Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has spent over a year trying to take over the country with US government backing. Guaido has consistently argued that he deserves to replace President Nicolas Maduro. Now, he is arguing that the coronavirus is such a severe emergency that he needs to take over the country to secure international aid to fight the virus.
This argument seems to be built around the reality that the US is heavily sanctioning Venezuela, and would severely curtain any medical imports to fight the virus, something that presumably would miraculously evaporate if Guaido took power.
Recent polls, however, say Guaido has very minor support among the public, either for his claim as de facto president or as a ruler they’d even want. It is in this context that Guaido is seeking “unity” support from the military, not the public.
It’s unlikely that everyone will unite behind Guaido just over the idea of international aid being easier to come by under his rule, and underscores once again that the US sanctions against certain nations they don’t like are very much an issue for coronavirus.
Go get your own army. Hey if you are so popular stage a popular uprising!
Venezuela has been prepared since January and Russia/China/Cuba are helping so nothing is needed from the Ursurprer/Traitor.
Recent DOJ Indictments resulted in the arrest of an EX Venezuelan General Alcalá in Columbia with allot of armaments he said were purchased with money supplied directly by Guido and coordinated by American contractors.
Guido is in a world of hurt in Venezuela at the moment
I talked to a friend of mine from Caracas the other day. He said that even the middle class thinks Guaido is a punk and that they don’t want a US puppet. All they really wanted was for the government/militias to get off their backs and let them open businesses and live like normal people. He also said that in the last six months or so that the government has gotten off their backs and that things are looking up for business with US currency in use. He still hates Maduro and it’s not that most people have flocked to Maduro, it’s more that the people don’t have any use for revolutionaries who run to Uncle Sam, rather than asking them to revolt. He said that last year at this time, if Guaido had asked the people to actually revolt and fight for their lives they would have, but instead he ran to the US and lost the support of almost everyone.
It seems to me that my buddy is correct and that the people would rather have fought and possibly died to take back their country, than to not fight and have the country taken over by the US and run by our puppet. If this is true and I have little doubt that it is, it means that the US policies probably saved Maduro.
And keep in mind that your friend belongs to urban, most likely part of colonial era descendants. Venezuela is still by far Maduro country where natives see very clearly what has been done to natives in Colombia and what is happening in Bolivia. Not to mention what was tried but not succeeded in Equador.
He’s middle class, teaches English, plays in a band and looks like any other typical Venezuelan you will find in the middle class areas. And it’s probably wishful thinking on his part, believing that the poor would have joined in kicking out Maduro. But he knows that many of the poor are the “militias” I was talking about, the goons that Maduro sends around to beat the shit out of people who protest. So he’s not stupid about it, he knows who’s on who’s side and so do I.
Not all the poor took sides either, most where just busy being poor. But lot’s of poor people wanted a new leader, they were suffering too.
By the way, many of the poor hate the Militias for the same reason the middle class does, they run around kicking the shit out of people all the time. Nobody likes brown-shirts.
It was the same in Panama. When we were down there it all depended on where you were at. In the ghettos they had their militias that kept people in line, they handed out free stuff with one hand and beatings with the other. Some people didn’t need to be kept in line, some loved Noriega, those where the ones who fought back for a while.
Out in the countryside they hated the thugs and just wanted to be left alone, they loved us when we first came to their towns because we locked up the cops and tracked down any of the other shit-kickers they had in town. Even little towns had cops that had rubber hoses.
In the cities the people living in gated communities loved us. The wealthy people and middle class in the city liked us well enough, but then again, we didn’t bomb the parts of town they lived in and we didn’t go door to door disarming them either. We didn’t enforce the curfews in their areas either.
It’s complex, it’s not just the poor against the colonialist. Maduro isn’t popular for a number of reasons, that also doesn’t say as much about the fight between Capitalism and Socialism as everyone makes out. It’s more about corruption and authoritarianism and that sort of thing. The middle class wouldn’t even have thought about putting their own lives on the line if it wasn’t getting unbearable.
Sure, he’s been recruiting from Mar a lago….
There are many who would want to see some real change in Venezuela but they just won’t support a chivato.
Yanqui stay home! More military adventures at the expense of American lives and tax funds while society in the US is being disrupted through fear mongering by the MSM in their daily infection/body count articles. Protect yourself and your interests since it may get ugly in a while if things don’t turn around quickly.