In
het hieronder opgenomen artikel aandacht voor alle (gewelddadige)
bemoeienis van de VS met Midden- en Zuid-Amerika. Naar aanleiding van
de verkiezingen in Venezuela is de aandacht met name op dit land
gericht, een land dat zich probeert te verdedigen tegen de
economische oorlogvoering van de VS, een oorlogvoering die al jaren
duurt en die m.n. het volk keihard treft….

Zo
bevoorraden de VS winkelketens voor levensmiddelen al een paar jaar
hun winkels niet meer, dit onder druk van de VS regering (ingevoerd
onder ‘vredesduif’ Obama….). Medicijnen, veelal afkomstig uit de VS
zijn bijna niet meer te krijgen, intussen zijn door het gebrek aan medicijnen zelfs al mensen overleden…. Je had het al begrepen: dit alles om zo een
ontevreden bevolking te kweken, die zich tegen de democratisch
gekozen regering zou moeten keren…..

Lullig
voor de VS, maar ook nu weer heeft de
Venezolaanse bevolking gekozen voor een regering onder Maduro, de
huidige linkse president….. Niet zo vreemd, zeker als je ziet wat
Chavez, de voorganger van Maduro en Maduro zelf hebben gedaan voor de
grote arme onderlaag: fatsoenlijke huisvesting, scholing en medische
zorg, plus een inkomen waar men mee rond kan komen (al is dat door de eerder genoemde VS
bemoeienis een stuk moeilijker geworden)….  

Voornoemde
zaken, belangenbehartiging voor het arme deel van Venezuela, zijn uiteraard een doorn in het oog van de VS, dat zelf kampt
met een enorm grote arme onderlaag, die men maar al te graag onder de
duim houdt…… Een zaak waarvan het beest Trump een sport heeft gemaakt,
met veel leugens wist hij deze mensen te paaien om op hem te stemmen, maar zoals verwacht: van
zijn beloften komt niet veel terecht, iets dat hij aan anderen wijt
en niet aan het smerige onmenselijke neoliberale beleid dat hij
voert…..

Afgelopen zondag, werden er verkiezingen gehouden in Venezuela, reden voor de reguliere media in ons land in dit geval Radio1 en de nationale radiozenders van Duitsland en Groot-Brittannië (plus uiteraard de andere westerse massamedia) de laatste weken Venezuela en dan met name president Maduro te demoniseren….. De oppositie boycot deze verkiezingen, daar men van tevoren wist dat Maduro deze verkiezingen zou winnen….. 

Volgens deze nationale radiozenders zouden deze verkiezingen niet eerlijk zijn verlopen >> dat de VN deze verkiezingen controleerde noemde men er maar niet bij……. (daarover zo meer)

OP WDR liet men een correspondent horen die sprak ‘met een willekeurige passant’. Deze liet weten dat er geen voedsel meer te krijgen is en er een groot gebrek is aan medicijnen, dit is de schuld van falend overheidsbeleid, aldus de vrouwelijke passant……. De schuld van de overheid of de schuld van de VS dat al jaren een economische oorlog voert tegen Venezuela, zoals hierboven beschreven….???

Na de verkiezingen is het helemaal bal, de reguliere westerse media schreeuwen het uit met o.a. de volgende woorden: -de verkiezingen zijn frauduleus verlopen, -de verkiezingen zijn gestolen door Maduro, de verkiezingen waren een schijnvertoning en -stemmen zouden zijn gekocht*. Wat al deze media er niet bijvertellen, is het feit dat VN waarnemers deze verkiezingen hebben gecontroleerd en tot op heden heb ik geen verklaring gehoord van internationale waarnemers dat de verkiezingen frauduleus zijn verlopen, zoals dot ook in 2012 niet het geval was, terwijl ook toen veel organen van diezelfde media stelden dat de verkiezingen waren gestoken….. 

Marc Bessems van de ´onafhankelijke´ NOS kon natuurlijk niet achterblijven en bakte ze donkerbruin, volgens hem stond de uitslag al maanden geleden vast….. Ja Bessems, het was maanden geleden al bekend dat Maduro zou winnen, vandaar ook dat oppositiepartijen de verkiezingen hebben geboycot, oppositiepartijen die willens en wetens geweld op de straten van Venezuela brachten (zo hebben ze zelfs tegenstanders met benzine overgoten en in brand gestoken, dit nog naast het in brand steken van een geboortekliniek, terwijl daar moeders met baby’s aanwezig waren….)….. 

´Helaas´ voor deze figuren was en is het grootste deel van de bevolking arm en ja voor die groep heeft Maduro, zoals zijn voorganger Chavez, heel veel gedaan nadat ze een enorm lange tijd werden vertrapt door uiterst rechtse regeringen en dictaturen, kijk dat vergeet het overgrote deel van deze mensen niet!

Bessems durft als vele anderen te stellen dat het Maduro regime een wanbeleid heeft gevoerd en dat dit de oorzaak is van de economische ellende in Venezuela…… Bessems moet weten dat de VS hiervoor één op één verantwoordelijk is, ongelofelijk dat deze ´onafhankelijke journalist´ dergelijke leugens keer op keer durft te herhalen, sterker nog: hij durft in feite zelfs te stellen dat de regering Maduro liegt als het de VS beschuldigt van economische oorlogvoering tegen Venezuela………. (wedden dat Bessems goed bevriend is met welgestelde, anti-socialistische, anti-Maduro Venezolanen??)

Lees
het volgende uitgebreide (prima) artikel over de smerige rol die de
VS de laatste decennia in Midden- en Zuid-Amerika heeft ‘gespeeld’,
bewerkt door Roger Harris, dat eerder op Consortium News werd
gepubliceerd:

The
US is Definitely Meddling in the Venezuelan Election

May
19, 2018 at 8:09 pm

Written
by Consortium
News

(CN Op-ed) — Venezuelan
President Nicolás Maduro is the frontrunner in the presidential
elections that will take place on Sunday. If past pronouncements and
practice by the United States are any indication, every effort will
be made to oust an avowed socialist from the the U.S. “backyard.”

This
week, the leftist president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, tweeted:
“Before the elections they (U.S. and allies) will carry out violent
actions supported by the media and after the elections they will try
a military invasion with Armed Forces from neighboring countries.”

U.S.
antipathy towards the Venezuelan government started with the election
of Hugo Chávez in 1998, followed by a brief and unsuccessful
U.S.-backed coup in 2002. Chávez made the magnanimous, but
politically imprudent, gesture of pardoning the golpistas,
who are still trying to achieve by extra-parliamentary means what
they have been unable to realize democratically. After Chávez died
in 2013, the Venezuelans elected Maduro to carry on what has become
known as the Bolivarian Revolution.

The
Phantom Menace

In
2015 then U.S. President Barack Obama declared “a national
emergency” because of a supposed Venezuelan threat to the U.S. The
U.S. has military bases to the west of Venezuela in Colombia and to
the east in the Dutch colonial islands. The Fourth Fleet patrols
Venezuela’s Caribbean coast. Yet somehow in the twisted logic of
imperialism, the phantom of Venezuela posed a menacing,
“extraordinary threat” to the U.S.

Each
year Obama renewed and deepened sanctions against Venezuela under the
National Emergencies Act. Taking no chances that his successor might
not be sufficiently hostile to Venezuela, Obama prematurely renewed
the sanctions his last year in office even though the sanctions would
not have expired until two months into Trump’s tenure.

The
fear was that presumptive U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson might
try to normalize U.S. -Venezuelan relations to negotiate an oil deal
between Venezuela and his former employer Exxon. As it turns out, the
Democrats need not have feared Trump going soft on regime change.

Last
August, Donald Trump publicly raised the “military option” to
overthrow Venezuela’s democratically-elected government. Then David
Smilde of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) counseled for
regime change, not by military means, but by “deepening the current
sanctions” to “save Venezuela.” The somewhat liberal,
inside-the-beltway NGO argued against a direct military invasion
because the Venezuelan military would resist, not because such an act
is the gravest violation of international law.

Meanwhile
the sanctions have taken a punishing toll on the Venezuelan people,
even causing
death.
Sanctions are designed, in Richard Nixon’s blood-curdling words, to
“make the economy scream” so that the people will abandon their
democratically elected government for one vetted by the U.S.

                        

Maduro:
Phony threat to the U.S.

In
January, Trump’s first State of the Union address called for regime
change of leftist governments in Latin America, boasting, “My
government has imposed harsh sanctions on the communist and socialist
dictatorships of Cuba and Venezuela.” Hearing these stirring words,
both Democrats and Republicans burst out in thunderous applause.

“Dictatorships,”
as the term is wielded by the U.S. government and mainstream media,
should be understood as countries that try to govern in the interests
of their own peoples rather than privileging the dictates of the U.S.
State Department and the prerogatives of international capital.

Attack
of the Clones

In
addition to summoning Venezuela’s sycophantic domestic opposition,
who support sanctions against their own people, the U.S. has gone on
the offensive using the regional Lima Group to destabilize Venezuela.
The group was established last August in Lima, the capital of Peru,
as a block to oppose Venezuela.

The
eighth Summit of the Americas was held in Lima in April under the
lofty slogan of “democratic governance against corruption.”
Unfortunately for the imperialists, the president of the host country
was unable to greet the other U.S. clones. A few days earlier he had
been forced to resign because of corruption. Venezuelan President
Maduro was barred from attending.

Along
with Peru and the U.S. ’ ever faithful junior partner Canada, other
members of the Lima Group are:

• Mexico,
  a prime participant of the U.S. -sponsored War on Drugs, is plagued
  with drug cartel violence. The frontrunner for the July presidential
  election is left-of-center Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who
  is widely believed to have won the last two elections only to have
  them stolen from him. 

• Panama’s
  government is a direct descendent of the one installed on a U.S.
  warship when the U.S. invaded Panama in 1989. Recall the triggering
  incident that
  unleashed U.S. bombs and 26,000
  troops into
  Panama against a defense force of 3,000: a GI in civilian clothes
  was fatally shot running a military checkpoint and another GI and
  his wife were assaulted. What similarly grave affront to the global
  hegemon might precipitate a comparable military response for
  Venezuela? Panama imposed sanctions against Venezuela in a spat in
  April, accusing Venezuela of money laundering. Panama is a regional
  money laundering center for the illicit drug trade (some alleged
  through a Trump-owned
  hotel). 

• Argentina
  elected Mauricio Macri president in 2015. He immediately sold the
  country out to the vulture funds and the IMF while imposing severe
  austerity measures on working people. The economy has tanked,
  reversing the gains of the previous left-leaning presidencies of
  Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández. Military and diplomatic
  deference to the U.S. has become the order of the day. Macri has
  negotiated installation of two U.S. military bases in Argentina,
  first with Obama and now with Trump. 

• Brazil
  deposed its left-leaning, democratically elected President Dilma
  Rousseff in a 2016 parliamentary coup. Her successor, the unelected
  Michel Temer, has imposed austerity measures and cooperated with the
  U.S. in joint military exercises along the Brazilian border with
  Venezuela. Temer suffers from single digit popularity ratings and is
  barred from running for public office due to a corruption
  conviction. Former left-leaning president “Lula” da Silva is the
  frontrunner in October’s presidential election but was imprisoned
  in April by Temer’s government. 

• Chile
  was the victim of the U.S. -backed coup, which overthrew the elected
  left-leaning government of Salvador Allende in 1973. A reign of
  terror followed with the extreme rightwing government of Gen.
  Augusto Pinochet killing thousands. An economic and diplomatic
  destabilization campaign coordinated by Washington set the stage for
  the coup. The Chilean regime-change scenario could be the model for
  Venezuela. The rightwing opposition in Venezuela torched a maternity
  hospital with mothers and babies inside and even poured gasoline on
  suspected Chávez supporters, burning
  them alive. 

• Colombia
  is the U.S. ’ closest ally in the region, the recipient of the
  most U.S. military aid, and the source of the greatest amount of
  illicit drugs afflicting the U.S. . The Colombian government has
  flaunted its recent peace accords with the FARC and continues to be
  a world leader with 7
  million internally
  displaced persons and political assassinations of trade union
  leaders, human rights workers, and journalists. In cooperation with
  the U.S. , Colombia has been provocatively massing troops along its
  border with Venezuela. 

• Costa
  Rica is a neoliberal state that has been a staunch silent partner of
  U.S. imperialism ever since it served as a base for the Contra war
  against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. 

• Guatemala
  is a major source of undocumented immigrants fleeing violence into
  the relative safety of the U.S. . Femicide is rampant as is criminal
  impunity, all legacies of the U.S. -backed dirty war of genocide
  from the 1960s through the ‘80s, which claimed some 200,000 Mayan
  lives. 

• Honduras’
  left-leaning President Zelaya was deposed in a U.S. -backed coup in
  2009. In the aftermath of rightwing repression and domestic
  violence, Honduras earned the title of murder capital of the world.
  The current rightwing president was reelected last November in an
  election so blatantly fraudulent that even the Organization of
  American States (OAS) failed to
  endorse the results. 

• Paraguay
  is the site of the first of the rightwing parliamentary coups in the
  region when left-leaning President Fernando Lugo was deposed in
  2012.

Pinochet:
Torturer and Murderer backed by U.S.

Such
is the nature of the right-wing states allied against Venezuela in
contemporary Latin America. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of this
right tide is the willingness of Brazil and Argentina to allow U.S.
military installations in their border areas as well as conducting
joint U.S. -led military exercises with contingents from Panama,
Colombia and other countries.

Cuba,
Bolivia, and Nicaragua are Venezuela’s few remaining regional
allies, all of which have been subject to U.S. -backed regime-change
schemes. Most recently, the Nicaraguan government undertook modest
measures to increase workers’ and employers’ contributions but
lower benefits. It led to violent demonstrations. Some sources
hostile to
the Ortega government labelled the protests as “made in the U.S.
A.” In the face of such protests, the government rescinded the
changes on April 23.

The
Empire Strikes Back

In
early April, the U.S. Southern Command conducted a series of military
exercises, dubbed “Fused Response,” just 10 miles off the
Venezuelan coast, simulating an invasion.

Later
that month, Juan Cruz, Special Assistant to President Trump and
Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs, was asked whether the
U.S. government supports
a military coup in
Venezuela. Speaking for the White House and dripping with imperial
arrogance, he responded affirmatively:

“If
you look at the history of Venezuela, there’s never been a seminal
movement in Venezuela’s history, politics, that did not involve the
military. And so it would be naïve for us to think that a solution
in Venezuela wouldn’t in some fashion include a very strong nod –
at a minimum – strong nod from the military, a whisper in the ear,
a coaxing or a nudging, or something a lot stronger than that.”

Across
the Atlantic on May 3, the European Parliament demanded Venezuela
suspend presidential elections. Four days later, U.S. Vice President
Pence called on the OAS to expel Venezuela. Adding injury to insult,
the U.S. announced yet another round of sanctions. Then the next day,
U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley joined the chorus calling on
President Maduro to cancel the presidential election and resign.

Haley:
End Venezuelan election. (UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)

Far
more blatant and frightening is the Plan
to Overthrow the Venezuelan Dictatorship – Masterstroke, dated
February 23, 2018.Masterstroke was
leaked on the website Voltairenet.org and
picked up by Stella Calloni in the reliable and respected Resumen
Latinoamericano.

Although Masterstroke is
unverified, the contents as reported by Calloni are entirely
consistent with U.S. policy and pronouncements:

“The
document signed by the head of the U.S. Southern Command demands
making the Maduro government unsustainable by forcing him to give up,
negotiate or escape. This Plan to end in very short terms the
so-called ‘dictatorship’ of Venezuela calls
for, ‘Increase internal instability to critical levels,
intensifying the decapitalization of the country, the escape of
foreign capital and the deterioration of the national currency,
through the application of new inflationary measures that increase
this deterioration.’”

That
is, blame the Venezuelan government for the conditions imposed upon
it by its enemies.

Masterstroke calls
for, “Continuing to harden the condition within the (Venezuelan)
Armed Forces to carry out a coup d’état, before the end of 2018,
if this crisis does not cause the dictatorship to collapse or if the
dictator (Maduro) does not decide to step aside.”

Failing
an internal coup, Masterstroke plans an international
military invasion: “Uniting Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Panama
to contribute a good number of troops, make use of their geographic
proximity…”

A
New Hope

With
the urging of the Pope and under the auspices of the government of
the Dominican Republic, the Maduro government and elements of the
opposition agreed to sit down to negotiate last January in the hopes
of ending the cycle of violence and the deterioration of living
conditions in Venezuela.

By
early February they had come to a tentative agreement to hold
elections. The Maduro government initially opposed a UN election
observation team as a violation of national sovereignty, but then
accepted it as a concession to the opposition. The opposition in turn
would work to end the unilateral sanctions by the U.S. , Canada, and
the EU, which are so severely crippling the daily life of ordinary
Venezuelans. Two years of adroit diplomacy by the Maduro government
with the less extreme elements of the opposition were bearing fruit.

The
agreement had been crafted and a meeting was called for the
government and the opposition to sign on. The government came to the
final meeting, but not the opposition. The opposition as good clones
of Washington had gotten
a call from
their handlers to bail.

In
a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t scenario, the U.S. first
accused Venezuela of not scheduling presidential elections. Then
elections were scheduled, but too early for the U.S. . Then the date
of the elections was moved to April and then extended to May. No
matter what, the U.S. would not abide by any elections in
Venezuela.Ipso factoelections are considered fraudulent by
U.S. if the people might vote for the wrong candidate.

Mesa
de la Unidad Democrática(MUD),
the coalition of Venezuelan opposition groups allied with and
partially funded by the U.S., are accordingly boycotting Sunday’s
election and are putting pressure on Henri Falcón to withdraw his
candidacy. Falcón is Maduro’s main competition in the election.
MUD has already concluded that the election is fraudulent and are
doing all they can to discourage voting.

CNBC,
reflecting the Washington consensus, expects the U.S. to directly
target the Venezuelan oil industry immediately after the election in
what they describe as “a huge sucker
punch to
Maduro’s socialist administration, which is depending almost
entirely on crude sales to try and decelerate a deepening economic
crisis.”

Ever
hopeful and always militant, Maduro launched the new Petro
cryptocurrency and revalued the country’s traditional currency, the
Bolivar, in March. The Petro is collateralized on Venezuela’s vast
mineral resources: the largest petroleum reserves in the world and
large reserves of gold and other precious metals. The U.S.
immediately accused Venezuela of sinisterly trying to circumvent the
sanctions…which is precisely the intent of the Petro and other
economic reforms, some of which are promised for after the
presidential election.

The
Force Awakens

Latin
America has been considered the U.S. empire’s proprietary backyard
since the proclamation of the Monroe Document in 1823, reaffirmed by
John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress in 1961, and asserted by
today’s open military posturing by President Trump.

The
so-called Pink Tide of left-leaning governments spearheaded by
Venezuela in the early part of this century served as a
counter-hegemonic force. By any objective estimation that force has
been ebbing but can awaken.

Before
Chávez, all of Latin America suffered under neoliberal regimes
except Cuba. If Maduro is overthrown, a major obstacle to
re-establishing this hemispheric wide neoliberalism would be gone.

The
future of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution is pivotal to the
future of the counter-hegemonic project, which is why it is the
empire’s prime target in the Western Hemisphere. If the Venezuelan
government falls, all Latin American progressive movements could
suffer immensely: AMLO’s campaign in Mexico, the resistance in
Honduras and Argentina, maybe the complete end of the peace
accords in Colombia, a left alternative to Lenin Moreno in Ecuador,
the Sandinista social programs in Nicaragua, the struggle for Lula’s
presidency in Brazil, and even Morales and the indigenous
movements in Bolivia.

Kissinger:
Issue too important for democracy.

As
U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger said in 1970: “I
don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist
due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too
important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for
themselves.”

Op-ed
by Roger D. Harris / Republished with permission / Consortium
News / Report
a typo

=============================

* Terwijl de VS zoals gezegd al een aantal jaren bezig is de bevolking tegen de socialistische regering op te zetten middels een economische oorlog, die zoals gewoonlijk de gewone bevolking het hardst treft……. Over het beïnvloeden van verkiezingen gesproken…….. 

Op 18 juni 2018 kop veranderd: zag tot mijn schrik dat ik het woord ‘door’ per abuis 2 keer heb vermeld (doordat de koptekst in concept werd veranderd), mijn excuus.