Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan President is not a person to be talked about positively. He bears considerable responsibility in where his country is standing today. It is certain that I would never vote for him if I lived in his country, and were eligible to vote.
That being said, I believe in the principle that suggests elected politicians must be removed from power through votes of people. The opposition in Venezuela has fallen into trap set by the government, and it failed to reach required number of votes it had expected in the elections. The rules of the system must be obeyed until the expected outcome would be obtained. Seeking a short-cut path to power is impermissible in democratic countries, and this applies to this Latin American country as well.
I have clearly stated my negative attitude toward Maduro -that requirement has been fulfilled. Now, however, it is a must to remind that not all troubles the country faces recently are consequences of home production. The USA imposes harsh sanctions over Venezuela which it considers ‘its backyard’. Malfunction of economy, inflation rates at unimaginable levels, inaccessibility of convenience goods, unavailability of many medical materials are, to a considerable extent, consequences of those heavy sanctions that have been in effect since 2015.
Officers trained at School for Military Coups
I wrote yesterday, too: Latin America is a field where the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the USA runs wild. Since 1950s, the CIA has carried out a series of military interventions in order to prevent political groups undesirable for the USA to come to power, or, to overthrow them if they managed to come to power.
Almost in every country. . .
The USA makes this possible by training officers from those countries in a war academy. The name of the college is ‘School of Americas’ (SoA). It was opened in the Panama Canal region that was under control of the USA in 1948. Later (in 1984) the school was relocated to Fort Benning in the State of Georgia. Up to the present, 60.000 Latin American officers have been trained. 11 of those have managed to come to power in their countries through military coups. While its original name was Army Caribbean School, it took its infamous name in 1963.
The SoA changed its name one more time due to its disgraceful fame because of its contribution to military coups and the very ruthlessness of those coup plotters who exercised methods that they had learned at the school earlier when they successfully seized power. Its name today is Western Hemisphere Institute for Cooperation (WHINSEC).
We need to keep in mind that the number of officers in the Venezuelan Army who have graduated from this school is not negligible.
Washington must be relying on those officers. It is clearly emphasized in USA official statements that the mission of overthrowing Maduro is put on shoulders of these officers.
Oil and natural resources are misfortune of the country
Why does the USA seek ways to overthrow Maduro?
The excuses given are seemingly humanitarian. The responsibility of challenges that the country is facing is placed on the government. Some claims about restrictions on civil rights and freedom, wipeout of free press, intimidation inflicted on the opposition, annihilation of those who are particularly active in opposition against the government are expressed, and many of such claims are relevant indeed.
I stated at the beginning of my article: There is hardly anything about Maduro and his regime to defend. It is not surprising that those Venezuelans who have chance to leave take shelter in the neighboring countries because of grim mistakes of the regime.
There is something in Venezuela that seduces Donald Trump and some of his colleagues in the administration eager to resort to military methods to tackle any problem, such as John Bolton and Mike Pompeo: It is the fact that Venezuela has the richest oil reserves in the world.
Venezuela, one of the founding members of the OPEC, was in the list of the richest and most stable countries of the world before wrong economic policies were adopted.
Oil is a seductive asset
It is said that the opponents of the regime have promised Washington to privatize oil and other rich underground resources of the country. It is evident that American oil companies have their eyes on rich underground reserves of Venezuela. Besides, Venezuela is much closer to the USA than the Middle East.
For some curious reason, attempts for a regime change take place generally in countries that enjoy oil reserves or rich underground resources. Iraq is one of them, so is Libya. The USA has its eyes on Iran; so, Iran falls in this category of countries, too.
Algeria, where regime change was quietly achieved recently through the army, has considerable amount of oil reserves (it is the 16th among oil producing countries) and of natural gas (the 6th).
Thus, we understand that Trump meant “Richness of other countries must be owned by the USA” when he said “America First!” during his election campaign.
Regardless of what tools may be deployed. . .
If Venezuela falls. . .
The USA demands soldiers in Venezuela to overthrow Maduro, and hand power onto a leader that the USA would designate. It provokes street fights, and expect that the process would not linger any longer. It does not leave out the threat of sending troops to the country. On the other hand, it threatens those countries supporting Venezuela with sanctions.
If this method proved to be successful, I ensure, other countries would come under threat.
Because we are deeply occupied with our own challenges, we are not fully aware of this negative conduct of the world.
The world is about to turn into a hell…
[I sincerely thank my reader Bernar for translation. FK.]
