First-Hand Account of Protecting the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington
May 2, 2019
Kevin Zeese, co-founder of the Venezuelan Embassy Protection Collective,
described the situation inside the embassy on Wednesday.
Focused on Sovereignty and Peace
By Dennis J. Bernstein
Special to Consortium News
On May 1, I conducted this phone interview with Kevin Zeese, co-director of
Popular Resistance, and co-founder of the Venezuelan Embassy Protection
Collective, about the occupation of the embassy.
Dennis Bernstein: Where exactly are you now Kevin Zeese?
Kevin Zeese: Im talking to you from the Venezuelan embassy in Washington,
D.C., as part of the Embassy Protection Collective, a group of organizations
and individuals who are standing in solidarity with the Venezuelan people to
protect their embassy from takeover by the Trump administration and the
state government they have picked for Venezuela, which just had a failed
coup yesterday. I am co-director of Popular Resistance.org, which grew out
of the Occupy movement and is a daily movement and organizing site which
carries on the issues which were raised by the Occupy movement. We are one
of the initiators of this collective at the embassy, along with Code Pink,
the Answer Coalition, Black Alliance for Peace, and other organizations.
Dennis Bernstein: Tell us exactly what you are doing there in the embassy
and what people in Washington, D.C., are trying to do in the context of what
appears to be a U.S.-supported coup and advanced destabilization.
Kevin Zeese: Tenant of Venezuela. (Slowking4, GFDL 1.2 via Wikimedia
Commons)
Kevin Zeese: Tenant of Venezuela. (Slowking4, GFDL 1.2 via Wikimedia
Commons)
Kevin Zeese: We have upwards of 50 people living here every night. We
began on April 10 and it is ongoing. We work here, we sleep here, we cook
here. This has become our home and we see ourselves as tenants of the
Venezuelan government. We live here with the permission of the elected
Venezuelan government. There was no unlawful entry, there is no trespass.
We see ourselves as interim protectors because the U.S. embassy in Caracas
is vacant and the U.S. wants to have Switzerland serve as a protectorate for
that embassy. Venezuela is negotiating with other countries to be a
protectorate for this embassy. We are hoping that the two countries will
mutually agree to having protectorates and that way both embassies will
remain sovereign. Once that is negotiated, we hope that will begin an
ongoing dialogue that can resolve a lot of the disputes between the U.S. and
Venezuela.
I know that Venezuela wants to have a good relationship with the United
States and does not see the United States as an enemy. They want peace, but
they will protect their sovereignty and independence and they are prepared
to do so with their military as well as their civilian militia. We hope to
avoid such a conflict and use this embassy dispute as a way to open up
diplomatic relations and end the economic attack as well as the threats of
military force.
Dennis Bernstein: What confirms this to be a coup, an overthrow of the
government there?
Kevin Zeese: There is no question that this is a coup. This was discussed
by the OAS [Organization of American States] in January and February by the
U.S. and its allies. They picked [National Assembly President Juan] Guaidó
to be their puppet president, someone who had never run for presidency and
had come from the second smallest state with 24 percent of the vote, which
was enough to get into the national legislature. By appointing himself
interim president he violated the Venezuelan constitution in a multitude of
ways.
The coup tried yesterday to conduct a takeover of the country and failed
miserably. Guaidó along with the leader of the opposition, Leopoldo Lopez,
who has been convicted of inciting violence that killed more than 140 people
fled and are hiding in the Chilean embassy. So our understanding of the
reality of the coup is not just that it was discussed at the OAS but also
that the night before the coup [Vice President] Michael Pence called Guaidó
and said that he has the full support of the U.S. government. As soon as he
was self-appointed, Trump called him and recognized him and got the
right-wing Lima Group countries to go along with that as well as many
Western European countries. One hundred and fifty nations have not
recognized Guaidó, neither has the United Nations. The OAS, which has
always been under the thumb of the United States, had to change its rules
because they could not get the two-thirds vote required to recognize Guaidó,
and then they barely got the majority. That has resulted in the OAS
ambassadors from Venezuela leaving. The Caracas embassy has been used as a
place for organizing opposition for many years. They worked very hard to
undermine the 2018 reelection of President [Nicolás] Maduro. There were
more than 150 election observers from around the world and they unanimously
found that the election met international standards and was free of fraud.
Sign on embassy door. (Facebook page of Venezuelan Venezuelan Embassy
Protection Collective)
Sign on embassy door. (Facebook page of Venezuelan Embassy Protection
Collective)
Dennis Bernstein: Meanwhile we have the Trump administration trying to
install part of the coup leadership that apparently failed in a coup attempt
yesterday. It was an amazing day for U.S. intelligence when they were
talking about this plane, all the leaders agreed to go and something had to
be done. It was right out of the textbook of CIA destabilization and
overthrow. It is a throwback but is extremely disturbing. What are those
who support the government saying to you inside the embassy? Are they
willing to fight all the way?
Kevin Zeese: If you go to our website, you can read the declaration of our
collective, which lays out how Maduro was reelected legitimately, how the
Vienna Convention requires the U.S. government to protect the embassy and
not turn it over to a fake government, and how Guides election violated the
Venezuelan constitution.
Of course, there are many people from Venezuela here who take a very
different position. Maduros supporters are for the most part in Venezuela,
which is why they keep winning elections and defeating these coups. The
people who fled Venezuela, the business people and government people from
the pre-Chavez era, are forming a violent mob outside the embassy.
Yesterday they were abusing us with sound cannons and racist slurs. Today
an opposition person snuck into the basement, got to the third floor and
locked himself in a room and we had to negotiate with the secret service to
remove him. Unfortunately, the secret service removed the police barriers
and told us we were on our own. So, we now feel that we are under siege.
But people are confident. We know we are acting lawfully, that we are on
the right side of history. We are standing against a U.S. coup, a U.S.
military threat, and with the Venezuelan people.
Embassy Protection Collective. (Twitter)
