The leaders of the 2014 anti-government protests in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela are the same US-supported mainstream Venezuelan opposition leaders who supported and collaborated in the 2002 coup in coordination with the US Embassy in Caracas.
According to Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya in “Rise of the Anti-Government Flash Mobs: First Ukraine, Now Venezuela” published by Global Research on 20 February 2014:
“The US government has its hands involved in the anti-government protests and riots in Venezuela, just like it has played a role in the anti-government protests and violence in both Ukraine and Syria. The US Embassy has continuously been coordinating with the mainstream opposition for the overthrow of the government in Caracas. Just like in the case of Ukraine, the US government has promoted the opposition leadership and made biased statements in their favour. Over the years, the US government has also repeatedly lied by referring to Venezuela as a dictatorship and to the mainstream opposition there as disenfranchised democrats.”
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya explaines the reasons for the destabilization:
“Venezuela and the organizations that it has created in the Western Hemisphere are seen as major political, economic, and strategic regional threats by Washington. The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) are viewed as threats to the domination of the United States and competitors to the Organization of American States (OAS) and any US economic regional plans, such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA/ALCA), for Latin America and the Caribbean. Regime change in Caracas would be the prerequisite to dismantling the Bolivarian Bloc consisting of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador, and several other actors in Latin America.” [Source]
In the February 14, 2014 statement of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) about the opposition protests in Venezuela. The COHA declared that it viewed …
“with great alarm the violence perpetrated against the democratically elected government and civilians in Venezuela that has resulted, as of February 12, 2014, in three confirmed deaths, 61 persons wounded and 69 detained.”
The COHA also noted in the same statement that the bloodshed in Caracas came
“on the heels of generally peaceful marches held on the 200th anniversary of the battle of La Victoria, a battle in which students played a critical role in a victory against royalist forces during Venezuela’s war of independence… While some groups of students marched in celebration of the Day of the Student, anti-government demonstrators used the occasion to protest episodic shortages of some basic goods, persistent crime, and to demand the release of students who had been arrested in earlier demonstrations.” [Source]
The objectives of the Venezuelan oligarchs controlling the mainstream opposition are not to establish a just society or to weed out corruption and crime in Venezuela. Their objectives are to reassert and entrench their privileged positions in Venezuelan society and to undo the reforms that Hugo Chavez enacted to help the poor in Venezuela. They want the law to cater to their needs and to merely serve as a tool of enforcing their dominance. Through the major private corporations that they own they have been increasing prices. Moreover, in many cases organized crime is tied to Latin America’s oligarchs themselves. [Source]
The leader of the current anti-government protests in Venezuela is also worth talking about. Leopoldo Lopez Mendoza is a former employee of Petroleum of Venezuela (Petróleos de Venezuela), S.A. (PDVSA) and the former mayor of Chacao. He comes from one of Venezuela’s wealthiest families. Lopez’s family is part of the anti-Chavez oligarchy which once ruled Venezuela like it was some sort of personal estate… While Lopez was a state employee working for Venezuela’s national petroleum company, PDVSA, he had his mother, who also worked for PDVSA, divert at least $160,000 worth of PDVSA funds to him in 1998. Lopez has claimed that he did nothing wrong and merely used the money to create Primero Justicia, an opposition group. Venezuelan law, however, clearly prohibits donations from being made by the state or any of its bodies to its employees or public officials. Venezuelan law also prohibits the employees of state institutions from giving donations directly to their family members or any organizations involving family members, because of the clear conflicts of interest and risks that such acts entail… The new Venezuelan government did not become aware of how Lopez and his mother diverted states funds during the pre-Chavez era of unaccountability until Lopez was investigated for corruption and found guilty of misusing public funds while he was the mayor of Chacao. Albeit Lopez was allowed to continue his term as mayor with intense monitoring until it finished in 2008, he was banned from running for public office until 2014 as a result of the corruption charges. [Source]
Violence was instigated by armed gunmen among the US-supported opposition to justify the coup in 2002 through bloodshed. The same methodology of instigating violence has been used again in 2014. Video evidence shows at least one armed gunman instigating violence during the protests. Footage from Caracas also clearly shows that thuggery is taking place while segments of the anti-government forces are clearly instigating violence and chaos. Unarmed bystanders and civil servants have been attacked by them, including vehicles belonging to the public transportation system and their passengers. This is the same ilk that attacked public hospitals and clinics in 2013 as a means of disrupting daily life in Venezuela after Maduro took over. Moreover, Lopez’s supporters have attacked government officials and offices with baseball bats and Molotov cocktails and done everything possible to instigate fighting with the clear aim, as Lopez himself describes, of making the Venezuelan government collapse. [Source]
The following could have equally been written for Ukraine or Venezuela – it’s the same tactics:
“The vicious street attack near the national headquarters of the prosecutor’s office in Caracas came after several days of often violent anti-government protests in the streets of Aragua, Lara, Mérida and Táchira. [Juan Francisco Alonso. “Fiscal assegai que atacantes del Ministerio Público buscaban “matar,” El Universal, February 13, 2014]. Some of these protests included the use of rocks, guns, and Molotov cocktails, and were largely directed against government buildings, the public (pro-government) television station Venezolana de Televisión, vehicles and other property, the police, and civilians. Among the injured were three students of the Central University of Venezuela who were reportedly wounded by gunfire as well as 17 Bolivarian National Police personnel, two of whom were attacked with Molotov Cocktails. Among those killed in Caracas were Juan Montoya, a community activist in the pro-Chavista 23rd of January barrio and Bassil Da Costa, a marketing student. A third person was killed in the Chacao neighborhood in the Eastern part of the Venezuelan capital.” [Source]
The same oligarchs that control most the mainstream media in Venezuela have been waging an economic war to cripple their own government and country with the aim of getting enough ordinary citizens to support their takeover of the state. Even though they are trying to portray Lopez as a maverick leader acting on his own, the oligarchs view President Nicolas Maduro as a weak leader and are seeking to use the crisis to both get concessions, either secret or public, and to amplify the internal tensions in the United Socialist Party with the aim of breaking it. [Source]
In Ukraine, the media of those countries supporting the junta portray the demonstrations as violence from the other side, and likewise …
In Venezuela, the media war and the contest over how to portray the demonstrations and violence is already at full throttle. Thabata Molina, reporting for the opposition newspaper El Universal (February 13), claimed that Montoya and one other victim were shot in the head by pro-government “collectivists” who, Molina reports, without offering evidence, were shooting at student marchers. The term “colectivos” is being used in this context to evoke a pejorative image of Chavistas who are associates of collectives. Molina’s version of events has been challenged by reports by a number of eye witnesses as well as reporters who suggest right wing extremists were taking advantage of the day of demonstrations to wreak violence and death. [Pearson, Tamara. “Opposition Violence Continues in Some Venezuelan Cities, Attacks on Journalists,” Venezuelananalysis.com, February 11, 2014]
Also, the generally anti-government flavor of the attacks indicates that the main culprits are more likely extreme elements of the opposition. It stretches the bounds of credibility to argue that the government would seek to destabilize itself when it has come out the winner in two important elections (presidential and municipal), has made reducing violence and crime a top priority, has recently met with opposition mayors to find ground on which to cooperate, and seeks a peaceful implementation of the government’s six year plan (Plan de la Patria).
The US State Department and the CIA, MI6, Mossad, etc. have no problem managing the destabilizations of several countries at the same time. It’s the same methodology taught to their operatives for use in any environment.
In May 2014 the US Congress is about to vote to give power to the US President to impose sanctions on Venezuelan officials, supposedly involved in recent violence which was in fact instigated by US-backed groups – a familiar pattern? Bosnia? Kosovo? Libya? Syria? Thailand? Ukraine?
The US Government ‘clarified’ that these sanctions ‘would not affect’ the purchase of Venezuelan oil. [Source]
What a sick sense of humour they have!
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