Venezuela political situation/humanitarian Crisis - Page 6

On February 01 2019 05:05 JimmiC wrote:


I'm not doing any of the planning, neither are you so that is not really relevant in this case.

I hope he is not actually killed that would almost certainly lead to lots more violence whether it is civil war or invasion or both.

What Has Happened in Venezuela Is a Coup. Trump’s Denial Is Dangerous

Juan Guaidó has declared himself president. Now the US and rightwing regimes may seek an excuse to intervene in support.

At the dawn of the 21st century, Hugo Chavez invoked Bolívar’s promise and when the poor, black, Amerindian people of Venezuela returned him to power, time and again, especially after the failed US-backed coup of 2002, he too radicalised his stance against the mighty empire Bolivar had only speculated about, America. Again, the promise was realised only in part. Some might say the revolution has been betrayed or stalled during the rule of his successor Nicolás Maduro. No one can deny Venezuela’s problems. The very source of its magic in the 1970s, oil, has proven its downfall. Chavez did not win his country’s independence from oil and its geopolitics.

Crisis loomed when global prices fell, production stagnated, the value of the currency dropped, and under Maduro, dependence on imports and retail monopolies meant shortages that hurt many. That responsibility lies with the government and the industrialist rightwing opposition. But to think that this opposition, revived by Juan Guaidó’s self-proclamation spectacle, acts out of genuine concern for the poor, black people and Amerindians who empowered themselves during the years of the Bolivarian revolution would be foolish.

Enter Donald Trump: megalomaniac, erratic, liar. Calling out the interventionism of previous US administrations, which had been constant in their hatred for Chavez and their attempts to regain influence in the region, Trump promised to put an end to all such shenanigans. But on Wednesday, vice-president Mike Pence saluted Guaidó’s self-appointment, observing that although Trump disliked intervening elsewhere, he “has always had a very different view of our hemisphere”. That’s an explicit invocation of the Monroe doctrine under which the US has held it as its responsibility to intervene in the Americas, which it sees as its backyard.

Trump swiftly recognised Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela, and was followed by a cohort of Latin American presidents, all-white, upper-class leaders now spearheading the new reactionary wave in the region: Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Argentina’s Mauricio Macri, Colombia’s Iván Duque and Chile’s Sebastián Piñera. They’ll proclaim themselves saviours of democracy and humanitarianism, the liars. Draping themselves in the robes of the liberators of yesteryear, just as Guaidó draped himself in the image of Chavez and Bolívar while holding a constitution with the latter’s image on its cover, they’ll happily support further US sanctions, paramilitary forces training Venezuela’s opposition in the torture tactics that displaced 7 million people in Colombia, or using “lawfare” in pan-American institutions just as happened to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, Manuel Zelaya in Honduras and Fernando Lugo in Paraguay.

Expect such measures to have limited purchase. Washington knows it. Then, Trump and the others will be ready to go for the more muscular approach. Not by accident, this could also benefit Trump as elections approach or if he is cornered by investigations and impeachment. War distracts and makes money. Only this won’t be a regional plunder: China and Russia, both with key interests in Venezuela and elsewhere in the region, have followed Bolivia, Mexico, Uruguay and Cuba to call Guaidó’s stunt by its real name: a coup. Russia has indicated it would come to the defence of its ally. In Venezuela, many who may be critical of Maduro but fear most the return of the rightwing opposition to power are unlikely to cheer the newly converted humanitarians.

On February 01 2019 06:56 JimmiC wrote:
Not only was the source of that questionable. But If someone asked me Do you support a US supported Coup of your government? my answer would be no. If they asked do you support your current leader ? My answer would be no. Do you support new fair elections? Yes

What I'm getting at is there is a thing called loaded questions sometimes it happens accidentally so when you are creating surveys you need to be very careful. But in this case it is clear there was a goal.

Also generally when you do these things you also put out the information about how many people what type of people you talked to and the statistical relevance.


I have posted many more balanced articles than that. You don't actually think it is, do you? Come on man. Perhaps if you had this is opinion that best matches my own it would make more sense and give the reader some context.