Top Defector Tells of Spying, Stealing and Mutiny in Venezuela
Source: Yahoo News
Days after being named chief of Venezuela’s feared Sebin intelligence agency last fall, General Manuel Ricardo Cristopher Figuera was called in by President Nicolas Maduro and asked where the enemy was.
“I don’t understand the question, sir,” Figuera says he responded.
“I want a report every two hours of what the political opposition is doing,” Maduro replied, listing some of the 30 politicians whose whereabouts and activities were to be surveilled. Reports, he said, needed to be sent not only to him but to his wife, Cilia Flores, and to Vice President Delcy Rodriguez. The monitoring involved spreadsheets with photos, mobile phone taps and round-the-clock shifts of on-the-ground four-agent teams observing movements and meetings.
Figuera, the most significant Venezuelan defector of the past two decades, is in the U.S. offering details of Maduro’s increasingly authoritarian rule and the schemes by which he, his family and associates embezzle the proceeds of oil, gold and other national treasures as the once-wealthy nation of 30 million descends into chaos and starvation.
Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/top-defector-tells-spying-stealing-090000438.html
More inside information on how Venezuela is being looted by Maduro.
= new reply since forum marked as read
But we have a history of destabilizing government in Central and South America. A large part of what we've done in Venezuela and Nicaragua was extremely counterproductive.
Why the Threat of U.S. Intervention in Venezuela Revives Historical Tensions in the Region
https://time.com/5512005/venezuela-us-intervention-history-latin-america/
A Political Crisis Is Sweeping Venezuela. Here's What to Know
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro met his most serious challenge to date when opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself president Wednesday following days of nationwide anti-government protests.
By Ciara Nugent
January 25, 2019
Standing on the balcony of his presidential palace on Wednesday, Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro warned his supporters about the U.S. response to their country’s political crisis. “We don’t want to go back to the gringo interventions of the 20th century,” he said. “The U.S. is trying to mount a coup and install a puppet government [to protect] its interests in Venezuela.”
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Now, tensions are rising between the U.S. and the embattled regime. Here’s the history behind Maduro’s claims, and how the current situation compares.
Why is Venezuela denouncing a U.S. coup?
The U.S. is among more than a dozen countries, including the U.K., Canada, and most of Venezuela’s neighbors, that have so far recognized the 35-year-old Guaidó as interim president. As leader of the country’s parliament, the National Assembly, Guaidó says he is constitutionally bound to take charge if there is no legitimate president in the country. (Maduro’s second term, won in rigged elections in 2108, is not recognized by the opposition.) Guaidó proclaimed himself president before crowds of supporters in Caracas at mass anti-government protests on Wednesday.
Soon after the White House released its statement statement recognizing Guaidó, Maduro announced he was breaking off ties with the U.S. and ordered all diplomats to leave within 72 hours. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hit back, saying the Socialist leader had no “legal authority” to give that order, as “the former president.” Instead of withdrawing the mission, Pompeo pledged to give $20 million in humanitarian aid for Guaidó to hand out.
What is the history behind Maduro’s claim that he is a victim of U.S. imperialism?
Maduro says that by pushing for Guaidó to take over, the U.S. “intends to govern Venezuela from Washington.” And Washington certainly has a history of interfering in Latin America’s governments.
In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, social movements in Latin America began to challenge stratified class systems that were often hangovers from colonial rule. Leftwing movements and populist parties gained support, and sometimes power, in countries including Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua and Bolivia. In Chile, Salvador Allende became the world’s first democratically elected Marxist president in 1970.
In the context of the Cold War, the U.S. viewed those developments down south as a threat to the global balance of power: American security forces did not want more of its neighbors to become allies of the U.S.S.R. They also wanted to protect American businesses and assets in the region, fearing that any new leftwing governments would follow the example of Cuba after its revolution and throw foreign powers out of the country.
To help stop any of that from happening, the U.S. used a range of interventionist methods. In the 1960s, State Department officials and CIA agents were intimately involved in training and assisting Guatemalan security forces, who killed thousands of civilians during a civil war with leftist rebels against the right-wing government. In the 1970s in Chile, the CIA attempted to thwart Allende’s ascent and later lent support to the General Augusto Pinochet, the right-wing military dictator who overthrew him. Pinochet’s regime murdered 3,065 of its citizens and committed human rights abuses against almost 40,000. In the 1980s in Nicaragua, the U.S. backed the right-wing Contra rebels to take on the socialist Sandinista government, leading to a decade of violent struggle.
In Venezuela itself, the U.S. gave its tacit approval of a coup attempt against Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez in 2002. Declassified CIA intelligence briefings show that the George W. Bush Administration had prior knowledge of the opposition’s plans and did not share their information with Chavez. He was deposed for less than 48 hours until overwhelming popular support and loyalists in the military helped return him to power.
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Is the U.S. likely to send in troops to help Guaidó take power?
President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday that “all options are on the table” in the Administration’s response to the current crisis. In late 2017 and early 2018, Trump administration officials met with rebels in Venezuela to discuss their coup plans, but decided against giving them material support, according to a report by The New York Times. Some — including Florida Senator Marco Rubio — have said there is a “very strong argument” for military intervention in Venezuela.
But many strongly advise against such a move. Venezuela’s military has pledged to support Maduro and strategists say a confrontation with them could prove costly, long-winded and futile — or risk turning into a military occupation. The Pentagon’s former top official in charge of overseeing South American operations told Vox that there isn’t “a good reason” for the U.S. to try to oust Maduro. On Twitter, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders reminded his followers of the history of U.S. intervention in the region, speaking out against the Maduro regime but also against Washington actively supporting regime change. “We must not go down that road again,” he said.
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With or without U.S. involvement, the next few weeks will likely be decisive for Venezuela’s future.
Write to Ciara Nugent at ciara.nugent@time.com.
Attack on Richard Nixon's motorcade
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Richard_Nixon's_motorcade
Vice President Richard Nixon's motorcade drives through Caracas, Venezuela and is attacked by demonstrators.jpg
Nixon's car is attacked in Caracas
Date May 13, 1958
Location Caracas, Venezuela
An attack on Richard Nixon's motorcade occurred in Caracas, Venezuela, during his 1958 goodwill tour of South America, undertaken while Nixon was Vice President of the United States. The attack on Nixon's car was called, at the time, the "most violent attack ever perpetrated on a high American official while on foreign soil". Close to being killed while a couple of his aides were injured in the melee, Nixon ended up unharmed and his entourage managed to reach the U.S. embassy. The visit took place only months after the overthrow of Venezuelan dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez, who was awarded the Legion of Merit and later granted asylum by the United States, and the incident may have been orchestrated by the Communist Party of Venezuela. U.S. Navy Admiral Arleigh Burke mobilized fleet and Marine units to the region, compelling the Venezuelan government to provide full protection to Nixon for the remainder of the trip.
The attack was denounced by all major Venezuelan presidential candidates standing in that year's election, except for the incumbent leader Admiral Wolfgang Larrazábal. Nixon was generally applauded in American press reports for his calm and adept handling of the incident and was feted with a "hero's welcome" on his return to the United States. His recollections of the attack form one of the "six crises" in his eponymous book. The attack has been credited with awakening U.S. officials to a growing tide of anti-Americanism in Latin America, but of also deeply affecting Nixon on a personal level, shaping his perception of Latin America as a region prone to "violence and irrationality".
Context
Richard Nixon's carefully planned 1958 tour of South America has been described as one of the "most important United States foreign policy events in post-WWII Latin America".[2] It was undertaken at a time of confused United States intra-hemispheric relations; the role of Latin American states in the emerging American grand strategy of containment was unclear and ill-defined. However, a recent worldwide drop in commodity prices that badly affected South American economies, coupled with increasing Soviet overtures in the western hemisphere, made President of the United States Dwight Eisenhower determine that a tour by a major United States functionary was necessary to demonstrate U.S. commitment to the region.[2] Nixon, himself, says he was uninterested in taking the trip.[3]
The tour was to see Nixon visit every independent country in South America except Brazil and Chile.[a] Brazil had been omitted from the itinerary as Nixon had visited that nation the previous year. The Chilean leadership, meanwhile, were scheduled to be out-of-the-country during the time period of Nixon's visit. Nixon was accompanied on his trip by his wife, Pat Nixon.[3]
Background
Earlier in 1958, the disliked Venezuelan dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez had been overthrown in a popular uprising and had gone into exile in the United States. A military junta formed a caretaker government to rule the country until new elections could be held. Admiral Wolfgang Larrazábal, head of the governing junta, had announced his intention to stand in those elections; his candidacy was backed by a coalition of parties, including the Venezuelan Communist Party. The United States' decision to grant Pérez Jiménez asylum and to award him the Legion of Merit on 12 November 1954[11][12] combined to create a charged atmosphere leading up to Nixon's arrival. The Caracas municipal council even passed a resolution effectively declaring Nixon persona non grata.[13] Prior to Nixon's arrival in Caracas, media reported on rumors that an attempt had been planned on the vice-president's life during his visit.[14] The CIA station chief in Venezuela, meanwhile, urged that this leg of the trip be canceled.[13]
In an interview conducted after he retired from government service, Robert Amerson, then-press attache to the United States embassy in Venezuela, claims that the demonstrators who disrupted the Venezuela stop on the tour "had been bused down by the professional agitators and organizers" affiliated with the Communist Party of Venezuela.[16] This view was one echoed in a report issued by William P. Snow, acting Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, who wrote that "the pattern of organization and of slogans in all cases points to Communist inspiration and direction, as do certain of the intelligence reports".[2] Nixon, himself, also blamed Communist instigation.[3] A Universal Newsreel at the time characterized it as "another of the well-planned campaigns of harassment" and a "communist-sparked onslaught".[17] Venezuelan journalist Carlos Rangel has indicated the "Nixon carnival" was organized by the Venezuelan Communist Party as a way of demonstrating that it had the ability to "dominate the streets, that the Caracas masses were ready to be mobilized".[18]
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Various sources describe the attack as one that nearly led to Nixon's death[2] and, though it is generally agreed he acted with remarkable composure throughout, the incident had a lasting impact on him. Every year on the anniversary of the attack, Nixon would "privately celebrate" with Vernon Walters.[34] Nixon would favor Walters for the rest of his career, eventually appointing him Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.[34] On the eve of Walters' retirement from government service, in 1991, Nixon explained his longtime patronage of the general, writing him that "you and I have faced death together and that gives us a special bond".[35]
Nixon's experiences in Venezuela have been attributed to an extreme hardening of his attitude toward Latin America, which he came to "equate with violence and irrationality". Some believe this change of mood foreshadowed his subsequent support for covert U.S. actions directed in support of dictatorial regimes in the region. In fact, he would later privately list several nations whose populations, he believed, were too immature for democratic government and would be better administered by authoritarian regimes, specifically citing France, Italy, and all of Latin America "except for Colombia".[36][25]
The incident has been credited with first making American policymakers aware of growing popular resentment to U.S. policies in Latin America.[37] By the end of 1958, the U.S. National Security Council would list "yankeephobia" as a key challenge to U.S. interests in Latin America.[25]
