The announcement that Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaido is
declaring himself interim president did not mean an immediate and
orderly exchange of power, despite enthusiastic cheer-leading from the
US and its allies.
In practice, President Nicholas Maduro is still in de facto power, and on Thursday, his military chief declared loyalty to him, while the defense minister accused Guaido of taking part in an attempted coup.
This isn’t exactly a Venezuela against the world situation, either. Key foreign allies, including Russia and China, are vowing to support Maduro, and warning that they will not tolerate “external intervention” against him.
Those warnings are particularly important as hawks within the Trump
Administration seem eager to intervene on Guaido’s behalf, or at least
intervene against Maduro. Russia is warning the US that any direct military intervention would be a “catastrophic scenario.”
This is not just China and Russia. Turkey came out in support of Maduro, and unsurprisingly Iran. In Europe, Spain is against recognizing opposition leader.
And clueless Macron is waxing eloquent on the virtues of democratic rights of people to stand up against government! As if he is unaware of the turmoil on his own streets in towns accros France.
Guaido is a traitor and should be arrested, along with his so called government staff….
US embassy should be isolated and no one come or go, and services cut off or rationed. they were told to leave but Pompeo that ass says not
the US is going to play even worse hard ball freezing gov’t assets, and imposing worse sanctions. Hard times ahead for the poor people of Venezuela.
Unless China and Russia actually send some kind of military forces, such as Russia sending military police and a few warships directed in that direction, these warnings aren’t going to mean much to the US….. though, again, we must take much of what they say as bluster.
I did see another source that said that almost all Latin American gov’ts except for perhaps Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua have accepted the other guy, the traitor, who should be arrested. bad news. I am sure they were all threatened….Mexico is staying out of it except to say it supports the sovereignty of Venezuela
They already have 2 White Swan Advanced Bombers in Venezuela as of the last reporting…
As much as I regarded Hugo Chavez with great admiration, I never understood why he didn’t round up the right-winged opposition and have them thrown in prison. Venezuela has a decent intelligence service so he had to know that such groups were acting as agents-provocateur for the United States.
I know he wanted to be all inclusive and be as fair as possible as far as the political system is concerned. However, such openness in government policies most often merely sows the seeds of its own destruction. This is exactly what is happening in the United States today in similar degree, though other internal problems are definitely more prominent as factors.
Now that Murduro has the support of his military as well as several allies, he should arrest Juan Guaido and his lieutenants and ship them off the Russia’s Siberia. I hear that Russia wants anyone who is willing to farm the land out there.
🙂
I agree. it was a big mistake for Chavez not to have rounded them up and tried for treason. He was too much into forgiving them, for whatever reason, and in fact had been advised by Castro to put them on trial and imprison them…
Imagine what is going on right now in the CIA and at the NSC with Bolton……
look at what happened to Allende. these people like Maduro need to take swift action and come down really hard this time or it is going to end very badly for the people of Venezuela who are already suffering mighty under the US sanctions and restrictions etc
I couldn’t agree with you more… 🙂
The right wing elements in Venezuela working with US sanctions have made sure food stocks are non existent and market shelves lay bear. The Venezuelan people have been terrorized by the right wing with the help of Uncle Sam. One must hope that Russia and China help Maduro with military muscle.