[News] Venezuela - Juan Guaidó’s Regime Change Lobby
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Tue Jul 30 13:21:48 EDT 2019
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14604
Juan Guaidó’s Regime Change Lobby
By John McEvoy – July 30, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------
After Juan Guaidó declared himself Venezuelan president on 23 January,
the opposition leader immediately sought to legitimise his parallel
government by garnering international support. The US, most European
states, and large parts of Latin America moved swiftly to recognise
Venezuela’s new ‘interim president’ (indeed, US Vice President Mike
Pence had already given Guaidó Washington’s blessing
<https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-call-from-pence-helped-set-an-uncertain-new-course-in-venezuela-11548430259>),
and the opposition leader began announcing
<https://twitter.com/jguaido/status/1090304950301806592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1090304950301806592&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Factualidad.rt.com%2Factualidad%2F304169-quienes-son-diplomaticos-designados-juan-guaido>
his ambassadorial positions before the month’s end.
In the time since, however, Guaidó’s international credibility has
suffered a series of blows. Multiple failed coup attempts have forced
the ‘interim’ president back to the negotiating table
<https://www.france24.com/en/20190715-venezuela-government-opposition-reopen-barbados-talks>,
and members of his Popular Will (VP) party recently became embroiled in
a major corruption scandal
<https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2019/06/21/uk-media-silence-as-venezuelan-opposition-mired-in-major-corruption-scandal/>.
Though the Western media’s love affair
<https://fair.org/home/western-media-losing-enthusiasm-for-failing-coup-in-venezuela/>
with the Venezuelan opposition has begun to wane, the US is standing
resolute <https://twitter.com/VP/status/1153774294247378945> behind
Guaidó, even directing
<https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-07-16/usaid-diverting-humanitarian-aid-to-political-opposition-in-venezuela>
‘aid’ money designated for Honduras and Guatemala to pay his party’s
expenses.
Now, therefore, seems an apt moment to look closer at who Guaidó’s
‘ambassadors’ are, what they’re up to and, crucially, where their
money’s coming from. In doing so, Guaidó’s envoys begin to look less
like diplomats than regime change lobbyists. And tied to oil, old money,
and elite US institutions, they reflect the true essence of the
Venezuelan opposition.
Regime change lobby
Tamara Suju
Tamara Suju, an international human rights lawyer, is Guaidó’s
‘ambassador’ to the Czech Republic.
Suju is the executive director of the Czech-based Center for Studies and
Analysis for Latin America (CASLA) Institute
<https://caslainstitute.org/>, whose mission statement is:
to share with Latin-American reformers the finest lessons of democratic
and economic transformation in post-communist Europe.
The CASLA Institute is one of numerous projects incorporated within
another Czech-based non-government organisation (NGO) named DEMAS.
According to its website, DEMAS is supported
<https://www.demas.cz/en/donors-partners/> by the Czech Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, the European Union and, vitally, the National Endowment
for Democracy (NED).
Known as “America’s meddling machine”, the NED is a central organisation
<https://thegrayzone.com/2018/08/20/inside-americas-meddling-machine-the-us-funded-group-that-interferes-in-elections-around-the-globe/>
among numerous US regime change agencies. As lawyer Eva Golinger
documented in 2014, the NED and the US Agency for International
Development (USAID) have agitated
<https://consortiumnews.com/2019/01/28/the-dirty-hand-of-the-national-endowment-for-democracy-in-venezuela/>
for regime change in Venezuela for well over a decade. Between 2013 and
2014 alone, they pumped over $14 million into Venezuelan opposition
groups as violent street protests
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/guarimbas-2014> erupted across the
country.
Yet Suju’s ties with the US regime-change apparatus go further. The
CASLA Institute’s website boasts <https://caslainstitute.org/partners/>
that it is also bankrolled by the NED, as well as Forum 2000 (a
‘pro-democracy and human rights’ conference
<https://www.ned.org/ned-participates-in-21st-forum-2000-conference/>,
again, funded by the NED). In 2015, the NED awarded
<https://www.ned.org/national-endowment-for-democracy-honors-venezuelas-political-prisoners-with-2015-democracy-award/>
Suju a ‘democracy’ award; she accepted it in person from NED president
Carl Gershman
<https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/153/26170.html>.
Guaidó’s representative in the Czech Republic is also the international
coordinator for human rights NGO Foro Penal
<https://foropenal.com/venezuela-en-el-subcomite-de-derechos-humanos-del-parlamento-europeo-12102016/>
(Penal Forum), which the US state department has decorated with numerous
<https://foropenal.com/en/el-foro-penal-venezolano-recibe-premio-del-gobierno-de-estados-unidos-de-norteamerica-a-los-defensores-de-derechos-humanos/>
awards
<https://foropenal.com/en/eeuu-premia-a-foro-penal-por-mostrar-violaciones-de-derechos-en-venezuela/>
for its work in Venezuela. According to WikiLeaks cables from 2006, Foro
Penal has been bankrolled
<https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06CARACAS520_a.html> by Freedom
House and the Pan-American Development Foundation (PADF) through a
USAID-supported project. Foro Penal president Alfredo Romero, meanwhile,
has spoken at a “US Democracy Support” forum
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13388>.
Just two weeks before Guaidó pronounced himself president, Foro Penal
published
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/01/09/venezuela-suspected-plotters-tortured>
a damning report on the alleged use of torture in Venezuela. The report
was widely circulated
<https://www.apnews.com/1a469e5cba5a4c94a4bc6883ef32e228> in the
international press, fanning the flames of “international pressure”
already burning around Maduro’s feet. More recently, UN human rights
chief Michelle Bachelet widely cited Foro Penal’s report as if it were a
neutral source, demonstrating the revolving door between the human
rights industry and the US state department.
To this end, Suju is unsurprisingly connected to a who’s who of regime
change hustlers masquerading as human rights advocates. In March,
Organisation of American States (OAS) general secretary Luis Almagro –
who broke the OAS charter <https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14241>
by recognising Guaidó as president in January - signed an agreement with
Suju, lending OAS support to CASLA as an ‘early-warning human rights NGO’.
Elsewhere, Suju rubs shoulders with Human Rights Watch
<https://thegrayzone.com/2017/12/11/human-rights-watch-honduras-venezuela-kenneth-roth/>’s
(HRW) Americas director
<https://www.hrw.org/about/people/jose-miguel-vivanco> José Miguel
Vivanco, who argued
<https://twitter.com/JMVivancoHRW/status/972491865135165446> in 2018
that “US/Canada sanctions do not harm the poor”. Vivanco also concurred
<https://twitter.com/jmvivancohrw/status/1113427608925081606?lang=ca>
with Joanna Hausmann’s (daughter of neoliberal
<https://www.salon.com/2019/02/15/inside-the-neoliberal-laboratory-preparing-for-the-theft-of-venezuelas-economy_partner/>
economist and Guaidó adviser Ricardo Hausmann
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/04/09/nytimes-child-of-venezuela-coup-plotter/>)
observation that: “Hands off [Venezuela] can actually mean ‘blood on
your hands’”.
CASLA also participated
<https://twitter.com/caslainstitute/status/1042140536663158785> in the
Oslo Freedom Forum in New York, organised by the Human Rights Foundation
(HRF). Despite its apparently innocuous title, HRF’s founder is the
disgraced
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/oslo-freedom-forum-founders-ties-islamophobes-who-inspired-mass-killer-anders-breivik/12451>
Thor Halvorssen, who also happens to be the first cousin
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/oslo-freedom-forum-founders-ties-islamophobes-who-inspired-mass-killer-anders-breivik/12451>
of VP founder Léopoldo Lopez – another recipient of NED funds.
It thus comes as little surprise that Suju has long agitated for regime
change in Venezuela. In her acceptance speech for the NED ‘democracy’
award in 2015, Suju unsubtly pled for foreign intervention, saying: “The
Venezuelan people cannot take on the irrational army and dangerous
government alone”.
At the NED-funded
<https://www.forum2000.cz/demokraticka-solidarita-2018-demokraticka-solidarita-2018>
Solidaridad Democrática en América Latina conference in Colombia in
2018, Suju told
<https://twitter.com/caslainstitute/status/992781971997839361> a packed
audience that Venezuela needed “more sanctions... because this
government won’t go with votes”. CASLA’s website, meanwhile, describes
<http://caslainstitute.org/informe-2018-sobre-tortura-sistematica-en-venezuela/>
Venezuela as “a large open-air concentrate camp” – a provocative charge
for an NGO based in the Czech Republic.
With her privileged status as a human rights lawyer, Suju has become an
important strand in a spider’s web of US-funded public support factories
for regime change. Indeed, as the CASLA Institute bragged
<https://twitter.com/caslainstitute/status/1098607563619348483> on
Twitter: “The US press is echoing the work of the CASLA Institute on
Venezuela. Yesterday, the Washington Post, Fox News, NBC News published
pieces on our denunciation of torture presented by the International
Penal Court”. Her US funders, it seems, are getting decent value for
their money.
Vanessa Neumann
Vanessa Neumann is Guaidó’s ‘ambassador’ to the UK. She is the founder
and owner of Asymmetrica, a company which specialises
<http://asymmetrica.net/venezuela-humanitarian-aid-rebuffed-now-what/>
in corporate risk assessment for Fortune 500 oil and gas companies in
Latin America.
Alongside Henriy Kissinger quotes and dense corporate euphuism,
Asymmetrica’s website hosts a blog written by Neumann. On 25 February,
two days after the USAID ‘humanitarian aid’ debacle
<https://www.thecanary.co/opinion/2019/03/12/the-new-york-times-burning-aid-story-shows-the-corporate-media-is-weeks-behind-independent-outlets/>
(and three weeks before Guaidó would appoint her ambassador), Neumann
frothed how USAID trucks were “burned by the criminal regime”, and
explained
<http://asymmetrica.net/venezuela-humanitarian-aid-rebuffed-now-what/>
how a “Guaidó government needs to be strategic and project its power”.
In a self-endorsing article masquerading as friendly advice, she claimed
Guaidó must:
1.
Hire the private sector team with a long track record in aggressive
asset recovery: if they nailed Hezbollah and ISIS, they can nail the
Maduro regime.
2.
Appoint ambassadors to the world’s financial centers who have
serious diplomatic and anti-illicit finance credibility.
Asymmetrica, whose staff also includes Guaidó’s ‘ambassador’ to Brazil
Maria Teresa Belandria, has not responded to questions regarding its
financing at the time of writing.
Neumann’s LinkedIn page, meanwhile, adds
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessaneumannphd/> that she is a former
senior fellow <https://www.fpri.org/contributor/vanessa-neumann/> at the
neoconservative thinktank Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), and
that she has:
Lobbied [the] US government for oil industry interests under Venezuela’s
Minister Counselor for Petroleum Affairs [during the 1990s].
In 2017, Neumann appeared
<https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cia-venezuela-crisis-government-mike-pompeo-helping-install-new-remarks-a7859771.html>
to lobby then-CIA director Mike Pompeo for regime change directly. At an
Aspen Institute think-tank Q&A, Neumann told Pompeo she was “interested
in your open assessment on American interests in or threats from
Venezuela”. She punctuated her question by saying: “regime change looks
to be – we hope – imminent or spiralling down”. Pompeo responded
<https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cia-venezuela-crisis-government-mike-pompeo-helping-install-new-remarks-a7859771.html>
by suggesting that plans were /already/ underway to topple the Maduro
government – a crucial detail on both counts given the Venezuelan
opposition’s main indignation centres around the 2018 presidential election.
Speaking to the House Foreign Affairs Committee of the US congress in
March, Neumann _claimed
<https://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA00/20190313/109113/HHRG-116-FA00-Wstate-NeumannV-20190313.pdf>_
“Venezuela... has a legitimate interim government that is loved by the
people”, and suggested possible “military cooperation” with the US.
Notably, Neumann also cited Foro Penal to the House, demonstrating in
remarkable fashion how information laundered through the US government
can come full circle – presented back to its originators as evidence for
regime change
Since her appointment as ambassador later the same month, Neumann has
attended
<https://twitter.com/GotPropaganda/status/1119080354717896706/photo/3>
the Middle East Institute’s (MEI) ‘Venezuela, Hezbollah and Iran’ event
in London. The most recently published donor list
<https://www.mei.edu/sites/default/files/2016%20Contributions.pdf> for
the MEI includes Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, Raytheon, and numerous
Saudi government institutions. She has also frequented various
‘security’ events
<https://twitter.com/vanessaneumann/status/1151886781249249280>
including the Rockefeller brothers-funded AspenSecurity conference
(where she met
<https://twitter.com/vanessaneumann/status/1151992437641842688> “teenage
idol” Madeleine Albright), and the defence industry-sponsored
<https://www.defenceiq.com/events-cabsec/sponsors> CABSEC/SAMSEC forum.
While gunning for regime change, Neumann barely conceals a nostalgia for
the pre-Hugo Chávez days – a period marked by unfettered neoliberalism
<https://theintercept.com/2019/02/13/neoliberalism-or-death-the-u-s-economic-war-against-venezuela/>
and burgeoning racial inequality in Venezuela. In an interview
with CNN‘s John Fredericks in 2018, Neumann said
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXmlOzS7pOc>:
Oh my god... please, we want the return of the Americans... I grew
up in a country that… loved the US, saw it as a model of the region.
And now the people are starving, you have 30 million who have
basically been, like, kidnapped.
Neumann told
<https://www.ft.com/content/76b65524-86bf-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2> the
Financial Times in June that “no one’s given me anything. And I’m quite
a chunk of my own money down. Not quite six figures, but nearly”. Though
her pockets are undoubtedly deep
<https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2019/05/21/venezuelas-coup-representative-in-the-uk-says-shes-too-young-to-discuss-brutal-us-record-in-latin-america/>,
her opaque financing and political track record raise serious questions
about who else may be filling them, and in whose interests she might
function as an official ambassador.
Elisa Trotta Gamus
Guaidó’s Argentinian ‘ambassador’, Elisa Trotta Gamus, is also a human
rights lawyer. According to her Linkedin page
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisa-trotta-gamus-17959413/?originalSubdomain=ar>,
Trotta
<https://www.eldisenso.com/politica/la-diplomatica-nombrada-por-guaido-es-empleada-legislativa-del-pro-y-aportante-de-cambiemos/>
has worked as a coordinator for USAID and the Ford Foundation in Venezuela.
In Argentina, Trotta heads an NGO named
<https://www.facebook.com/alianzaXvenezuela/> ‘Alianza por Venezuela’,
apparently designed to help Venezuelan migrants in the country. But
Trotta is also named within a list of beneficiaries of Argentinian
president Mauricio Macri’s PRO party within the ominous context of
“strengthening Latin American democracies”.
“Like any PRO foundation worth its salt”, writes
<https://www.eldisenso.com/politica/la-diplomatica-nombrada-por-guaido-es-empleada-legislativa-del-pro-y-aportante-de-cambiemos/>
Argentinian news outlet El Disenso, “Alianza por Venezuela is opaque to
the point of illegality... it is impossible to know the amount or origin
of the funds it manages”. Trotta also reportedly donated
<https://www.eldisenso.com/politica/la-diplomatica-nombrada-por-guaido-es-empleada-legislativa-del-pro-y-aportante-de-cambiemos/>
to Macri’s 2017 election campaign to the tune of $15,000.
“Following social media”, El Disenso continues
<https://www.eldisenso.com/politica/la-diplomatica-nombrada-por-guaido-es-empleada-legislativa-del-pro-y-aportante-de-cambiemos/>,
“we find a very sensible woman who, in between photos of yachts,
travelling the world, long drinks and oyster plates, always finds a
moment to worry about the misery of her brothers [in Venezuela], upon
which she’s cemented a prosperous career”.
Carlos Vecchio
As the Grayzone reported
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/18/exxon-ambassador-carlos-vecchio-venezuela-coup-lobbyist/>
in June, Carlos Vecchio has led the regime change charge in the US for
some years. He was awarded for his efforts on 14 May, when regime change
enthusiast
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/25/how-sen-rick-scott-became-big-oils-point-man-on-venezuelan-regime-change/>
and Florida senator Rick Scott presented
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/18/exxon-ambassador-carlos-vecchio-venezuela-coup-lobbyist/>
Vecchio with the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) Freedom
Award. Keeping with fashion, the IRI is another US-government funded
regime change factory
<https://consortiumnews.com/2019/01/28/the-dirty-hand-of-the-national-endowment-for-democracy-in-venezuela/>
with longstanding links with Venezuela; its Freedom Award is sponsored
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/18/exxon-ambassador-carlos-vecchio-venezuela-coup-lobbyist/>
by the NED and ExxonMobil.
Julio Borges and Carlos Scull Raygada
Julio Borges is Guaidó’s Lima group ‘ambassador’. Borges is one of the
co-founders of the Primero Justicia party, which was largely built
<https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-dirty-hand-of-the-national-endowment-for-democracy-ned-in-venezuela/5666727>
on IRI and NED funds. Guaidó’s envoy to Peru, Carlos Scull Raygada, was
also a significant Primero Justicia operative in the Sucre mayorship,
Caracas, in 2014. During this time, Scull was also linked
<https://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=240037> to NED funding.
Regime change legacy
A significant number of Guaidó’s international envoys – supposedly
responsible for behaving diplomatically – are linked to past regime
change efforts in Venezuela, including plots to assassinate high-level
government officials.
Guaidó’s ‘ambassador’ to France, Isadora Zubillaga, is one of the
founding members of VP and widely seen as the right-hand woman of
Leopoldo Lopez. Like Primero Justicia, VP was bankrolled
<https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-dirty-hand-of-the-national-endowment-for-democracy-ned-in-venezuela/5666727>
by the NED from its earliest days
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5441>.
In a video diffused <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggmtTq6dzsk> in
2016 by the Venezuelan socialist party’s chairman, Diosdado Cabello,
Zubillaga is accused of leaving Venezuela more than 30 times to launder
money through construction sites for VP. Cabello also claims that
Zubillaga organised the “Mexican party” – a 2010 meeting in Mexico City,
where high-end VP officials laid out a coup plot
<https://www.noticias24.com/venezuela/noticia/309369/investigan-en-espana-a-isadora-zubillaga-por-presunto-lavado-de-dinero/>
against Chávez.
Guaidó’s German ‘ambassador’, Otto Gebauer, manned
<https://www.dw.com/en/germany-declines-to-recognize-juan-guaidos-berlin-emissary/a-48107479>
Hugo Chávez’s prison cell during a coup attempt
<https://www.dumptheguardian.com/world/2002/apr/21/usa.venezuela> in
2002. After the event, Gebauer wrote a book
<https://ottogebauer.wordpress.com/libro-2/> entitled “I saw him Cry”,
claiming the president tearfully requested to be released and sent to
Cuba. Gebauer “is an incendiary figure in Venezuela”, writes
<https://www.dw.com/en/germany-declines-to-recognize-juan-guaidos-berlin-emissary/a-48107479>
German-based news outlet DW: “You don’t have to oppose Guaidó to wonder
whether he might not have been able to come up with a more diplomatic
figure”. Borges also played a significant role
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/5-Venezuela-Opposition-Leaders-Who-Took-Part-in-2002-Coup-20170410-0036.html>
in the 2002 coup, and in various subsequent destabilisation efforts.
Humberto Calderón Berti is Guaidó’s ‘ambassador’ to Colombia. In July,
Venezuelan-based news outlet Mision Verdad reported that Calderon was
personally contacted
<http://misionverdad.com/TENDENCIAS/en-colombia-planifican-la-creacion-de-un-ejercito-paramilitar-para-invadir-venezuela>
by a marksman involved in an alleged plot to assassinate president
Nicolas Maduro and various high-ranking Venezuelan officials.
Numerous members of Guaidó’s diplomatic team, meanwhile, are close
allies of María Corina Machado, who has been accused of inciting violent
street protests <https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11077> and
discussing <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/9769> coup plots against
the Venezuelan government with US state department officials. Brazilian
‘ambassador’ Teresa Belandria served as international coordinator for
Machado’s VenteVenezuela party. Canadian ‘ambassador’ Orlando
Viera-Blanco is an apparent supporter
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/canada-bid-overthrow-maduro-venezuela-coup/259362/>
of Machado. Neumann has called
<https://twitter.com/vanessaneumann/status/92614930943049728> her a
“friend”, and celebrated
<https://twitter.com/vanessaneumann/status/886592695040430080> voting in
the 2017 elections with Machado’s cousin. Suju has made similar remarks
<https://twitter.com/search?q=(machado)%20(from%3ATAMARA_SUJU)&src=typed_query>.
With these combined cases, we see not the image of a diplomatic team but
of a regime change lobby which is historically inclined to launch
violent destabilisation campaigns. At some level, their propensity to
play a zero-sum regime change game must cast aspersions on the level of
good-will present around the negotiating table in Barbados.
Born to rule
Guaidó’s envoys also seem to have a quasi-aristocratic relationship to
power. Many are descendants of the pre-Chávez political establishment or
the old Venezuelan oligarchy, and their stubbornness to concede power is
revealing.
Indeed, Carlos Vecchio (US), son of former COPEI official Rafael
Vecchio, once claimed
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/18/exxon-ambassador-carlos-vecchio-venezuela-coup-lobbyist/>
unironically: “My father was a politician, so it must be in my blood”.
He would later claim
<http://thepolitic.org/an-interview-with-yale-world-fellow-carlos-vecchio/>:
“I felt that it was my responsibility to go into politics after watching
my father’s efforts”.
Maria Faría (Costa Rica) is “the daughter
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/venezuela-juan-guaido-first-ambassador-fake-twitter-diplomat-slammed-costa-rica/255401/>
of would-be Hugo Chávez assassin” Jesus Faría Rodriguez and
step-daughter
<http://www.radiomundial.com.ve/article/responsable-de-asalto-embajada-venezolana-en-costa-rica-es-nuera-de-blanca-iba%C3%B1ez>
of politician and aid to former president Jaime Lusinchi, Blanca Ibánez.
Elisa Trotta Gamus (Argentina) is the niece
<https://www.perfil.com/noticias/internacional/representante-de-guaido-en-argentina-ningun-dialogo-con-maduro-como-usurpador-esta-puesto-como-una-posibilidad.phtml>
of opposition politician Paulina Gamus. And Guarequena Gutiérrez (Chile)
is the daughter
<https://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2019/02/18/quien-es-guarequena-gutierrez-la-representante-en-chile-de-guaido-que-niega-que-la-moneda-le-dicte-las-pautas/>
of former opposition politician José Bernabé Gutiérrez.
Neumann, meanwhile, is the grand-daughter of Hans Neumann, who formed
part of Venezuela’s old economic elite and, according to WikiLeaks
cables
<https://search.wikileaks.org/?query=hans+neumann&exact_phrase=&any_of=&exclude_words=&document_date_start=&document_date_end=&released_date_start=&released_date_end=&new_search=True&order_by=most_relevant#results>,
organised <https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1979CARACA00536_e.html>
official US visits to the country during the 1970s. She, like Calderón
Berti (Colombia) and Vecchio, has significant ties with private oil
interests.
A considerable number of Guaidó’s ‘ambassadors’ were also educated in
elite US institutions. Neumann (UK) is a Yale fellow and former student
of Stanford; Vecchio (US) studied law at Georgetown; Calderón Berti
(Colombia) studied
<https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001469309.pdf>
petroleum engineering in Oklahoma; Trotta Gamus (Argentina) received
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisa-trotta-gamus-17959413/?originalSubdomain=ar>
a Master’s degree from Brandeis university in Massachusetts; Teresa
Belandria (Brazil) is a research scholar
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-teresa-belandria-exp%C3%B3sito-26725323/?originalSubdomain=br>
at the National Defense University in Washington; Zubillaga (France) has
worked
<https://lascosasdelquerer.com/2019/02/10/isadora-zubillaga-no-tengo-duda-de-que-el-proceso-ya-es-irreversible-venezuela-va-a-florecer/>
with the Kennedy Foundation in human rights and with New York mayor
Michael Bloomberg; Rene de Sola Quintero (Ecuador) studied law
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/ren%C3%A9-de-sola-quintero-227bba22/?originalSubdomain=ec>
in Washington; and Borges (Lima group) earned
<https://www.globalresearch.ca/venezuela-opposition-founded-by-wall-street-alumni/5307549>
his masters at Boston College and is Oxford university alumni.
Though formally out of government since 1998, certain sections of the
Venezuelan opposition have never truly accepted the mandate of the
Bolivarian revolution. The current coup attempt must be contextualised
within a wider effort to restore the ‘normal’ pre-Chávez class order in
Venezuela.
Limbo
For all intents and purposes, Guaidó’s attempts to forcibly remove the
elected government of Venezuela have failed. And though this is far from
the first US-backed coup attempt
<https://truthout.org/articles/the-us-is-orchestrating-a-coup-in-venezuela/>
in the country, none have yet left an entire diplomatic mission –
lacking the political and material means to fulfil the requirements of
the role - in limbo, leaving major questions about their financing
unanswered.
This crisis of legitimacy, it seems, is only likely to deteriorate as
the gulf between political reality and regime change expectations grows.
/Edited by Venezuelanalysis.com./
/The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not
necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff./
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20190730/f35b87c0/attachment.htm>
More information about the News
mailing list