Global Research

In a March 26 United Nations press briefing strong on fact and devoid of bigotry, the United States Peace Council, headed by Bahman Azad, just returned from their recent visit to Venezuela, presented an eyewitness account of realities on the ground in Venezuela.  Their factual information drastically contradicted Western media distortions and propaganda intended to discredit the government of President Maduro.  The panel included Dr. Margaret Flowers a pediatrician and co-Director of Popular Resistance.org, Attorney Kevin Zeese, also co-director of Popular Resistance.org, Sara Flounders of the International Action Center and  founder of the organization No War on Venezuela.

Both Dr. Flowers and Sara Flounders confirmed that Presidents Chavez and Maduro had constructed 6,000 medical clinics, trained 18,000 physicians, and built almost three million housing units to provide decent homes for the poorest citizens. They had also provided the highest per capita availability of pharmaceuticals in Latin America.  Living standards for the poor dramatically improved.

Attorney Kevin Zeese confirmed that the current Venezuelan constitution guarantees human rights and defense of law and civil society.  He added that there were 168 credentialed international observers during the recent re-election of Maduro, and they confirmed that Maduro won 68% of the vote. There is zero legitimacy to Guaido’s farcical claim to the “interim presidency,”: according to the Venezuelan constitution, only if Maduro was too ill to govern, or dead, could he be replaced, and then, only the Vice President could legally replace him.

Following the failed coup against President Chavez in 2004, the US, in violation of international law under the Rome Statute, imposed illegal sanctions to cripple and ultimately destroy the Venezuelan economy, and since 2017 have imposed coercive economic sanctions which are tantamount to modern day piracy.  The US and its proxies, including the UK, have stolen billions of dollars belonging to the Venezuelan people, and have blocked pharmaceutical supplies, crippling the medical system;  when Venezuela attempted to purchase medications from India and Turkey, the US blocked that.

In 2014 US President Obama declared Venezuela a national security threat, opening the way for military intervention.  The criminal methods used to destroy the democratically elected government of Allende in Chile are being repeated in an attempt to destroy the Maduro Presidency, and steal the richest oil supply on the planet, and other precious natural resources that belong to Venezuela. Zeese confirmed that the coercive sanctions against Venezuela are violating the UN Charter, and should be challenged in international courts.

When the US puppet Guaido failed to foment a coup d’etat last month, mercenaries trained in Colombia and funded by Venezuelan assets stolen from Venezuela by the US and its proxies, are preparing to disguise themselves as disaffected Venezuelan military personnel, and planning to cause chaos, spreading terrorism, which will serve as an excuse for Western military intervention.  This is a heinous pattern of engineered violent provocations,  employed by the infamous School of the Americas, during the period from the 1950’s through the 1990’s, and technologically vastly advanced today. On March 24, an article headlined: “US and Puppet Guaido Implicated in Terrorism Plot,” reported that Guaido’s Chief of Staff Roberto Marrero was implicated in terrorist plots funded by assets seized from Venezuela and channeled into bank accounts through Colombia.  “Teams of assassins, brought from Honduras and El Salvador were trained in Colombia to carry out terrorist acts in Venezuela.”

There is solid evidence that the blackout in Venezuela, following Guaido’s failed coup d’etat, was engineered by the US-Guaido junta:  according to Sara Flounders, blueprints for the blackout attacks were traced to a source in Chicago with software equipment based in Houston, Texas.

As early as the 1960’s, the Latin American military was trained in methods of terrorism at the International Police Academy Center in Washington, with courses in Texas, at Los Fresnos.  The Latin American military was trained in everything connected with explosives, the way to manufacture explosive charges, anti-personnel  systems, bombs capable of destroying a building, a car, or railroad tracks.  In “free time” students practiced using a knife and techniques for killing silently, without noise….once the student was familiar with everything concerning primary explosives, he undertook the study of what is called “detonating cord” and its various applications  .. Then the student proceeds to the study of electronic systems and electric detonators.  When the student has a working knowledge of all these systems, he is taught an excellent type of bomb – a booby trap wired to the electric bulb in a Frigidaire (so that when someone opens the door, the system explodes.)

The infamous U.S. police “advisor” Dan Mitrione trained the Latin American military in updated torture techniques;  Mitrione kidnapped homeless beggars on the streets of Brazil, stripped them naked, and demonstrated various torture methods on their live human bodies, as a result of which these human guinea pigs died or were murdered.  This is an example of U.S. aid to Latin America.

In the half century since then, massively sophisticated methods of sabotage of the economies of countries independent of Washington’s control have been devised, and if these do not succeed, Washington and allies resort to military intervention, often employing the U.N. Security Council as enablers, as was the case in Libya, in 2011, and in 1991 in Iraq.  Today Venezuela, the world’s country richest in oil is the target.  Any hosannas of concern for the people of Venezuela are fraudulent, as desperate refugees from other countries are ignored or imprisoned by the U.S government, as are the numerous homeless, impoverished citizens of the USA, a dangerously increasing number.

On April 10, U.S. Vice-President Pence disgraced himself at the  UN Security Council by questioning the Venezuelan Ambassador’s authority, and pressuring the UN Security Council to revoke his legitimate credentials. Venezuelan Ambassador Moncada is a gentleman, otherwise he would have replied to Pence that the government of the United States is so grossly discredited, including by more than half its citizens, and still undergoing a probe of corruption by the Department of Justice (paid for by U.S. taxpayers), that Pence should not be sitting in the UN Security Council, but his own credentials should be revoked, and he should be replaced by Bernie Sanders.

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Carla Stea is Global Research’s correspondent at United Nations Headquarters, New York, N.Y.