President Nicolás Maduro has asked Mexico and Uruguay to reactivate their proposal of dialogue to resolve the crisis in his country and directed his request in addition to Bolivia and the countries of the Caribbean, that two months ago supported the initiative of Presidents Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Mexico) and Tabaré Vázquez (Uruguay) for a negotiated outcome to the political conflict, without foreign intervention.

The leader assured that on Saturday, five million people mobilized all across the country in favour of the government. At the Caracas rally, that took place in front of the Palace of Miraflores, he announced the imminent approval of the “Homeland Plan 2019-2025".

Maduro informed about new sources of attacks on the national electrical system, due to the introduction of a virus. “Attacks are directed from Houston and we have discovered new sources of attacks from Chile and Colombia, supported by the government of the United States to damage the Venezuelan electrical system”, he said, while announcing that the electrical system would be normalized in the foreseen space of 30 days.

Mexico and Uruguay proposed a dialogue in January to bring together Maduro and Guaidó, the latter recognized by more than 40 countries as the interim president of Venezuela. Subsequently, on February 7, the International Contact Group (GCI) was formed, with participation of European Countries, in search of a peaceful solution. Surprisingly, the GCI demanded that the negotiation should lead to “free and transparent presidential elections”.

Mexico then coherently stood aside from this mediation, while Bolivia maintained its unconditional support for the constitutional government, even though they are part of the GCI, together with France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Uruguay.

The United States pushes the opposition into its labyrinths

The self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaidó, for his part, refuses any “false dialogue” considering that for Maduro it would be an opportunity to gain time. Guaidó reiterated that together with world leaders he had built a route for the exit of Nicolás Maduro and his group of leaders and assured that the comment made by US spokesperson Elliot Abrams on article 187 of the Bolivarian Constitution (to permit a foreign invasion) was ill-interpreted.

It is certain that neither the United States nor their accomplices are prepared for a military incursion into Venezuela. “On this matter, our allies said that it was premature. They did not say that it cannot be done but that it is premature, as we have responsibly said. We have built a route, we are not improvising, we are establishing capacities and they said it is premature”, expressed Guaidó at the end of the mobilization in East Caracas, concerning the crisis in public services.

Before hundreds of compatriots in East Caracas, the head of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó put in place Operation Freedom in order to coordinate his supporters and remove Maduro from power. He called for a new mobilization for next Wednesday (10), designed to enlarge a voluntary group in charge of organizing and maintaining the pressure on the streets. “The largest pressure movement that we will have seen in our history is starting to grow”, he said.

“When the call for Operation Freedom is made, the military should stand on the side of the Constitution and protect the citizens from the armed collectives. Will you continue to protect the dictator? Or is it that you are hiding behind him? Assume your role once and for all”, he said.

Recent changes have left the motley Venezuelan opposition more disunited. There was a change in the US Senate, electrical equipment was replaced by Russia (with equipment similar to the 765 Kv lines from the sabotaged hydroelectric plant of El Guri) and Washington demonstrated once again the cruelty of its economic and financial sanctions, not only against the government but against the Venezuelan people.

Who are trying to discredit Juan Guaidó? From the group Voluntad Popular (to which Guaidó belongs), they are the same people who told the country in July 2017 that the protests ended due to the regional elections, when the opposition was left without a road map because the streets emptied following the irresponsible promises of magic outcomes that never came about and demotivated the electors with divisionist messages.

The strategies of these groups, basically developed through the so-called digital networks, include politicians such as Maria Corina Machado (Vente Venezuela), the exiled journalist Patricia Poleo and economists such as Angel Garcia Banch, who accused the opposition leaders of presumed dialogues, pacts and deals with the government and who were those who pressured Guaidó to invoke article 187 of the Magna Carta.

More sanctions

Mike Pence, Vicepresident of the US, explained the new sanctions against sending Venezuelan oil to Cuba, during an event in Houston, together with representatives of Juan Guaidó, who applauded the measures.

Given that oil is sustaining the government of Nicolás Maduro, the US imposed sanctions on Pdvsa, he stated, adding that today, we are taking measures against a vital source of wealth of the government of Maduro. Pence thus referred to the sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department against 34 Cargo ships of Pdvsa and the companies Ballito Shipping Incorporated with its headquarters in Liberia, and ProPer In Management Incorporated bases in Greece, that transport Venezuelan crude oil.

Fifteen U.S. senators, including ultraconservatives Bob Menendez and Marco Rubio, have presented a bill that establishes that their government should proceed in relation to Venezuela through negotiations and "seek a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the crisis," a path it had previously refused to follow.

The change is partial, since the project is still centered on a package of sanctions that aims at preventing Venezuela from selling their oil production so that they cannot dispose of the foreign currency they need to guarantee the importation of food and medicines for the population (including the opposition, obviously); and it adds measures designed to fracture the up until now homogeneous governmental camp and encourage desertions, through the mechanism of monetary compensation.

Washington wants their partner-accomplices of the European Union and those grouped in the South American Prosur, to internationalize and guarantee the sanctions. Secretary of State John Bolton, for example, demanded of his Spanish counterpart Josep Borell that they take part in the sanctions against 94 companies that operate in Venezuela, among them the oil company Repsol.

Moreover, this coming week a bipartisan law bill will be introduced in the US House of Representatives that forbids the use of military force in Venezuela without the authorization of Congress, as political scientist Leopoldo Puchi notes.

The policy of sanctions is considered “cruel” in the pages of The American Conservative and will have a “horrible” impact according to the New York Times.

US “intelligence” warns Trump

The US group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) warned the government of President Donald Trump that his intention to interfere in Venezuela could end up provoking a war with Russia. VIPS was founded in 2003 and their first declaration, written in the same format and sent to then president George W. Bush and his government, refuted the arguments and distortions that the administration utilized to justify the invasion of Iraq.

“Inside Venezuela, U.S. actions have failed to do more than plunge the country into deeper crisis, cause greater human suffering, and increase the prospects of violence on a national scale… In our view, the advice you’ve received from your top advisors – Florida Senator Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor John Bolton, Special Representative Elliott Abrams, and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo – was and apparently continues to be wrong”[1], indicates VIPS.

“We believe that picking fights, including ousting governments, blocking negotiated settlements, and threatening other countries’ sovereign decision to pursue activities that do not threaten our national security – is rarely the wise way to go.”

“It strains credulity to believe that your advisors picked this fight with President Maduro without realizing that Venezuela would seek help fixing its defensive capabilities.  Moreover and very seriously, rhetoric challenging Russia could all too easily lead to a much more consequential confrontation.  Invoking the 1823 Monroe Doctrine is unhelpful. For Russia to provide assistance for purely defensive purposes to a country in which we seek to create regime change and threaten military attack would not be widely seen as violating the Monroe Doctrine or crossing a ‘red line.’”,  warn the US military and intelligence experts

“This is not 19th century Latin America, and it is a far cry from the Cuba missile crisis of 1962.   The best way to prevent dangerous miscalculation would be for you to speak directly with President Putin. Washington’s energies would be better spent clearing up differences, adjusting failed policies, and promoting a peaceful resolution in Venezuela”, conclude the US experts in intelligence and national security.

08/04/2019

(Translated for ALAI by Jordan Bishop)

Alvaro Verzi Rangel: Venezuelan sociologist, Co-director of the Observatory of Communication and Democracy and of the Latin American Centre of Strategic Analysis (CLAE, www.estrategia.la)

http://estrategia.la/2019/04/07/maduro-quiere-reactivar-el-dialogo-y-la-inteligencia-estadounidense-advierte-a-trump/