{"id":137081,"date":"2019-07-08T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2019-07-08T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=137081"},"modified":"2019-07-06T14:12:55","modified_gmt":"2019-07-06T13:12:55","slug":"reading-reuters-between-the-lines-why-the-us-puppet-president-of-venezuela-is-toast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/07\/reading-reuters-between-the-lines-why-the-us-puppet-president-of-venezuela-is-toast\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Reuters between the Lines: Why the US Puppet President of Venezuela Is Toast"},"content":{"rendered":"

4 Jul 2019 – A critical reading between the lines of a Reuters article confirms that Washington has failed to cobble together a united opposition in Venezuela that is popular enough to win in the polls, likely signaling the end for Juan Guaid\u00f3.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even the corporate media are losing enthusiasm for the US government\u2019s ploy to replace the democratically elected<\/a> President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro of Venezuela with the US-anointed security asset<\/a> Juan Guaid\u00f3.\u00a0 Reuters<\/em> reports<\/a> in a July 1 article, \u201cDisappointed Venezuelans lose patience with Guaid\u00f3 as Maduro hangs on,\u201d that the US-backed \u201cmilitary uprising\u201d has \u201cunraveled.\u201d A critical reading of the article explains why.<\/p>\n

Reuters <\/em>correctly notes that \u201cthe 35-year old (Guaid\u00f3) had risen to prominence three months before,\u201d though a little more background information would have been helpful. For instance, Guaid\u00f3 was unknown<\/a> to 81% of Venezuelans a little more than a week before he got a telephone call<\/a> from US Vice President Pence telling him to declare himself interim president of Venezuela, which Guaid\u00f3 dutifully did the following morning at a street rally flanked with US and Israeli flags. A member of a marginal far-right Venezuelan political party, Guaid\u00f3 was not even in the top leadership of his own grouplet.<\/p>\n

For background, Reuters<\/em> tells the reader that President Maduro \u201ctook office in 2013 following the death of his political mentor, Hugo Ch\u00e1vez,\u201d but fails to mention that Maduro took office via a democratic national election. Guaid\u00f3 has never stood in a national election. He was elected to the National Assembly but became head of that body through a mechanism where the political parties in the legislature rotate which party\u2019s representative occupies the office.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/em> continues that after Maduro took office, he \u201chas overseen an economic collapse that has left swaths of the once-wealthy country without reliable access to power, water, food, and medicines.\u201d Not mentioned by Reuters <\/em>is the economic war<\/a> being waged against Venezuela by the US and its allies that has employed unilateral coercive measures \u2013 sanctions \u2013 responsible for taking the lives<\/a> of some 40,000 people.<\/p>\n

This illegal<\/a> collective punishment of the Venezuelan people by the US government has diverted legitimate funds of the Venezuelan government. Reuters<\/em> obliquely mentions \u201cGuaid\u00f3 has gained control of some of the Venezuelan assets in the United States.\u201d In fact, the US government seized those assets, which would have gone to preventing the \u201ceconomic collapse\u201d that Reuters<\/em> supposedly laments.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/em> reports: \u201cThe opposition\u2019s momentum has slowed since the April 30 uprising. Attendance at Guaid\u00f3\u2019s public rallies has dropped and the opposition has held no major protests since then.\u201d Reuters<\/em> hints why Guaid\u00f3\u2019s fortunes are eclipsing: \u201cthe opposition says it is\u2026seeking to build a grassroots organization.\u201d That is, the US surrogate does not have a meaningful grassroots presence.<\/p>\n

This is further confirmed by Reuters\u2019 <\/em>admission that Guaid\u00f3\u2019s organization is now \u201cfocused on expanding a network of Help and Freedom Committees\u2026to organize at the local level \u2013 something the ruling Socialist Party has done successfully.\u201d Reuters<\/em> continues, \u201cso far the committees have gotten little traction.\u201d That is, Guaid\u00f3 lacks significant organized popular support outside of Washington and its allies.<\/p>\n

Guaid\u00f3 visited Washington<\/a> shortly before his self-appointment and subsequently toured a number of Latin American countries but has \u201conly traveled to 11 of Venezuela\u2019s 23 states,\u201d according to Reuters<\/em>. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s handlers have directed him to \u201ctravel to at least five more this month to motivate his supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent polls cited by Reuters <\/em>show support for Guaid\u00f3 is falling. Reuters<\/em> quotes a paid political consultant for Guaid\u00f3: \u201cWe can expect Guaid\u00f3\u2019s popularity to continue to erode the longer he is not exercising power.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Maduro, according to Reuters,<\/em> had waged a \u201ccrackdown on the opposition.\u201d That is, the Venezuelan government has defended itself against US-backed assets who have actively engaged in attempts to violently overthrow the democratically elected government and assassinate<\/a> key government and social movement leaders.<\/p>\n

In the alternative universe of corporate media, which ignores the economic war being waged against Venezuela, Reuters<\/em> bemoans that the \u201ccrackdown\u201d on Guaid\u00f3\u2019s agents has failed to receive \u201csignificant retaliation from the international community.\u201d In reality, Venezuela has massively suffered<\/a> from the US-orchestrated punishments for resisting reverting to the status of a client state.<\/p>\n

While not consulting anyone associated with the elected government of Venezuela, Reuters <\/em>gives full voice to an anonymous \u201cUS administration\u201d official as is the practice of the corporate media<\/a>. The US official states: \u201cThe United States continues to execute the president\u2019s strategy of maximum pressure to achieve a peaceful transition to democracy in Venezuela.\u201d Not mentioned is that the \u201cmilitary option\u201d is a prominent part of the \u201cpeaceful transition\u201d; deposing a democratically elected president is part of the \u201ctransition to democracy\u201d; and \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d is preventing vital foods and medicines<\/a> from reaching Venezuela.<\/p>\n

The anonymous US government official further claims, \u201cOnly Maduro wishes for the US to give up now.\u201d Reuters <\/em>does not question how incredibly circumscribed is the universe occupied by that official, which renders invisible the two-decade-old Bolivarian grassroots movement in Venezuela in support of their elected government and its international allies. The Venezuelans most adversely hurt by the US sanctions are those most militantly in support of their government.<\/p>\n

Nor does Reuters<\/em> question why in the US, with the conceit of a supposedly free press, the government is allowed to hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Reuters<\/em> cites the names of a Venezuelan taxi driver, doctor, former police student, and teacher to give a patina of authenticity to the article but can\u2019t name an official US government functionary who is quoted authoritatively.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/em> reports Guaid\u00f3\u2019s supporters \u201chave demanded that Guaid\u00f3 shift strategy and request a US-led military intervention.\u201d So much for democracy!\u00a0 \u201cWe can\u2019t get rid of Maduro with votes. It will have to be a violent exit.\u201d Meanwhile, the polling firm Datanalisis, according to Reuters,<\/em> tells us that less than 10% of Venezuelans support such an action.<\/p>\n

In short, a critical reading between the lines of the Reuters<\/em> article confirms that Washington has failed to cobble together a united opposition in Venezuela that is popular enough to win in the polls, so the alternative is violent regime-change supposedly in the name of \u201cdemocracy.\u201d The lesson that the Venezuelans themselves are the best agents of history to address their own destiny has yet to be learned by the world\u2019s hegemon and its media apologists.<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Roger Harris<\/em> is a <\/em>member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network<\/a> and <\/em>the immediate past president of the Task Force on the Americas<\/a>, a 33-year-old human rights organization in solidarity with the social justice movements of Latin America and the Caribbean. He is active with the Campaign to End US-Canadian Sanctions against Venezuela<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Republish our stories! MintPress News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 mintpressnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4 Jul 2019 – A critical reading between the lines of a Reuters article confirms that Washington has failed to cobble together a united opposition in Venezuela that is popular enough to win in the polls, likely signaling the end for Juan Guaid\u00f3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":127604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1065,120,393,354,1138,378,541,559,234,754,109,287,923,70,557,126],"class_list":["post-137081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-chavismo","tag-conflict","tag-coup","tag-economics","tag-fake-news","tag-journalism","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-maduro","tag-media","tag-oil","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-sanctions","tag-usa","tag-venezuela","tag-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}