While his government is reeling from the chaos that the Coronavirus pandemic, which has affected almost 2’000,000 people, has had on the world and on the United States, in a desperate act, President Donald Trump ordered the imposition of drug trafficking charges against the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and his leading officials.
Stella Calloni
He offered, as if he were in an Old Western movie, a reward of $15 million for ‘delivery’ of the Venezuelan president and $10 million for each one of the accused. And, as in the Wild West, Maduro’s face appears on a poster offering the reward, which is not just drastic but criminal, and has become an affront to humanity in these circumstances.
In moments in which the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, warned that sanctions must be lifted that had been imposed on several countries, such as Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Nicaragua and others, to deal with the pandemic blighting humanity, Trump’s government is threatening a military intervention in Venezuela.
Also, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, warned of the impact of strict scrutiny on the financial sector, with public services and the Venezuelan population, in general, continuing to suffer as a consequence of these measures against the United Nations Charter.
The threat sounds more serious when the US has been able to carry out a military manoeuvre with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in Europe, where he sent troops and equipment at the peak of the pandemic in Italy and other places. It was at the request of several European countries that he ceased the operation, but the fact that he tried shows the limits crossed by the United States and its partner, Israel.
The current arguments for this resolution of US ‘justice’ are those that have been used in every stage of history, and in terms of wanting Venezuela to yield and, with it, the rest of Latin America, they have scattered bases and facilities across the region.
Only Colombia, their best centre of operations against the whole region, has nine bases, followed by Panama, Peru, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and other countries, including Paraguay and Argentina, where the Southern Command signed agreements with former president, Mauricio Macri.
However, it is Trump’s recent agreements with the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, which are most concerning at the moment. In fact, on his visit to the United States from 7-10 March, Bolsonaro, in his meeting with Trump in Florida, proclaimed his support to the non-existent and self-proclaimed ‘president’ of Venezuela, Juan Guaido.
They also proclaimed their support for the “forces of Bolivia to carry out free elections”, obviously without clarifying that they were led by members of the coup d’état – among them the Secretary-General of the Organisation of American States, Luis Almagro – who overthrew President Evo Morales last November.
Bolsonaro was the first Brazilian president who visited the Southern Command to sign agreements with the chief of that military institution, Craig Faller, among others, about products of trade defence investigations, for which Brazilian companies, in such a sensitive and strategic sector, will develop projects alongside their American peers.
They discussed the possibility of Brazil accepting foreign troops (read American), to use their territory in a move against Nicolas Maduro. However, there is strong resistance, among Brazilian soldiers, against that authorisation being granted.
On more than one occasion, the vice-president, General Hamilton Mourão, asserted that, for Brazil, the only path is diplomacy, showing clearly the opinion of his many other colleagues.
The journalist, Eric Nepomuceno, said in an article in Página 12, that the people of Brazil are ignoring what has been negotiated and delivered by their president to the United States. Among this, Nepomuceno said that Bolsonaro carried authorisation so that
Washington might use the military base installed in Alcantara, in the northern state of Maranhão, and the promise of intensifying bilateral trade, accepting demands which had previously been denied.
All these preparations are behind the lies of the attorney general, William Barr, who accused Maduro, without proof, of helping the dissenting Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to, apparently, “take the border” they share with Venezuela, when, in reality, it has been taken by criminal experts, mercenaries and Colombian paramilitaries, armed and trained by Israel and the United States, and under their direction.
Since then, they have committed murders against civilians and soldiers in Venezuela, and they are driving networks of sabotage and destabilising these territories from the inside.
It turns out that drug trafficking – moving drugs obtained in Colombian laboratories equipped with chemicals from powerful countries – cannot be controlled by the new US bases on Colombian territory.
This is where the DEA has been reported, even by important officials who gave up on the cooperation of that anti-drug agency with the Colombian mafia that flooded the country with misery and violence, and thousands of deaths.
However, an organisation of the United Nations itself has also warned that the maximum quantity of drugs that goes to the United States from Colombia, is done through the Colombian ports of the Pacific, far away from Venezuela.
Now is the time to ask, who is watching the US borders, where so many tonnes of drugs are arriving, while the security forces are hunting migrants?
With total impunity, Barr maintains that he has calculated that 200-250 tonnes of cocaine were sent from Venezuela along channels known as “the criminal alliance”, meaning Maduro-FARC. It would be good to review the aerial routes of the Southern Command.
This lie is similar to that of the threat of the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq had as, after invading, killing a million people and taking control of that country they then “realised” that, in reality, they were mistaken and those weapons did not exist, of which they had been clearly informed. Or the arguments to invade Panama in December 1989, and many other similar events in history.
According to the federal prosecutor of the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, these criminal charges are against Maduro and his “FARC partners, who have trafficked so many drugs thanks to the Venezuelan government’s protection, for crimes of drug trafficking”. Also due to the supposed pressure exercised by “Chavism” on other governments so that they would allow “the unfolding of this criminal web”.
But, there is always a but. It seems that the major general of the Venezuelan army, Alcala Cordones, who in reality lives in Barranquilla, Colombia, reacted in astonishment to the compensation offered by the United States for his capture (he is on the list). However, in reality he works with US “agents”, including the self-proclaimed “President” Juan Guaido.
Alcala Cordones spoke in an interview on Colombian radio and claimed that a shipment of war weapons recently seized in this country, between Santa Marta and Barranquilla (the Caribbean route), had been bought by US agents and Guaido for an operation; another attempted coup in Venezuela and to kill Maduro.
“The weapons impounded in Colombia were within the context of a pact or agreement signed by President Guaido, JJ Rendon, Sergio Vergara and North American advisors,” said the retired Venezuelan soldier.
For his part, Alcala explained that he was forming a group of “Unity for Freedom of Venezuela in Colombia”, but they had hit obstacles, among them what he called, “the front men of the opposition”, in reference to the increasingly important differences between the majority of the Venezuelan opposition and Guaido, and added that the confused prosecutor should not know for whom he was working. (PL)
(Translated by Donna Davison – Email: donna_davison@hotmail.com) – Photos: Pixabay
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