[News] US Siding With Anti-Democratic Forces in Venezuela

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/US-Siding-With-Anti-Democratic-Forces-in-Venezuela-20181212-0031.html 



  US Siding With Anti-Democratic Forces in Venezuela

Published 12 December 2018
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A day after the landslide victory of the United Socialist Party of 
Venezuela (PSUV) in the municipal elections 
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/PSUV-Wins-Majority-in-Local-Elections-Venezuelan-Authorities-20181209-0021.html> 
on Sunday, the Embassy of the United States in Caracas tweeted against 
their validity despite the wide participation of local political forces 
and opposition parties.

“The elections for municipal councils, in which the regime of #Maduro 
discredited the opposition parties, were deeply defective. We support 
those committed with democracy and we call for the regime to reestablish 
it in #Venezuela,” the embassy tweeted on Monday.

Venezuelan citizens and foreigners with more than 10 years residing in 
the country were able to elect 4,900 councilors and their deputy posts, 
for which 51 political organizations participated including 21 which are 
national political parties, 11 regional, five national Indigenous 
parties, and 14 regional Indigenous organizations. The most popular 
right-wing parties decided to abstain, but Democratic Action and First 
Justice did participate.

Election after election, the U.S. and other countries have supported the 
opposition parties’ decision to abstain from the process, leading to 
strong victories by the PSUV, President Nicolas Maduro’s party, and 
allies. Despite the failure of the strategy, the embassy argues the 
electoral system is rigged by the ruling party and has imposed personal 
sanctions on Tibisay Lucena, president of the National Electoral Council 
(CNE) “for actively impulsing the elections of the National Constituent 
Assembly, as well as collaborating in some way to undermine democracy or 
human rights in Venezuela,” as stated by a tweet on Dec. 6, 2018.

The U.S. government keeps sanctioning Venezuela public servants, like 
the foreign commerce minister Alejandro Fleming, who they blame for 
their “association with an important driving force of corruption in 
Venezuela, the black market surrounding the official regime on the 
exchange rate.”

But the attacks are not only limited to words and sanctions. On 
Wednesday, Maduro gave a press conference on the municipal elections and 
accused John Bolton, U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security 
advisor, of plotting to kill him.

According to Maduro, there is a plan encouraged by Bolton to train 
mercenary forces that will execute false positives to military forces at 
the border with Colombia in order to confuse public opinion and justify 
an attack on Venezuela. Citing information by Venezuela's Bolivarian 
Service for National Intelligence (SEBIN), the joint effort is training 
734 Colombian and Venezuelan mercenaries for a paramilitary group called G8.

In Dec. 7, 2018, the embassy commemorated “three months since Juan 
Requesens was illegally jailed,” saying there are “more political 
prisoners in civilian and military prisons in Venezuela than days in a 
year.”

Requesens, an opposition legislator, was accused by the SEBIN of 
participating in the failed assassination attempt 
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Venezuela-Opposition-Legislator-Linked-to-Drone-Attack-Detained-20180808-0005.html> 
against Maduro in August.

Maduro also denounced the behavior of the embassy, saying it 
“permanently makes declarations as if it was another institution in 
Venezuela,” meddling with the South American country’s internal affairs.

On Dec. 1, 2018, the embassy said the U.S. was “ready to offer emergency 
assistance in food and medicines to the Venezuelan people if only the 
government of Maduro would accept it.” Even though the embassy declared 
the sanctions allowed it, it didn’t talk about other sanctions that 
block the country financially, hampering efforts to export oil and 
introduce medicine and food into the country by its own means.

Maduro also accused the Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro of 
receiving orders from the U.S. to provoke Venezuela militarily.

“Hamilton Mourao (the Vice-president elect of Brazil)... everyday 
declares what that government’s policy will be. Every day he says he 
will invade Venezuela, that Brazil will use his military forces,” he said.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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