The Attempted Assassination of Nicolas Maduro and Washington’s Long War on Venezuela

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You’re listening to Back in the USSR.  Comrades, I’d like to draw your attention to a criminal act that, if it had happened under any context other than a country that has been targeted for regime change by the United States, would immediately be condemned as a terrorist act.  Last Saturday in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, a brazen attempt was made to blow up an elected president, Nicolas Maduro, using two drones packed with high explosives.  Maduro was in the midst of a speech, addressing soldiers preparing for a military parade celebrating the 81^st anniversary of the Venezuelan National Guard, when the attack began.  Fortunately neither of the drones hit their mark and no one was killed in the incident, although at least seven soldiers suffered injuries when one of the drones detonated in mid-air after being shot down at the last minute by army snipers close to the stage where Maduro had been standing, sending shrapnel flying in all directions.  Because the president’s speech at the military parade was being televised, the whole attempted assassination played out on live TV.

It was a close call.  A very close call.  In the aftermath, Maduro issued the following statement:

“They have tried to kill me today, and everything points towards the right-wing forces, the Venezuela ultra-right in alliance with the Colombian ultra-right, and the name of Juan Manuel Santos is behind this assassination attempt.”

Manuel Santos is the outgoing president of Colombia and a close US ally, probably the closest US ally of all, in Latin America, whose government has received billions and billions of dollars from Washington for the so-called “War on Drugs” and to wage war on leftist rebel groups opposing the country’s brutal and unrestrained capitalist state apparatus which has been responsible for the assassination of hundreds of social and indigenous leaders in the past year alone.  In spite of immediately denying Maduro’s allegation, Santos had made it clear just days before the assassination that he, like Donald Trump, wants regime change in Venezuela and is willing to pursue that objective using any means necessary.  In a public statement on July 30, the Colombian president said he hoped Maduro’s time in office would soon be coming to an end, “I hope it is tomorrow even.  Colombia would be willing and ready to help in any way possible.”

Maduro also pointed to US involvement in the assassination attempt, saying that all evidence pointed to it having been financed from Miami where many right-wing Venezuelan exiles are based.  Although the US denied it played a role, the Trump Administration has made no secret about its desire to overthrow the government of Nicolas Maduro and destroy the Bolivarian Revolution, subjecting Venezuela to crippling sanctions and threatening the use of military force while at the same time encouraging Colombia and the other right-wing governments in the region to assist in further isolating the country.  Not surprisingly, the US and Western governments failed to denounce the attempt on President Maduro’s life.  In fact the mainstream media has bent over backwards trying to downplay the whole thing and to sow doubt on the events, using words such as “apparent” or “alleged”, focusing instead on the government using this “alleged” event to step up repression. In the end, it is hard to tell apart the media coverage from the statements of John Bolton, one of the more hawkish advisers to the US president, as Ricardo Vaz stated in an article on venezuelanalysis.com.  He cites a recent article in the Guardian, whose opening paragraph states: “Venezuela’s opposition has warned that President Nicolas Maduro may launch a political crackdown after he accused adversaries of attempting to assassinate him with drones loaded with explosives on Saturday.” As Vaz points out, “Remarkably, it is the Venezuelan opposition takes precedence in an article describing an assassination attempt against Maduro. This would be akin to a report on 9/11 opening with “Al-Qaeda warns of increased US involvement in the Middle East.” Then there is the usual trick of encapsulating the events under “Maduro said”, so that all the previous work smearing Maduro can be used to discredit this version.”

Of course the mask quickly came off.  An anti-government group calling itself “Soldiers in T-Shirts,” (Soldados de Franelas) composed of “military and civilian patriots” and “rebels,” claimed responsibility for the attack, code named “Operation Fenix.” Factors of Power, a Miami-based private news network, presented the statement, which echoed demands being made by the right-wing politicians that include abiding by the rightist-packed National Assembly’s call for “true and free” elections. The group called on “everyone to take to the streets,” to “take power,” and install a “transition government.” The assailants claimed that the assassination attempt was intended to “restore the constitutional order.” They called on the military to launch a coup to overthrow Maduro, claiming he was guilty of “indoctrinating children with communism”.  They also threatened to make subsequent attacks: “More such attempts will follow.”

Patricia Poleo, a Miami-based journalist and outspoken critic of the Venezuelan government, read the public statement issued by the claimants of the attempt. Poleo is accused of being involved in the assassination of anti-corruption police investigator Danilo Anderson in 2004.  Of course this “Soldiers in T-Shirts” group were not the only ones to threaten the life of the elected president of Venezuela; one of the parties in the right-wing Frente Amplio, Primero Justicia, took to twitter and threatened Maduro with actions “like this one or worse”.

After the attack, several arrests were made, according to interior minister Nestor Reverol, one of those detained had been involved in the 2014 guarimbas anti-government opposition demonstrations, that involved violent barricades, shooting at bystanders, beheading motorcyclists, and a great deal more. He had been released by the government in a (clearly futile) gesture of goodwill. The second one was sought after an attack on the Paramacay army barracks last year during an even bloodier round of “guarimbas” which claimed over one hundred lives.

It is no surprise that militant US-backed reactionaries, who have proven themselves more than willing to use brutal violence to attain their political goals in Venezuela since their attempted coup against former president Hugo Chavez in 2002, would be involved in this incident.  However, writing in the Monthly Review on August 9, Farooque Chowdhury expresses his skepticism of this claim of responsibility by a hitherto unknown group of supposed ex-soldiers.  The attack was simply too sophisticated for that.  As one commentator pointed out, the attack required significant infrastructure and trained personnel. It was also similar to drone attack schemes practiced in Syria on Russian bases. Most importantly, “drones may be sold freely on the market, but they are not sold full of powerful explosives, which is why this attack cannot be linked to radical opponents.” In other words, the American Empire’s fingerprints are all over this attempted assassination, and this is hardly the first time.

Chowdhury points out the history of the United States and its Latin American proxies using coups, assassinations, death squads, and practically every repressive tactic in book – murdering tens of thousands of people whose only crime was to resist imperialism and push for economic and political self-determination.  People who wanted control over their own lands, their own resources, and who didn’t want to be subjected to the tyranny of the IMF and multi-national corporations, were effectively targeted for destruction, and that applies especially to the leaders of various social and political movements pushing for progressive or radical change. Just to name the most prominent in Latin America: Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero in El Salvador, and Salvador Allende in Chile.  Many leaders have been overthrown through in coup d’états. Assassination by being shot or killed in some mysterious accident (a few have been blown out in airplanes) has been the preferred method for most of imperial history. However, some newer methods now in vogue include either “forced exile”—most recently in the case of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti—or ousting by a “democracy movement,” the latter being nothing more than very well-funded marketing campaign.  This is what was attempted this year against Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, a country that is certainly no stranger to US-funded destabilization and regime change efforts.

He goes on to say that in assassination attempts, imperialism has historically relied on its fabricated political movements—the local political lackeys. These allies range from political parties, disgruntled elements within the targeted government and business unions, to mainstream NGOs focused on various social services. It is a mobilization of social and political forces that—wittingly or not—is faithful to an external master.  And, as someone who has read ex-CIA agent Philip Agee’s book “Inside the Company” on how he helped set up such puppet movements in 1960s Ecuador and Uruguay, the current right-wing “democracy movement” in Venezuela that attacks maternity hospitals and burns black men to death in the streets, is only the latest installment in a long and very ugly history.

In Venezuela, after the defeat of their bloody campaign of violent demonstrations last year, US-backed rightists are finding it difficult to succeed with their political fight. They are failing miserably to mobilize other social forces, utilize existing pockets of discontent, or provide any sort of inspiration. The situation leads them to terrorist activity, and their increasingly violent tactics have been supported by U.S. and (most) international media without question. Given this context, it should come as no surprise that an assassination attempt has been made. It is an indication of the rightists’ failure in the political fight, as repeated losses fuel ever more desperate tactics.

I’ve talked about the Bolivarian Revolution on this show before.  I’ve talked about the public housing, the schools, the free health clinics, the public infrastructure development driven by the needs of local people expressed in directly elected assemblies, the efforts to increase democratic participation, the attempts to use the Venezuela’s oil wealth to benefit the nation’s people as opposed to it going to the profits of Chevron and the multi-national oil cartels, the efforts to empower women, campesinos, peasant farmers, Afro-Venezuelans, and indigenous people.  None of these things has been perfect.  Just as in every attempt to build an alternative system, in every attempt to build socialism, things get messy and you have to deal with things like sanctions, sabotage, corruption, fanatical right-wing opposition backed from abroad, terrorist attacks, assassination attempts, even outright invasion by imperialist forces.  It’s never easy.  It’s never simple.  But Venezuela, a country in struggle, is trying against all odds to build a better future for its people where the wealth of the nation will belong to the people and not to the capitalist multi-nationals and their local stooges and hatchet men who try to murder or silence anyone who threatens their profits.  Victory to Venezuela! Victory to the Bolivarian Revolution!