... It doesn’t matter who has been in the White House: Barack Obama or Teddy Roosevelt; the US will not tolerate countries with governments and cultures that put the needs of their own people first and refuse to promote or succumb to US demands and pressures. A reformist social democracy with a capitalist base – such as Venezuela – is not excused by the rulers of the world. What is inexcusable is Venezuela’s political independence; only complete deference is acceptable. The ‘survival’ of Chavista Venezuela is a testament to the support of ordinary Venezuelans for their elected government – that was clear to me when I was last there. Venezuela’s weakness is that the political ‘opposition’ – those I would call the ‘East Caracas Mob’ – represent powerful interests who have been allowed to retain critical economic power. Only when that power is diminished will Venezuela shake off the constant menace of foreign-backed, often criminal subversion. No society should have to deal with that, year in, year out. John Pilger, article February 2015, ‘The Struggle of Venezuela Against a Common Enemy’; viz website
President Obama you remember called Venezuela a threat to the security of the United States. John Pilger, Going Underground, RT October 2018
I think the supreme test was the coup d’etat of 2002. I was made a prisoner, they took me away and I thought I was going to die. Now the Venezuelan people, the poor without weapons, went in. Hundreds of thousands went on to the streets to ask for my life, asking for Chavez to return. And so I have nothing left to do especially after that but dedicate all my life I have left to those people, and above all the most deprived, the poorest. Jim Fleischer, interview The War on Democracy
It is interesting to me how this system has continued pretty much the same way for years and years and years, except the economic hit-men get better and better and better. Then we come up with very recently what happened in Venezuela in 1998 when Chavez gets elected president, following a long line of presidents who had been very corrupt, and basically destroyed the economy of the country ... Chavez stood up to the United States, and he’d done it primarily demanding that Venezuelan oil be used to help the Venezuelan people. Well, we didn’t like that in the United States. So in 2002 a coup was staged, which is no question in my mind and in most other people’s minds, that the CIA was behind that coup. The way that that coup was fomented was very reflective of what Colonel Roosevelt had done in Iran of paying people to go out into the streets, to riot, to protest, to say this Chavez is very unpopular. If you can get a few thousand people to do that, television can make it look like it’s the whole country, and things start to mushroom, except in the case of Chavez, he was smart enough, and the people were so strongly behind him that they overcame it; which was a phenomenal moment in the history of Latin America. John Perkins, author Confessions of an Economic Hitman
It’s finally clear this is a coup. The President has refused to resign. He is being taken prisoner – this is a coup. Let the world know. It’s a coup! [loud applause from people assembled] A coup against the people who love him! Ana Elisa Osorio, minister of environment, 2002 coup attempt by opposition, announcing ultimatum delivered by opposition troops for president Hugo Chavez to resign
He calls Castro his idol. And the United States an enemy. To his followers he is Venezuela’s hope; to his critics he is at worse a dictator and at best a master of the media. Frontline: The Hugo Chavez Show, PBS 2008
The fact is ... that when totalitarian nations like China and Saudi Arabia play ball with US business interests, we like them just fine. But when Venezuela’s freely elected president threatens powerful corporate interests, the Bush administration treats him as an enemy. Robert Scheer
In oil-rich Venezuela, over 40 per cent live in extreme poverty according to official figures, and the food situation is considered ‘hyper-critical’ the Chamber of Food Industries reported in 1989. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy
‘Here in Venezuela and the rest of Latin America we were being taken over by the savage project of neo-liberalism with its claim that there’s a hidden hand which regulates the market. It’s a lie, a lie! A lie a thousand times over! Of course there are alternatives and we in Venezuela we are proving it! The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Chavez: Inside the Coup, 2003, Chavez to crowd
2002: ‘Following a military coup, Venezuela is apparently under the control of the army.’ ibid. news
Chavez had promised to redistribute the wealth and involved people in political projects. ibid.
Chavez held a weekly radio and television show where any citizen could phone in and talk directly to the president. ibid.
‘We need to inspire the community to get involved.’ ibid. Chavez
Under Chavez there was now total freedom of expression. ibid.
For decades the state oil company had been run like a private corporation by the traditional ruling class. ibid.
Soon it became clear we were being shot at by snipers. ibid.
‘It’s a coup! A coup against the people who love him!’ ibid. Environment minister
Despite police repression people had decided to march on the palace. ibid.
As the guards secured the building, Chavez’s ministers who had been in hiding for the last two days began to arrive back to the palace to try to establish a legitimate cabinet. ibid.
Today in the corporate media Venezuela’s economic problems are used to paint the country as a failed state in need of foreign-backed regime change. Abby Martin & The Empire Files, interview
‘We have built 1,600,000 homes in the last four years … housing is a social need.’ ibid. minister of economic development
‘Economy is sabotaged, oil pipes are broken, your production lines get affected.’ ibid.
‘A story of epic mismanagement’ … ‘A desperate people resorting to desperate measures’ … ‘He’s [Maduro] bent Venezuela’s democratic process to his will’ … ‘He’s turned down food and medicine.’ (Lies & Venezuela & Propaganda) Abby Martin & The Empire Files: Leftist Crushes John Oliver’s Venezuela Episode, 2018
cf.
Healthcare expanded to 60% of population … 2 million new homes for the poor … 20,000 children’s schools provided with new computers … ibid.
Almost every media outlet paints the same picture that Venezuela’s a brutal dictatorship and a starving nation: one that demands intervention … Tech giants like Facebook and Twitter are doing their part to shape the narrative too, recently removing 2,000 accounts for spreading pro-Maduro messaging. Abby Martin & The Empire Files: An Ocean of Lies on Venezuela, Abby Martin online 2019
Their [US] latest cynical stunt is weaponising aid to hold Maduro’s government hostage. ibid.
Before this coup attempt, Guaido was much better known in elite US circles than he was in his home country. ibid.
‘We used to be rich but we didn’t know it. We had everything. Now, no.’ Our World: Venezuela Falling Backwards, woman, BBC 2020
Last year the world watched as millions of Venezuelans poured across its borders. Escaping a country whose economy and infrastructure are struggling to function. Venezuela … was once the richest country in South America. ibid.
Inflation in Venezuela is now the highest in the world. The health-care system has collapsed. More than 30% of the population doesn’t have food. And many people don’t have access to fresh water or electricity. By the end of this year it’s expected that more than six million people will have left Venezuela, more than 20% of the entire population. ibid.
What started as a crisis has become the new normal. ibid.
Now, more than half the country’s business is carried out in dollars. ibid
The United States is involved across the world. Our government has its rigid view of the world in Vietnam, in the Dominican Republic … FALN *****, short Youtube 32.05, 1965
The politicians who make decisions for us are too removed from us. More and more we go unrepresented. The words they use to justify themselves have lost a tangible meaning. The government turns against those who do not accept its views. The United States turns not with a decency, not with the mind open to the many different ways people have of seeking solutions. Who does our government speak for? ibid.
Venezuela, a sea of oil controlled by American companies. If the profits from the oil reached down to them, the eight and a half million people would live differently. But the profits leave. ibid.
Hope: They go to release the political prisoners. Shut away, abuse, for what one believes … Not they hunt out the secret police. ibid.
All is just as it was, just as it will be … No-one speaks for the people. ibid.
Vice-president Nixon comes to Venezuela. ibid.
How long can they wait? … Things get worse, not better. ibid.
The start of a terror worse than those before. Arrests go on around them. Their houses are searched. They do not remain apart. The government tries to crush the people who would change their lives. ibid.
1962: The armed forces of national liberation, the FALN, was formed to coordinate armed struggle … They remain responsive to the peasants. ibid.