Focus on Venezuela

US Sanctions Cost Venezuela $6B Since August 2017, Sparking Humanitarian Catastrophe

Cutting Caracas out of the international market has already triggered a widespread humanitarian catastrophe causing ordinary Venezuelans to suffer the consequences.

by Randi Nord

Mint Press,

31 October, 2018

CARACAS, VENEZUELA — United States sanctions against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela have cost the Latin American nation $6 billion since August of 2017, leaving the fate of healthcare and access to basic goods in jeopardy for millions of already struggling Venezuelans.

As recently as early October, an anonymous source from the Trump administration told Reuters that “all options are on the table” in regard to even tighter sanctions against the country. This is part of a growing trend, as the Trump administration prepares to strengthen its attacks against socialist or left-leaning nations throughout Latin America.

According to a report from Canadian analyst Joe Emersberger, U.S. sanctions have quite literally starved Venezuelans out of a staggering $6 billion since the latest round took effect in August of 2017, cutting Venezuela off from the global market.

To put this figure into perspective, $6 billion is over 130 times the $46 million requested by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for the “Venezuela Situation” in March of this year, which likely wouldn’t be needed if Caracas had financial support to provide for its citizens.

Emersberger points out that prior to this time, Venezuela’s crude oil output followed the same gradual decline as Colombia’s between January of 2016 and August of 2017, as overall oil prices fell. At that point, when the sanctions took effect, Venezuela’s oil production plummeted to record lows, with civilians bearing the brunt of the consequences.

Oil production is Venezuela’s primary source of income and foreign investment. Without funding from state-owned oil enterprises, the government struggles to provide healthcare to its population, with the most vulnerable facing most of the risk: pregnant women, the injured, the elderly, children, and those with chronic illness.

Cutting Venezuela out of the global market to spark an internal crisis

As with other countries such as Iran, Syria, and Iraq, the Venezuelan sanctions move falls into Washington’s general strategy of causing widespread civil turmoil and ultimately collapsing adversarial governments from within by suffocating them out of the global market.

According to the Brookings Institution, over 4 million Venezuelans have fled the country as economic refugees — 10 percent of the population. Meanwhile, the infant mortality rate rose 30 percent in 2016 alone and three-quarters of the country’s adult population has lost an average of 20 lbs.

Although Brookings blames mismanagement and “nothing else,” sanctions and economic war against Venezuela are the real source of deteriorating conditions within the country.

The August 2017 round of sanctions banned the Venezuelan government from accessing U.S. funding. Since Venezuela’s state-owned CITGO is based in Texas, this effectively held the asset hostage. A year later in August of 2018, a United States judge approved the seizure of CITGO entirely.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blames the United States and its allies in the right-wing opposition for launching an “economic war” against his country and putting political pressure on his government. Between 2009 and 2017, the United States government budgeted $49 million for violent right-wing militias and political opposition groups with the goal of overthrowing Venezuela’s revolutionary government.

The Trump administration also has its eyes on Cuba, particularly in regard to Havana’s support of Venezuela. Speaking to Reuters, an anonymous U.S. official stated that Washington planned to increase economic pressure on Cuba’s intelligence and military sectors. The source noted last week that President Donald Trump’s notorious national security advisor, John Bolton, would soon elaborate on the Cuba question.

At the UN General Assembly last month, Trump pointed the finger of blame at Venezuela’s “Cuban sponsors” for the current crisis.

It’s unclear at this point whether or not Washington will follow through on its promises to heighten sanctions even further against Venezuela’s energy sector and insurance coverage for oil shipments.

Regardless, cutting Caracas out of the international market has already triggered a widespread humanitarian catastrophe causing ordinary Venezuelans to suffer the consequences.

Top Photo | People take boxes of food staples, such as beans, rice, tuna and powdered milk, provided by the government program “CLAP,” which stands for Local Committees of Supply and Production, in Caracas, Venezuela, May 16, 2018. The squeeze of financial sanctions by the Trump administration is choking the cash-starved government as it struggles to feed its people. Ariana Cubillos | AP

Randi Nord is a MintPress News staff writer. She is also co-founder of Geopolitics Alert where she covers U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East with a special focus on Yemen.

Here are two essential documentaries for understanding Venezuela

The first is a documentary "the Revolution will not be televised": a TV film crew captured and chronicled the attempted 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez
 

John Pilger's documentary , "the War on Democracy".   Tthe film shows how serial US intervention, overt and covert, has toppled a series of legitimate governments in the Latin American region since the 1950s. The democratically elected Chilean government of Salvador Allende, for example, was ousted by a US backed coup in 1973 and replaced by the military dictatorship of General Pinochet. Guatemala, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador have all been invaded by the United States.

The revolution in Venezuela and the war being waged on it by Empire

More and more Venezuela is coming to the fore.

One of my motivations for putting this material together is exemplified by the following video which represents the view of libertarians and the Austrian School of Economics – essentially Zero Hedge – who see this as a failure of socialism and as such, a warning for ‘socialist’ Europe.

They are, it turns out more against 'socialism' than they are against Empire.

Firstly this is not a problem of socialism, and

Secondly, Europe is NOT socialist.

This is a question of imperialism and the ability of nations to determine their own path and the determination of one power, the United States, to undermine in any way available to them any attempts to be independent.

Secondly, it is a reflection of both geopolitics (the attempted economic war beign waged against Russia and the BRICS using oil prices as a weapon) as well as the effects of Peak Oil.

Venezuela’s oil peaked in 1970.

I have put together the material below as a resource so that we are not subject to amnesia (as the corporate mass media would like us to be), to help us understand how we got to where we are today

Focus on Venezuela

The Bolivarian Revolution

To understand Venezuela of the last 15 years and the Bolivarian revolution of Hugo Chavas and the Chavistas we cannot go beyond John Pilger’s brilliant documentary “'The War On Democracy'”

It provides one of the best portrayals for English-speaking audiences of Venezuela under Chavez which places it in the context of America's war against democracy and independence in Latin America.

 

Hugo Chavez attacks George Bush at UN General Assembly

Those were heroic days – when Chavez quoted Noam Chomsky at the UN and called George Bush a “Devil”

  

Chavista Venezuela made offers of cheap oil to poor communities in the Untied States affected by Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy

Venezuela Offers $1M, Oil, Food and Equipment for U.S. Victims of Hurricane Katrina

Meanwhile voices in the United States called for Chavez’s assasination

Chávez taunts US with oil offer

Venezuelan president hits back at assassination remarks with offer of cheap petroleum for poor Americans

25 August, 2005

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela hit back vigorously at calls by an ally of President George Bush for his assassination by offering cheap petrol to the poor of the US at a time of soaring fuel prices.

In a typically robust response to remarks by the US televangelist Pat Robertson, Mr Chávez compared his detractors to the "rather mad dogs with rabies" from Cervantes' Don Quixote, and unveiled his plans to use Venezuela's energy reserves as a political tool.

"We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States," he said.

The Empire strikes back

The first attempt of the Empire to strike back with a spectacularly unsuccessful coup in 2002.

This was caught brilliantly in the documentary “the revolution will not be televised”

A 2002 documentary about the April 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt which briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. A television crew from Ireland's national broadcaster, RTÉ happened to be recording a documentary about Chávez during the events of April 11, 2002. Shifting focus, they followed the events as they occurred. During their filming, the crew recorded images of the events that they say contradict explanations given by Chávez's opposition, the private media, the US State Department, and then White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. The documentary says that the coup was the result of a conspiracy between various old guard and anti-Chávez factions within Venezuela and the United States

When Hugo Chavez contracted an aggressive form of cancer and subsequently died there have been strong suggestions that this was, in fact, an assasination

The Hugo Chavez Deception Conspiracy Theorist Populist Chavez Murdered

I Personally Believe That Hugo Chávez Was Murdered By The United States - William Blum

Back in December 2011, Chávez, already under treatment for cancer, wondered out loud: “Would it be so strange that they’ve invented the technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?” The Venezuelan president was speaking one day after Argentina’s leftist president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, announced she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. This was after three other prominent leftist Latin America leaders had been diagnosed with cancer: Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff; Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo; and the former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

” Evo take care of yourself. Correa, be careful. We just don’t know,” Chávez said, referring to Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, both leading leftists.

Chávez said he had received words of warning from Fidel Castro, himself the target of hundreds of failed and often bizarre CIA assassination plots. “Fidel always told me: ‘Chávez take care. These people have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat … a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what.”

CIA and FBI Had Planned to Assassinate Hugo Chávez

CONTEXTUALISTION

For a superb background into the war being waged against Venezuela (as well as Russia and the BRICS countries I strongly suggest you take the time out to listen to these talks by Eric Draitser of stopimperialism.org

In January - 

And just a few days ago - 

Peak oil

Where I would slightly differ with Eric Draitser is that one cannot understand Venezuela without an understanding of the oil story and, specifically, Peak Oil.

Venezuela has been blighted with a dependence on oil because of its history with American imperialism.

It remains the largest producer of oil in the Hemisphere and is one of the largest producers.

However, the fact is that oil production in Venezuela peaked many years ago so that the oil produced is of lower quality and is more expensive to produce.

OPEC, except for Iran, Has Peaked

29 Facts About The Venezuelan Oil Industry

In 1970, Venezuela Oil Production Reached Its Peak

Image Source: Davekimble

Venezuela’s oil production peaked in 1970, with a production level of 197 million metric tons. A more recent peak happened in 1998, when Venezuela produced 180 million metric tons.....

Yet, Venezuela is still one of top producers in the Americas. It still produces 2.49 million barrels per day. With such output, it is the 5th largest producer in the Americas, behind the United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. In the world ranking, it occupies the 12th place.

In 2013, Venezuela’s oil production was 140 million tons.

That makes Venezuela the most vulnerable country in OPEC when it comes to the impact of low oil prices.

Venezuela,more than anyone needs a minumum oil price.

For Venezuela which is dependent on oil for 90+ % of its revenue this is disastrous.

This, taken together with economic and political warfare being waged by the Empire, along with local elites, has caused the current crisis which is very real.

For a fairly typical 'analysis' of why Venezuela is in crisis watch this:

Put simply I do not believe those who say that it is mismanagement or ‘socialism’ that has got Venezuela to where it is today.

When you hear these arguments you will know whose side these people are on – and it is NOT on that of the countries struggling to maintain their independence from the United States and its minions.

US - Venezuela tensions

The struggle to 'reclaim' Venezuela for the US has begun

U.S. expels 2 Venezuelan diplomats

Diplomatic tensions between the United States and Venezuela showed no signs of slowing Monday as the State Department announced that two Venezuelan diplomats had been expelled.

CNN,

11 March, 2013

Orlando Jose Montanez Olivares and Victor Camacaro Mata were declared personae non gratae and ordered to leave the country in response to the South American nation's decision to kick out two U.S. officials last week, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

"Around the world, when our people are thrown out unjustly, we're going to take reciprocal action," she said. "We need to do that to protect our own people."

The expulsion of the Venezuelan diplomats comes after Venezuelan officials -- just hours before announcing President Hugo Chavez's death last week -- said they were expelling two U.S. Embassy officials and accused them of plotting to destabilize the country.

"In the day or days that followed there was some pretty heated rhetoric coming in our direction," Nuland said Monday. "I think I called it at one point a page from the old 'Chavista' playbook that we were hoping was going to change. ... There is work that we would like to do together, particularly in the areas of counter-terrorism, counternarcotics, economics and energy relations, but it's going to take a change of tone from Caracas."

The expelled Venezuelan diplomats have left the United States, Nuland said. Camacaro worked in the Venezuelan Consulate in New York, and Montanez worked at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, she said.

The expelled U.S. officials, both air attaches at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, were accused of having meetings with members of the Venezuelan military and encouraging them to pursue "destabilizing projects," Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said.

"We will not allow any foreign interference in our country," Jaua said last week.

Nicolas Maduro, then vice president and now Venezuela's interim leader, also suggested as he criticized the U.S. Embassy officials last week that someone had deliberately infected Chavez with cancer.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell denied the accusations.

"This fallacious assertion of inappropriate U.S. action leads us to conclude that, unfortunately, the current Venezuelan government is not interested an improved relationship," he said.

It isn't the first time that diplomatic tensions have surged between the two countries

Last year the State Department declared Venezuela's consul general in Miami persona non grata -- Latin for unwelcome or unacceptable person -- and expelled her from the United States. In 2008, Venezuela expelled the U.S. ambassador to the South American country. A day later, the United States said it was expelling the Venezuelan ambassador.

Venezuela: 'It's the oil, stupid!'

Not a bad view of the importance of Chavez and Venezuela. It's oil, stupid!

Hugo Chavez: What the Mainstream is Hiding

Hugo Chavez's death is going to radically shift the balance of power in Latin America and the Caribbean but not for the reasons that you are being told on the mainstream media

Chavez and Venezuelan socialism

Hugo Chavez: New World Rising

The great Bolivarian is gone – which means the U.S. will soon escalate its destabilization campaign against his country. “Washington hopes that Venezuelan socialism cannot survive without Chavez.” But the U.S. cannot roll back the movement that Chavez did so much to ignite, “the dark awakening in the barrios, favelas, rural villages and native highlands of the continent.”.

Black Agenda Report,

6 March, 2013

“For 14 years, they have painted the Bolivarian Republic as illegitimate, dictatorial, primitive.”

The darker majorities of Latin America mourn the passing of the people’s champion, President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, the man whom the racist white Venezuelan elite called ese mono – “that monkey.” Since 1998 – with a 48-hour break during the 2002, U.S.-sponsored coup – the four-fifths of Venezuela that is some variety of Indigenous-mestizo-mullato-African – like Chavez – has known power for the first time since the conquistadors of Western Europe launched their 500-year war against the rest of planet Earth.

South America’s emergence as the most promising zone of resistance to U.S. imperial savagery is inseparable from the dark awakening in the barrios, favelas, rural villages and native highlands of the continent. Chavez’s triumph, and that of the Aymara-descended Bolivian president, Evo Morales, in 2005, are the most dramatic expressions of what has been called the “Latin Spring” – a reclamation of national patrimony that is, by historical necessity, socialist. As a result, a large majority of South Americans now live under relatively progressive governments.

The Cuban Revolution of 1959 was, of course, the great hemispheric breakaway from Yankee empire in the 20th century, the seminal event in the disintegration of what later came to be called the “Washington Consensus” in Latin America. 

Chavez’s victory, almost 40 years later, was the other shoe dropping, a phenomenon nearly as racially-weighted, in Latin American terms, as the Haitian Revolution that culminated in 1804. Fidel, the son of a Spanish soldier, declared that “the blood of Africa runs deep in our veins” and that Cuba is an “African Spanish” nation. However, that reality was hardly visible in the Cuban hierarchy. Not so, with Chavez, the pardo whose lineage was obvious and proudly worn. "My Indian roots are from my father's side. He is mixed Indian and black, which makes me very proud," said Chavez – a circumstance of birth and pride that made the whites of affluent east Caracas neighborhoods like Altamira spitting mad, hysterical in their hatred. The racial-political color line has long been plain to see in the complexions of pro- and anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela.

“The ‘Latin Spring’ is, by historical necessity, socialist.”

The purported “ambiguity” of race in South America is largely limited to those who belong to the innumerable subgroups of the Not-White, in all their flavors. However, for the fraction of the population that believe themselves to be purely European, there is no ambiguity; they know precisely who they are (or claim to be). Color lines may be fuzzy among the mixed race majorities of much of Latin America, but white elites quickly bring these boundaries into stark relief when fundamental questions of privilege and power arise. Popular power means the rule of people like “that monkey,” Chavez – illegitimate and bestial.

U.S. corporate media speak the language of the pale denizens of Altamira. For 14 years, they have painted the Bolivarian Republic as illegitimate, dictatorial, primitive. Chavez is delegitimized as a “strongman,” rather than a remarkably popular politician and icon who has won more elections than any other head of state in the western hemisphere during the same space of time. As former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said, last year: "As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world."

In assessing Chavez’s “legacy,” the global bourgeois media cite the “divisions” that plague Venezuelan society and, in the words of Business Week, an economy in “shambles.” But, Chavez and his comrades would have been abject failures – and been tossed from office – had they not drawn lines between the oppressed majority and the privileged exploiters. Division is good and necessary. Consequently, the economy has succeeded in reducing the proportion of households in poverty from 44 percent in 1998 to 27 percent in 2011. Chavez has served the people.

“The racial-political color line has long been plain to see in the complexions of pro- and anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela.”

Just before Chavez’s last electoral victory, former Brazilian president Lula da Silva, a product of the post-1998 wave of leftist triumphs at the polls, said: "A victory for Chávez is not just a victory for the people of Venezuela but also a victory for all the people of Latin America … this victory will strike another blow against imperialism."

Last week, as Chavez was fading, the opposition leader, Henrique Capriles Radonski, traveled to New York, Miami and Washington – presumably, to get his marching orders. Washington hopes that Venezuelan socialism cannot survive without Chavez. In their state of desperate decay, the imperialists are willing to throw whole regions of the world into chaos rather than be eclipsed by new alignments of trade and international relations. Venezuelans have every reason to expect a renewed U.S. campaign of destabilization, in the wake of their leader’s passing.

Chavez tried to give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt. On election night, 2008, at a rally in Caracas, Chavez spoke this way of the president-elect:

“We are not asking him to be a revolutionary, to be a socialist – no. We just want the black man who is about to be the U.S. president to have enough stature for the times the world is living through.

"I send an overture to the black man, from us here, who are of Indigenous, black, Caribbean, South American race. I am ready to sit down and talk ... I hope we can, and I hope we can enter a new stage."

But the Black man in the White House is smelling like sulphur, just like his predecessor.

Hugo Chavez 1954-2013

A couple of videos about Hugo Chavez, his achievements, and his people's farewell

Chavez Democratized Venezuela Making it the Most Equal Country in Latin America

Gregory Wilpert: Chavez led Venezuela to many accomplishments but leaves unsolved critical problems he hoped to address

A Sea of Tears in Caracas

In a raw emotional outpouring, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans walk along side the coffin of President Hugo Chavez

With Chavez Dead, Who Will Give Americans Free Heating Oil?

Addicting Info,

6 March, 2013

I understand that many Americans do not know that the recently deceased Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez was instrumental in extending generous aid to struggling American families. A program he enacted enabled them to get free heating oil, critical for the winter season. This heating oil program has been ongoing since 2005 after poor families were unable to cope with the crushing heavy handedness of Republican policies and outright incompetence under former President George W Bush.

In the aftermath of disasters Katrina and Rita, the cost of heating oil for American families increased due to decreases in available oil supplies. There was only one company which answered the call for help by struggling families in need of heat during the winter season of 2005 and beyond, all with the blessing of Mr. Chavez. This company is CITGO.

““The CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program has been one of the most important energy assistance efforts in the United States. This year, as families across the Eastern Seaboard struggle to recover from the losses caused by Hurricane Sandy, this donation becomes even more significant,” said CITGO President and CEO Alejandro Granado. “This energy assistance program is an integral example of the humanitarian principles endorsed by the CITGO ultimate shareholder, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”

Through the assistance program, CITGO and partner PDVSA has donated more than 227 million gallons of heating oil costing more than 465 million dollars, to needy American families. The program serves 25 states including Alaska, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Oregon…here is a link to the complete list.

While those in the right-wing celebrate the death of Mr. Chavez I wonder if they are reflecting on who will be willing to donate free heating oil to their states now that he is gone… or are they going to become ‘socialists’ and expect the Obama administration to give them some government help?

A South American perspective

The US is the Don Corleone of international politics

Adrian Salbuchi

RT,

2 March, 2013

South America – Venezuela in particular – has been the target of a coordinated campaign by the US government and private industry over the past few years. But those of us who have been paying attention know this is nothing new.

WikiLeaks recently published new documents showing that US global intelligence corporations like Stratfor and its foreign offshoot CANVAS worked hard over the past decade (aided and abetted by US Government agencies) in a failed attempt to overthrow Venezuela’s democratically elected president Hugo Chavez.

Meddling in the ‘Backyard’

The US corporate over-world has always worked closely with the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon promoting the overthrow – known as “regime change in rogue states” – of governments that do not automatically align to US interests; or, better said, of governments that do not automatically align with the interests of the supra-national global power elite that is deeply embedded inside private and public power structures in the US.

This has been especially true throughout Latin America, traditionally America’s geopolitical and economic backyard, from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego.

For example, September 11th of this year (of all dates!) marks the 40th anniversary of the CIA-backed, financed and orchestrated overthrow and assassination of Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. 

Allende was replaced by a pro-US and pro-UK military junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet.  At the time, private corporations like ITT worked hand in hand with CIA operatives promoting strikes, social turmoil and waging psychological warfare through the local media.  Then it was Chile; now it’s Venezuela.

General Augusto Pinochet (left) poses with Chilean president and Marxist leader Salvador Allende 23 August 1973 in Santiago. (AFP Photo)

In fact, the 1970s and 1980s saw the Kissinger-designed and executed 'Condor Plan' finance and diplomatically support various military coups and regimes not only in Chile but in Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and other countries in the region.

Such US-UK support for authoritarian and criminal regimes would only stop when some Latin American general like Argentina’s General Leopoldo Galtieri went too far by doing something really stupid, like Argentina’s 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands.

Relatives of Argentine soldiers who died during Argentina's 1982 war over the Falkland Islands decorate tombs at a cemetery. (AFP Photo / Angeline Montoya)

Barring that, all those US-backed coups used local military strongmen trained in the US Military’s School of the Americas in Panama to do as they pleased in their local countries, as long as: (a) they kept those countries aligned to US geopolitical imperatives which during the Cold War meant being staunchly anti-Communist; (b) accepted Chicago-Boys-style financial dependency and artificially created public debts; (c) kept local populations in permanent fear and thus 'disciplined and orderly.'

Since the fall of the former Soviet Union, however, these tactics changed dramatically.  Now US control over Latin American countries is centred on promoting 'democracy.' Well, actually, “the kind of democracy that we want to see,” as Hillary Clinton so eloquently put it when visiting 'Arab Spring Egypt'back in March 2011.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (C) shakes hands with Egyptians as she takes an unannounced walk through Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the 18 days of protests that overthrew long time ally Hosni Mubarak, on March 16, 2011. (AFP Photo / Paul J. Richards)

Such money-controlled democracy is, of course, no democracy at all, but rather an obscene money-sloshing and media clownery system that catapults their favourite candidates into local positions of power. 

When the US has its way as in Mexico, Colombia and Chile, and their candidates win local elections, then it’s all business as usual. 

But when growing political awareness among the local populace elects presidents into power who prioritize the local national interest as in Ecuador (who just re-elected their fine president Rafael Correa), Bolivia (Evo Morales) and, most notably, Venezuela with Hugo Chavez, then the 'regime change' mega-juggernaut comes into full action.

Public and private initiative

In America, you never know whether it’s the White House and Congress running the country and the corporate over-world, or if it’s the other way around: The corporate over-world runs the White House, Congress and the country.

Recent WikiLeaks documents released on Venezuela describes Stratfor as “a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency.”

“The emails,” WikiLeaks goes on to explain, “show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.”

The filtered emails cover a wide range of issues on the energy sector, especially oil; political change and the state of right-wing forces inside Venezuela; and the state of the country's armed forces. They also refer to Venezuela’s relations with Cuba, China, Russia and Iran, and provide bleak projections for the economy and the financial sector.

The Serbian-based and US-supported Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) is yet another such 'global intelligence' front of what, in practice, are organizations specializing in engineering social turmoil – even civil war – as countries like Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria have painfully learned. 

The leaked emails from CANVAS had them explaining their recommended strategy for toppling governments, as in one revealing message to Stratfor:

“When somebody asks us for help, as in Vene (sic!) case, we usually ask them the question ‘and how would you do it?’. That means that the first thing is to create a situational analysis (the word doc I sent you) and after that comes “Mission Statement” (still left to be done) and then “Operational Concept”, which is the plan for campaign... For this case we have three campaigns: Unification of opposition, campaign for [September 2010 parliamentary elections] and parallel with that a 'get out and vote' campaign.”

Very straightforward!

Stratfor Global Intelligence CEO George Friedman (AFP Photo/Ronaldo Schemidt)

Stratfor’s founder and chairman is one George Friedman, who is regularly interviewed in the Wall Street Journal, CNBC and CNN and is advisor to JPMorganChase, CitiGroup and Ernst & Young.  Stratfor’s president & CEO is Shea Morenz, who for many years was a senior officer at Goldman Sachs.  Not exactly corporations and megabanks bent on promoting the common good of the people of Venezuela, or of any other country in Latin America or elsewhere.

Clearly, there are no sharp lines separating these private intelligence publishers and analysts, think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations, RAND Corporation, National Endowment for Democracy and major corporations, from public US-Government agencies like the CIA, NSA, USAID and the State Department. 

In fact, throughout Latin America, lucid political observers will always keep an eye on what 'La Embajada'is up to. 'La Embajada' is Spanish for 'The Embassy' –  not just any embassy, of course, but the local Embassy of the United States. 

No surprise then to learn that this batch of WikiLeaks documents reveals US-based firms working to overthrow Hugo Chavez by assisting and financing opposition candidates like Henrique Capriles Radonsky, who was Chavez’s main opposition candidate, coming in second place in last year’s presidential elections.

Venezuela's Democratic Unity coalition presidential candidates Capriles Radonsky. (AFP Photo / Juan Barreto)

Capriles Radonsky is strongly backed by US, European and Israeli  interests, thanks to his notable alignment to those countries’ objectives in Venezuela and the region.  Of Jewish background – in a country with a very tiny Jewish community – Radonsky promises to steer Venezuela away from the close ties forged by Chavez with Iran, Cuba, Russia, China and (until it was overrun and destroyed by NATO) also Libya.

Due to President Chavez’s ailing health, this public-private US initiative is again hard at work promoting all opposition forces inside Venezuela, whilst they eagerly await good news (for them) about president Chavez’s condition, hoping that he may have to relinquish the presidency he won late last year, which would mean new elections in a Venezuela without Chavez.

That would spell real tragedy for that country, as the US public-private initiative would again go into full'lets-get-our-boy-into-the-Miraflores-presidential-palace-in-Caracas' Mode.

Supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gather at Simon Bolivar Square in Caracas. (AFP Photo / Juan Baretto)

A tragedy not just for Venezuela but for the entire region as well, where the US continues holding full sway in countries like Colombia – whose president Juan Manuel Santos is a member of the Rockefeller-funded, New York-based 'Americas Society' that promotes in-roads into Latin America for the powerful Council on Foreign Relations, whose head office is just across the street from them on Park Avenue at 57th Street. And Mexico recently elected pro-US rich-boy Enrique Peña Nieto as president. Two countries where it's business as usual.

'Make it look like a democratic election'

In advising on how to engineer destabilisation, CANVAS told Stratfor, that “We only give them the tools to use.” Referring to the 2010 parliamentary elections, they wrote, “This year we are definitely ramping up activity in Venezuela… they have elections in September and we are in close connection with activists from there and people trying to help them (please keep this to yourself for now, no publication). The first phase of our preparation is under way.”

So, this is “the kind of democracy the US wants to see.” Or, as Don Corleone in 'The Godfather' would recommend to agents and operatives if he sat in the State Department or the CIA: “Make it look like a democratic election.” 

Maybe Corleone’s best disciples are actually running the show after all.

AFP Photo / Geraldo Caso

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

And for an American view point ....

Lawrence Wilkerson: US Isolated in Latin America, Not Venezuela and Cuba

Lawrence Wilkerson, Collin Powell's former Chief of Staff says that Obama should have the courage to normalize relations with Venezuela and Cuba