Special Bulletin - Venezuela and Geopolitical Role "Reasons for a siege" by Venezuelan Embassy in Nairobi

Bulletin Special

Bolivarian Government Ministry of Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Embassy of the Bolivarian of Venezuela Power for Foreign Affairs Republic of Venezuela

Volume 1, 2019

Venezuela and its Geopolitical Role: Reasons for a Siege

Content 1) Editorial 2) Guaidó is sworn in as president of Venezuela and Trump recognizes him. 3) Trump's Only Goal: To End Chavismo 4) The role of the Washington a in the last coup attempt in Venezuela 5) A New Hawk in the Venezuela War 6) Session of the Security Council: A photo of the global conﬂict 7) "They have pushed Venezuela to the precipice": 8) What keeps Chavismo standing? 9) Venezuela and its geopolitical role: Reasons for a siege 10) Who is in charge of "restoring democracy" in Venezuela? 11) Sanctions of Mass Destruction: America’s War on Venezuela 12) Sanctions to PDVSA: Fuel for a war

Editorial Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro denounced that the real objective of the United States behind imposing a parallel government in the South American nation is to appropriate the energy and mineral resources of this country. A deeper look into the reasons behind such right-wing flood to support the parliamentary coup reveals that the objective behind such endorsement of an internationally illegal act is behind the publicly stated humanitarian reasons and in fact about robbing the country of its riches after two decades of progressive and sovereign policies by the Bolivarian government that limited Washington's access to such resources. In 1998, Commander Hugo Chavez Frias had a pivotal electoral triumph that changed the fate of Latin America for around 20 years, from that time to this date, there have been up to 15 progressive democratically elected governments in the region. From that moment a series of efforts began, in order to destabilize these governments. Soft coups against progressive presidents started, the first one against President Chavez in 2002 which failed, then another against Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya in 2010, followed by a parliamentary maneuver against Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo, and partially ending with a parliamentary coup against Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff in 2016. These processes have been defined as "lawfare", such as the current legal wrangling against Lula, to which we can add the more recent ones against Rafael Correa and Jorge Glas in Ecuador and a very similar process against Cristina Kirshner in Argentina. The domino effect rising of right-wing governments in Latin America, and defeating the "National Popular governments" continues in the region, and Venezuela is one of the last standing defenses, along with Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and El Salvador. This is why a destabilization mediatic and a political and economic campaign has been unleashed against Venezuela, and all the "National Popular governments" of Latin America, for years. Defeating Venezuela, one of the first progressive countries and governments in the region, is so important for the U.S. and the local right-wing oligarchies. It would be a defeat to progressivism in the region.

Guaidó is sworn in as president of Venezuela and Trump recognizes him. Now what? It is done: Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself "president in charge of Venezuela" until the holding of elections, at a rally in Juan Pablo II Square, near Chacaíto, Caracas.

In that document all the references due to the eﬀective usurpation, in the real terms dictated by the Venezuelan Constitution, of all the state responsibilities in the members of that "National Council for the Democratic Transition" are cited. Every management and interest in the political, economic, military, diplomatic, etc., areas of the country would automatically be competence of what that council decides.

It does so in a political context in which the National Assembly (AN), still in contempt, previously decided to call President Nicolás Maduro a "usurper" of the national executive branch, at the same time that the Venezuelan opposition heated the streets through insurrectional and open councils and the Florida lobby convinced the White House to support a "transitional government" led, precisely, by the now maximum representative of Voluntad Popular (VP).

What was missing for Guaidó to self-insult as President of Venezuela were the negotiations on the diplomatic side, with the governments of the Lima Group abiding by any decision emanating from the United States. All this happened simultaneously today, January 23, then minutes after Guaidó promised to take over executive power, because in the eyes of the AN there is a vacuum of power ("Maduro is not president, on May 20, 2018 it was an unconstitutional fraud "), the White House issued a statement of support to the VP as" interim president ". Automatically, a series of governments (at the close of this note, 14) and the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) repeated the same gesture of Donald Trump, strongly inﬂuenced by the recommendations of Senator Marco Rubio.

The question that many Venezuelans and Venezuelans are asking themselves at this moment is, then, about what will happen from now on, since the constitutional president is still Nicolás Maduro, since he exercises the functions as head of state and, also, as commander in chief of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB). Installation of the "transition government" During the ﬁrst weeks of January, the AN's board of directors, headed by Guaidó as its president, decided to promote a bill that authorized the creation of a "National Council for the Democratic Transition", whose members would be appointed by the same Parliament. 3

have reported after Guaidó's self-regulation.

These would be the first steps to finish combining a "transitional government", because it is based on a fictitious floor but sufficiently propagated and supported by international factors that disguises the illegal acts before the Venezuelan State of Law as exercises of constitutional legitimacy. It is an exercise that they have been practicing since the AN, bastion with which they promoted the financial blockade on national soil (Julio Borges administration) and set the bases for a possible oil embargo with the de facto power of the United States.

White House officials have already warned some US refiners earlier this month that the Trump Administration was considering expanding sanctions on the oil embargo, and recommended they seek alternatives to Venezuelan heavy oil sources. The New York media highlights that the oil companies asked Washington not to take the action, arguing that it could harm the Gulf and East Coast refineries designed to handle the heavy crude oil of the United States and, by the way, make the Gas prices rise vertiginously.

Financing of "the transition" and calls to the FANB Guaidó told Bloomberg, after the session of January 22 in the Hemicycle: "Under the rule of law, we will have clear elements to obtain new financing to boost the economy, stabilize the country and serve the oil industry," and adhered "With a new government, the debt will not only be paid, but we could refinance with the confidence of a government that can pay."

However, energy, economic and legal analysts have placed at the center the warning of a possible seizure of the assets of CITGO, a US subsidiary of PDVSA, greed for debt creditors (vulture funds) and that it would serve as a turning point in the coordination of ﬁnancing for the opposition grouped in the so-called "transition council". In Creole: they would use the Venezuelan money to ﬁnance a war between the Venezuelans themselves that would destroy their own State. That is the intention, although, as we already know, desires do not embark.

He also said that he "extends his hand to the military." This is in the strategic framework of seeking support within the FANB for the coup plan that would deﬁnitively depose the Maduro government from the executive branch. For weeks, both US oﬃcials and opposition politicians have encouraged the Venezuelan military high command to back the now "interim president" Juan Guaidó instead of the current constitutional president.

The countries of the Lima Group, likewise, would be willing to accompany the sanctions imposed by the White House against Venezuela, as has been the case politically and diplomatically.

Possible steps from the NA onwards

To this end, the AN created a legal instrument as an amnesty oﬀering (not binding for "anyone who has worked for the dictatorship and now comes to our side", in reference to those members of the FANB who wish to join the military wing of the National Council for the Democratic Transition ").

On January 22, the Parliament approved the appointment of Marcos Tarre Briceño as ambassador of Venezuela to the OAS, this being the ﬁrst act of government of "the transition", in conformity with the ﬁgure of "parallel government" of which it is vested with Facto the AN. It should be remembered that Maduro ordered the departure of the country from that multilateral organization in 2017 because it was the pivot of actions that were harmful to the national institutions.

On the economic side, Bloomberg emphasizes that "Venezuela has not only lost access to international capital markets (via White House sanctions), but creditors are getting closer." Investors in debt have begun to group together to demand more than 9 billion dollars in past-due bonus payments. " In fact, a group of bondholders came together as a block to refuse to negotiate with the government of Nicolás Maduro and to recognize the AN as "the only organ legitimately elected in the oil country," Reuters reported.

It is precisely abroad that the most important scenarios are played in the "transitional government" plan. That is why Venezuelan members of Harvard University insist, in an article for The New York Times (NYT) in Spanish, that "the National Assembly, as the only authority with legitimacy of origin in Venezuela, could act as representative of the Venezuelan State abroad, in order to exercise the defense and protection of their rights. "

In another note, Bloomberg explains that "the Trump Administration is also prepared to sanction Venezuelan oil exports, according to people familiar with the issue, but it has not been decided when to take that step", issue that is expected for this week as some agencies

And they add: "This new situation opens the possibility for the Venezuelan opposition to take the lead in an operation aimed at protecting the assets of the Venezuelan State abroad", in reference to the support by the bondholders, the demands they have made energy 4

The Libyan (and Syrian) case and the geopolitical factor It is no coincidence that the authors of the NYT have referred to what happened in Libya and Syria at the dawn of the transnational war against their governments, their State and their population. Previously, Misión Verdad repeatedly insisted that the Libyan format was being transferred to the Caribbean basin.

companies against PDVSA and the Venezuelan State before international tribunals of arbitration and the oil embargo that is posed in the corridors of the White House. They continue: "Within the scope of the countries that recognize the AN as the sole legitimate authority, the actions of the assembly could go further: they could range from the taking of reﬁneries and other assets owned by the Venezuelan State, through the appropriation of the liquid assets and oil sales events circulating in those countries, up to legal representation in proceedings against the Venezuelan State. "

The similarities in terms of the installation of the Libyan National Transitional Council (CNT) and the Venezuelan case are more than evident, since it is the same format updated to the political, economic, social and historical circumstances, which seeks the extermination of both of chavism as of the state institutions that have made politics possible as the main mediating element in Venezuela.

"In this context, the National Assembly can request countries that recognize it as a legitimate authority to protect Venezuelan assets that are in their territories, which could beneﬁt all creditors, since the values of recovery of their debts in the event of a collective attack may be less than what they would achieve in a more orderly restructuring process carried out as a consequence of a nationally and internationally recognized political transition.

Recall: between March and September 2011, the Libyan CNT sought and achieved the recognition of several countries (Arab League, European countries, the United States, ﬁnally the UN) as the legitimate government of Libya over that of Muammar al-Qaddaﬁ. The organism was extended with the representatives of the cities that were taking the armed groups (mercenary militias, the media calls "rebels") in conjunction with NATO.

"Regardless of the success of these actions, the image of the opposition acting as a government in charge of an operation to defend the assets of Venezuela would be very powerful, and the window to specify this possibility is relatively limited, not only because its period ends in 2021, but because the intense political fray threatens to wear it down and disintegrate it. "

By October of that year, that instance called for presidential and parliamentary elections for the following year, eight months later.

Recognized by the British government as the "only government authority", the CNT represented the Libyan State before the courts of the United Kingdom to claim ownership of liquid assets deposited in the British Arab Commercial Bank as a financing measure, about 1 billion euros that then disappeared without the slightest trace.

Through these actions, the AN could generate income from ﬁnancing its coup plans, along with the heating of Venezuelan streets and the attempt to form an army (mercenary, with military components out of exercise abroad) capable of doing in front of the FANB, this last scenario is unlikely given the conditions: the security and intelligence apparatus of the State has been working to neutralize any insurrectional action, such as what happened on January 21 at the headquarters of GNB in Cotiza, Caracas. Also, the "National Council of Democratic Transition" can appeal to the private sectors of banking and industry in search of both organic-technical and infrastructural, as well as ﬁnancial support.

The results, however, were different: Libya today is a broker dealing with white women, slaves and drug trafficking, managed by armed mercenary and religious fundamentalist groups; Syria, after almost eight years of war, has managed to emerge victorious after the Russian Federation, at the request of the government of Bashar al-Assad in 2015, intervened politically and militarily on the battlefield.

In September 2011, the CNT together with the armed forces took control of the Libyan territory and negotiated with the oil companies for the development of energy production, stopped by the war against Gaddaﬁ. Recognized by the British government as the "only government authority", the CNT represented the Libyan State before the courts of the United Kingdom to claim ownership of liquid assets deposited in the British Arab Commercial Bank as a ﬁnancing measure, about 1 billion euros that then disappeared without the slightest trace.

It is precisely the geopolitical factor that diﬀerentiates the context between what happened in the Middle East and what happens in the present continuous in Venezuela. China and Russia are the two main powers that support the government of Nicolás Maduro, after learning based on the Libyan experience and in defense of their own interests in the Caribbean basin.

The Libyan transition government installed committees in the areas of Economy, Politics and Legal Aﬀairs of security and defense, taking control and reforming the Libyan state after the coup and assassination of Gaddaﬁ.

China has economic-commercial capacity to put pressure on the United States to achieve some kind of negotiation, in a context of tension between both powers under the tariﬀ policies of Trump and Xi Jinping. The Russians, on the other hand, are the generators of a military capacity superior to the North, and support the FANB in terms of arms in defense of Venezuelan sovereignty.

It must be taken into account that the leaders of the CNT were once part of high positions in the government of Gaddaﬁ, both in the public and military powers, just as in Venezuela Guaidó intends to do it. He also settled for ﬁgures resident abroad, especially in Europe and the United States.

At the close of this note, President Nicolás Maduro announced the breakdown of diplomatic relations with the US government, and demanded the withdrawal of his diplomatic personnel immediately. The White House responded in the same way.

Omar Hariri was an officer of the Libyan army and then imprisoned by the Gaddafi administration, however he led the military affairs of the CNT. In the same way, Ali Tarhuni returned to Libya from the United States to take the economic, financial and oil issues of the CNT.

What shows clearly that the expansion of the battleﬁeld no longer has border limits, is played in international terrain, although what is at stake is national stability and everything that comprises it: be its territory, its fundamental infrastructures, its political culture and its population. The very existence of Venezuela.

However, the most outstanding thing is that the CNT was strongly supported by NATO since it was installed. The Atlantic alliance supported the "Libyan rebels" through the imposed leadership of the mercenaries from Al-Qaeda, as it was later known. After the elections in 2012 (August), the CNT was dissolved to transfer the power to the General Congress of the Nation. During those dates, what happened in Libya was traced in Syria through the National Coalition for Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

www.misionverdad.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

Trump's only goal: To End Chavismo Eight months after the presidential elections of May 2018, which designated Nicolas Maduro as winner with more than 6 million votes (67.8% and 46% of participation), the attempts to delegitimize his government have multiplied in this month of January. Although democratically elected, the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is challenged by a part of the opposition… who refused to participate in the elections!

elections of 2018 would have no value, contradicting observers as unlikely as former President Jimmy Carter, whose foundation participated in many electoral processes in Venezuela and called its system “the best in the world”. On January 15, the President of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, inaugurates his first meeting by pointing himself out as the main figure of the opposition and proposing, in the first item of the meeting, to declare the president Nicolas Maduro a “usurper”. The second point? Encourage the military to a coup. Very ordinary indeed.

No offense to some, on January 10, the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, officially took office. Immediately, the OAS (the Organization of American States) declared it “illegitimate” in a statement that was relentlessly relayed by the media. It is noteworthy that the OAS, based in Washington, is presided over by a Luis Almagro disowned by his own party in Uruguay as well as by all the progressive forces of the continent. Remarkably, the new government of Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador rejects the interference and sends a representative of Mexico to the nomination, while explaining that respect for sovereignty is a sacred principle governed by the Mexican Constitution.

After the failed uprising of a group of soldiers on Monday, Jan. 21, coinciding with the recent appeal to delegitimize the Government of Venezuela by the opposition’s president in the National Assembly and the recurring threats of the United States, the opposition’s and Chavistas marches were held Wednesday, January 23 in Caracas. In the previous days, targeted violence erupted, such as the degrading of the Robert Serra Cultural Center, named in remembrance of the murder of a young Chavista deputy. On social networks, users shared the picture of a bust of Chavez hanging on a thread, symbol of a hate speech that does not spare the journalists either. Indeed, Madeleine Garcia, a reporter

The next day, before doing the same with the Government of Nicaragua, elected with 72% of the votes and 68% of voters participation, the OAS met to declare that the vote of more than 6 million Venezuelans in the 7

tion MPs who have beneﬁted from a system based on purchase of votes. Despite the fact that according to the Constitution, the National Assembly is subject to the decisions of justice of the Supreme Court, its president at the time, Julio Borges, inaugurates the session by swearing in the deputies in question. Not content with taking oﬃce, the opposition says it will not implement decisions from the executive branch, considering that the government of Maduro is illegitimate and his days are numbered. Once again, the role the Constitution assigns to the National Assembly is to ensure the normal functioning of public policies by approving the general guidelines of the executive. Since then, the government accuses the opposition of having settled in a situation of “disobedience”.

for TeleSUR, who has become known for her numerous political crisis coverage on the ground, is designated as a target for her supposed complicity with “the dictatorship”. The day before the march, 4 deaths were recorded in clashes and looting. And now? It is not excluded that the opposition will take advantage of a new round of confrontations and violence to try another coup with the support of the international media through false information, as it was the case in April 2002. In this event, the United States may be ready to “help the people of Venezuela to restore democracy”.

The putschist tradition of the opposition

Since the death of Hugo Chavez on March 5, 2013, the opposition has resorted to all possible methods to avoid the continuity of Chavism. Already in the ﬁrst election of Nicolas Maduro against Enrique Capriles, he had called his constituents to go out in the street after the results proclaiming the advance of Maduro over him were made public. As a result 7 dead were recorded. This reaction would not be accepted in most countries, and the opposition that would do so would be guilty of a lack of ethics in the electoral process and the separation of powers. But whatever it does, regardless of the gravity and consequences that follow, the opposition ins Venezuela seems to rely on the favors of the international public opinion.

Without taking a second of respite, 2016 was the year in which the economic situation decisively deteriorated in the country, mainly because of an economic model based on the dependence on the international price of exported oil. Attempts at stabilization within OPEC will be slow to achieve some results. At the same time, mechanisms of “economic warfare”, like those carried out against Chile of Allende or Sandinista Nicaragua, have been observed, but they are minimized or even considered as a fallacious argument by critics of Chavism. Still, ﬁnancial sanctions have proliferated, and the arrival of Donald Trump at the end of 2016 is no exception. The Trump administration will return to the habit of its predecessors in regional politics, notably through the increasingly active role of the Organization of American States (OAS), but also by trying to involve the new right-wing governments in the region to collaborate in a collective attack against Venezuela, as evidenced by Mike Pence’s three tours in Latin America and Mike Pompeo’s more recent tour of Latin America.

Only a few months later, in late 2013, Leopoldo Lopez, leader of a party ranked on the far right of the political spectrum, openly launched a call for insurrection, “La Salida” (The exit). Following a pattern similar to that of the color revolutions in Eastern Europe, Lopez inaugurates a cycle of demonstrations presented as peaceful, by a media ﬂood of “false information” that hides their true violent nature. As a result: 43 dead and more than 800 wounded. A few months after the failure of this coup attempt, President Barack Obama will intervene in early 2015 to activate a decree that considers Venezuela as an “exceptional threat to the national security of the United States.” This statement takes root in the traditional US interference in what its elites have considered since 1823 as its “backyard”, as was unambiguously established by the Monroe Doctrine. In the parliamentary elections in December 2015, the opposition of Venezuela wins the majority of votes in the National Assembly for the ﬁrst time since the election of Hugo Chavez. Although it raised the risk of electoral fraud in the weeks preceding the vote, the opposition does not dispute the outcome of the elections when they are the winners. However, following a few denunciations of irregularities, the Supreme Court of Justice invalidates the election of three opposi-

In the spring of 2017, the opposition charged once more by repeating the 2014 scheme, and this time relying on the popular discontent that economic degradation should instill. The death toll is even heavier than during the last crisis, this time with 131 dead.

But this strategy proves to be a new failure. On the one hand, thanks to the governmental initiative of CLAP (Local Committees of Popular Supply) to face the diﬃculties of the population. On the other hand, the social measures continued, as evidenced by the delivery of two and a half million new housing units, as part of the “Gran Mision Vivienda” (Great Housing Mission) initiated in 2011. Above all, Maduro has had the audacity to stop this new cycle of violence by soliciting citizen participation via the call for a referendum in favor of a Constituent Assembly. It succeeded in mobilizing the

population in favor of peace and a return to democratic normality.

US Vice President Mike Pence encouraged some of the Venezuelan people to go out on the streets to “restore democracy and freedom.” In other words, to destroy Venezuela, like other countries of the South.

Divided, the opposition then had to fall back on itself and was taken aback by this master stroke. Despite internal rivalries and indecision about the need to see its interests represented, the opposition has again taken refuge in a denial position following the announcement of the new presidential elections of 2018. Noting the popular support still enjoyed by Chavism, Trump then declared that the United States had a “military option” for Venezuela. Last year, US oﬃcials admitted that “Trump’s government held secret meetings with rebel Venezuelan military to discuss plans to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro”.

In many European countries, Venezuela has served as a scarecrow to scare voters, making those who are tempted by a progressive candidate believe that the Bolivarian experience did not beneﬁt their people. By acting in a caricatural manner, the international right wing and its media relays have deliberately concealed the undeniable facts when it comes to the reduction of social inequalities that characterized the Venezuelan government’s policy, such as the right to housing or education. Focusing on the reality of economic problems and its sensationalist aspects, instead of trying to explain the complex reasons for this situation, the media have fabricated the image of a Venezuela plunged into chaos for political ends.

Chaos strategy for the Caribbean After the flight abroad of many opposition figures targeted by an arrest warrant, such as Julio Borges and Antonio Ledezma, Venezuela is constantly confronted with a media campaign to instill the idea in the international public opinión that this country is a dictatorship. The new president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Juan Guaido, does not improvise when, on January 15, he inaugurates the first agenda of the National Assembly, with the objective of an “agreement on the declaration of the usurpation of the Presidency of the Republic and the application of the Constitution in order to restore it “in the first point, and a” Decree to grant Amnesty and Constitutional guarantees to those military and civilians who will help defend the Constitution “in the second one.

The political opposition of Venezuela, now represented by Juan Guaido, does not only welcome openly any external support, namely the tradition that has become the interference, but it depends on it to survive! That the EU, the French government and others are so clearly opposed to international law and the sovereignty on which peace depends as well as full respect for human rights should be of great concern to us. When some media take up for themselves the self-proclamation of an opponent in Venezuela who denies the separation of powers and the Constitution, and justiﬁes his call for insurrection for external support, this is not called information, but propaganda war. Humanity is experiencing serious challenges. The right to fair and objective information is everyone’s business. After so many wars and coups d’état made possible by our governments and whose record is never established, the expression of solidarity between indignant, rebellious, red / yellow vests, home-grown resistants and the people of America under threat is the least of the possibilities we have left.

On Tuesday 23, in a blatant interference message, US Vice President Mike Pence encouraged some of the Venezuelan people to go out on the streets to “restore democracy and freedom.” In other words, to destroy Venezuela, like other countries of the South. After so many interventions, would the perfect democracy that the United States wishes to see emerge be similar to that of Ukraine, Honduras, Libya or Afghanistan? At this point, it is no secret that UN multilateralism is not to the taste of the United States. The illusion that some have had in the management of President Obama has broken into a thousand pieces. His promise to close Guantanamo was a smoke screen.

Article by: Alex Anfruns www.telesurenglish.net

The role of Washington in the last coup attempt in Venezuela A cable from the Associated Press (AP) reveals that the United States and its partners in the South American region were aware of the details of the opposition agenda to execute the plan for the installation of a "parallel or transitional government". It is reported that Juan Guaidó maintained communications with US oﬃcials during the weeks of December 2018, and then held a meeting in Washington. The plan "was consolidated during weeks of secret diplomacy that included buried messages," according to the note. In addition to the trip to the United States, the leader of Voluntad Popular (VP) included visits to Brazil and Colombia. The government of Iván Duque allowed the exit by land to Guaidó of Venezuela with the purpose of not raising suspicions between the Venezuelan migratory authorities. According to the AP, the president of the National Assembly (AN) commented in Bogotá on the plan to proclaim himself interim president at the demonstration on January 23. Opposition politician Antonio Ledezma added details about the talks, cited by the agency: the United States and the Latin American countries opposed to the government of Nicolás Maduro, grouped in the Lima Group, were informed that demonstrations were to be held for the inauguration of the 10 from January. He adds that "building consensus in a fragmented anti-government coalition was an uphill struggle". On

this, we must remember the political disarmament that opposition political parties suffered after the failure in the guarimbas of early 2017. The bad move led them to establish channels of dialogue with the Bolivarian Government, a fact that was also disowned by the most of his followers. "Prolonged sessions sending text messages became normal," said Ledezma in relation to the silent orchestration of the coup that was taking place. Leopoldo López, a seditious and imprisoned leader of VP, would have been one of the main channels of information, according to an anonymous US official. Follow the cable: "The decision to confront Maduro directly was only possible thanks to the solid support of the government of Donald Trump, who led a group of conservative Latin American governments to recognize Guaidó." Apparently, other politicians of high influence of the Democratic Party, Senators Bob Menendez and Dick Durbin, also gave their support to the coup decision. From the United States they confirm that the White House is the maximum responsible for Guaidó to obtain a strong support from the Latin American governments opposed to Chavismo. We quote: "Trump personally has unleashed much of this," said (Fernando) Cutz, currently employed by the lobbying firm Cohen Group. "In every conversation he has had with leaders in Latin America since he took office, he 10

who insisted, once again, on recognizing Guaidó according to the plan.

mentions Venezuela. He has moved many opinions. '" AP emphasizes that "Canada played a leading role," Chancellor Chrystia Freeland spoke with Guaidó the night before Maduro took office and offered him the support of his government to confront the socialist leader, "a Canadian official said. "They were also very active Peru, Brazil with its new right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, and Colombia."

Not in vain, from that media platform decided to give the nickname of "Derrocador en Jefe" (Ouster in Chief).

A measure thought recently?

The meetings held in the Dominican Republic in the framework of the dialogue roundtables in 2017 and early 2018, which had as one of its mediators former Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, sought to generate consensus between both blocs in order to achieve an exit to the violent cycle and achieve political stability in the country.

The role of Rubio

... In fact, an article in The New York Times (NYT) affirms that Rubio "has become the leader and architect of politics, and in the de facto spokesperson, of a daring and risky campaign that involves the United States in the conflict that now captivates Venezuela. Although Senator Marco Rubio recently declared that, although the United States manages "all options" in relation to Venezuela, nobody has spoken openly in the US government of a military intervention to support a coup d'état, the evidence that has been thought of This measure are several, coming from the American media. In fact, an article in The New York Times (NYT) affirms that Rubio "has become the leader and architect of politics, and in the de facto spokesperson, of a daring and risky campaign that involves the United States in the conflict that now captivates Venezuela. " The journalists who signed the note referred to the senator as "the virtual Secretary of State for Latin America," who "has made efforts to engage and educate Mr. Trump" in relation to a coup against the Chavista government of Nicolás Maduro.

The return of the "agglutination" referred to by the AP cable can be linked to the breakdown of conversations in the Dominican Republic, when Venezuelan opponents, led by anti-Chavez spokesman Julio Borges, refused to sign an agreement that had involved their participation. under the public pressure of Rubio. The departure of Borges from the dialogue tables was due to pressures made by the US State Department that prevented the pact of political coexistence. On February 7, 2018, Zapatero commented on the sabotage that the opposition political parties made to the signing of the agreements. "The text presented is a synthesis of the essentials in terms of electoral guarantees, observation and the presidential date," he told the press.

They add that both Rubio and Vice President Mike Pence and other senior oﬃcials "have urged" Trump to support Guaidó.

During his speech, he added that "nobody has proposed an alternative to this agreement of democratic coexistence". That afternoon, Borges would have presented a counter-document that sabotaged all the consensuses and imposed others that clearly favored the opposition.

The constant whisper on the part of the senator from Florida to the ears of the president of the state to get involved more and more comes from February 2017 (visit Lilian Tintori Oval Hall), then, says the New York media- Rubio and Trump has spoken about Venezuela at least once a month since then.

The oﬃcial document established the conditions for holding elections, discussed in sessions with the government and the opposition. Among the electoral demands was the invitation to multilateral organizations to be international observers of the process, access to the media and establishment of a timetable for legislative and municipal elections.

Also, when Guaidó had assumed the idea of self-righteousness as "president in charge of Venezuela," NYT reports that on Tuesday, January 22, "Mr. Trump and his team met with Mr. Rubio in the White House along with three other Republicans from Florida: Governor Ron DeSantis, Senator Rick Scott and Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart. " Mr. Rubio would have been the one 11

It should be noted that all agreements were taken as reference by the CNE when the 2018 electoral agenda was developed.

That de-legitimation of the presidential elections of May 20 not only tried to break all political solutions to the Venezuelan conﬂict, but also paved the way for the more seditious opposition groups, headed by VP, to take control of the National Assembly and thus promoting an unprecedented format of intervention and coup (already tried in the Middle East) not only in Venezuela, but in Latin America.

The torpedoing of the political actions primarily driven by the Bolivarian Government shows that the opposition, weakened at that time, took a deliberate decision not to stand for the presidential elections to delegitimize them, as well as the refusal of the UN and the European Union. send an electoral mission, as agreed.

The also failed opposition plebiscite in favor of installing a "parallel government" in the context of the guarimbas of 2017 proves, in addition, that the "interim presidency" of Guaidó was a long-standing plan. Only now it was released in public before the favorable correlation of right-wing governments in the region, even if its course is uncertain, possibly violent and has not assured any kind of success.

The reasons seem to trace this point, which combines an economic crisis mainly exacerbated by the ﬁnancial blockade via US sanctions with the installation of a "parallel government" led by VP, a breeding ground in the social. From there the opposition ﬁshes, as in the last six years, to absorb political capital with which it now seeks support from both the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) and the broad popular sectors to end the coup d'état.

www.misionverdad.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

A New Hawk in the Venezuela War It is from the hand of this band of criminals, as advisors and lawyers, that Donald Trump lashes out against Venezuela. So, with what morality can Trump, Marcos Rubio or John Bolton accuse Venezuela? Everything points out that certain sectors of the Yankee oligarchy more sensible, are prepared for the impeachment of this entrepreneur of contests of beauty and casinos in Las Vegas, which aims to give orders to the world as if they were the managers of their own companies. Faced with the blunder of recognizing in Venezuela this violent and blind boy as "interim president", Trump, faithful to his purpose of intervening militarily in our country, takes a second step by naming none other than one of the most conspicuous Yankee neo-fascists: Elliot Abraham, who put together the strategy for the invasion of Iraq that left one million dead; who led the war of extermination to El Salvador and Nicaragua in the eighties, who was the architect of the Iran-contra operation to deliver arms to the Nicaraguan counterrevolutionaries, which the US Congress had prohibited. Abraham He was prosecuted, convicted, convicted and imprisoned ... But of course he was later pardoned by Bush as part of a settlement. This sinister subject is one of those responsible for the criminal upsurge of the war in Central America, the thousands of disappeared, the chain murders, the tortures and the bloodthirsty death squads in El Salvador; It is also responsible for extorting neighboring countries to force them to provide accommodation, logistical and military collaboration to that illegal army created by Ronald Reagan against Nicaragua.

Two consecutive victories, in the antediluvian OAS and in the UN Security Council, conﬁrm the resounding failure of the US in its attempt to overthrow the government of Nicolás Maduro through a coup d'état. The 17 countries, in comparison with the imperialist ambitions to reoﬀend in their history of aggressions with bloody or soft blows in Latin America, together with all that tangle of legal maneuvers, in Bolivarian Venezuela They ran into an impregnable wall. The US and its satellite countries once again were perplexed with empty hands. The whole pseudo-legal scene fell apart. The world has decided on the sovereignty and self-determination of Venezuela against this new US outrage. Going to the Security Council on the recommendation of Mike Pompeo, who will already receive his due from his own government by mistake size, has been but another example of the political obscurantism of these Yankee leaders in the midst of the political and sexual imbalances that shake the White House. Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is in jail and is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars, if not pardon him, of course. Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid $ 120,000 to two prostitutes not to open their mouths about the president's sexual escapades. He is prisoner and safe waiting for the pardon. A few days ago, the US Special Prosecutor, Robert Mueller, has just arrested one of Trump's former collaborators: Roger Stone, who is charged with several serious crimes including perjury, obstruction of justice, manipulation of witnesses, etc etc. 13

Abraham has come to Venezuela like a peace dove, affirming that it is necessary to avoid civil war, when he was justly appointed to promote and organize it, as he did in Central America. Abraham will be in charge of intensifying efforts to blood the country, to reinforce all the actions of war without restraint, to do without the inefficient guarimbas and of these leaders of the right, useless and inexperienced. Follow the steps of his boss Trump, who has taken into his own hands the war against the Bolivarian country, in the face of the repeated failures of the Creole right.

more than 120 thousand well-disciplined and well-prepared military personnel. militarily, with strong and reliable allied powers in the world and with a people determined to face any Yankee adventure together with a million and a half militiamen willing to give their lives for their country. It will be the eﬀorts for peace that broke the bloody ambitions of Trump and Abraham, who will convince them that invading Venezuela will mean the last kick of US imperialism in the Big Homand of Bolívar, San Martín, O'Higgins, Chávez and Nicolás Maduro Moros!

Abraham is a man of war with experience in Iraq and comes with the euphoria of a neo-fascist psychopath. But Abraham must remember that it was precisely in Venezuela where he suﬀered the ﬁrst defeat in 2002, because he was one of the strategists of the failed coup against Commander Hugo Chávez.

Article by: Mr Alfredo Lugo Venezuela Intellectual The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

Trump and Abraham try to obviate in an irresponsible way the monolithic unity that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has in its Bolivarian National Armed Force, well armed and perfectly trained, with an extraordinary anti aircraft defense capacity, with

Session of the Security Council: A photo of the global conflict While the countries of the Lima Group and the European Union (EU) like Peru, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Great Britain, France and Belgium, among others, maintained with nuances the same discursive line that in sections made their condition even more coarse of United States satellites. In the case of the former, the representative of Brazil, Mauro Vieira, spoke perhaps a little more when he said that the "only possible dialogue in Venezuela is between the political forces that today control the National Assembly and the democratic opposition, without considering no way to the Maduro regime. "

The United Nations (UN) Security Council met to discuss Venezuela in an extraordinary session convened by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The relevant political fact was that the United States did not even dare to present a resolution recognizing Juan Guaidó as "interim president" of Venezuela, as happened on Thursday at the Organization of American States (OAS). This is relevant, since in his speech, Pompeo said that "countries must choose which side they are on, whether with the forces of freedom or with the league of Maduro and its chaos." This attempt to generate a part of the waters inside the Security Council that brings back to the center stage the lack of support for policies of direct interference by Washington in multilateral organizations such as the UN and the OAS, where until 2011 it legitimized , without problems, your actions.

For his part, the United Kingdom's minister for the Americas, Alan Duncan, revealed the extortionate position of the EU when he stated: "We are side by side with the United States, Guaidó is the right man to lead to Venezuela and we will recognize him as president if there are no free elections in 8 days. " Again, for history, the new missed opportunity that Europe leaves behind to have a constructive position in Latin America, as if he liked to be an old cachifa (servant) continent of the United States.

Pompeo also threatened Venezuela by saying that Caracas "should not put the United States to the test because it would protect its diplomats and its civilian population," in reference to the recent expulsion of personnel from the US embassy in the country, and the subsequent eviction of non-essential personnel from this headquarters. The rest of his speech was focused on labeling Venezuela as a "puppet" of Russia and Cuba, equating them, in a forced maneuver of public opinion, with two empires that control Venezuelan soil. A statement more speciﬁc to Maria Corina Machado's conspiranoic hysteria than to a representative of the foreign policy of a global power.

In contrast, Russia's UN representative, Vasili Nebenzia, scoﬀed at the United States when he called Trump's national security adviser John Bolton a "Bolshevik" for speaking out about expropriating assets and property owned by Venezuela. In that context, he lamented that the Venezuelan issue has come to the Council as "a strategy to change the government of Venezuela, given that the favorite political game of the United States is 15

In that context, Arreaza made the following statement: "What do you want, lead Venezuela to a civil war?" They

regime change." On the air, almost ﬁnishing his ﬁrst of many speeches, his question remained to Pompeo about whether the United States is willing to resort to force to overthrow a sovereign state.

In this scenario, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Jorge Arreaza, openly confronted with the United States, whom he placed "in front of the coup", and with the EU whom he accused of following what Donald Trump says, which in his opinion is "regrettable" " Among the many arguments put forward, Arreaza stressed that he personally requested two electoral missions to the EU and the UN in the last presidential elections, but both bodies refused to do so, which is why he is struck by the fact that European countries, such as France and Germany, delegitimize this choice focusing on the lack of independent observation.

In that direction, China also advocated avoiding any kind of interference in Venezuela and resolving the diﬀerences through dialogue, according to the general consensus in the UN Security Council, as could be seen in successive declarations of African countries and the Caribbean well accustomed to the constant interference of the United States in its internal policies. Among the positions of the countries of Africa stood out Anatolio Kdoong of Equatorial Guinea, who asked not to repeat interventions based on the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as that of Libya that left countless deaths. For this reason, he pleaded for an instance of internal dialogue, as did South Africa and the Ivory Coast, among other nations of the region. While Barbados read a joint statement from Caricom, where the "Juan Guaidó self-regulation" was rejected and Maduro was recognized as president, in addition to calling a new round of dialogue. Among all the speeches of the representatives of the Caribbean, laden with anti-interference diatribe, highlights that of St. Vincent of the Grenadines, Camilo Gonsalves, who said that the idea of recognizing Guaidó as interim president came from the "sewers of the OAS."

... "What do you want, lead Venezuela to a civil war?" They will not succeed, Trump has already said that Iraq was better with Saddam Hussein, that Libya was better off Gaddafi, we're not going to give Trump a war. " In that context, Arreaza made the following statement: "What do you want, lead Venezuela to a civil war?" They will not succeed, Trump has already said that Iraq was better with Saddam Hussein, that Libya was better oﬀ Gaddaﬁ, we're not going to give Trump a war. " A direct allusion to the Trump Administration's intention to carry out a direct military action against Venezuela to regain some popularity in the internal US context. In that sense, the foreign minister highlighted a cable from the Associated Press, which states that Washington coordinated the "self-regulation" of Guaidó.

In that sense, if one applied the water part proposed by Pompeo at the beginning of the meeting, it would ﬁnd a division between the countries in favor and against Venezuela, where on the United States side the countries of Europe could be located and its satellites from Latin America, and from the side of the Bolivarian Republic to the nations of Africa, the Caribbean and Euroasia with Russia and China. A geopolitical cleavage that greatly synthesizes the correlation of forces in the world.

Finally, the representative of the Venezuelan foreign policy said that the Security Council, in fact, should punish those who promote a new coup in Venezuela, remembering, in addition, the attempted 2018 and the frustrated assassination against President Maduro, as if to repeat each time you can the number of times that Washington has failed in its constant and obvious attempts at regime change. In that sense, if as Russia says, these are the favorite game of the White House, what happened in the Security Council did nothing but be a terrible image campaign, where the theater masks fall and the circus is at discovered.

www.misionverdad.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

VENEZUELA TRIUMPHS AT THE UN A total of 18 of 35 nations present at the UN rejected the US interference in Venezuela

COUNTRIES AGAINST

COUNTRIES IN FAVOR

Venezuela Russia South Africa Equitorial Guinea Kuwait China Indonesia Ivory Coast Nicaragua Cuba Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Bolivia Suriname Mexico Barbados Uruguay El Salvador Antigua And Barbuda

USA UK Peru France Germany Poland Belgium Colombia Canada Paraguay Argentina Ecuador Chile Brazil Costarica Honduras Panama Antigua and Barbuda Dominican Republic Neutral

"They have pushed Venezuela to the precipice": Intellectuals publish a letter against the coup to Maduro Among the more than 70 signatories is the philosopher, political scientist and linguist Noam Chomsky, and warn of the consequences of recognizing Juan Guaidó as "president in charge", deepening the crisis towards unnecessary violence and suﬀering that will repeat the tragic results of previous companies of change of regime of the United States in other countries like Iraq, Syria or Libya.

The signatories, including the philosopher, political scientist and linguist Noam Chomsky and the independent rapporteur of the UN Alfred de Zayas, aﬃrmed that the coup orchestrated by the United States and its allies will only worsen the situation in that country and will generate "an unnecessary human suﬀering, violence and instability. " The text, which was also signed by heads of professors, emeritus professors and school directors, recalls the tragic results of previous regime change companies in other countries such as Iraq, Syria or Libya or the historic interventions in the coup d'état in Latin America in the twentieth century.

A group of 70 intellectuals, historians and experts in Latin American politics published an open letter in which they criticize the US government in harsh terms and urge it not to interfere in Venezuelan internal politics and support a dialogue between Chavism and anti-Chavism.

"The United States and its allies, including the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, and the far right president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, have pushed Venezuela to the precipice", they assured and maintained that the only solution for a peaceful solution The crisis is "a negotiated agreement, as it happened in the past in Latin American countries when politically polarized societies could not resolve their diﬀerences through elections."

The text points out the consequences of recognizing the self-proclaimed "president in charge" in the midst of the political crisis in Venezuela. "By recognizing the president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as the new president of Venezuela, something illegal under the OAS Charter, the government of Donald Trump has accelerated the political crisis in Venezuela in the hope of dividing the Venezuelan military and polarize the population even more, forcing them to choose sides, "says the article published by various intellectuals. 18

The reality is that despite hyperinﬂation, scarcity and deep depression, Venezuela remains a politically polarized country. The United States and its allies must stop encouraging violence by pressing for a violent and extralegal regime change. If the Trump administration and its allies continue their reckless course in Venezuela, the most likely outcome will be bloodshed, chaos and instability. The United States should have learned something from its "regime change" initiatives in Iraq, Syria, Libya and its long and violent history of sponsoring "regime changes" in Latin America.

The government of the United States must stop interfering in the internal politics of Venezuela, especially in its attempts to overthrow the government of that country. It is almost certain that the actions of the Trump administration and its regional allies will worsen the situation in Venezuela, which will lead to unnecessary human suﬀering, violence and instability. The political polarization of Venezuela is not new; The country has been divided for a long time in racial and socioeconomic terms. But polarization has deepened in recent years. This is partly due to the support of the United States for an opposition strategy aimed at dismissing the Nicolás Maduro government by extra-electoral means. While the opposition has split into this strategy, US support It has backed the hardline sectors in their goal of overthrowing the Maduro government through often violent protests, a military coup d'état or other routes that bypass the electoral path.

Neither party in Venezuela can simply beat the other. The army, for example, has at least 235,000 front-line members, and there are at least 1.6 million in the militias. Many of these people will ﬁght, not only on the basis of the belief in national sovereignty that is widely maintained in Latin America, in the face of what appears to be an intervention led by the United States, but also to protect themselves from possible repression if the opposition overthrows the government by force.

Under Trump's administration, aggressive rhetoric against the Venezuelan government shot to a more extreme and threatening level, with Trump administration oﬃcials speaking of "military action" and condemning Venezuela, along with Cuba and Nicaragua, as part of of a "troika of tyranny". The problems resulting from the policies of the Venezuelan government have been made worse by the economic sanctions of the United States, which would be illegal under the parameters of the Organization of American States and the United Nations, as well as the United States and other treaties and laws.

In such a situation, the only solution is a negotiated agreement, as happened in the past in Latin American countries when politically polarized societies could not resolve their differences through elections. There have been efforts with potential, such as those led by the Vatican in the fall of 2016, but they did not receive support from Washington and its allies focused on regime change. This strategy must change so that there is a viable solution to the current crisis in Venezuela. For the sake of the Venezuelan people, the region and the principle of national sovereignty, these international actors should support negotiations between the Venezuelan government and its opponents that will allow the country to finally emerge from its political and economic crisis.

international conventions. These sanctions curtailed the means by which the Venezuelan government could have escaped its economic recession, and at the same time caused a dramatic drop in oil production and the worsening economic crisis, causing the death of many people who could not access medicines that could have saved their. Meanwhile, US governments and its allies continue to blame only the Venezuelan government for the economic damage, including that caused by US sanctions.

Signed: Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus, MIT and Professor Laureate, University of Arizona Laura Carlsen, Director, Program of the Americas, Center for International Policy Greg Grandin, professor of history, New York University

Now the USA and its allies, including OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and far-right president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, have pushed Venezuela to the precipice. By recognizing the president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó as the new president of Venezuela - something illegal under the OAS Charter - the Trump administration has drastically accelerated Venezuela's political crisis with the hope of dividing the Venezuelan military and still polarizing more to the population, forcing it to choose sides. The obvious, and sometimes explicit objective, is to expel Maduro through a coup d'etat.

Miguel Tinker Salas, professor of Latin American History and Chicano / a Latino Studies at Pomona College Sujatha Fernandes, professor of political economy and sociology, University of Sydney Steve Ellner, associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives Alfred de Zayas, former independent expert of the UN on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order and sole UN rapporteur who visited Venezuela in 21 years Boots Riley, writer / director of Sorry to Bother You, musician 19

John Pilger, journalist and filmmaker

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research

Teresa A. Meade, Florence B. Sherwood Professor of History and Culture, Union College

Jared Abbott, PhD Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University

Frederick Mills, professor of philosophy, Bowie State University Stephen Morris, professor of political science and international relations, Middle State State University

Dr. Tim Anderson, Director, Center for Studies Against Hegemonics Elisabeth Armstrong, professor of the study of women and gender, Smith College

Liisa L. North, Professor Emeritus, York University Paul Ortiz, Associate Professor of History, University of Florida

Alexander Aviña, PhD, Associate Professor of History, Arizona State University

Christian Parenti, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, John Jay College CUNY

Marc Becker, history professor, Truman State University

Nicole Phillips, professor of law at the University of the Foundation, Dr. Aristide Faculté des Sciences Juridiques et Politiques and assistant professor of law at the Faculty of Law of the University of California at Hastings

Medea Benjamin, Co-founder, CODEPINK Phyllis Bennis, Program Director, New Internationalism, Institute for Policy Studies Dr. Robert E. Birt, professor of philosophy, Bowie State University

Beatrice Pita, professor in the Department of Literature at the University of California at San Diego

Aviva Chomsky, professor of history, Salem State University

Margaret Power, professor of history, Illinois Institute of Technology

James Cohen, University of Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle

Vijay Prashad, Editor, El TriContinental

Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Associate Professor, George Mason University

Eleanora Quijada Cervoni FHEA, facilitator of staff education and mentor of SAI, Center for Higher Education, Learning and Teaching at the National University of Australia

Benjamin Dangl, PhD, editor of Hacia la libertad

Walter Riley, lawyer and activist

Dr. Francisco Dominguez, Faculty of Social and Professional Sciences, University of Middlesex, United Kingdom

William I. Robinson, professor of sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara

Alex Dupuy, John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology Emeritus, Wesleyan University

Mary Roldan, Dorothy Epstein Professor of Latin American History, Hunter College / CUNY Graduate Center

Jodie Evans, Co-founder, CODEPINK Vanessa Freije, assistant professor of international studies, University of Washington

Karin Rosemblatt, history professor, University of Maryland

Gavin Fridell, Research Chair of Canada and Associate Professor in International Development Studies, St. Mary's University Evelyn González, Counselor, Montgomery College Jeffrey L. Gould, Rudy Professor of History, Indiana University

Rosaura Sánchez, professor of Latin American literature and Chicano literature, University of California, San Diego

Bret Gustafson, associate professor of anthropology, University of Washington at St. Louis

Victor Silverman, professor of history, Pomona College

Emir Sader, professor of sociology, Rio de Janeiro State University

TM Scruggs Jr., Professor Emeritus, University of Iowa

Brad Simpson, Associate Professor of History, University of Connecticut

Peter Hallward, professor of philosophy, University of Kingston

Jeb Sprague, professor at the University of Virginia

John L. Hammond, professor of sociology, CUNY Mark Healey, Associate Professor of History, University of Connecticut

Christy Thornton, assistant professor of history, Johns Hopkins University

Gabriel Hetland, assistant professor of Latin studies in Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States, University of Albany

Sinclair S. Thomson, Associate Professor of History, New York University

Forrest Hylton, Associate Professor of History, National University of Colombia-Medellín

Steven Topik, history professor, University of California, Irvine Stephen Volk, professor of history emeritus, Oberlin College

Daniel James, Bernardo Mendel Chair of Latin American History

Kirsten Weld, John. L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Sciences, History Department, Harvard University

Chuck Kaufman, National Co-Coordinator, Alliance for Global Justice Daniel Kovalik, Associate Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh

Kevin Young, assistant professor of history, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Winnie Lem, professor, International Development Studies, University of Trent

Patricio Zamorano, academic of Latin American studies; Executive Director, InfoAmericas

Dr. Gilberto López y Rivas, Research Professor, National University of Anthropology and History, Morelos, Mexico Mary Ann Mahony, history professor, Central Connecticut State University Jorge Mancini, Vice President, Foundation for Latin American Integration (FILA) Luís Martin-Cabrera, Associate Professor of Literature and Latin American Studies, University of California San Diego

What keeps Chavismo standing? The open threats of a military intervention against Venezuela and the appointment of a "parallel government" imply the continuation of the Obama Decree and the (failed) coups of 2014 and 2017, leveraged under the "color revolution" or " soft blow ". A premise that is key in that it serves to draw us a background map, but also important to understand that it was Barack Obama, with all his charisma, Nobel Peace and marketing as a hero of minorities, who made the ďŹ rst centers to the area Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. Each page of the famous manuals of Gene Sharp has had its application in the streets of the country, which has forced the Chavismo to mature intellectually and to improve their immune system against psychological operations, strategies of appropriation of symbols and other resources that pursue their emptying. Once again, it was not the cadre school or the academy the institutions that produced that political leap. They were the street and the experience: the same ones where we collided with ChĂĄvez, without knowing it, before the historic February 4, 1992. In part, what keeps Chavismo standing is this distinctive feature and in permanent construction as a training space that goes beyond the classical organizations of politics: parties, unions, etc. Perhaps because of the mixture between shame and such evident parallels that the strategy against Venezuela draws, it is easy to discern what they are looking for and how they are proceeding. We already know that it is a blow in march, an import of the Libyan and Syrian models, that the governments of Brazil and Colombia are plotted with Washington and that the port of 21

From the people in the streets of Caracas in permanent defense of their conquests, to the solitude of the streets of Rio or Sao Paolo when Lula was on his way to jail, is the aﬃrmation that Chavismo understood early that coming to power is a means to build a country and society model, not just a resource for better macroeconomic indices.

arrival of this whole operation is a military intervention proposed from different fronts. The strategy and its objectives are so evident that, even as a mental health symptom or that some common sense still remains, many political figures who had distanced themselves from Chavez for fear of media lynching, now close ranks with the Bolivarian Revolution. Due to the very weight of reality, the timid, centrist positions and the absolute omission of the attacks that Venezuela is undergoing, were put aside to open the way to the unified criterion that the Latin American country must be defended. The list is too long to portray it to totality, and you know who I mean.

Progressivism must defend Venezuela, but it must also feed and take it as a political guide, as a model of resistance and organization, to rethink its respective local oﬀensives.

At the same time this does not stop generating suspicion, it seems that from time to time the organic life of the Bolivarian Republic must be put at risk so that its historical value and geopolitical importance can be recognized again with the eﬀervescence it has always deserved.

The Chavism made the common people, the housewife, the head of the home, the youth of the neighborhoods, a political subject. That accumulated today defends itself with the teeth before a violent campaign of sanctions that daily violence to the population and that tries to blackmail it: you renounce yourself, your history and your name for the 20 million dollars that promises Mike Pompeo in "humanitarian aid "

But the truth is that in the journey from a daily life besieged by the ﬁnancial blockade to the climax point of an open threat of intervention as it is lived today, Chavismo puts to the test the features of its own construction as a political subject. And that is, in short, what must be defended for being the fundamental reason they pursue in the war against Venezuela.

Knowing that the stability base of the Chavismo-State-society relationship was largely based on the distribution of income, the United States, the European Union and its colonial extensions in Latin America set in motion a ﬁnancial blockade operation under the premise that, if the ﬂow of money were cut, Chavismo would lose support as a historical current.

A candid radiography of Chavism tells us that, as a political force, it is not limited to only partisan organizations and, in general, civil society as we know it. For large sectors of the population implies having a proper name and a story with which to tell itself, but also expresses an exercise of self-esteem and permanent participation in the destiny of the Republic. It is not a client, a consumer, a passive citizen who makes politics from the vote only, but a historical accumulation that creates forms of organization and resistance according to their own experiences and collective teachings.

And although their affectations are sensitive, Chavismo transformed the mechanisms of containment and social assistance of the Carnet de la Patria, the bonds and the CLAP, into tools and organizational dynamics of territorial control, political formation and rearticulation of the Venezuelan proletariat. Its scope was maturing progressively and it is not unreasonable to say that it was thanks to these new organizations, built from the bosom of the people, who guaranteed the victory of Nicolás Maduro on May 20, 2018. Today the United States and its allies use this date and its political significance as a factor of difference to put the world to choose sides over Venezuela, between recognition or support for war. And when they do, every time that Mike Pompeo, John Bolton or his stepson Marco Rubio verbalizes it, they only reaffirm that they act against the intelligence of Chavism, his learning and his ways of resisting looking for himself. They act against that proper name. They are right to act with despair.

If the blows of Brazil, Honduras, Paraguay, and the defeats through legal channels in Argentina and Ecuador tell us, the diﬀerence between Chavez and the rest of the progressive cycle was in using the distribution of income as a means to the participation and construction of a political subject and not as a victory in itself.

Progressivism must defend Venezuela, but it must also feed and take it as a political guide, as a model of resistance and organization, to rethink its respective local offensives.

www.misionverdad.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy 22

Venezuela and its geopolitical role: Reasons for a siege Venezuela was formally admitted to the "axis of evil" or group of countries-objective of Washington since the Decree of Barack Obama that criminalized the nation in 2015, declaring the Bolivarian Republic an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to the security of the United States .

It is also true that the balance of the global relations of exchange of raw materials and strategic goods has a pivot in Venezuela. As the asymmetries in the access to energy historically put the United States as a factor of arbitration in the development of nations. Today that correlation is changing and accelerated since Venezuela left the US orbit with Hugo Chávez.

From this point all operative and functional devices that in diverse spheres have been translated in concrete attempts of dismantling the Venezuelan nation-state have been increased, and that until 2019 have had exact expressions of asphyxia to the oil nation, especially in diplomacy and in its economy, through economic blockade.

That gives Venezuela today the potential role of participating very actively in the rearrangement of world hegemony, through its preferential condition to emerging factors. What is in dispute is the balance or imbalance in the framework of international relations for the future.

In the US actions have tried to resignify several indisputable facts: Venezuela is the country with the largest oil reserves in the world. It is also in sixth place in the world's gas reserves. Currently, Venezuelan reserves in gold and coltan are confirmed and estimated that could place the country in the first places in the world. It has strategic resources in amount, which are fully linked to the development of industrialized and highly technified economies. Venezuela possesses the raw materials of the present and the future.

The geopolitical importance of Venezuela also lies in the fact that, during the years of the Latin American progressive cycle, it emerged as an inﬂuential factor through its own strength in the American continent itself, intoning international relations through various alliances and bodies of dialogue and integration, such as ALBA- Petrocaribe, which served to leverage its energy, diplomatic and political agenda with a counter-hegemonic vision. A geopolitical model that in Latin America managed to dispute the power of the United States in its area of closest inﬂuence such as the Caribbean, Central America and South America, while building South-South alliances with countries in Africa and Asia in such a way that, today, the country holds the presidency of the

But in addition to this, it is a country fully integrated into the emerging world. Its main partners, China and Russia, are in tune with a new context in the global geopolitical composition and Venezuela is committed to them as a key element. 23

Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. This, together with relations with Russia and China, make the Bolivarian Republic a very attractive line of Washington's adversaries to attack in the same way as it does against Iran and Syria, to cite the most obvious examples.

The exhaustion of the unipolar international relations scheme imprints a dynamism that, in the emerging and multipolar world, translates into the displacement of the old centers of power. These, seeing their committed hegemony, have reacted to other countries on the fronts of the military conﬂict and the political and economic siege. The inﬂuence of Venezuela, by assuming its natural role as an oil and sovereign nation, has placed the country at the center of a hurricane that today shocks the geopolitical dashboard of the world.

The dismemberment of Venezuela, which looks like an inalterable purpose of the US strategic policy, consists of the dispossession of the Venezuelan institutionality, its chaoticization and its fragmentation, as an elementary condition for the capture of national power and the assets of the nation, inside and outside of its territory.

...During the years of the Latin American progressive cycle, it emerged as an influential factor through its own strength in the American continent itself, intoning international relations through various alliances and bodies of dialogue and integration, such as ALBAPetrocaribe, which served to leverage its energy, diplomatic and political agenda with a counter-hegemonic vision.

In 2019, Venezuela goes to the germination and formation of a para-state with American invoice, and through it is inserted in pre-war conditions that mean the acceleration of a process of dismantling the country as an objective instance, as a concrete expression. For it is aimed at the capture of national assets through a frantic attempt to dismantle the legal structure that supports them; which is the Venezuelan State and the head of the State, as well as other institutions.

www.misionverdad.com the opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the embassy

The spurious "presidency" of Juan Guaidó recognized by Donald Trump and the existence of a parallel "Supreme Court of Justice" abroad are probative elements of this. For practical purposes, the Venezuelan public power and the resources of the country are essential goods for the ﬁnancial and political conglomerate that from the United States organizes and operates the siege against Venezuela. But the strategic objective is the Bolivarian Republic in the context of the world-system.

Who is in charge of "restoring democracy" in Venezuela? Elliott Abrams was named by the White House as the United States envoy to "restore democracy" by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the presentation of Abrams, the Secretary of State declared that the White House "thinks that all countries should take steps to restore democracy in Venezuela, and not support this cruel dictatorship that has caused so much devastation for the Venezuelan people" . This in reference to the intention of Pompeo to pressure Uruguay and Mexico to recognize Juan Guaidó as "interim president" of the Bolivarian Republic. According to the former head of the CIA, Abrams "is going to be a real asset in our mission to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and the country's prosperity." On his turn to testify, Abrams said: "I left this building 30 years ago this week, that was the last time I worked here, so it's very nice to be back, this crisis in Venezuela is deep, diﬃcult and dangerous. get us to work on it. "

But who is Elliott Abrams?

The career of the new "special envoy" is quite demonstrative, as he served in various roles during the Ronald Reagan Administration. Among them as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, Under Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs.

From this position, Abrams was part of the clique of officials, called as the poster "Pax Americana" by academic Andrew Bacevich, who after the defeat of Vietnam sought to recover the "warrior spirit" in the United States with muscular actions in his "backyard", Latin America, with a new format of covert and direct interventions during the 1980s. This poster composed of John Bolton, current director of the National Security Council, Oliver North, high military officer in charge of the Iran-Contra operation, Roger Noriega, former director of the Agency for International Development of the Department of State (USAID), and John Negroponte, then US Ambassador to Honduras, among many other senior officials who defined an intervention format that technically bypassed the restrictions imposed by the US Congress, the product of the Vietnam Syndrome, to initiate direct wars against countries such as Nicaragua. As part of this clique, Abrams was a major player in the Iran-Contra scandal, revealed by journalists such as Gary Weeb and Robert Parry, among others, where the financing modality of the Nicaraguan Contra was known through the sale of arms to Iran. and drugs of the Medellín Cartel in the slums of Los Angeles. Because of this scandal, Abrams pleaded guilty to having withheld information after the Kerry Commission investigation of the United States Congress. Finally, George W. Bush granted him a pardon when he assumed the presidency of the United States.

Also a member of the inﬂuential Foreign Relations Council, founded by David Rockefeller, Abrams as a member of this clique accompanied the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a national security adviser during the administration of George Bush Jr., along with the John Bolton cast, John Negroponte and Roger Noriega, among others. Today again in the White House it is more than evident that they intend to recover the "war spirit" in the United States with a "muscular action" in their backyard: Latin America. This calculation, however, diﬀers greatly from the geopolitical context of the 1980s when the United States was close to winning the Cold War against the Soviet Union, given that China and Russia are currently in a phase of ascent in the world, while Washington is in a stage of decline of its global hegemony.

Consequences and objectives of the policies supported by Abrams

One of the central elements of the strategy of this clique was to develop important public relations operations to manipulate American public opinion in favor of the Nicaraguan Contra, the dirty wars against the guerrillas in El Salvador and Guatemala, and, ﬁnally, the invasion to Panama to capture the dictator Manuel Noriega, formerly an ally of Washington.

Perhaps the statement that most deﬁnes the clique that belongs to Abrams comes from a senior oﬃcial of the administration of George Bush Jr., consulted by journalist Ron Suskind, in which he states in 2004: "Now we are an empire, and when we act, we create our own reality, and while you are studying that reality judiciously, as they surely will - we will act again, creating other new realities, which you can also study, and that is how things will be resolved. and you, all of you, will stay only with what we do. "

Another of the points of this strategy was the ﬁnancing and support to paramilitary and extermination groups in the intervened countries, mainly in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, to covertly carry out the tasks that previously comprised the Pentagon's regular armed forces. This explains important massacres of indigenous people, opposition politicians and inhabitants of areas controlled by the Salvadoran and Guatemalan guerrillas.

“... This calculation, however, differs greatly from the geopolitical context of the 1980s when the United States was close to winning the Cold War against the Soviet Union, given that China and Russia are currently in a phase of ascent in the world, while Washington is in a stage of decline of its global hegemony.”

According to Greg Grandin, professor of History at the University of New York and author of The Empire Workshop: Latin America, the United States and the new imperialism, these "creations of reality" are usually experienced in Latin America before being used in other scenarios of global conﬂict. In that sense, for some time it has been evident and coarse, as the United States is testing a new intervention format, where it is intended to determine a "Venezuelan model".

It is estimated that the consequences only in the wars in El Salvador and Guatemala is more than 300 thousand dead. A demonstrative example of the behavior, supported by this clique integrated by Abrams, is the massacre of El Mozote, where members of the Salvadoran army entered a town, located in the state of Morazán, and murdered the majority of its inhabitants, with Special campaign against women and children to terrorize the rest of the villages in that area controlled by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) during the 1980s.

www.misionverdad.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

Sanctions of Mass Destruction: America’s War on Venezuela American economic sanctions have been the worst crime against humanity since World War Two. America’s economic sanctions have killed more innocent people than all of the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons ever used in the history of mankind. The fact that for America the issue in Venezuela is oil, not democracy, will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore history. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves on the planet. America seeks control of Venezuela because it sits atop the strategic intersection of the Caribbean, South and Central American worlds. Control of the nation, has always been a remarkably effective way to project power into these three regions and beyond. From the first moment Hugo Chavez took office, the United States has been trying to overthrow Venezuela’s socialist movement by using sanctions, coup attempts, and funding the opposition parties. After all, there is nothing more undemocratic than a coup d’état.

United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur, Alfred de Zayas, recommended, just a few days ago, that the International Criminal Court investigate economic sanctions against Venezuela as a possible crime against humanity perpetrated by America.

Over the past five years, American sanctions have cut Venezuela off from most financial markets, which have caused local oil production to plummet. Consequently, Venezuela has experienced the largest decline in living standards of any country in recorded Latin American history. Prior to American sanctions, socialism in Venezuela had reduced inequality and poverty whilst pensions expanded. During the same time period in America, it has been the absolute reverse. President Chavez funnelled Venezuela’s oil revenues into social spending such as free+6 healthcare, education, subsidized food networks, and housing construction. In order to fully understand why America is waging economic war on the people of Venezuela one must analyse the historical relationship between the petrodollar system and Sanctions of Mass Destruction: Prior to the 20th century, the value of money was tied to gold. When banks lent money they were constrained by the size of their gold reserves. But in 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon took the country off the gold standard. Nixon and Saudi Arabia came to an Oil For Dollars agreement that would change the course of history and become the root cause of countless wars for oil. Under this petrodollar agreement the only currency that Saudi Arabia could sell its oil in was the US dollar. The Saudi Kingdom would in turn ensure that its oil profits flow back into U.S. government treasuries and American banks. It was the start of something truly great for America. Access to oil defined 20th-century empires and the 18 petrodollar agreement was the key to the ascendancy 27

of the United States as the world’s sole superpower. America’s war machine runs on, is funded by, and exists in protection of oil. Threats by any nation to undermine the petrodollar system are viewed by Washington as tantamount to a declaration of war against the United States of America. Within the last two decades Iraq, Iran, Libya and Venezuela have all threatened to sell their oil in other currencies. Consequently, they have all been subject to crippling U.S. sanctions. Over time the petrodollar system spread beyond oil and the U.S. dollar slowly but surely became the reserve currency for global trades in most commodities and goods. This system allows America to maintain its position of dominance as the world’s only superpower, despite being a staggering $23 trillion in debt. With billions of dollars worth of minerals in the ground and with the world’s largest oil reserves, Venezuela should not only be wealthy, but her people the envy of the developing world. But the nation is essentially broke because American sanctions have cut them off from the international financial system and cost the economy $6 billion over the last five years. Without sanctions, Venezuela could recover easily by collateralizing some of its abundant resources or its $8 billion of gold reserves, in order to get the loans necessary to kick-start their economy. In order to fully understand the insidious nature of the Venezuelan crisis, it is necessary to understand the genesis of economic sanctions. At the height of World War Two, President Truman issued an order for American bombers to drop “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 140,000 people instantly. The gruesome images that emerged from the rubble were broadcast through television sets across the world and caused unprecedented outrage. The political backlash forced U.S. policy makers to devise a more subtle weapon of mass destruction: economic sanctions. The term “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) was first defined by the United Nations in 1948 as

“atomic explosive weapons, radioactive material weapons, lethal chemical and biological weapons, and any weapons developed in the future which have characteristics comparable in destructive effect to those of the atomic bomb or other weapons mentioned above”.

Sanctions are clearly the 21st century’s deadliest weapon of mass destruction.

In 2001, the U.S. administration told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; Iraq was a terrorist state; Iraq was tied to Al Qaeda. It all amounted to nothing. In fact, America already knew that the only weapons of mass destruction that Saddam had were not nuclear in nature, but rather chemical and biological. The only reason they knew this in advance was because America sold the weapons to Saddam to use on Iran in 1991. What the U.S. administration did not tell us was that Saddam Hussein used to be a strong ally of the United States. The main reason for toppling Saddam and putting sanctions on the people of Iraq was the fact that Iraq had ditched the Dollar-for-Oil sales. The United Nations estimates that 1.7 million Iraqis died due to Bill Clinton’s sanctions; 500,000 of whom were children. In 1996, a journalist asked former U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, about these UN reports, specifically about the children. America’s top foreign policy official, Albright, replied: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.” Clearly, U.S. sanctions policies are nothing short of state-sanctioned genocide. Over the last five years, sanctions have caused Venezuelan per capita incomes to drop by 40 percent, which is a decline similar to that of war torn Iraq and Syria at the height of their armed conflicts. Millions of Venezuelans have had to flee the country. If America is so concerned about refugees, Trump should stop furthering disastrous foreign policies that actually create them. Under Chavez, Venezuela had a policy of welcoming refugees. President Chavez turned Venezuela into the wealthiest society in Latin America with the best income equality. Another much vilified leader who used oil wealth to enrich his people, only to be put under severe sanctions, is Muammar Gaddafi. In 1967 Colonel Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; however, by the time he was assassinated, Gaddafi had turned Libya into Africa’s wealthiest nation. Perhaps, Gaddafi’s greatest crime, in the eyes of NATO, was his quest to quit selling Libyan oil in U.S. Dollars and denominate crude sales in a new gold backed common African currency. In fact, in August 2011, President Obama confiscated $30 billion from Libya’s Central Bank, which Gaddafi had earmarked for the establishment of an African Central Bank and the African gold-backed Dinar currency.

Africa has the fastest growing oil industry in the world and oil sales in a common African currency would have been especially devastating for the American dollar, the U.S. economy, and particularly the elite in charge of the petrodollar system. It is for this reason that President Clinton signed the now infamous Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which the United Nations Children’s Fund said caused widespread suﬀering among civilians by “severely limiting supplies of fuel, access to cash, and the means of replenishing stocks of food and essential medications.” Clearly, U.S. sanctions are weapons of mass destruction. Not so long ago, Iraq and Libya were the two most modern and secular states in the Middle East and North Africa, with the highest regional standards of living. Nowadays, U.S. Military intervention and economic sanctions have turned Libya and Iraq into two of the world’s most failed nations. “They want to seize Libya’s oil and they care nothing about the lives of the Libyan people,” remarked Chavez during the Western intervention in Libya in 2011. In September 2017, President Maduro made good on Chavez’s promise to list oil sales in Yuan rather than the US dollar. Weeks later Trump signed a round of crippling sanctions on the people of Venezuela. U.S. National Security adviser John Bolton announced new sanctions that essentially steal $7 billion from Venezuela’s state owned oil company. At that press conference Bolton brazenly ﬂashed a note pad that ominously said “5,000 troops to Colombia”. When confronted about it by the media, Bolton simply said,

Trump just hired Elliot Abrams as U.S. Special Envoy for Venezuela, who has a long and torrid history in Latin America. Abrams pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the Iran Contra affair, which involved America funding deadly communist rebels, and was the worst scandal in the Reagan Era. Abrams was later pardoned by George Bush Senior. America’s new point man on Venezuela also lied about the largest mass killing in recent Latin American history by U.S. trained forces in El Salvador. There is nothing more undemocratic than a coup d’état. A UN Human Rights Council Rapporteur, Alfred de Zayas, pointed out that America’s aim in Venezuela is to “crush this government and bring in a neoliberal government that is going to privatise everything and is going to sell out, a lot of transitional corporations stand to gain enormous profits and the United States is driven by the transnational corporations.” Ever since 1980, the United States has steadily devolved from the status of the world’s top creditor country to the world’s most indebted country. But thanks to the petrodollar system’s huge global artificial demand for U.S. dollars, America can continue exponential military expansion, record breaking deficits and unrestrained spending. America’s largest export used to be manufactured goods made proudly in America. Today, America’s largest export is the U.S. dollar. Any nation like Venezuela that threatens that export is met with America’s second largest export: weapons, chief amongst which are sanctions of mass destruction.

Article by: Garikai Chengu An Ancient African historian www.globalresearch.ca the opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the embassy

“President Trump stated that all options are on the table”. America’s media is unquestionably the most corrupt institution in America. The nation’s media may quibble about Trump’s domestic policies but when it comes to starting wars for oil abroad they sing in remarkable unison. Fox News, CNN and the New York Times all cheered the nation into war in Iraq over ﬁctitious weapons of mass destruction, whilst America was actually using sanctions of mass destruction on the Iraqi people. They did it in Libya and now they are doing it again in Venezuela. Democracy and freedom have always been the smoke screen in front of capitalist expansion for oil, and the Western Media owns the smoke machine. Economic warfare has long since been under way against Venezuela but military warfare is now imminent.

Sanctions to PDVSA: fuel for a war

John Bolton, national security adviser to the Donald Trump administration, announced on the de facto confiscation of Venezuelan assets and the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) on US soil.

Through a ﬁnancial blockade action, the US govern-

Impacts on the oil market

Mnuchin said that US reﬁneries could continue to operate with the current use of Venezuelan oil, and US companies could continue to buy that resource, but warned that payments would be redirected to accounts that would be handled by the Guaidó team.

ment proceeded through the White House in conjunction with the US Treasury Secretariat in charge of Steven Mnuchin, to freeze the assets of Venezuela and initiate an arbitration action by the US authorities to favor of the "government of transition", orchestrated and supported by Washington, led by Juan Guaidó de Voluntad Popular (VP).

Concerned that the decision will result in an oil shortage with global repercussions, Mnuchin assured that the American crude reserves are able to mitigate the impact and keep under control the prices of fuels in the United States.

The US Treasury Secretary and his oﬃce that regulates foreign assets in that country (OFAC, for its acronym in English) has added that these actions against PDVSA consist of the freezing of about 7 billion dollars in assets of the Venezuelan state oil company, in addition to a loss estimated by the department itself of 11 billion dollars of its exports over the next few years. The announcement comes amid a series of statements from the White House in support of the self-proclaimed deputy Juan Guaidó as "president in charge" of Venezuela.

Usurpation in the control of Venezuelan assets

Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pence and Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio had previously declared that Venezuelan assets would pass to Juan Guaidó's control, creating from this point a usurpation on the management of sovereign assets to the ﬁgure of artiﬁcial government of VP by instruction from Washington.

"We will continue to use all our diplomatic and economic tools to support interim president Guaidó," Mnuchin said, noting that the "path of relief from sanctions" to PDVSA is through the "expedited transfer of control" to that deputy or a government. Subsequent. Making clear the position of arbitration and control of Venezuelan sovereign assets on US soil, in violation of international law and without any resolution of an entity that supports such actions.

This is an event that only has precedents in the freezing of Libya's international reserves in European banks in 2011, from which resources placed under the control of the National Transition Council imposed in that country, prior to the war, emerged. Simultaneously, the self-proclaimed parliamentarian "president in charge" said that he will begin the process 30

On the other hand, at the beginning of 2018 the White House prepared the ground for actions of this type, since it issued a decree that vetoed the possibility that Venezuela could dispose of CITGO assets by placing them for sale, with an acceleration of US hostilities against the oil nation.

of appointing the directives of PDVSA and its US subsidiary CITGO, for which he ordered the "progressive and orderly" taking of Venezuela's assets abroad, an act that It took place also on the afternoon of this Monday. This is an event that only has precedents in the freezing of Libya's international reserves in European banks in 2011, from which resources placed under the control of the National Transition Council imposed in that country, prior to the war, emerged.

The message, however, is alarming because the White House, by accelerating an implicit oil embargo, if it is understood that each barrel sold would be charged by the "parallel government", which raises the search for what the former US ambassador William Browﬁeld called a "collapse" of the economy and, therefore, of the regime.

RT in Spanish reviews the statement posted on the Twitter account of Guaidó, noting that the antichavista leader indicated that his decision seeks to prevent the constitutional government of Nicolás Maduro from "stealing money from Venezuelans." In addition, said that the measure aims to "meet the needs of Venezuelans."

That reﬂects that in the macabre calculation of the decision makers surrounding Trump, such as John Bolton, Marco Rubio and now the ineﬀable Elliott Abrams, there is undoubtedly an armed escalation plan that they hope will be quick and decisive, as they did in Libya and Iraq. . Today for them, and this must be understood, Venezuela is a global geopolitical equilibrium line that they consider vulnerable, and it would win them a victory against their main rivals, such as China and Russia, given that they have not been able to Syria, North Korea or Iran.

In this way, the narrative used to enforce the dispossession of Venezuelan assets lies in the use of corruption, a ﬁle that has been handled strategically by the US Department of Justice (Lava Jato case, for example), and on the other hand the need to "shovel" the conditions of the Venezuelan population.

Urged to show strength, and turn in their favor some of the geopolitical theaters on the globe, Venezuela is undoubtedly a favorite target that must be taken by them quickly and witheringly. Of course, that macabre calculation does not quantify the capacity of Chavez, or the spirit of Venezuelans, to face such a crude scenario, as occurred in Syria and Iran, so they seem to take ﬁrm and sure steps to an aggression of large scale to ensure that the State assaulted, which today also includes all the population that lives in it, whether chavista or opposition, breaks at the lowest possible cost and thus gives the long-awaited, but failed, "regime change."

Despite this maneuver of political marketing, the reality is that the money seized will surely not return to Venezuela, as happened with Libya after being invaded. It also offers a clear contrast between what was offered by the United States in "humanitarian aid" and what was stolen with this sanction, since what is announced today comprises the order of 18 billion dollars, while the charity offer given by Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, is only 20 million. However, these actions of the White House, replicated by the "parallel government" of VP, are in full consonance with the thesis of destabilization induced against Venezuela, since these events are preceded by the actions of the US financial blockade that have served to accelerate the result of economic crisis in Venezuela.

www.misionverdad.com The opinions expressed in these articles are of the author and do not necessarily reﬂect the oﬃcial position of the Embassy

Some of this money will go to the ﬁnancing of mercenary groups abroad, as happened in Libya in 2011, since the warming of the streets (with the exception of some targeted exceptions) and the recruitment of FANB oﬃcers in recent days has failed. This has been forewarned by Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López.

2018's The year 2018 witnessed widespread resistance actions from all around the world. From fighting Israeli occupation to fighting against a sexist presidential candidate, there were wide varieties of resistance from people of all walks of lives. Here are some of the moments as they were captured on camera.

A Chilean Mapuche Indigenous activist argues with riot policemen during a protest demanding justice for Camilo Catrillanca, an Indigenous Mapuche man who was shot in the head during a police operation. Widespread protests denouncing police violence across Chile were violently repressed.

Millions of women in Brazil had united under the hashtag and social media campaign #EleNao (#NotHim) against the then presidential election front-runner far-right Jair Bolsonaro of the Social Liberal Party. The current president-elect who will take office on Jan.1 is known for his sexism and Brazilian women rallied to reject him. Photo:Reuters

French people wearing yellow vests took over streets and roads to protest against an elitist government and pro-elite policies of the President Emmanuel Macron. This mobilization, which originated from social network messages calling for protest, was initially focused on the rejection of fuel taxes. However, the social mobilization quickly expanded to other demands such as the increase in purchasing power of the middle and lower classes and the resignation of President Macron. Photo:Reuters

Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip planned a 46-day tent city protest near the Israeli "border" fence to demand their right as refugees to return to the towns and cities Israel claimed in 1948. The march turned bloody when Israeli snipers started shooting Palestinians. Seven months after it was scheduled to end, protests in Gaza remain strong. Over 250 Palestinians have been killed and over 20,000 injured. Photo:Reuters

Rallying under the slogan "Vivas Nos Queremos" (We Want Us Alive), thousands of women took to The year 2018 has become known in Argentina as the year of the "new poor" as Macri’s the streets of Quito on Nov. 24 to demand safe and legal abortion, protest impunity in administration strangles the economy to feed interest on the country’s US$57 billion International gender-related violence, and to shed light on their historic struggles, ‘doing justice’ by their own Monetary Fund (IMF) loan. Argentine unions and social movements occupied the capitol streets hands. The march was organized on the occasion of International Day for Elimination of Violence and those of smaller cities on a continual basis this past year in protest to President Mauricio Against Women which is marked on Nov. 25. Photo:teleSUR Macri’s austerity onslaught. Photo:Reuters

2018 had been the deadliest year in a decade for Indian Occupied Kashmir with 586 killings, according to Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society. The intensity of protest also increased during this year. Photo:Reuters

What is the US government looking for? And the elite governing this country? They are looking for oil

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