Venezuela 2014 is like Haiti 2004 before US regime change: It’s the Opposition That’s Anti-Democratic
Venezuela must not fall
"'The opposition’ has been paid from abroad, as it has been paid, in the past and now, in China, in Eastern Europe, in Syria, Ukraine and in Thailand, as it has been paid everywhere else in the world, where the West could not manage to easily strip those ‘rebellious’ countries of all their riches, while keeping them humiliated, and on their knees...The West likes it when...despots hold the reins of power. They like people like Duvalier, Trujillo, Videla and Pinochet – and their equivalents – on all the continents and in every country...It does not matter how many millions will die in the process. As long as a rebellion, or a fight for independence, can be crushed, Western imperialism and neo-colonialism will sacrifice any amount of human lives, especially the lives of those ‘un people’.." ---Open Letter to President of Venezuela Soon, the Battle for Venezuela by ANDRE VLTCHEKShare and circulate widely. Join the conversation
Ezili Dantò Note:
Venezuela 2014 is like Haiti 2004 before US regime change. It’s the opposition to the duly elected Venezuelan government that’s anti-democratic.
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."--Malcom X"Battle for Venezuela" on Counterpunch by Andre Vltchek and Venezuela: It’s the Opposition That’s Anti-Democratic from venezuelanalysis thoroughly details the current US racist economic and political destabilization campaign against Venezuela. It's a campaign similar to that waged against the democratically elected Aristide/Neptune government in Haiti 2004 and against the Allende government Chile in 1973. Non-violent disobedience and public protest, the traditional tools of the oppressed, have now been co-opted by the oligarchs.
The West has taken oppression and trickery to further oppress people to unprecedented heights in the 21st century. Constructing "Venezuela" Protests: a Photo Gallery shows a slew of images of government oppression taken from elsewhere, but attributed to the government of Venezuela the US-media wants to help Washington take down.
Many are social media postings, picked up by CNN and others and illustrates the media's sleight of hand, switching protest from other parts of the world, conflating it, even substituting photos of government abuse elsewhere to past as Venezuela government abuses.
Haitians suffered these same media lies during the US 2004 Bush regime change in Haiti. Photos taken from the Congo were past off by the media as "Haitian child soldiers, hired into service by the democratically elected government the US and its mining, oil and NGO invaders wished to displace. See also, 'Venezuela's President Maduro accuses Obama of inciting violence' where CNN and other internationally owned media are accused of fraudulent reporting, hypocrisy and pushing "an international campaign to justify a foreign intervention in Venezuela".
It's too grim to even think about letting the US-led terrorists replicate what they've done to Haiti since 2004, the DR since 1965, Indonesia since 1965, Chile since 1973, Patrice Lumumba's Congo since 1961, et al.
Venezuela must not fall.
Circulate the truth to help stop the newest shock and awe US regime change efforts in Venezuela. The point of which is to pillage Venezuelan oil. Expose the embedded, warmongering mainstream media's filthy lies attempting to disenfranchise the Venezuelan people as they did Haiti in 2004.
I and the folks in the Ezili Network have lived 20 solid years of the 24/7 Haiti struggle and my parents before me ALL THEIR LIVES and grandparents before them... I recognize the media tactics. The fraudulent photos to escalating the mythical "abuse" of "students" and other such "anti-government forces."
When the US was manufacturing the lie that Aristide was a dictator, without popular support, in the manner of US-supported dictators Duvalier, Mobutu, Trujillo or Pinochet - a State Department lie reiterated by the mainstream media to help take down Haiti's constitutionally elected government in 2004, I remember US citizen and sweatshop kingpin, Andre Apaid of the anti-government Group 184, running around looking for dead bodies of the "opposition" at the Port au Prince morgue and hospitals to present to the complicit US media to show how abusive Aristide police (with no bullets in their guns) were. Just like the US-manufactured "Venezuela" protests against the duly elected Venezuelan government, Apaid took a dead pro-government (Lavalas) victim, killed by the Group 184/GNBist forces and tried to past him off as a victim of Haiti government police brutality. I remember the tyrants and despots in Haiti, dressed-up by the Internationals (Neocolonialists) as peacemakers and the police cleansing Haiti 's poor and populous neighborhoods of "bandits."
I remember the rabid elites destabilization efforts to crush the January 1, 2004 bicentennial celebrations of Haiti's independence. I recall how only a few brave heads of State crossed Washington to attend.
I remember the New York Times writing that the US-hated, popularly-elected Haiti government had little popular support in Haiti and that the January 1st bicentennial celebrations, officiated by the Aristide/Neptune government, had only a "small crowd" attending the celebrations. Like the Venezuela crisis today, the 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti "was preceded by a
For instance, the corporate media would "mistake" the 2000 trumped up charges of a "contested" parliamentary elections with the 2000 uncontested Presidential election of Aristide and switch
them, so that magically Aristide's 2000 elections was reported by many, including the powerful New York Times as "flawed" and "contested." The retractions for the "errors" where never as prominently displayed as the lies." -- Haitian Nights, Again: Haiti's Children Suffer more under the Bushes' policies and Colonial Regime ChangesI remember CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewing "freedom fighter" Guy Philippe, the death squad leader and DEA-suspected drug king pin, trained in the Dominican Republic to do US bidding in Haiti in 2004; asking him if he planned on running for the Haiti presidency. This, as the US special forces were flying the kidnapped and duly elected President to exile in Africa on a US rendition vessel. (Guy Philippe, the US Special Forces-trained commander who led the armed movement against Aristide says the media helped him with the coup d'etat, a lot.)
I recall the massacres of the people in the populous areas, the US marines absconding with the bodies in ambulances, the indiscriminate killings of people suspected of voting for Aristide. I remember the media lies, the Bush bloodbath brought to Haiti. The total, absolute horror of our endless losses being invisible, ignored by the world.
I know the little old Haitian ladies in New York, like Genevieve “Kòkòt” Laguerre, herself gone now, without seeing a liberated Haiti, who would sent their meager savings for Father Jean Juste to bury the victims of the 2004 US regime change and occupation. I remember the US crucifixion of Emmanuel "Drèd" Wilmè, and its multinational/UN troop's assassination of Drèd Wilmè, his family and the thousands of arbitrary and capricious arrests of citizens suspected of voting for Aristide, some still indefinitely detained in US-funded Haiti jails to this very day.
I recall some US journalists even traveled with the treasonous Guy Phillipe and convicted FRAPH death squad leader/CIA employee, Louis Jodel Chamblain, as they rampaged through Northern Haiti for CNN cameras in their US- quest to "liberate" the people of Haiti from their duly elected government. All, on behalf of the corporatocracy that's reigning right now.
"Newspapers like the New York Times distorted reality, emboldened Haiti's undemocratic forces at defining moments, encouraging coup d'etat thugs and kidnappers, and decisively pushed the Bush-State-department-narrative-on-Haiti by labeling, for instance, the millions President Aristide addressed during the January 1, 2004 bi-centennial as a "small crowd." And when, for instance, the New York Times finally wrote on an angle outside of the Neocon-narrative, it simply put all the blame for the 2004 coup d'etat on Haitian overseer, Stanley Lucas' providing "mixed signals" and completely ignored his US bosses including Ambassador Foley, Senator John Mc Cain, Timothy M. Carney, IFEs, USAID and the Haiti Democracy Projects' other powerful Republican benefactors. (See, Mixed U.S. Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Toward Chaos By WALT BOGDANICH and JENNY NORDBERG, New York Times, January 29, 2006)" ---- Haitian Nights, Again: Haiti's Children Suffer more under the Bushes' policies and Colonial Regime Changes
I can't express to the world enough what will be LOST to the Venezuelan people if they lose their sovereignty completely to the international pirates that have hijacked their due opposition and created the manufactured ones from the US corporatocracy. The US destabilizers, public resource-privatizing-profiteers and their ever present and waiting poverty-pimping charitable industrial complex (NGOs) will make Venezuela infinitely worse than you might believe it is now.. decidedly worse if the US coup d'etat/regime change happens. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING should be done to stop US regime change in Venezuela.
Journalist-filmmaker, Andre Vltchek, writes one of the most compelling pieces I've read to date on the Venezuelan crisis. If you've not read them yet, please do so. I feel his pain. It's my pain and despair also. I see he knows what will happen to Venezuela if it falls... All of us out here, marginalized by the establishment will feel the blow as we lay our lives down each and every day to free Haiti from the clutches of the US occupation behind UN mercenary guns and the NGO invaders. I cannot recommend more highly that you read -"Battle for Venezuela" on Counterpunch by Andre Vltchek.
The Battle for Venezuela article shows a heart so tuned to the games of empire that Vltchek exhorts the Venezuelan to take up arms to stop their country from careening into the hands of the right wing death squads (and I add also to stop it from careening not only to the right wing but their Western corresponding Left wing neutralizing agents. The US has two faces but one evil.) I find his piece important enough to share. I write here to ask folks read it and re-post it on their blogs and websites.
With all my heart and all that I know (See Ezili on Haiti, four years after quake), I lend support to this statement he makes:
"The violent activities undertaken by those so-called ‘protesters’ in Caracas have to be stopped, immediately, and if necessary, by force.‘The opposition’ has been paid from abroad, as it has been paid, in the past and now, in China, in Eastern Europe, in Syria, Ukraine and in Thailand, as it has been paid everywhere else in the world, where the West could not manage to easily strip those ‘rebellious’ countries of all their riches, while keeping them humiliated, and on their knees." ---Open Letter to President of Venezuela Soon, the Battle for Venezuela
Ezili Dantò of HLLN
"Grenadye alaso sa ki mouri n'ap vanje yo!" --Indigenous Army of Ayiti, 1791
Forwarded by Ezili's Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
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What Can You Do:
To counter the barrage of US-led media propaganda intended to take down the duly elected government of Venezuela in order to privatize Venezuelan oil and resources to the one-percent, consider circulating the following Ezili Network recommended Hands-off-Venezuela! articles:
Share and circulate widely the two Andre Vltchek articles along with the Kevin Edmonds contribution on Haiti. (Venezuela: It’s the Opposition That’s Anti-Democratic By Jerome Roos - ROAR Magazine, February 22, 2014 ; Open Letter to President of Venezuela Soon, the Battle for Venezuela by ANDRE VLTCHEK ; From Egypt, Ukraine, the Turkish-Syrian border, Cuba and Thailand How the West Manufactures “Opposition Movements”and, Protest Coverage in Haiti and Venezuela Reveals U.S. Media Hypocrisy .)
For a useful comparative analysis with Haiti and other countries struggling to remove the US-led global tyranny, read also, by Andre Vltchek:
"From Egypt, Ukraine, the Turkish-Syrian border, Cuba and Thailand How the West Manufactures “Opposition Movements” at http://bit.ly/1fibNUa
-Protest Coverage in Haiti and Venezuela Reveals U.S. Media Hypocrisy By Kevin Edmonds - NACLA, February 22nd 2014 at http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10385
Constructing "Venezuela" Protests: a Photo Galleryhttp://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10360
Share and circulate widely the two Andre Vltchek articles along with the Kevin Edmonds contribution on Haiti. Join the conversation. Help end the US-led world tyranny of the rabid elites.
"The protests in Venezuela are orchestrated by the right-wing oligarchy. Let’s get the facts straight: plenty of Venezuelans are taking to the streets with legitimate grievances about violent crime, high inflation and food shortages — and there is no doubt that the Venezuelan riot police are indeed behaving violently towards many of these protesters. All police brutality should be roundly condemned. The people of Venezuela should be allowed to freely express their indignation in public without fear of repression. But it bears emphasizing in this respect that at least two of the protesters’ main grievances have been deliberately escalated by the oligarchic elite itself: through extensive hoarding and smuggling of consumer products (giving rise to shortages and fueling price inflation) and massive speculation on the foreign currency market (pushing down the Bolívar and feeding into further inflation). This is precisely the type of economic warfare that the US-backed Chilean opposition drew upon prior to the overthrow of Salvador Allende in 1973." --Venezuela: It’s the Opposition That’s Anti-Democratic
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More Background Info
Protest Coverage in Haiti and Venezuela Reveals U.S. Media Hypocrisy
By Kevin Edmonds - Source: NACLA, February 22nd 2014
The media coverage of the events unfolding in Venezuela provides a troubling example of how the imperial ambitions of the United States can magnify crises—especially when contrasted with the current political situation in Haiti....
Both Venezuela and Haiti have been facing anti-government protests, with the respective oppositions citing poor leadership, corruption, electoral fraud, and a deteriorating economy as their primary motivations in calling for change. However, the international media’s escalation of the Venezuelan crisis and their complete silence when it comes to Haiti, raises some important questions about the United States’ inconsistency in upholding the values of human rights and democracy.
Haiti has been enduring a political crisis since the highly controversial election of President Michel Martelly, who received his mandate from only 16.7 percent of registered voters, and has been running the country without a fully functioning government in order to avoid dealing with constitutionally mandated checks and balances. For the third year in a row, Martelly has promised to hold elections to fill legislative and local seats without yet following through.....
....while Martelly was praised by President Obama in early February for his leadership, Haiti has also seen a slew of anti-government protests due to the political crisis, human rights abuses, and economic decline. The lack of media attention regarding Martelly’s consistent attacks on popular organizations and human rights defenders in Haiti, in contrast to Venezuela is a stark reminder of how abuses of power can be marginalized if one has influential friends in the right places.
The media bias facing Venezuela—be it due to Venezuela’s fervent anti-U.S. policy and rhetoric, or the fact that it sits on the largest oil reserves in the hemisphere—allows the United States to shape public perception toward the country on its own strategic terms. In the absence of these factors, human rights abuses and the suspension of political liberties can continue indefinitely—as long as the government is set on accommodating the interests of the United States instead of challenging them.
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Venezuela's President Maduro accuses Obama of inciting violence
Venenzuelan President Nicolas Maduro (AFP Photo / Presidencia)
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused President Obama of promoting ongoing protests in the country, and of backing members of the opposition alleged to be behind violence.
In a communique, the Latin American leader demanded that the US explain its motives in “financing, promoting and defending members of the opposition that promote violence against our country.”
Maduro went on to denounce declarations made by President Obama regarding the situation in Venezuela, saying that they presented a “gross interference in internal affairs.”
The new accusations come amidst a spike in the unrest that has gripped Venezuela, with some six people killed since demonstrations mounted by the opposition turned violent last week.
Wednesday night saw sporadic clashes between demonstrators in the capital of Caracas, the majority of which are middle class students who are frustrated with the country’s sputtering economy and soaring crime rate, and are seeking a regime change.
Maduro, who was elected last year as the heir apparent following the death of long-time President Hugo Chavez, has accused the opposition of fomenting a coup and inciting violence.
Supporters of Leopoldo Lopez, an ardent opponent of Venezuela's socialist government facing an arrest warrant after President Nicolas Maduro ordered his arrest on charges of homicide and inciting violence, light fires outside La Carlota military base, where he was taken after turning himself in, on February 18, 2014, in Caracas. (AFP Photo / Juan Barreto)
"There is an international campaign to justify a foreign intervention in Venezuela," Maduro said on Wednesday.
Members of the Venezuelan opposition have appealed to the international community over what they say was a tainted election, though little has been presented in the way of evidence of electoral impropriety in what was a closely contested runoff. Spearheading that effort has been Henrique Capriles, the opposition's two-time losing presidential candidate.
Venezuela’s ruling party, meanwhile, has long maintained that the US is playing a role in propping up the country’s opposition, and seeking to subvert the Maduro administration. That vitriol was sustained during Hugo Chavez’s tenure as the country’s leader; he often referred to an unsuccessful 2002 coup which heavily implicated US coordination.
The latest spout of violence came on the heels of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez’s surrender to government authorities during a large rally in Caracas. Lopez, who has recently become a rising star among Maduro opponents, is alleged to have played a role in the 2002 coup attempt.
Lopez, the Harvard educated 42-year-old leader of the Popular Will party and a former mayor, is being held responsible for the casualties that have resulted as demonstrators continue to clash with government forces.
"I said, 'Send him to jail,' and that's what happened and that's what will happen with all of the fascists. I won't allow him to challenge the people of Venezuela, the constitution,” said Maduro shortly after his arrest.
Lopez is being held in Caracas' Ramo Verde military jail on charges of fomenting the violence. According to his lawyers, prosecutors have dropped the most serious charges of murder against him.
Related to allegations of international meddling, Venezuela recently blocked broadcasts by Colombian based NTN24, and on Thursday Maduro warned US broadcaster CNN that it would be booted from the country if it did not "rectify" its programming, which was described as propaganda.
"I asked the minister of Communications, Delcy Rodríguez, that she notify CNN that the administrative process of removing them from Venezuela has begun if they do not rectify (comply). CNN will leave Venezuela. Enough of the war propaganda," said the Venezuelan leader.
Ezili on Haiti, four years after quake
Ezili Dantò interviewed on Uhuru Radio by Africa Live host Dedan Sakara, Feb. 4, 2014