Be sure to also read Jane Franklin’s comments at the end of the article
From The New York Times:
Obama Hands Venezuelan Leader a Cause to Stir Support
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
MARCH 11, 2015
President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. The United States has formally declared his country an “extraordinary threat.’’ Credit Miraflores Palace, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
CARACAS, Venezuela — Just a few weeks ago, President Obama was being praised across Latin America for his decision to re-establish relations with Cuba, while President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela appeared increasingly isolated — a wobbly, unpopular leader resorting to ever more aggressive tactics to confront an economic crisis and clamp down on the political opposition.
But with Mr. Obama’s declaration this week that Venezuela is an “extraordinary threat to the national security” of the United States, that dynamic may be coming undone.
Suddenly, the United States is being cast again in the familiar role of the hemispheric bully trying to push around its smaller neighbors. And Mr. Maduro has taken on the mantle of victim, stirring up patriotic support at home, setting the opposition on the defensive and declaring that “we will never kneel before this arrogant empire that attacks and threatens” his country.
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“The optics of this are really just awful,” said David A. Smilde, a sociology professor at Tulane University who lives part time in Venezuela. “It was a strategic mistake. I think the Maduro government is going to get a lot of play out of this.”
The declaration by Mr. Obama came in an executive order that he signed on Monday. It authorized the American government to freeze any assets in the United States held by seven Venezuelan law enforcement and military officials whom Washington identified as being responsible for human rights abuses or violations of democratic due process.
While Washington hoped the move would focus attention on deteriorating conditions in Venezuela, it may have backfired by giving Mr. Maduro new momentum. Critics fear that he will use it as an excuse to crack down harder on an opposition that he characterizes as siding with the enemy.
On Tuesday evening, Mr. Maduro went before the National Assembly, warning that the United States was poised to attack Venezuela and saying that legislators should grant him decree powers that will allow him to make laws on his own.
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“The aggression and the threat of the government of the United States is the greatest threat that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, our country, has ever received,” he said to applause, with the yellow, blue and red presidential sash draped over his shoulder and a gold medal pinned over his heart. “Let’s close ranks like a single fist of men and women. We want peace.”
He spoke of past American military interventions in Latin America and warned that the United States was preparing an invasion and a naval blockade of Venezuela.
“For human rights, they are preparing to invade us,” he said, adding that he would personally oversee military exercises this Saturday for the defense of the country.
“I invite the entire Venezuelan people, in all the states and regions of the country, to join in,” he said. “No one messes with our country. The Yankee boot will never touch it.”
Venezuela and the United States have long had troubled relations, even though the United States is a major buyer of Venezuelan oil, the country’s main export.
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Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, delighted in taunting and criticizing Washington. Mr. Maduro has followed Mr. Chávez’s lead, accusing the United States of sabotaging the economy and planning to overthrow him — accusations that officials in Washington have forcefully denied.
In recent months, as the Venezuelan economy has faltered and oil prices and his popularity have plunged, Mr. Maduro has raised the volume.
Officials in Washington said that declaring Venezuela a national security threat was largely a formality required by law in order to carry out sanctions, as was a further declaration in the executive order that the threat constituted a national emergency for the United States.
They also stressed that the sanctions were not against the country of Venezuela but only against individuals deemed responsible for human rights or other violations.
“The action taken earlier this week sends an unequivocal message on human rights and corruption,” William H. Duncan, the director of the State Department’s office of Andean affairs, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
He rejected criticism that the action had backfired.
“This is not something you can take a snapshot of,” Mr. Duncan said. “It’s not about today, it’s not about tomorrow, it’s about what happens in Venezuela over the long haul.”
He added, “The Venezuelan government’s suggestion that we would meet this national emergency with force is simply not true.”
In part, the reaction seemed shaped by the language in the executive order, which declared that a small country in the midst of an economic crisis was a threat to the United States. To some, it raised the specter of past instances when Washington had manufactured threats to justify military action.
And it did not sit well in a region that resents historical American heavy-handedness and enjoys an increasing sense of independence from Washington.
Some Venezuelan opposition leaders cringed at the American move and said that it had put them on the defensive.
“Venezuela is not a threat to any country,” said the main opposition coalition, Democratic Unity, in a statement distancing itself from the American action and voicing disapproval of “unilateral sanctions.”
The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and members of the Union of South American Nations, two regional bodies, issued statements expressing concern.
President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, a leftist ally of Venezuela, was more forceful, blasting the American move on Monday in a series of Twitter posts.
“It ought to be a joke in bad taste that reminds us of the darkest hours of our America, when we received invasions and dictatorships imposed by the imperialists,” Mr. Correa wrote. “Can’t they understand that Latin America has changed?”
Cuba issued a statement giving its “unconditional support” for Venezuela, a vital ally that supplies it with subsidized oil. It called the sanctions “arbitrary and aggressive.”
Many regional leaders remained silent, but Mr. Smilde said that the greater damage could come in a lack of support for American-led attempts to pressure Venezuela to ease up on the opposition.
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“It makes it much less likely that all the countries in the region are going to make statements or take actions or do anything that could look at the basic issues in Venezuela of human rights and governance,” he said.
The Obama administration last year resisted Congressional efforts to impose sanctions on Venezuela, which were pushed by legislators from both parties most closely tied to the traditional Cuban-American lobby advocating tougher actions toward Cuba and its leaders, Fidel and Raúl Castro.
But Congress passed a sanctions law in December and Mr. Obama signed it the day after announcing that he would normalize relations with Cuba and lift many of the elements of the economic embargo against Cuba.
The Cuba initiative won Mr. Obama resounding praise in Latin America — even from Mr. Maduro — and seemed to clear a fresh path for American diplomacy in the region. At least some of that new atmosphere seemed to evaporate this week.
“It’s a distraction from the real problems,” said Alfonso Marquina, an opposition legislator. “Last week, people talked about the lines and the shortage of milk and diapers, and today they only talk about Barack Obama’s declaration.”
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Jane Franklin:
This BOOMERANG came back more rapidamente than most
The U.S. government is in the hands of people who are incapable of comprehending their own ignorance, which leads them to think they are exceptional rulers capable of ruling the world when in fact they are abysmally unexceptional and incapable of being exceptionally intelligent. However, this ignorance does not render them less dangerous; it makes them more dangerous because they are obviously able to perform seriously stupid things as they try to take over every country on this Earth with their destructive rampage.
This latest move against Venezuela, intended to weaken Venezuela, undermines the Obama administration’s own plans to turn the OAS Summit in April into a discussion of “human rights” that would frame Venezuela as the major violator of such rights in the Western Hemisphere. A New York Times article of March 10 article explains the absurd nature of the executive order:
The executive order carries out a law passed by Congress in December to levy sanctions on Venezuelan officials involved in human rights abuses during protests last year. It allows for the freezing of bank accounts, real estate or other property.
It was not clear, however, whether the officials being sanctioned actually owned property in the United States. An administration official said that designating those to be sanctioned was a first step and that a search to see whether they had assets that could be frozen would now begin. [Evidently, by the way, the seven targets own no assets in the USA. — jf]
The official, who was not allowed to discuss policy publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, also said that in order to carry out sanctions of this type, the law required the president to declare the nation whose officials are sanctioned to be a national security threat. The official cautioned that the declaration was meant to meet the legal requirement and did not represent “a recategorization of the actual circumstances in Venezuela.” [Bold emphasis by jf]
This time the attempt to bully Venezuela has encountered a Latin American and Caribbean intelligence that understands U.S. imperialism from a perspective which U.S. ignorance is unable to perceive. The article below is written by someone who shares that ignorance but at least he is able to report on the resistance to it (his feet are on the ground in Venezuela), as he refers to both CELAC and UNASUR. We can thank Hugo Chávez for his intelligent legacy.
Jane Franklin
http://www.janefranklin.info
