Sancties van de VS zijn illegaal en zijn oorlogsmisdaden die moeten worden gestopt

Posted on January 21, 2020June 14, 2024 by Willem Wachtmeester

De
sancties die de VS eenzijdig en dus illegaal oplegt aan landen die
haar niet welgevallig zijn, zijn niets anders dan grove
oorlogsmisdaden waardoor zelfs mensen om het leven komen….. Even ter herinnering: in de 90er jaren van de
vorige eeuw legde de VS eenzijdig sancties op aan Irak, daardoor
kwamen 500.000 Irakese kinderen om het leven, ofwel die werden in feite
vermoord door de VS…. De minister van buitenlandse zaken destijds (onder
opperschoft Clinton) was de Democraat en oorlogsmisdadiger Madeleine Albright,
toen deze psychopaat in 1996 werd geconfronteerd met dit feit en haar werd gevraagd
of ze er geen spijt van had, antwoordde deze enorme hufter
dat ze daar geen seconde spijt van heeft gehad en dat het e.e.a.
het waard was geweest…..

Ook nu zijn kinderen en andere zwakke mensen de klos, zo zorgen de sancties tegen Iran ervoor dat belangrijke middelen tegen (kinder-) kanker niet meer te krijgen zijn, of zo duur zijn dat praktisch niemand ze kan betalen…….. Wat mij betreft een misdaad tegen de menselijkheid!!

De VS legt landen sancties op, die zoals gezegd vooral de zwakste burgers treffen (‘treffen’: letterlijk en figuurlijk)…….. Door deze illegale sancties ontstaan er voorts tekorten op allerlei gebieden, waardoor de economie in het slop raakt, daarop geeft de VS het land de schuld, bijvoorbeeld door te wijzen op een ‘lamlendig economisch beleid’, of door in geval van een links geregeerd land het socialisme de schuld te geven……… (tegelijk organiseert de CIA dan demonstraties, waarbij men het liefst ook op de demonstranten laat schieten door ingehuurde scherpschutter moordenaars, om daarmee de regering van zo’n land nog meer zwart te maken….) De VS hoopt daarmee een opstand te ontketenen in zo’n land*, terwijl de wat beter geïnformeerden weten dat de VS de schuld is van de ellende juist door die sancties, zie Venezuela en Oekraïne, waar deze smerige vorm van terreur bij de eerste (nog) geen succes heeft, waar het bij de laatste, zoals bekend, wel is gelukt……

Gelukkig ontstaat er wereldwijd steeds meer weerstand tegen deze smerige VS terreur, (beter is dit smerige spel niet aan te duiden, sancties die intussen tegen 39 landen (!!) worden toegepast en uiteraard voelen andere landen daar ook de gevolgen van, immers bedrijven kunnen geen handel meer drijven, daar de wereld afhankelijk is van de dollar als betalingsmiddel en de VS juist de bedrijven straft die toch leveren ondanks de sancties…… Rusland is intussen klaar voor de introductie van een nieuw internationaal betalingssysteem zodat het systeem van de VS, te weten: SWIFT, uitgerangeerd kan worden.

Het volgende artikel werd eerder gepubliceerd op Nation of Change (ICH meldt onterecht dat dit PopularResistance is) en door mij overgenomen van Information Clearing House. In het artikel een petitie om actie te ondernemen tegen de terreursancties van de VS, lees en teken deze ajb en geeft het door:

The
world must end the US’ illegal economic war

The
indiscriminate, illegal and immoral use of sanctions is an act of
war.

By
Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

January 16, 2020
“Information
Clearing House”
–The
United States is relying more heavily on illegal unilateral coercive
measures (also known as economic sanctions) in place of war or as
part of its build-up to war. In fact, economic sanctions are an act
of war that kills tens of thousands of people each year through
financial strangulation. An economic blockade places a country under
siege.

A recent example is
the increase in economic measures being imposed against Iran, which
many viewed as more acceptable than a military attack. In response to
Iran retaliating for the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani
and seven other people, Iran used ballistic missiles to strike two
bases in Iraq that house U.S. troops. President Trump responded by
saying he would impose more sanctions on Iran. Then he ended his
comments by urging peace negotiations with Iran. The United States
needs to understand there will be no negotiations with Iran until the
U.S. lifts sanctions that seek to destroy the Iranian economy and
turn the people against their government.

The sanctions on Iran
have been in place since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which made that
country independent of the United States. Iran is not the only
country being sanctioned by the United States. Samuel Moncada,
the Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations, speaking to the
summit of the Non-Aligned Movement of 120 nations on October 26,
2019, denounced the imposition of sanctions by the U.S., as “economic
terrorism which affects
a third of humanity with more than 8,000 measures in 39 countries.”

It is time to end U.S.
economic warfare and repeal these unilateral coercive measures, which
violate
international law.

Sanctions
are war. From havaar.org.

Sanctions
are a weapon of war

The United States uses
sanctions against countries that resist the U.S.’ agenda. U.S.
sanctions
are designed to kill by destroying an economy through denial
of access to finance, causing hyperinflation and shortages and
blocking basic necessities such as food and medicine. For
example, sanctions are expected to cause the
death of tens of thousands of Iranians by creating a severe
shortage of critical medicines and medical
equipment everywhere
in Iran.

Muhammad Sahimi writes
that in a “letter published by The
Lancet,
the prestigious medical journal, three doctors working in Tehran’s
MAHAK Pediatric Cancer Treatment and Research Center warned
that, ‘Re-establishment of sanctions, scarcity of drugs due to
the reluctance of pharmaceutical companies to deal with Iran, and a
tremendous increase in oncology drug prices [due to the plummeting
value of the Iranian rial by 50–70%], will inevitably lead to a
decrease in survival of children with cancer.’”

Diabetes, multiple
sclerosis, HIV/AIDS, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and asthma
affect over ten million Iranians who will find essential medicines
impossible to get or available only at high prices. The U.S. claims
that food and medicines are excluded from sanctions but in practice,
they are not because pharmaceutical companies fear sanctions being
applied to them over some technical violation and Iran cannot pay for
essentials when banks can’t do business with it. European
nations failed
to persuade the Trump administration to ensure that
essential medicine and food were available to Iranians.

In Venezuela, due
to the sanctions, 180,000 medical operations have been
canceled and 823,000 chronically ill patients are awaiting medicines.
The Center for Economic and Policy

Research found sanctions
have deprived Venezuela of “billions of dollars of foreign
exchange needed to pay for essential and life-saving imports,”
contributing to 40,000 total deaths in 2017 and 2018. More than
300,000 Venezuelans are at risk due to a lack of access to medicine
or treatment. Economists warn U.S. sanctions
could cause famine in Venezuela. Sanctions also
cause shortages of parts and equipment needed for
electricity generation, water systems, and transportation as well as
preventing participation in the global financial market. Sanctions,
which are illegal
under the UN, OAS and US law, have caused mass
protests in Venezuela against the U.S.

Sanctions against Iran
and Venezuela could be a prelude to military attack, i.e. the US
weakening a nation economically before attacking it. This is what
happened in Iraq. Under pressure from the United States, on Aug.
2, 1990, the UN Security Council passed sanctions that
required countries to stop trading or carrying out financial
transactions with
Iraq. President George H.W. Bush said the UN sanctions would not
be lifted “as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.” The
U.S. continued to pressure the
increasingly skeptical Security Council members into compliance even
though hundreds of thousands of children were dying. In 1996,
then-U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright was asked about the
death of as many as 500,000 children due to lack of medicine and
malnutrition exacerbated by
the sanctions, and she brutally replied, “[The] price
is worth it.” Sanctions were also used against Libya and Syria
before the U.S. attacked them.

This is consistent
with the U.S. ‘way of war’ described by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz in
“An
Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States,” which
describes frontier counterinsurgency premised on annihilation
including the destruction of food, housing, and resources as well as
ruthless militarism. The U.S. has waged a long-term economic war
against Cuba (sanctions in place since 1960), North Korea (first
sanctions in the 1950s, tightened in the 1980s), Zimbabwe (2003) and
Iran (1979)

Sanctions hurt
civilians, especially the most vulnerable—babies, children, the
elderly and chronically ill—not governments. Their intent is to
shrink the economy and cause chronic shortages and hyperinflation
while ensuring a lack of access to finance to pay for essentials. The
U.S. then blames the targeted government claiming that corruption or
socialism is the problem in an effort to turn the people against
their government. This often backfires as people instead rally around
the government, quiet their calls for democracy and work to develop
a resistance economy.

Stop Sanctions
destroying lives from BrightonAndHoveNews.org.

The
movement to end sanctions

In recent years, a
movement has been building to end the use of illegal economic
coercive measures. The movement includes governments coming together
in forums like the Non-Aligned
Movement, made up of countries that represent 55 percent of the
global population, as well as UN member-states calling for
international law and the UN Charter to be upheld and social
movements organizing to educate about the impact of sanctions and
demand an end to their use. This June, the Non-Aligned
Movement called for the end of sanctions against Venezuela.

Popular Resistance is
working with groups around the world on the
Global Appeal for Peace, an initiative to create a worldwide
network of people and organizations that will work together to oppose
the lawless actions of the United States, and any country that acts
similarly. A high priority is opposing the imposition of unilateral
coercive economic measures that violate the charter of the United
Nations. The UN and its International Court of Justice have been
ineffective in holding the U.S. accountable for its actions. No one
country or one movement has the power alone to hold the United States
accountable, but together we can make a difference. Join
this campaign here.

With 39 countries
targeted with sanctions, and other countries impacted because they
cannot trade with those countries, nations are challenging the U.S.’
dollar domination. Countries are seeking to conduct trade without the
dollar and are no longer treating the U.S. dollar as the world’s
reserve currency while also avoiding Wall Street. The
de-dollarization
of the global economy is a boomerang effect that is hastening due
to the abuse of sanctions and will seriously weaken the U.S. economy.

Foreign Minister
Zarif,
who describes sanctions as “economic terrorism,” warned that
“the excessive use of economic power by the United States, and the
excessive use of the dollar as a weapon in U.S. economic terrorism
against other countries, will backfire.” As the blowback
continues to grow, the negative impact on the U.S. economy may
force the U.S. to stop using sanctions. The end of dollar domination
will add to the demise of the failing U.S. empire.

End
the Deadly Sanctions banner on the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington,
D.C. From the Embassy Defense Collective.

Time
to end the use of illegal economic sanctions

The combination of
countries acting against U.S. sanctions, and people’s movements
pressuring the U.S. government has the potential to end the abuse of
sanctions. The EU
has moved to blunt the impact of the sanctions against Iran by
creating an alternative
to the U.S.-controlled SWIFT system for trade. This is spurring
the end of the dollar as the reserve currency. Some officials in
the EU have called for retaliatory
sanctions against the U.S.

Trump left a small
opening for potential diplomacy with Iran that could lead to the end
of sanctions against that country. Trump bragged about the U.S. being
the number one oil and gas producer, taking credit for an Obama
climate crime, and therefore no longer needing to spend hundreds of
millions a year to have troops in the Middle East. He concluded with
a message to the “people and leaders of Iran” that the U.S. was
“ready to have peace with all those who seek it.” He said the
U.S. wanted Iran to have a “great and prosperous future with other
countries of the world.”

That future is only
possible if the U.S. moves to end the sanctions against Iran.
Iranians have learned the U.S. cannot be trusted. Iran lived up to
the requirements of the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action, but Trump did not when he
withdrew from it and re-instated
draconian sanctions lifted by Obama. Trump added even move
sanctions. This also angered
European allies who had negotiated the agreement and were
put in the position of being subservient to the U.S. or going
against it. To regain Iran’s trust, the U.S. needs to make a
good-faith gesture of ending punitive economic measures.

North Korea, which has
been sanctioned by the U.S. longer than any other country, had a
similar experience after they reached an agreement with the United
States in 1994 under the Clinton administration. The George W.
Bush administration wanted to put in place a national missile
defense system but the agreement with North Korea blocked that. John
Bolton and Dick Cheney falsely accused North Korea of
violating the agreement, increased sanctions against it and claimed
it was part of the Axis of Evil, along with Iran, and Iraq.

North
Korea, like Iran, learned they cannot trust the United States.
Sanctions
are causing thousands of deaths in North Korea. Now, China
and Russia are allied with North Korea and are urging relief
from the U.S. sanctions. Russia and China
have also ignored U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and continue
to do business with it.

On December 17,
the Senate passed a Sanctions Bill that put in place sanctions
against corporations working with Russia to develop gas pipelines to
Europe. The action is naked
U.S. imperialism seeking to prevent Russia from being the
main natural gas exporter (NS2) to the EU market and to replace it with
more expensive U.S.-produced gas, a move to save the
financially-underwater U.S. fracking industry. Russia, Germany,
and others have defiantly told Washington
its weaponizing of economic sanctions will not halt the gas pipeline
construction.

The indiscriminate,
illegal
and immoral use of sanctions is an act of war. Unless they are
authorized by the United Nations, unilateral coercive measures are
illegal. A critical objective of the peace and justice movement in
the United States, working with allies around the world, must be to
end this terrorist economic warfare. The U.S. economy currently
depends on financial hegemony and war. The slow, steady collapse of
the dollarized economy means the 2020s will be the decade U.S.
domination comes to an end. The U.S. must learn to be a cooperative
member of the global community or risk this isolation and
retaliation.

Kevin
Zeese is an American political activist who has been a leader in the
drug policy reform and peace movements and in efforts to ensure a
voter verified paper audit trail. Margaret Flowers, M.D., is a
Maryland pediatrician seeking the Green Party nomination for the US
Senate. She is co-director of PopularResistance.org and a board
adviser to Physicians for a National Health Program and is on the
Leadership Council of the Maryland Health Care Is a Human Right
campaign.

This
article was originally published by “PopularResistance”
–

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

* Tegelijk stoken zoals gezegd CIA agenten het vuurtje op en bewapenen in veel gevallen een
aantal scherpschutter moordenaars, zodat deze slachtoffers maken onder de demonstranten, vervolgens wordt
de schuld daarvoor in de schoenen van de onwelgevallige
regering geschoven….. Iets dergelijks wordt een ‘false flag operatie’ genoemd, de VS gebruikte dit o.a. in Oekraïne en Syrië, waar deze terreuroperatie in het laatste land mislukte.

Zie ook:

‘Moordenaar van Soleimani komt om bij neerhalen van VS spionage vliegtuig in Afghanistan‘

‘KLM vliegt weer over oorlogsgebied Iran – Irak, terwijl andere maatschappijen waaronder Air France het gebied mijden‘ (en zie de links in dat bericht anders, dan de hier getoonde)

‘Soleimani moord: VS pleegde een daad van oorlog‘

‘Rampvlucht TWA 800 vs. PS752‘

‘Trudeau (premier Canada): de VS is verantwoordelijk voor de vliegramp in Iran‘

Voor meer berichten over sancties of andere zaken uit dit bericht, klik op de betreffende links, die je direct onder dit bericht terug kan vinden.

Venezuela: VS verandering van regime mislukt >> de Venezolanen wacht een VS invasie

Posted on February 15, 2018June 14, 2024 by Willem Wachtmeester

Na
alle moeite die de VS zich al 20 jaar getroost om een eind te maken
aan het democratisch gekozen socialistisch bewind van Venezuela,
wijst alles erop dat de VS bezig is met Peru, Colombia en Brazilië, van wie de laatste twee landen grenzen aan Venezuela, een invasie voor te bereiden in dat land……..

Er
hebben in 2017 al vier grote militaire oefeningen plaats gevonden in Latijns Amerika en
zelfs de NAVO schijnt nu een militaire basis te hebben in
Brazilië, waarschijnlijk dezelfde als de ‘tijdelijke’ militaire VS basis in Brazilië, in de buurt waar Venezuela, Brazilië en Colombia aan elkaar grenzen…… Zoals gezegd: vorig jaar hebben er maar liefst 4 grote militaire oefeningen plaatsgevonden, met deelname van Colombia, Brazilië en Peru, alles o.l.v. de VS….. Eén van die oefeningen, ‘Operation: America United’ was zelfs de grootste militaire oefening ooit gehouden in Midden- en Zuid-Amerika (Latijns Amerika)………

Overigens heeft de VS al militaire bases in Colombia en het Caraïbisch gebied, onderhoudt daarnaast innige banden met andere landen in de buurt van Venezuela, wat dat betreft is Venezuela al omsingeld met VS militaire bases (uiteraard speelt ook Nederland weer ‘een mooie rol’ in deze…)

De
VS is al meer dan 18 jaar bezig met een economische oorlog tegen
Venezuela, al heeft deze tot nu toe weinig of niets opgeleverd wat betreft ‘regime change’. Al
onder ‘vredesduif’ Obama heeft de VS deze oorlog verscherpt en VS
bedrijven ‘dringend aangeraden’ hun supermarktketens in Venezuela
niet langer te bevoorraden. Hetzelfde deed de VS met buitenlandse
investeerders en je weet het waarschijnlijk wel, als de VS dreigt, gehoorzamen de bedrijven en instellingen, daar ze het anders wel
kunnen vergeten als bedrijf of instelling……..

Als gevolg van deze boycot is er niet alleen een groot tekort aan levensmiddelen, maar bijvoorbeeld ook aan medicijnen. Daarmee kan de VS ten overvloede nog eens worden aangewezen als een terreurstaat, die schijt heeft aan ellende onder de gewone bevolking en aan mensenrechten, zoals dit gestolen land al zo vaak elders heeft laten zien, maar zeker in Zuid- en Midden-Amerika…….

De gewelddadige demonstraties in Venezuela van vorig jaar, werden ook al door de VS georganiseerd, waar zelfs gewapende groepen uit het buitenland werden ingezet tegen politie en leger van Venezuela……

In 2002 heeft er al een militaire coup plaatsgevonden in Venezuela, die met hulp van de (arme) bevolking de kop werd ingedrukt, een coup die zoals gewoonlijk werd geregisseerd door de CIA…….

Een
militaire coup nu lijkt zeer onwaarschijnlijk ,daar het leger voor het
overgrote deel achter de socialistische regering Maduro staat.

Lees
het volgend uitstekende en sterk onderbouwde artikel dat duidelijk maakt waar de VS mee bezig is
t.a.v. Venezuela, een artikel van Kevin Zeese en Maragaret Flowers, door
Anti-Media overgenomen van Consortium News:

US
Regime Change Fails in Venezuela: Military Coup or Invasion Next?

February
14, 2018 at 10:27 am

Written
by Consortium
News

(CN) — Several
signals point to a possible military strike on Venezuela, with
high-ranking officials and influential politicians making clear that
it is a distinct possibility.

Speaking
at his alma mater, the University of Texas, on February 1, Secretary
of State Tillerson suggested a
potential military coup in in the country. Tillerson
then visited
allied Latin American countries urging
regime change and more economic sanctions on Venezuela. Tillerson is
also reportedly considering banning the processing or sale of
Venezuelan oil in the United States and is discouraging other
countries from buying Venezuelan oil.

In
a series of tweets, Senator Marco
Rubio,
the Republican from Florida, where many Venezuelan oligarchs live,
openly called for a military coup in Venezuela. “The world would
support the Armed Forces in #Venezuela if
they decide to protect the people & restore democracy by removing
a dictator,” the former presidential candidate tweeted.

How
absurd — remove an elected president with a military coup to
restore democracy? Does that pass the straight face test? This
refrain of Rubio and Tillerson seems to be the nonsensical public
position of U.S. policy.

The
U.S. has been seeking
regime change in
Venezuela since Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998. Trump joined
Presidents Obama and Bush before
him in continuing efforts to change the government and put in place a
U.S.-friendly oligarch government.

They
came closest in 2002
when a military coup removed Chavez. The
Commander-in-Chief of the Venezuelan military announced Chavez had
resigned and Pedro
Carmona,
of the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, became interim president.
Carmona dissolved the National Assembly and Supreme Court and
declared the Constitution void. The people surrounded the
presidential palace and seized television stations, Carmona resigned
and fled to Colombia. Within 47 hours, civilians and the military
restored Chavez to the presidency. The
coup was a turning point that
strengthened the Bolivarian Revolution, showed people could defeat a
coup and exposed the US and oligarchs.

U.S.
Regime Change Tactics Have Failed In Venezuela

The
U.S. and oligarchs continue their efforts to reverse the Bolivarian
Revolution. The United States has a long history of regime change
around the world and has tried all of its regime change tools in
Venezuela. So far they have failed.

Economic
War

Destroying
the Venezuelan economy has been an ongoing campaign by the US and
oligarchs. It is reminiscent
of the US coup in Chile which
ended the presidency of Salvador Allende. To create the environment
for the Chilean coup, President Nixon ordered the CIA to “make
the economy scream.”

Henry
Kissinger devised the coup noting a billion dollars of investment
were at stake. He also feared the “the insidious model effect” of
the example of Chile leading to other countries breaking from the
United States and capitalism. Kissinger’s top deputy at the
National Security Council, Viron Vaky, opposed the coup saying,
“What we propose is patently a violation of our own principles and
policy tenets .… If these principles have any meaning, we normally
depart from them only to meet the gravest threat … our survival.”

These
objections hold true regarding recent US coups, including in
Venezuela and Honduras, Ukraine and Brazil, among others. Allende
died in the coup and wrote
his last words to the people of Chile,
especially the workers, “Long live the people! Long live the
workers!” He was replaced by Augusto Pinochet, a
brutal and violent dictator.

For
decades the US
has been fighting an economic war,
“making the economy scream,” in Venezuela.

Wealthy
Venezuelans have been conducting economic sabotage aided by the US
with sanctions and other tactics. This includes hoarding
food, supplies and other necessities in
warehouses or in Colombia while Venezuelan markets are bare. The
scarcity is used to fuel protests, e.g. “The March of the Empty
Pots,” a carbon copy of marches in Chile before the September 11,
1973 coup. Economic warfare has escalated through
Obama and under
Trump,
with Tillerson now urging economic sanctions on oil.

President
Maduro recognized the economic hardship but also said sanctions
open up the opportunity for a new era of independence and
“begins the stage of post-domination by the United States, with
Venezuela again at the center of this struggle for dignity and
liberation.” The second-in-command of the Socialist Party, Diosdado
Cabello, said, “[if
they] apply sanctions, we will apply elections.”

Opposition
Protests

Another
common US regime change tool is supporting opposition protests.
The Trump
administration renewed regime change operations in
Venezuela and the anti-Maduro protests, which began under Obama, grew
more violent. The opposition protests included barricades,
snipers and murders as well as widespread injuries. When police
arrested those using violence, the US claimed Venezuela opposed free
speech and protests.

The
opposition tried to use the crack down against violence to achieve
the U.S. tactic of dividing the military. The U.S.
and western media ignored opposition violence and
blamed the Venezuelan government instead. Violence became so extreme
it looked like the opposition
was pushing Venezuela into a Syrian-type civil war.
Instead, opposition violence backfired on them.

Violent
protests are part of U.S. regime change repertoire. This was
demonstrated in the U.S.
coup in Ukraine,
where the U.S. spent $5 billion to organize government opposition
including U.S.
and EU funding violent protesters.
This tactic was used in early US coups like the 1953
Iran coup of
Prime Minister Mossadegh. The
U.S. has admitted organizing
this coup
that ended Iran’s brief experience with democracy.
Like Venezuela, a key reason for the Iran coup was control of the
nation’s oil.

Funding
Opposition

There
has been massive
U.S. investment in creating opposition to the Venezuelan
government.
Tens of millions of dollars have been openly spent through USAID, the
National Endowment for Democracy and other related US regime change
agencies. It is unknown how much the CIA has spent from its secret
budget, but the CIA
has also been involved in Venezuela. Current
CIA director, Mike Pompeo,
said
he is “hopeful there can be a transition in Venezuela.”

The United
States has also educated leaders of opposition movements,
e.g. Leopoldo
López was
educated at private schools in the US, including the CIA-associated
Kenyon College. He was groomed at the Harvard Kennedy School of
Government and made repeated visits to the regime change agency, the
National Republican Institute.

Elections

While
the US calls Venezuela a dictatorship, it is in fact a strong
democracy with an excellent voting system. Election observers monitor
every election.

In
2016, the economic crisis led to the opposition winning a majority in
the National Assembly. One of their first acts was to pass
an amnesty law.
The law described 17 years of crimes including violent felonies and
terrorism committed by the opposition. It was an admission of crimes
back to the 2002 coup and through 2016. The law demonstrated violent
treason against Venezuela. One month later, the Supreme Court of
Venezuela ruled
the amnesty law was unconstitutional.
U.S. media, regime change advocates and anti-Venezuela human rights
groups attacked
the Supreme Court decision,
showing their alliance with the admitted criminals.

Years
of violent protests and regime change attempts, and then admitting
their crimes in an amnesty bill, have caused those opposed to the
Bolivarian Revolution to lose power and become unpopular. In
three recent elections Maduro’s party won
regional, local and
the Constituent
Assembly elections.

The
electoral commission announced the presidential
election will be held on April 22.
Maduro will run for re-election with the United Socialist Party.
Opposition leaders such as Henry Ramos and Henri Falcon have
expressed interest in running, but the opposition
has not decided whether to participate. Henrique
Capriles, who narrowly lost to Maduro in the last election, was
banned from running for office
because of irregularities in his campaign, including taking foreign
donations. Capriles has
been a leader of the violent protests. When his ban was announced he
called for protests to remove Maduro from office. Also banned
was Leopoldo
Lopez,
another leader of the violent protests who is under house
arrest serving
a thirteen year sentence for inciting violence.

Now,
the United States says it will not recognize the presidential
election and urges a military coup. For two years, the opposition
demanded presidential elections, but now it is unclear whether they
will participate. They know they are unpopular and Maduro is likely
to be re-elected.

Is
War Against Venezuela Coming?

A
military coup faces challenges in Venezuela as the people, including
the military, are well educated about US imperialism. Tillerson
openly urging a military coup makes it more difficult.

The
government and opposition recently negotiated a peace settlement
entitled “Democratic Coexistence Agreement for Venezuela.”
They agreed
on all of the issues including
ending economic sanctions, scheduling elections and more. They
agreed on the date of the next presidential election. It
was originally planned for March, but in a concession to the
opposition, it was rescheduled for the end of April. Maduro
signed the agreement even
though the opposition
did not attend the
signing ceremony. They backed out after Colombian President Santos,
who was meeting with Secretary Tillerson, called and told them not to
sign. Maduro
will now make the agreement a public issue by
allowing the people of Venezuela to sign it.

Not
recognizing elections and urging a military coup are bad enough, but
more disconcerting is that Admiral
Kurt Tidd, head of Southcom, held a closed door meeting in
Colombia after
Tillerson’s visit. The topic was “regional destabilization” and
Venezuela was a focus.

A
military attack on Venezuela from its Colombian and Brazilian borders
is not far fetched. In January, the
NY Times asked,
“Should the US military invade Venezuela?” President Trump
said the US is considering US military force against
Venezuela. His chief of staff, John Kelly, was formerly the general
in charge of Southcom. Tidd
has claimed the crisis,
created in large part by the economic war against Venezuela, requires
military action for humanitarian reasons.

War
preparations are already underway in
Colombia, which plays the role of Israel for the US in Latin America.
The coup government in Brazil, increased
its military budget 36 percent,
and participated in Operation:
America United,
the largest joint military exercise in Latin American history. It
was one
of four military exercises by the US with
Brazil, Colombia and Peru in
Latin America in 2017. The US Congress
ordered the Pentagon to develop military contingencies for
Venezuela in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.

While
there is opposition
to US military bases, James
Patrick Jordan explains, on our radio show, the
US has military bases in Colombia and the Caribbean and military
agreements with countries in the region; and therefore, Venezuela is
already surrounded.

The
United States is targeting Venezuela because the Bolivarian
Revolution provides an example against U.S. imperialism. An
invasion of Venezuela will become another war-quagmire that kills
innocent Venezuelans, U.S. soldiers and others over control of oil.
People in the United States who support the self-determination of
countries should show solidarity with Venezuelans, expose the U.S.
agenda and publicly denounce regime change. We need to educate people
about what is really happening in Venezuela to overcome the false
media coverage.

Kevin
Zeese and Margaret Flowers co-direct Popular
Resistance.
[This article originally appeared
at https://popularresistance.org and
is republished with authors’ permission.]