OAS attempted coup against Venezuela
The US colonial office continues its decadent function
In my commentaries of August 2 and August 9, I described the attempted coup d’état in Venezuela, and I referred to it as a U.S.-directed coup. It remains so, but the soft coup has evolved toward use of the Organization of American States as its driving instrument.
On August 16, an Extraordinary Session of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States emitted a resolution recognizing the substantial and peaceful participation of the electorate in the elections on July 28 in Venezuela; calling upon the interested parties to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict; stressing the importance of preserving the digital and printed records of the voting; and calling upon the National Electoral Council to publish in an expedited manner the results of the voting in each voting district, respecting the principal of the impartial verification of the results. The non-binding resolution was sponsored by the USA, with Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, Surinam, and Uruguay acting as co-sponsors. Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines were absent from the voting. Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua are no longer members of the OAS.
The Organization of American States has an infamous history. It was established in 1948 as an organization designed to institutionalize the participation of Latin American states in the domination exercised over them by the USA. It was silent before the U.S. overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala, which was targeted because of its nationalization with compensation of unused land of the United Fruit Company. In that same year of 1954, the OAS declared that any communist government in the region is a threat, and it used the resolution to expel Cuba in 1962, inspiring Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl Roa to refer to the OAS as the colonial office of the U.S. government.
At the insistence of the Latin American states, Cuba was invited to return to the OAS, but the Caribbean nation constructing socialism, continuing with the leadership of its Communist Party, did not return. Meanwhile, the launching of the unconventional war by the United States against targeted states and the intensification of the world-wide conflict between imperialist powers and anti-imperialist states have led to withdrawal from the OAS by Venezuela and Nicaragua, which had been targeted along with Cuba and Bolivia.
“OAS maneuvers against Cuba: US-directed Pan-Americanism and Latin American resistance,” July 30, 2021
The current strategy for regime change in Venezuela has involved economic sanctions to produce material hardship and popular discontent, non-recognition of the electoral triumph of the Maduro government in the July 28 elections, unleashing contracted local fascist and criminal gangs to engage in acts of violence and sabotage against symbols of the government and the Bolivarian Revolution, and enlisting support from the media, condemning Maduro’s alleged falsification of the electoral results. The inconsistency of the claims of the insurrectionists with the actual facts was unimportant; the important thing is signaling U.S. support for Venezuelan actors who would benefit from regime change. All of this is being carried out in accordance with previously declared policies and intentions by the U.S. government and its allies of the Right in Latin America.
The strategy was not able to generate street actions of sufficient scale beyond July 29 and 30, so the possibility for provoking a legitimation crisis was low. On July 31, Washington failed to obtain sufficient support from the Permanent Council of the OAS for a resolution demanding the immediate diffusion of the electoral results. The Western media withdrew from the terrain, posting few articles after July 30. And the Biden administration began making contradictory statements, retreating from recognition of the opposition candidate as the winner of the elections and as the true head of state in Venezuela. Meanwhile, the Maduro government was in full control in Venezuela, with the National Electoral Commission proceeding with a full review of the ballots, in accordance with the Venezuelan constitution and at the request of the Maduro government; with successful and peaceful public events in support of the government; and with the attorney general’s office proceeding with legal action against those who have violated laws in seeking to promote destabilization, some of whom are in hiding.
“Maduro wins elections in Venezuela: The destabilizing strategy of the Latin American Right, the USA, and the media,” August 2, 2024
“The US attempted coup against Venezuela: Contained with political intelligence by the Maduro government,” August 9, 2024
But the Organization of American States is again taking up the mantle of the soft coup, seeking to fulfill its true reason for being, by enlisting the support of Latin American governments in trying to isolate Venezuela. Although their initial attempt to gain support for a declaration failed, they have in recent days had more success, as noted above. In addition, they have had the indirect support of two Latin American heads of state, Gustavo Petro of Colombia and Lula of Brazil, two figures who are generally seen as pertaining to the progressive forces in Latin America.
The Columbian President published in his X social media account a five-point plan of action, calling, as the first point, for the lifting of all sanctions against Venezuela, including as well a general amnesty and a guarantee of political action for all sides. He also called for a transitional government including all sides, as well as the creation of an electoral process from zero. In my view, it is a proposal that violates the sovereignty of Venezuela, in that it involves the abandonment of the electoral system that Venezuela has freely constructed over the last quarter century, in exchange for the cessation of unjustifiable aggressive policies by the United States against the South America nation. It would constitute a surrender in the face of Northern imperialist aggression.
In the same vein, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called on August 15 for a resolution of the crisis through new elections. The proposal was rejected both by Maduro and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who maintained that the actual results of the June 28 elections ought to be respected.
In an article published on August 16 in Página 12, Atilio Boron, Stela Calloni, and Paula Klachko, well-known Latin American intellectuals, refer to the declarations of Petro and Lula as “a suspicious mediation.” They ask, why not permit the National Electoral Council thirty days from the date of the election to publish the definitive results, as is mandated by Venezuelan law? Strict compliance with the law is especially important, taking into account that there have been since election day accusations of fraud by the opposition and reports of cyberattacks by the National Electoral Council. Boron and his colleagues maintain that the proposal of the two presidents is offensive, inasmuch as the electoral process in Venezuela has proceeded in accordance with the law. They note that the opposition and the U.S. government had previously announced their intention to not recognize the election, intending to designate a “government in transition” as a Guaidó 2.0 maneuver, in order to attain “regime change.” I personally believe that all responsible actors ought to call for patience and for non-interference in Venezuelan affairs, permitting the Venezuelan electoral process to unfold, in accordance with its laws and its right to sovereignty. This has been the position taken by Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador.
Former Cuban Minister of Culture Abel Prieto condemned on August 17 the mediatic aggression against Venezuela, comparing it to the attacks suffered by the Spanish Republic of the last century. He recalled that in 1937, the well-known Cuban intellectual Juan Marinello said at the Congress of Antifascist Writers in Spain that “it is not possible to combat fascism without attacking its twin, imperialism.” Prieto noted that today in Venezuela, these two satanic brothers, fascism and imperialism, are acting with the aid of the power of the new technologies. He maintained that Venezuela represents now what the Spanish Republic in a previous time represented, attacked without pity by the forces of hate and betrayal. Prieto was speaking at the Day of Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution and Against Fascism, a conference that he organized in his capacity as President of the Casa de las Americas, upon seeing reports on July 29 and July 30 that the opposition was employing fascist gangs.
On August 15, the Spanish journalist Román Cuesta published in Diario Red an article analyzing the supposed documents that the opposition has put forth as “evidence” that a strong majority of the electorate had voted for the opposition candidate. He noted that, first, many of the documents did not include the signatures of the witnesses of the elections from the different political formations. Secondly, in hundreds of cases, the signatures of the members of the electoral tables were duplicated in a form in which a possible falsification is indicated. Thirdly, in other cases, stamps had been placed over the signatures, creating difficulties of verification. Fourthly, in other cases, there was not agreement between the printed name and the corresponding signature. The article included images of numerous examples illustrating Cuesta’s observations. He concluded that “we have sufficient evidence to affirm that thousands of these ‘electoral documents’ have been manipulated.”
Cuesta proceeds to address the question, what was needed to fabricate such a manipulation? He maintains that “Acts of Initiation,” printed by the electoral tables shortly before the initiation of the voting, could be used to create false “Acts of Scrutiny,” again providing ample photographic evidence in support of his argument. He noted that the manipulated Acts of Scrutiny included signatures that are “clumsy scribbles trying to imitate what appears in the Act of Initiation.”
Cuesta writes that he is sorry to discourage criminals, but the perfect crime does not exist. Every crime leaves traces.
In receiving the participants in the March for Peace and Democracy on August 17, Nicolás Maduro declared, “I am happy to open the door of this presidential palace to its owner, the sovereign people of Venezuela, the sole owner of political power in Venezuela.” He further declared, “Venezuela must be a country of respect for institutions, for peace. Peace is the people’s right. The future is a right. We have earned the right to build the future we want in Venezuela. . .. Venezuela belongs to the sovereign and heroic people of this country.”
On August 19, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) issued a communiqué rejecting “the spurious and interventionist OAS resolution on Venezuela’s internal affairs of this Friday, August 16, 2024. This inadmissible resolution, promoted mainly by the United States, represents another open interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs and confirms, once again, the servile role of the OAS before Washington to promote coup plans, disregarding the institutions of the Venezuelan State to address its affairs. ALBA-TCP reminds some governments in the region that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has not been an OAS member since 2019 and therefore that organization has no authority whatsoever to address issues related to Venezuela, much less to interfere in such a biased manner in its domestic affairs.”
ALBA-TCP was founded by Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro in 2004 as an organization of governments in Latin America and the Caribbean that seeks a mutually beneficial integration among the nations of the region, an alternative to U.S.-directed integration. It has ten member states: Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Saint Chrisopher and Nevis, and Saint Lucia.
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