What’s Happening in Venezuela? Just the Facts
On January 23rd, following massive protests of President Nicolás Maduro in the streets of Caracas, Venezuela, national assembly speaker Juan Guaidó swore himself in as interim president. Shortly afterwards, the U.S. recognized Guaidó, followed by all other nations in the world with the exception of Russia, Iran, Mexico, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Cuba. China said it would remain neutral.
Maduro claims that, “The imperial government of the United States is leading a coup attempt against [Venezuela] in order to install a puppet presidency.” Abby Martin, whose “Empire Files” show on teleSUR was until recently financed by Maduro’s regime, has claimed that Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis was manufactured by the local elite colluding with the U.S. with economic sanctions. Über-conspiracy oracle Ben Fulford recently wrote, “The cabal are now fighting desperately to stay in power by stealing the oil reserves of Venezuela, because they are doomed if they lose control of the financial system and thus their ability to hire protection.”
Everyday people are right to be concerned about U.S. interventionism in Venezuela, given the horrible history of U.S. meddling in Latin America and with oil-rich countries around the world. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that what’s occurring in Venezuela is a massive asset-stripping event by both sides, in a scramble to control the world’s largest underground oil reserves through economic warfare.
Everybody has a political axe to grind about what’s happening in Venezuela and the escalation of events has led to strange bedfellows, with the Hillary cheering squad of the Fake News media suddenly in agreement with Trump’s State Department, but for the vast majority of people who have to live in Venezuela and their neighbors, it is widely agreed that the string of bad decisions that have culminated in this chaos were made by Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro and that attempts to assign blame elsewhere are just not true.
To settle what she sees as a lot of disinformation swirling around out there, Venezuelan-American comedian Joanna Hausmann made this video. Hausmann has a popular YouTube channel with funny clips about South American culture, and she apologizes that this one isn’t particularly funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEvHwiJWgAY
As a Venezuelan citizen whose journalist uncle was imprisoned in 2016 for reporting on an anti-government protest, Hausmann wants to explain what’s happening, as she sees it:
“1. What is happening in Venezuela is not a U.S.-backed coup.
“2. This is not a fight between the Venezuelan Right Wing and the Venezuelan Left Wing. This is a fight of the great majority of Venezuelans to democratically get rid of an illegitimate and punitive dictatorship, a dictatorship responsible for countless human rights abuses.
“3. The people of Venezuela are seeking fair, democratic elections, using the laws written in our Constitution.
“4. Juan Guaidó did not just “declare” himself President out of nowhere.
“Interim President Juan Guaidó is not a right-wing politician, but a Liberal representative in Congress. Guaidó was elected by the Venezuelan people to be a representative in Venezuela’s national assembly. He is acting as Interim President—as in, temporary president—until democratic elections can be ensured, as dictated by law when a president is deemed illegitimate. In other words, this is not a coup.
“Why is President Nicolás Maduro illegitimate? In 2017, the Supreme Court that was handpicked by Nicolás Maduro’s party nullified and stripped the National Assembly or Congress of their powers. The National Assembly was chosen by vote and was the only government institution that was run by an opposition majority.
“Imagine, when the Democrats took the house, if Trump was like, ‘No, I don’t like this anymore. The house is no longer a legitimate part of government and here’s another house that I made up with everyone that agrees with me’? Americans would be furious! So, too, are Venezuelans!
“Venezuela erupted in protest. Hundreds of protesters, most of them teenagers, were detained, some of whom were tortured and murdered. Meanwhile, despite these protests, Maduro made his own Congress that he could control, just like that.
“Fast-forward to May 20th 2018, where this illegitimate Congress called for presidential elections. Now, during these elections, the most popular opposition candidates were either jailed, exiled, or banned from running. In other words, there was no legitimate way for the opposition to run. So these sham presidential elections were held anyway by Maduro’s government, where only 20% of the population voted. However, a lot of the 20% were public employees who were intimidated into voting by threats from the government.
“These were called illegitimate elections, not just by the Venezuelan people, but by the international community. Everyone was on board, saying, ‘Yeah, this shit’s f*cked-up—and if it’s anything, it’s definitely undemocratic. Now, if you’re wondering how the Venezuelan people truly feel about this, here are some statistics, according to recent polls: Over 80% of Venezuelans disapprove of Maduro’s government, because there is a lot to disapprove of.
“Maduro took the minimum wage from $350 a month to $7 a month. Meanwhile, inflation hit 1.7 million percent in 2018, with the IMF projecting 10 million percent in 2019. So the daily minimum wage can’t buy two eggs. According to UN projections, over 5,000,000 people have left the country, causing a refugee crisis of Syrian proportions. That’s more than 10% of the Venezuelan population.
“There is such a shortage of medical supplies that people are dying from previously eradicated diseases like polio because there aren’t any vaccines. The economy is a disaster, in a country that sits on the world’s largest oil reserves.
“So where’s all this money going? To people in Maduro’s government. Venezuela is the top 10 most corrupt country in the world, according to the Corruptions Perception Index.
“The media in Venezuela, who should be reporting on this sh*t, are censored and dissidents are jailed. Over 5,000 people since 2014 have been detained for speaking out against the government, and just since last week when Guaidó was elected, 791 people have been jailed.
“So, what is happening now? Interim president Juan Guaidó has been backed by the international community. Yes, this includes the United States, but do you know who else backs Guaidó that isn’t Trump? Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Germany, the Socialist Party that runs Albania, Canada’s progressive prince, Justin Trudeau, Australia, Paraguay, and the government run by the Socialist Party of Spain whose president said, ‘What is going on in Venezuela is the opposite of Socialism?’
“The list goes on. So that was a lot of information and I am exhausted—and I’m not exhausted because I had to explain this to you. I’m exhausted because the situation in Venezuela has been talked about in the forms of political ideologies and politicians and political leanings, but the conversation has completely strayed away from what actually matters, which is the Venezuelan people.
“On a personal level, as to my immediate family—my father is exiled from going back home. My extended family goes out on these protests. My uncle is in jail for being a journalist who tried to shed light on what was going on. My cousin had to leave Venezuela because they were after him as well.
“This has affected everybody on a human level, and it doesn’t matter what leanings you have, from an ideological or political standpoint. This is about people. This is about people wanting their country back.
“That’s it, and if you have any more questions, ask a Venezuelan and they can tell you from their personal human level how it’s affected them. Please listen.”
—KP
Hello,
Thank you for that information. I will admit I am not an expert on Venezuela and I appreciate that the people there are suffering. However, my view is that they are victims of a power struggle between two huge factions who are fighting over control of the world financial system and of Venezuela’s oil reserves.
The people fighting to overthrow Maduro are the 13 bloodlines who control the Federal Reserve Board. The people supporting Maduro want to use Venezuela’s oil to back a cryptocurrency free from bloodline control but possibly under Gnostic Illuminati control.
I think the Venezuelan people need to take sovereign control of their own oil reserves and not have either of these foreign factions take control.
—BF
Another reader writes:
B.F.:
Very confused after reading your newsletter post of 2019/1/28, where you stated that the Cabal had lost the fight to control Venezuela’s oil reserves, which would have ensured some stability in the Cabal’s attempt to hold on to their petrodollar.
Zero Hedge reported, two days in a row, articles that say that Trump is making moves that are in support of the “bad guy” Guaidó and against Maduro.
Isn’t it your position that Trump is the good guy waging war against the Cabal?
If so , how can Trump’s apparent public support of Guaidó be a good thing? Won’t the oil reserves be, in effect, captured by the Cabal if Guaidó comes to power and is seated as the president?
Inquiring minds want to know,
—RS
Good question, Ron,
If you look at Trump’s government, you will note that all the military people left it as of January. Also, if you look at the government shutdown, you will see it did not affect the U.S. military.
So it appears Trump realized that without U.S. military support, the U.S. Corporation (as opposed to the Republic) of which he is president, will go bankrupt unless he can get funding for the Federal Reserve Board and the 13 bloodline families who own both it and the U.S. Corporation.
When he hired that criminal Elliott Abrams, he showed that in the end he does not have much power.
I am afraid to say that despite the great work he has done, Trump is destined to play a role similar to that played by Boris Yeltsin with the Soviet Union, and that is to preside over the collapse of the old, rotten system so that there can be a true rebirth of the Republic of the United States of America that was founded in 1776, and an end to the UNITED STATES CORPORATION that was founded in 1871.
—BF