https://socialistaction.org/2019/05/30/u-s-backed-revolt-fails-in-venezuela/
U.S.-backed revolt fails in Venezuela
/ 17 hours ago
June 2019 Vez. windows
Occupation by antiwar activists of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington.
(Marty Goodman / Socialist Action)
By JEFF MACKLER
(UPDATED FROM EARLIER REPORT) It took some 34 days for the Donald Trump
administration to decide on May 18, 2019, to forcefully evict from the
Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, D.C., four antiwar activist members of
the Embassy Protection Coalition. The four were there with the formal
and express consent of the Venezuelan government and its president,
Nicolas Maduro. Their attorneys repeatedly informed threatening U.S.
government officials that any attempt to evict members of this Embassy
Protection Coalition would be in flagrant violation of U.S. and
established international law, wherein the embassies of recognized
governments cannot be violated.
Embassy personnel and appointed representatives, as well as their
offices and contents, cannot be breached or infringed upon by the host
government. These principles were recently affirmed with regard to the
Ecuadoran Embassy in London that provided sanctuary to Wikileaks founder
Julian Assange. Until the new Ecuadoran government reversed its previous
position and decided to allow British authorities to remove Assange, no
one had dared to enter for some seven years.
In this matter, the Trump administration finds itself ensnared in its
self-declared and delusional contradiction. On the one hand, it
maintains official recognition of the Venezuelan government and,
therefore, the sanctity of its embassy; on the other, it insists that
its puppet ???president,??? appointee Juan Guaid??, is the true
representative of this government. In the end, as with all such matters
when U.S. imperialism???s ???interests??? are at stake, international law and
all other ???laws??? are ignored with impunity and brute force is employed
to achieve heinous ends.
No doubt, if the embassy matter becomes subject to future litigation,
Trump and Company fully expect that their U.S. Supreme Court, or any
other judicial body, will find or invent some ???legal??? justifications to
suit the imperial needs of the capitalist system they are sworn to
uphold. One can only imagine reading a Supreme Court decision wherein
the Court recognizes the right of the U.S. government to appoint its
agents/puppets to the presidency of another country!
Certainly, no such U.S. judicial authority has ruled that the myriad of
recent regime change wars that leveled much of the infrastructure of
Iraq, Libya and Syria, and now Yemen, and slaughtered millions of
civilians, were illegal.
Today, the full force of U.S. imperial power is directed against
Venezuela, including enforcing an international embargo and blockade,
unprecedented sanctions, overt threats of intervention and the massive
U.S. sequestering of billions of dollars in Venezuela???s international
assets. The combination of these U.S. actions alone, according to the
Center for Economic and Policy Research, has resulted in the incredible
loss of 40,000 Venezuelan lives due to U.S.-imposed starvation and lack
of medical supplies.
CIA???s fake revolution
U.S. media monopolies for months, and to this day, dutifully report each
and every Trump and CIA-manufactured lie to justify its ongoing
regime-change coup efforts. Trump???s warmongering cohorts, National
Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Elliot
Abrams went to the extreme in scripting and orchestrating a ???Wag the
Dog??? Hollywood-style, fake revolution against the Venezuelan government,
aimed at convincing the Venezuelan people and world public opinion that
the Venezuelan army had gone over to Guaid?????s side, that Guaid?? was in
power, and that masses were in the streets proclaiming his victory.
Guaid?????s April proclamations to this effect included that he had won the
support of three major military officers, that his soldiers had captured
a prime military base in Caracas and that massive numbers had rallied to
his cause in Caracas and across the country to demand President Maduro???s
ouster.
All of this soon proved to be CIA-created fiction, repeated as truth ad
nauseam, according to the media investigating group, FAIR (Fairness in
Accuracy and Reporting), in virtually every major newspaper in the
country. (See
https://fair.org/home/failed-coup-a-fake-corporate-news-story-designed-to-trick-venezuelan-soldiers-and-us-public/)
The named ???defecting??? Venezuelan military officers???who had apparently
been contacted by the CIA and offered huge bribes???played along with the
would-be coup makers only to later expose their deeds, repudiating
Guaid?????s and the CIA???s fabrications (see the May 5, 2019, Los Angeles
Times). None defected. The mass protests that Guaid?? announced never
materialized. Small groups of Guaid?? supporters gathered briefly in
Caracas??? upper-middle-class neighborhoods to engage police with rocks.
Meanwhile, the subsequent May Day mobilizations a day later of 400,000
government supporters, the largest in several years, were invisible to
the corporate media. In the end, the entire rigged scenario proved to be
a fiction. The New York Times finally reported in a front-page article
on May 22, ???Weakened and unable to bring the political crisis gripping
Venezuela to a quick resolution, Mr. Guaid?? [fleeing from one safe house
to another in Venezuela] has been forced to consider negotiations with
Mr. Maduro.???
Yet to this day the fiction of Guaid?????s presidency is maintained by the
duopoly war parties of the United States. Not a single U.S. politician
moved to expose this charade. Manufacturing such scenarios, accompanied
by demonization of a nation???s leader as a mass murdering tyrant, often
accompanied by ???proof??? of heinous misdeeds such as the now-refuted
charge of using lethal sarin gas against civilians in Syria, is the
stock in trade in imperialism???s arsenal of mass deception aimed at
justifying ???humanitarian??? and regime change wars in the public mind.
Self-determination for Venezuela
The articles in this Socialist Action pamphlet serve as a resounding
refutation of these crudely orchestrated regime-change efforts and as an
affirmation of Socialist Action???s unconditional support of the right to
self-determination of Venezuela???s people and democratically elected
government.
Today???s central antiwar movement demand, ???U.S. Hands Off Venezuela!??? has
proved to be increasingly effective in forging broad united-front-type
mass-action coalitions like the United National Antiwar Coalition
(UNAC), whose focus is on bringing thousands into the streets in clear
opposition to the bipartisan warmakers. UNAC???s component organizations,
of course, hold a range of often divergent assessments on the policies
of the Venezuelan government. They are united in rejecting U.S.
intervention in all its horrific expressions, but as a mass action
coalition they take no position on the nature of the Venezuelan
government. As individual organizations each is free to present its own
views.
Socialist Action???s assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of
Venezuela???s Bolivarian Revolution is presented here in some detail.
While standing full square on the side of the Venezuelan government and
people against every effort of the U.S. government to overthrow it, we
have also been harsh critics of Venezuela???s ???pink revolution??? policies
that have tragically served to weaken its fight against
imperialist-imposed isolation and war.
Socialist versus ???pink??? revolutions
Venezuela???s ???pink revolution?????? as with all of Latin America???s recent
experience with the political rule of social-democratic, reformist, or
left nationalist governments that promised to improve the lives of the
working masses without fundamentally challenging their nation???s
capitalist and private property foundation???has proved to be inadequate
to the task. John Pilger???s Feb. 22, 2019, Counterpunch article entitled
???The war on Venezuela is built on lies??? makes this absolutely clear.
Pilger, a longtime admirer and friend of former Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez and a sympathetic, anti-imperialist friend of Venezuela,
explains in great detail what has been widely viewed as Venezuela???s
democratic electoral process and its significant social achievements.
But Pilger???s balance sheet includes this painfully accurate yet
contradictory statement: ???For all the Chavistas??? faults???such as allowing
the Venezuelan economy to become hostage to the fortunes of oil and
never seriously challenging big capital and corruption???they brought
social justice and pride to millions of people and they did it with
unprecedented democracy.???
The iron laws of capitalism, whether in the U.S. or anywhere else in the
world, repeatedly demonstrate that advancing the interests of the vast
majority is inherently incompatible with defending the prerogatives of
the minority ruling-class capitalist elite. The Chavez/Maduro
governments, as Pilger painfully notes, ???never seriously challenged big
capital,??? that is, the overwhelming ownership and control by the ???one
percent??? of Venezuela???s major industries including its oil???partial
???nationalizations??? notwithstanding???its land, banking, and related
financial institutions, basic resources, systems of transportation,
shipping, etc. Venezuela???s land largely remains the private property of
big landowners.
In short, the Chavez/Maduro project of ???coexisting??? with capitalism left
it incapable of developing a rounded economy capable of producing its
own food???Venezuela imports almost all of its food???and instituting a
semblance of planned and balanced economic growth aimed as satisfying
human needs as opposed to capitalist profits. Today, 70 percent of
Venezuela???s economy remains in capitalist hands, not to mention some 70
to 90 percent of its media.
Rhetoric aside, Venezuela is no socialist economy. The rhythms of its
economic, and therefore social development, are contingent on the
exigencies of the world capitalist market. When world oil prices, always
manipulated by the U.S. and a few of the most powerful oil producers,
plummeted from over $110 per barrel to less than $40 over the past
decade, Venezuela???s economy suffered greatly and became increasingly
subject to imperialism???s ever-deepening destabilization measures.
The Chavez government???s conscious decision to avoid any fundamental
break with capitalism left it unprotected, as was the case with similar
reform-minded governments in Brazil (Lula), Ecuador (Correa) and
Nicaragua (Ortega). The Chavistas sought to coexist with the
???boli-bourgeoisie??? (Venezuelan capitalists) who occupied essential parts
of the government infrastructure and were included in Venezuela???s United
Socialist Party. Capitalism and government corruption are inseparable.
In contrast to Venezuela???s reform-minded but capitalism-committed
Chavistas, Cuba???s socialist revolution of 1959 proceeded to rapidly, in
Fidel???s words, ???nationalize the capitalist class down to the nails in
the heels of their boots.??? It quickly established a planned economy
based on meeting human needs, not capitalist profits; it distributed the
land to the long-oppressed and exploited peasantry; and it armed its
population to defend all of those gains. In consequence, Cuba???s proud
revolutionary achievements remain largely intact and a shining example
to oppressed people everywhere, despite more than a half-century of U.S.
imperialist efforts to restore it to its former neo-colonial status.
The way forward for Venezuela
Venezuela today stands at the threshold of social change. It can take
the Cuban route and move toward a fundamental break with capitalist
domination or it can continue on the dead-end path of ???peaceful???
co-existence with an imperialist-backed internal capitalist elite. The
latter course, as history has repeatedly demonstrated, is a sure road to
disaster.
Genuine socialist revolution, established via the direct and democratic
rule of the working-class majority, requires the formation of a deeply
rooted, mass revolutionary socialist, working-class-based party. While
no such party exists in Venezuela today, the conditions for its
formation, given the deep radicalization brought on by the immediate
threat of a U.S. invasion and the experience of millions with the severe
limitations and failures of previous reform projects, are propitious.
The road to the construction of such a party centers on winning the
confidence and mass support of the working class and absolute opposition
to imperialist intervention. In the current context, the best defense is
a good offence. There is nothing the Venezuelan government can do to
placate the rapacious capitalists in the U.S. or within Venezuela.
Appeasement will not work. Power must be met with power. And the only
source of power within Venezuela that can match the imperial behemoth at
the gates is an emboldened, organized, mobilized working class headed by
a mass revolutionary socialist party that proves in action to be the
best defenders of the interests of Venezuela???s working masses. U.S.
Hands Off Venezuela!
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May 30, 2019 in Latin America. Tags: Venezuela
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David Hume
??? In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable
degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral
evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. ???
??? David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
