds of sanctions against the Venezuelan economy, and reiterate that all options, including a military intervention, are "on the table." These events have drawn a response from Venezuela's popular Chavista movement, with recurring rallies in support of the government and in defense of national sovereignty. Likewise, international solidarity movements have mobilized to oppose US intervention, denouncing sanctions and supporting dialogue. The letter below is undersigned by more than 40 US groups, including Just Foreign Policy and CEPR, calling on Congress to "stand against immoral, reckless, and illegal policies [...] before it's too late."
Dear Members of Congress, We, the undersigned groups, wish to express our grave concern regarding the Trump administration’s dangerous and destructive regime change strategy targeting Venezuela. Broad economic sanctions unilaterally imposed by the administration since August of 2017 have caused great hardship and loss of life for many Venezuelans. The latest round of sanctions announced in January are expected to worsen the current crisis and provoke even greater human suffering throughout the country. Though many observers have noted that civil war is an increasingly likely prospect, administration officials are vigorously opposing peaceful dialogue between the country’s political actors and have made open threats of military intervention. We call on you to take a strong, public stand against these immoral, reckless, and illegal policies and to support efforts to advance peaceful dialogue, before it is too late. We urge you to:
• Oppose economic sanctions: Although government mismanagement and the fall in global oil prices are to blame for much of Venezuela’s deep crisis, the Trump administration’s economic sanctions — both the August 2017 financial sanctions and the January 2019 sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry — are resulting in billions of dollars of additional lost foreign exchange necessary for essential imports, according to experts and even administration officials like NSC Advisor John Bolton. In the current context these sanctions will inevitably generate greater human suffering, including many deaths from lack of medicine and other essential imports. Unilateral economic sanctions are illegal under the UN Charter and the OAS Charter; and research shows that they are generally ineffective in achieving desired political results.
• Oppose threats of military intervention: President Trump has reportedly argued for military intervention in Venezuela since early 2017, while he and various other administration officials have repeatedly stated that “all options are on the table” for Venezuela. These threats are absolutely unacceptable, particularly regarding a country that poses no threat to the U.S., and are only increasing the immense political polarization in Venezuela. Members of Congress should firmly denounce these threats and make the adoption of the “Prohibiting Unauthorized Military Action in Venezuela Act” a top priority. They should also commit to invoking the 1973 War Powers Resolution in the event that President Trump and his Administration involve the military in any action directed at Venezuela, thereby triggering a debate and vote in Congress to terminate any unauthorized use of force.
• Support dialogue: U.S. administration officials have rejected the possibility of dialogue and, instead, have pushed for immediate regime change in Venezuela, calling for Venezuela’s armed forces to rebel against the Maduro government. Experts have warned that this strategy could result in a split within the country’s military, with a potentially catastrophic violent outcome. Members of Congress should oppose the administration’s dangerous zero-sum strategy and advocate for peaceful dialogue. The Vatican, the UN Secretary General, Mexico, and Uruguay have all offered to help mediate dialogue and political negotiations to resolve the current crisis peacefully. Congress should support these efforts. With the recent appointment of convicted Iran-Contra veteran Elliott Abrams as Special Envoy to Venezuela and the increasingly hawkish rhetoric coming from the White House, your support could not come at a more crucial time. There is no moral, legal, or political justification for the collective punishment of the economic sanctions, which target the Venezuelan population. There is no military solution; Venezuela’s crisis must be solved through dialogue and negotiations. Congress should therefore insist on lifting destructive economic sanctions, and taking unauthorized war off the table.
Sincerely, Just Foreign Policy, Demand Progress, Peace Action, American Friends Service Committee, VoteVets, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas - Institute Justice Team, United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries, Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Presbyterian Church (USA), Alianza Americas, CASA de Maryland, Franciscan Action Network, Maryknoll Office on Global Concerns, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, National Day Laborers Organizing Network, Chicago Religious Leadership Network, Historians for Peace and Democracy, Center for International Policy - Americas Program, Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) - New Internationalism Project, Code Pink, Roots Action, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Environmentalists against War, Arise for Social Justice, Just Associates (JASS), Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), Guatemala Human Rights Commission, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), World Beyond War, Vermont Workers’ Center, ONE DC, Out Now, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice, Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee, Traprock Center for Peace and Justice, Brooklyn for Peace, The Resistance Center for Peace and Justice, One Corea Now, Center for the Study of the Americas (CENSA), Nation Time Judicial Research, Western Massachusetts Code Pink, Peace Action Montgomery, Veterans for Peace, Chapter 23, Rochester, NY, Peace Action New York State, Massachusetts Peace Action, Western Massachusetts Venezuela Solidarity Coalition, New Jersey Peace Action, Action Corps NYC. www.venezuelanalysis.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy
THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE IS THE GREATEST OF ALL POWERS, AFTER THE POWER OF GOD -HUGO CHÁVEZ-
EDITORIAL TEAM: Jose Avila, Keyla Castillo, Milka Aweyo, Fredrick Kasuku, CONTACT: UN Crescent, Opposite Diplomatic Police Gigiri, Nairobi Kenya, P. O. Box 2437- 00621, Tel: (+254 - 20) 712 06 . 48 / 712 06 . 49