The Conspiracy in Venezuela

The Conspiracy in Venezuela, or the Maidan with a Latin American Twist

Nil NIKANDROV

Ex: http://www.strategic-culture.org

Attempts to destabilize Venezuela have not ceased, despite the efforts of the Nicolas Maduro government to start a dialog with the opposition. The latest attempt to test the regime's mettle was an opposition demonstration on February 12 in front of the Attorney General's office in the center of Caracas. Among the demonstrators' demands were the immediate release of those arrested for participation in street riots in the cities of Tachira and Merida and early elections.

During these riots, rocks and Molotov cocktails rained down on the police. Several police cars were engulfed in flames. Groups of young men started storming the doors of the Attorney General's office and trashing the entryways to the Parque Carabobo subway station and the rides at a nearby children's park. Many of the attackers were in masks and bulletproof vests and had metal rods in their hands. Some were carrying firearms. There were injuries, and two or three people were killed, but even at the height of the confrontation the police only used rubber bullets and teargas.

The violent demonstration was organized via the Internet by the radical opposition group Popular Will (Voluntad Popular). Their leader, Leopoldo Lopez, is a long-time committed believer in overthrowing the existing regime by force. The Attorney General has given orders for his arrest. By all appearances, Lopez has gone underground in order to hide in the U.S. (it is well known that he is collaborating with the CIA). Yet another warrant was issued for the arrest of retired vice admiral Fernando Gerbasi, the former ambassador of Venezuela in Bogota. He headed the organization of disturbances in the territory bordering on Colombia. Participants in attacks on police and arson against state institutions have been put on the wanted list.  

The parallels between the events of February 2014 and the attempt to overthrow President Chavez in April 2002 are obvious. At that time mass popular demonstrations and timely action by the military units which remained loyal to the president ensured the quick neutralization of the rebels.  The Venezuelan media has been writing a lot about the striking similarity between the «spontaneous protests» in their country and the Kiev Maidan.

In Venezuela U.S. intelligence uses students and Colombian paramilitares, members of militant groups which participate in the cleanup of territories under the control of FARC and ELN guerillas, as cannon fodder... Now the paramilitares are gradually moving across the border into the Venezuelan states of Zulia, Barinas and Merida, blending into Colombian communities and waiting for marching orders. In November 2013 Jose Vicente Rangel described the preparations for subversive operations in Venezuela on his television show «Confidential» (Confidenciales). During a recent trip to Miami, Leopoldo Lopez visited a center for training fighters in Los Cayos, led by Cuban immigrants. A group of Venezuelan «cadets» demonstrated their shooting achievements to Lopez; pictures of President Maduro were used as targets. Lopez promised to provide funds for training additional snipers in order to guarantee «the restoration of democracy and freedom» in Venezuela. A center for communication between the Venezuelan conspirators and U.S. intelligence is also operating there in Miami. The Venezuelan side of the conspiracy includes ex-Minister of Defense Narvaez Churion and former leaders of the punitive agency DISIP from the time of the Fourth Republic. 

The situation in Venezuela is complicated by the drawn-out financial and economic war, planned from the United States. Instances of food being stolen from the state-run Mercal grocery store chain and then being sold on the black market at artificially high prices have become more frequent. Smuggling causes enormous damage to the country's food security. Hundreds of mafia organizations are operating on the long border with Colombia, transporting goods subsidized by the Venezuelan government into Colombian territory. Colossal quantities of gasoline, diesel, lubricants, tires, and auto parts are being exported. In many cases gasoline simply does not make it to filling stations on the Venezuelan side. The paramilitares provide security for the smuggling operations, even to the point of eliminating Venezuelan customs and military personnel sent to guard the border. 

Venezuelans are accustomed to generous state paternalism: free medical care, mass construction of «people's houses», a free education system, and thousands of state scholarships for those who seek to acquire knowledge in foreign universities. However, in recent months consumer euphoria has often been marred by various types of interruptions of electricity and water and deficits of food and other goods.  All of this is the result of deliberate sabotage organized in the classic traditions of the CIA. It is not for nothing that Walter Martinez, the popular host of the television program Dossier, told his viewers about how the overthrow of the government of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973 was planned with the participation of the American corporation ITT. The conspirators were especially thorough in planning commercial sabotage and the creation of speculative demand for all goods.  The methods used for destabilizing Venezuela today are a precise repetition of the Chilean scenario, which led to a bloody massacre and the dictatorship of Pinochet. 

Much hatred has built up toward Venezuela. The threat of civil war is constantly being discussed in the media. Against this backdrop, President Maduro continues to patiently advocate dialog, the seeking of mutual understanding and domestic detente. Here one cannot but mention the destructive influence of persons connected with Zionist circles in the U.S. and Israel on the situation. They control the banking system and trade and have thoroughly infiltrated the Venezuelan media, inciting acts of «civil protest» and creating a climate of psychological terror with regard to leading government figures. Practically all the hostile clichés which were used in American - Zionist propaganda against Chavez are now being used against Maduro... 

The Venezuelans have money, but spending it is becoming increasingly difficult. Even buying airline tickets to spend one's vacation somewhere abroad has become a problem. The Venezuelan media, 80% of which is under the control of the opposition, blame President Maduro and his supporters for the «universal discomfort». Supposedly they have gotten carried away with «socialist experiments» in the economy. In fact, neither Chavez nor Maduro has touched the principles of the capitalist economy. Not because they did not dare to, but because they understood that taking radical steps would be premature, especially after an attempt to amend the country's constitution to suit the purposes of socialist reforms. The referendum on this issue showed that about half of voters were against the idea. There was no consensus in the ranks of the ruling United Socialist Party either. Chavez' decision to carry out his program of socialist reforms gradually, at a moderate pace, was never implemented due to his premature death. 

Anti-government propaganda, coordinated by subversive centers from the U.S., is fully exploiting the theory of the growth of corruption in the country and the complicity of the «red Bolivarian bourgeoisie» in it. This is directed first and foremost against the former associates of Chavez who have closed ranks around Maduro, remaining faithful to the Bolivarian ideology and its triad of «the people - the army - the leader». The CIA and opposition spin doctors are trying to drag those among the youth with whom the propaganda «war on corruption» resonates out onto the Venezuelan barricades. The coordination of these activities is being carried out through several channels, but everything leads back to the U.S. embassy in Caracas. 

Compared to his predecessor Kelly Keiderling, who was exposed by Venezuelan counterintelligence as a coordinator of subversive operations in the country, the current U.S. charge d'affaires Phil Laidlaw, also a career CIA agent, shows more imagination in his attempts to stir up a color revolution in Venezuela which would then become a civil war. On Laidlaw's initiative, letters of solidarity with the «Maidan activists» aimed at Venezuelan students were published on the Internet: «We admire your courage! Freedom and democracy come first!» I would not be surprised if in the near future Mr. Laidlaw were to organize the deployment of several detachments of fighters from the Kiev Maidan to some secret CIA air base in Venezuela to aid in the fight against the «Maduro dictatorship».