{"id":157582,"date":"2020-04-13T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T11:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=157582"},"modified":"2020-12-02T10:15:09","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T10:15:09","slug":"trump-sends-gun-boats-to-venezuela-while-the-world-partners-to-fight-a-deadly-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/04\/trump-sends-gun-boats-to-venezuela-while-the-world-partners-to-fight-a-deadly-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Sends Gun Boats to Venezuela While the World Partners to Fight a Deadly Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

3 Apr 2020 – <\/em>On April\u2019s Fools Day, U.S. President Donald Trump gave a press conference where he announced a new \u201ccounter-narcotics effort\u201d by U.S. Southern Command. \u201cWe\u2019re deploying additional Navy destroyers, combat ships, aircrafts and helicopters, Coast Guard cutters\u2026doubling our capabilities in the region,\u201d he said. The point of this mission\u2014which will be joined by other countries\u2014is to \u201cincrease surveillance, disruption, and seizures of drug shipments.\u201d \u201cWe must not let narco-terrorists exploit the pandemic to threaten American lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

On 26 March, less than a week before Trump\u2019s announcement, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted<\/a> several members of the Venezuelan government for narco-trafficking. An indictment is not a verdict of guilt, merely a note\u2014in this case \u2013 prepared by the U.S. government against an adversary; there is nothing in the indictment that proves the case that any of the individuals mentioned in it have anything to do with narcotics smuggling. It was apparent from the press conference at the U.S. Department of Justice that this was political theatre, an attempt to further delegitimize the government of Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n

Coming less than a week after this indictment, it is clear to all that the point is not to actually disrupt the cocaine trade, but it is to put pressure on Venezuela. No evidence was provided during the Department of Justice press conference when the United States charged Maduro with narco-trafficking, and no evidence was presented at Trump\u2019s press conference when he announced that a naval carrier group would enter the Caribbean. There was no evidence presented at either high-profile event, because no evidence is either available or necessary; it is not available, because even the U.S. government\u2019s own agencies say that Venezuela is neither the originator of narcotics nor the trafficker of narcotics, and it is not necessary because the United States has been consistently delegitimizing Venezuela to overthrow the government based on increasingly hallucinatory stories about the Venezuelan government.<\/p>\n

The Primary Source of Cocaine<\/strong><\/p>\n

In December 2019, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) released its National Drug Threat Assessment<\/em><\/a>. This study offers the most detailed look at the movement of drugs into the United States. At several points in the study, the DEA says that Colombia is the \u201cprimary source for cocaine seized in the United States,\u201d According to the DEA\u2019s Cocaine Signature Program, in 2018 \u201capproximately 90 percent of cocaine samples tested were of Colombian origin, six percent were of Peruvian origin, and four percent were of Unknown origin.\u201d As far as the U.S. government\u2019s own drug agency is concerned, there is no cocaine or any other narcotic that comes from Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Both at the U.S. Department of Justice press conference and at Trump\u2019s press conference, maps were shown that indicated cocaine traffic from Venezuela to the United States. This is simply not true, based on U.S. DEA information. \u201cThe majority of the cocaine and heroin produced and exported by Colombian TCOs [Transnational Criminal Organizations] to the United States is transported through Central America and Mexico,\u201d write the DEA officials in their 2019 report. However, there are suggestions in the report that Colombian narco-traffickers sometimes \u201cstore large quantities of cocaine in remote areas of Venezuela and Ecuador until maritime or aerial transportation can be secured.\u201d It is important to recognize that the cocaine and heroin are hidden in \u201cremote areas\u201d of Colombia\u2019s neighbors, with Colombia being the focus of the entire drug trade.<\/p>\n

At no point in the entire DEA document, and in documents from previous years, do the U.S. drug officials make any statement that implicates the Venezuelan government in either the production, storage or transportation of the cocaine and the heroin. The only time Venezuela enters the picture is when Colombian narco-traffickers hide their cocaine and heroin in \u201cremote areas\u201d of Venezuela before they traffic them into Central America and Mexico and then onwards to the United States.<\/p>\n

The indictment against Venezuelan officials is bizarre. There is no footprint for it in any DEA document that is available.<\/p>\n

There is, however, significant evidence\u2014as presented by the Colombian journalist Gonzalo Guill\u00e9n in La Nueva Prensa<\/em><\/a> on 3 March 2020\u2014that Colombia\u2019s president Iv\u00e1n Duque and his patron, the former president \u00c1lvaro Uribe had close ties with the narco-trafficker Jos\u00e9 Guillermo Hern\u00e1ndez Aponte, alias \u00d1e\u00f1\u00e9. The previous day, Duque was in the Oval Office as Trump chided him for not doing enough to eradicate cocaine production in Colombia. \u201cWell, you\u2019re going to have to spray,\u201d Trump told<\/a> Duque. \u201cIf you don\u2019t spray, you\u2019re not going to get rid of them. So, you have to spray, with regard to the drugs in Colombia. Yeah.\u201d Trump was talking about glyphosate-based fumigation, which the government of Colombia stopped doing in 2015 because the World Health Organization said that such sprays caused cancer. Duque said he will restart spraying. There was no mention of the accusations that Duque himself is linked to the narco-traffickers; since he is pliant towards Washington, his own alleged crimes do not amount to much.<\/p>\n

Strangely, in that press conference, both Trump and Duque talked about Venezuela, but neither of them mentioned drugs or narco-trafficking. It was all about regime change.<\/p>\n

Demand for Surrender<\/strong><\/p>\n

On 31 March, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Venezuela must have a transitional government; this in itself is bizarre because Pompeo is neither Venezuelan nor a United Nations official and yet he felt emboldened to speak for the Venezuelan people. His plan\u2014Democratic Framework for Venezuela<\/em>\u2014called upon President Maduro to resign and for Washington\u2019s favored replacement Juan Guaid\u00f3 to renounce his imaginary claim to power. Members of the four main parties\u2014including Maduro\u2019s Socialist Party\u2014would form a council and be led by an \u201cinterim president.\u201d If this plan is accepted, Washington would lift its unilateral coercive sanctions that it had imposed from 2014.<\/p>\n

The previous weekend, Guaid\u00f3 announced on twitter that Venezuela needed an Emergency Government that had the participation of all parties and would govern until new elections could be held. After Pompeo\u2019s announcement, Guaid\u00f3 took credit for it and thanked Pompeo publicly. Other far-right politicians, such as Leopoldo L\u00f3pez, Carlos Vecchio, and Julio Borges, saluted<\/a> Pompeo\u2019s plan and thanked the United States for \u201cbacking\u201d Guaid\u00f3\u2019s Emergency Government.<\/p>\n

The Organization of American States, which had behaved<\/a> as the long-arm of the U.S. State Department during the coup against the government of Evo Morales in Bolivia, joined in the chorus begun by Pompeo and Guid\u00f3. In a statement<\/a>, the OAS declared that it \u201cconsiders that the plan presented constitutes a valid proposal for a path to end the usurping dictatorship and restore democracy in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Venezuelan government led by President Maduro rejected the plan. But it was not alone. His opponent in the 2018 presidential election, Henri Falcon of Avanzada Progresista, also rejected the Pompeo-Guid\u00f3 plan and the deployment of U.S. warships off the Venezuelan coast. The removal of Maduro, he wrote<\/a>, \u201cis a process and not an imposition; it requires agreements between adversaries for it to be successful. The solution in Venezuela is between Venezuelans.\u201d In other words, Pompeo and Trump had no role in the destabilization of Venezuela. \u201cThe pandemic,\u201d he wrote, \u201cis wreaking havoc in the world. Venezuela is one of the most vulnerable. It would be humanitarian and very great if ships came with aid and medicine, and it would be very inhumane if they came loaded with weapons and threats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Falcon is not alone. Most of the opposition in Venezuela did not approve of Guid\u00f3\u2019s submission to Trump and Pompeo. Claudio Fermin of the Soluciones Party attacked<\/a> the \u201cirresponsible and fanciful thesis\u201d of Guid\u00f3 and his supporters, which is reliant upon the \u201cfantasy cloud of instructions sent to them by their bosses Elliot Abrams, Pompeo, and Trump.\u201d Henrique Capriles Radonsky, who twice ran unsuccessfully to be president, said<\/a> that Maduro has \u201cinternal control\u201d while Guid\u00f3\u2019s people have \u201cinternational alliances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gunboats<\/strong><\/p>\n

When she heard that gunboats are coming towards the Venezuelan coast, Maria Corina Machado of the Vente Venezuela Party tweeted<\/a>, \u201cThat\u2019s the way to build a credible threat.\u201d It is credible because the gunboats have done this before.<\/p>\n

So much of this is d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu<\/em>. On 7 October 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy gathered his advisors in the White House to discuss how to overthrow the democratically elected government of Jo\u00e3o Goulart in Brazil. Kennedy asked frankly, \u201cDo you see a situation coming where we might be\u2014find it desirable to intervene militarily ourselves?\u201d His Ambassador in Brazil Lincoln Gordon said that he had worked on a plan with U.S. Southern Command\u2014then based in Panama\u2014and with his contacts in the Brazilian military. A U.S. invasion, Gordon told Kennedy, would require a \u201cmassive military operation,\u201d which \u201call depends on what the Brazilian military do.\u201d Any coup without major military support would lead to \u201cwhat would amount to a civil war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than risk a civil war, Gordon said the military had to act, and the United States had to provide them with diplomatic and military support. By March 1964, Gordon said that the \u201cmost significant development is the crystallizing of a military resistance group under the leadership of Marechal Humberto Castelo Branco.\u201d Washington gave the green light. Operation Brother Sam was put in motion, which included egging on the Generals and sending a massive naval task force to sit off the coast of southern Brazil. An aircraft carrier, two guided missile destroyers, and other support vessels left Aruba and made their very public journey to Brazil. Marechal Castelo Branco moved against Goulart; that coup created a military dictatorship\u2014backed by Washington\u2014that lasted 21 years.<\/p>\n

The U.S. carrier group that is now sailing towards Venezuela seems to be mimicking Operation Brother Sam of 1964. Rather than focus attention on the pressing problem of controlling the virus in the United States and amongst its military forces, Trump has begun maneuvers that could very well lead to a serious and dangerous clash in the Caribbean Sea.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at <\/em>Globetrotter<\/a>, a project of the <\/em>Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of <\/em>LeftWord Books<\/a> and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. <\/em>He is the author of 20 books, including <\/em>The Darker Nations: A People\u2019s History of the Third World<\/a> (The New Press, 2007),<\/em> Arab Spring, Libyan Winter (AK Press, 2012), <\/em>The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South<\/a> (Verso, 2013),<\/em> The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution<\/a> (University of California Press, 2016) and<\/em> Red Star Over the Third World<\/a> (LeftWord, 2017).<\/em><\/p>\n

Paola Estrada is in the Secretariat of the International Peoples Assembly and is a member of the Brazilian chapter of ALBA Movements (Continental Coordination of Social Movements toward the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America).<\/em><\/p>\n

Ana Maldonado is in the Frente Francisco de Miranda (Venezuela).<\/em><\/p>\n

Zoe PC is a journalist with <\/em>Peoples Dispatch<\/a> and reports on people\u2019s movements in Latin America.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was produced by <\/em>Globetrotter<\/a><\/em>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3 Apr 2020 – On April\u2019s Fools Day, U.S. President Donald Trump gave a press conference where he announced a new \u201ccounter-narcotics effort\u201d by U.S. Southern Command. \u201cWe\u2019re deploying additional Navy destroyers, combat ships, aircrafts and helicopters, Coast Guard cutters\u2026doubling our capabilities in the region,\u201d he said. On 26 March, less than a week before Trump\u2019s announcement, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted several members of the Venezuelan government for narco-trafficking. An indictment is not a verdict of guilt, merely a note\u2014in this case \u2013 prepared by the U.S. government against an adversary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":104534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,65,53,2236],"tags":[120,267,1126,1050,504,541,559,1890,109,287,880,249,70,557,126,118,1892],"class_list":["post-157582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-militarism","category-anglo-america","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","category-covid19-coronavirus","tag-conflict","tag-geopolitics","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-international-relations","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-maduro","tag-panama","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-state-terrorism","tag-trump","tag-usa","tag-venezuela","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-war-on-drugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157582","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=157582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}