Op-Ed: Venezuela; The Jackals never forget or Forgive

By Ofwono Opondo

In 2003, the US and its European allies got away with a massive global disinformation against Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons of mass destruction which sixteen years after Iraq’s conquest haven’t been found. The cabal then descended on Syria, and Libya, both now destroyed under the same guise, but fortunately, today the jackals are beating a humiliating retreat in Syria, thanks to Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

Therefore, the unfolding tragic and criminal aggression against Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, is once again putting the UN and its Secretary General António Guterres to test. It is pathetic listening to Guterres, who, instead of rebuking the US and its allies, is calling for ‘restraint’ in Venezuela, as if Maduro was the aggressor. The US is being permitted to throw the UN charter in the place of stray dogs, and coups that the CIA used to plot behind closed doors are now done openly on twitter and facebook.

Having been defeated in Vietnam were 58,220 died and 304,000 wounded, the jackal has since built the media as part of its military strategy to design, define and propagate  a one-sided narrative across almost all major channels to service aggression. The BBC, funded no less, through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, “Conflict, Security and Stability project”, has been castigating Maduro as the devil that must be destroyed. The global media seem to help Trump divert attention from domestic crisis over Russia-gate and the Wall.

The US is shifting its aggression to the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela under Maduro ostensibly to stop a humanitarian crisis, restore democracy and rule of law. The truth however, is that Venezuela is sitting on the largest oil, hydrocarbon, and diamond deposits, which the US seeks to grab.

In addition to all the decades of subversion, embargo, and economic sanctions that has denied Venezuela access to its own oil revenue, the US has pumped over thirty million dollars in democracy funds to prop up the likes of Guiado, defamation and violence against the Chavesmo revolution.

While the western media presents Venezuela as an economic basket case, it should be known that the US sabotage since the cold war has come in many forms. Among them is the printing and circulating of fake currencies, and paying multinationals to horde specific essential goods like flour, sugar, salt, cooking oil, toilet paper, soaps, and medicines in order to cause public disaffection against governments.

This was the narrative against North Korea presented for decades as having a starving population yet able to be a nuclear threat! The imperialist controlled media has manipulated its audience since Vietnam although in former Yugoslavia Monica Lewinsky offered some distraction. Since the emergence of global television, the media became embedded to drive US narrative in conflicts as demonstrated during the Gulf war, Arab Spring and now Syria.

Therefore, from the corners of our small worlds, we have an obligation to continue exposing the US, its allies and global media conspiracy in distablising international relations, diplomacy, economy, and causing human crisis.

Although the African Union was ignored on Iraq, Syria and Libya, this time round, it has again stood up to be counted by siding with the elected government of President Maduro, and opposing US aggression and meddling.

The self-proclaimed champions of democracy and civilian rule from the EU have shamelessly joined Donald Trump, to cajole, and are nakedly offering bribes to elements of the Venezuelan military to oust Maduro. They claim that in doing so, they want to pave way for a peaceful transition of power to their puppet Juan Guido, the National Assembly speaker, the self-declared ‘president’. For the record, Guiado has never stood for president, in which case one would argue he is disputing election results.

It is important to remember that the term “Banana Republics,” became known so because Chief Executives of the US United Fruit Company, with banana plantations and trade had powers that superseded the supposedly sovereign governments. If they complained that there was a ‘bad’ leader who wanted to ‘over’ tax their banana business or demanded better wages for workers, the US kicked their doors open, deposed or killed a president. Manuel Noriega was handcuffed into US prison for challenging US rights over Panama Canal.

This was how Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, and Grenada got embroiled in military rule between 1960s and quite recently. Today countries like Colombia and Brazil support US positions because they seek NATO alliance.

The democracy fund, better called coup fund, has been spent on propping emerging opposition leaders through US funded programs. Social media platforms as corporate entities are part, and hand in-gloves with their governments. The US diplomats ordered out by President Maduro, refused to leave hoping they could be harmed so as to provoke an immediate military strike.

Elliott Abrams, better known for overseeing terrorism in Nicaragua funded through the Iran-Contra drug money, convicted but later pardoned, then served GW Bush during Iraq war, is now Special Representative on Venezuela. The US, shouldn’t shed crocodile tears over Venezuela’s poverty and starvation.