[News] Biden inaugural guest is Venezuelan coup leader charged with inciting violent assault on gov't building
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Mon Jan 18 18:48:10 EST 2021
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/01/17/biden-inaugural-guest-venezuelan-coup-leader-inciting-violent-assault/
<https://thegrayzone.com/2021/01/17/biden-inaugural-guest-venezuelan-coup-leader-inciting-violent-assault/>
Biden inaugural guest is Venezuelan coup leader charged with inciting
violent assault on gov't building
Anya Parampil·January 17, 2021
------------------------------------------------------------------------
After condemning the pro-Trump invasion of the Capitol, the
incoming Biden administration invited Carlos Vecchio – a coup
leader charged in the 2014 torching of the Venezuelan Attorney
General’s office – to its inaugural ceremony.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Washington recovered from shock and outrage caused by pro-Trump
hooligans storming the United States Congress – breaking windows,
smashing doors, and intimidating police officers in order to push their
way inside – a sense of pre-inaugural excitement began to sweep the
nation’s capital. Who would be attending incoming President Joe Biden’s
inauguration on January 20, scheduled to take place exactly two weeks
following the Capitol riot?
While heavily armed National Guard troops descended onto Washington’s
streets to set up check-points, construct fences around government
buildings, and establish their military presence, news about the
upcoming swearing-in ceremony began to trickle out in the media.
Lady Gaga was booked to belt out the National Anthem, while Jennifer
Lopez, John Legend, Bruce Springsteen, and a host of other Democratic
Party-aligned pop artists were scheduled to perform throughout the day.
Former Trump cabinet members, including Vice President Mike Pence,
Supreme Court Justices, and lawmakers were all expected to attend,
though the National Mall would be closed to the general public.
Beyond entertainers and high-level federal officials, foreign
dignitaries were invited to join a smaller-than-usual group of
individuals permitted to witness the day’s festivities. Among those
dignitaries
<https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-caracas-latin-america-diplomacy-dd7de047b619aa0a714a38ae02a4834c>is
Carlos Vecchio
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/18/exxon-ambassador-carlos-vecchio-venezuela-coup-lobbyist/>,
a former Exxon lawyer who currently serves as US-recognized “Interim
President” Juan Guaidó’s envoy in Washington. When the Trump
Administration initiated a coup against Venezuela’s government in
January of 2019, Vecchio became Guaidó’s ambassador, and has risen to
prominence as the de facto leader of a US-based exile lobby dedicated to
toppling Venezuela’s UN-recognized government.
The Biden team’s decision to invite Vecchio was a disappointing sign to
those hoping the new administration would break from Trump’s failed and
destructive policy of recognizing Guaidó as Venezuela’s leader. In the
two years since Washington appointed the previously unknown opposition
figure to lead its attempt at regime change, Guaidó has failed to rally
public support in Venezuela or gain control of any government ministry.
The country’s military remains loyal to President Nicolás Maduro and the
United Nations still recognizes the Maduro government’s authority.
Beyond giving the appearance that Biden will continue the Trump
Administration’s doomed Venezuela policy, Vecchio’s presence at the
presidential swearing-in ceremony was filled with irony. In the days
following the Capitol riot, Biden and his allies have denounced the
violent takeover of Congress as an assault on democracy, with the
incoming president himself declaring the rioters to be “domestic
terrorists.”
Yet Carlos Vecchio, the Guaidó ally with a fresh ticket to Biden’s
inauguration, is responsible for leading his own assault on his home
country’s democracy – and is currently wanted in Venezuela for inciting
a violent attack on the Attorney General’s office in Caracas.
*Biden’s guest charged with inspiring a violent assault on
Venezuela’s public institutions*
On February 12, 2014, right-wing opposition leader Leopoldo López led a
feverish rally of his supporters in the heart of Venezuela’s capital,
Caracas. For over a month, López and his political allies had been
holding demonstrations aimed at overthrowing newly-elected president
Nicolás Maduro, who came into office following snap elections held in
the aftermath of Hugo Chávez’s death.
Carlos Vecchio, the corporate lawyer who went on to represent Juan
Guaidó in Washington, also spoke at the demonstration, and stood loyally
by López’s side as he delivered his incendiary speech calling for an
angry march to the Attorney General’s office, and whipping the crowd
into chants of, “No fear! No fear!”
López’s supporters heeded his call and charged straight for the office
of Venezuela’s Public Prosecutor, eventually setting the building on
fire. Columbia University’s Global Freedom of Expression project
conceded
<https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/el-caso-de-leopoldo-lopez/>the
mayhem “resulted in the death of two people and considerable damage to
public property.”
López and his allies, including Vecchio, were charged for their role in
inciting the destruction. López was eventually sentenced to 13 years in
prison for his actions, while Vecchio fled to the United States to
escape “incitement of violence” charges.
The attack on Venezuela’s public institutions in February of 2014
mirrored events that would take place in Washington DC roughly six years
later, when President Donald Trump delivered a speech on the White House
eclipse instructing his supporters to march to the Capitol as lawmakers
voted to cerity his election loss. Within minutes of arriving at
Congress, Trump’s followers overwhelmed the meager crowd of police
deployed to protect the legislature and forced their way inside –
unafraid to shatter doors and windows as they did so.
Following the violent breach of the Capitol, incoming president Joe
Biden characterized the mob’s actions as “an unprecedented assault on
our democracy, an assault literally on the citadel of liberty, in the
United States Capitol itself” and “an assault on the rule of law.”
Democrats in the House of Representatives quickly moved to impeach
Trump, charging the president with “incitement of insurrection.”
In light of their outraged response to the Capitol raid, which they
branded an act of illegal insurrection, Biden and his allies might be
sympathetic to the Venezuelan government, which similarly moved to
charge López and his co-conspirators, including Vecchio, for their role
in encouraging a blitz on government buildings after the country’s
Attorney General’s office was torched by a politically-charged mob.
Instead, the wanted coup leader Vecchio was welcomed by a bipartisan
crew of top Washington politicians including President Trump, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Florida neocon Senator Marco Rubio, and former
Democratic Party Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The violent actions of Vecchio and his allies were hardly limited to the
events of February 12, 2014. The chaotic demonstrations they led lasted
until May of that year, resulting in the deaths of 49 people and roughly
10 billion dollars in damage. Regime change rampages by Venezuela’s
opposition have featured assaults
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11211>on journalists, the
construction <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13186>of barricades
manned by vandals, and the burning
<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40157729>to death of
political opponents.
On June 13, 2017, activists set
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13180>Venezuela’s Supreme Court on
fire following jailed opposition leader López’s call for a rebellion
against the Maduro government. Days later a police officer named Óscar
Pérez hijacked <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40426642>a
government helicopter and attempted to launch four grenades at the Court
while firing live bullets at the country’s Interior Ministry. (Trump
honored Pérez
<https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1097618046888435713?s=20> during
a political rally in South Florida on February 18, 2019).
For his part, Juan Guaidó has led two failed campaigns of violent
insurrection against Venezuela’s government. In April of 2019, he called
<https://www.google.com/search?q=april+30+uprising+venezuela&oq=april+30+uprising+venezuela&aqs=chrome..69i57.4907j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8>for
an uprising against President Maduro while a group of a few dozen
soldiers launched an attack on the La Carlota Air Base in Caracas. While
the rebellion failed to generate popular support, López was broken out
of house arrest during the day’s events, leading to his eventual exile
in Spain.
Roughly a year later, Guaidó was exposed at the center of yet another
coup plot when former U.S. Green Beret Jordan Goudreau accused
<https://apnews.com/article/5f44624bb7442d85e431cd64a4aed3a8>the
politician of contracting his services to carry out a botched capture or
kill operation targeting President Maduro. Goudreau, who previously
provided private security for Trump campaign rallies, produced a
contract
<https://twitter.com/MV_Eng/status/1257773881026244609?s=20>containing
Guaidó’s signature along with a voice recording
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=83&v=rLGWmDsCmms&feature=emb_title>of
Guaidó allegedly discussing the deal though Guaidó himself has denied
involvement.
Biden and the Democrats reacted with indignation when the U.S. Capitol
was breached for just one afternoon, immediately initiating Trump’s
second impeachment by the House of Representatives. Within days, the
Capitol was surrounded with unscalable fencing and 25,000 National Guard
soldiers were summoned to occupy central Washington DC – more than three
times the amount of troops deployed to Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan
combined.
It would be instructive to imagine how Democrats would have responded if
Trump or his supporters attempted anything like the years-long campaign
of insurrection by Venezuela’s opposition – and did so with the
full-throated support of a foreign power. What if Trump supporters had
set up barricades around Washington DC, preventing residents from
leaving or entering their own neighborhoods? What if they had lit the
Supreme Court on fire and bombed it from the air in a stolen military
helicopter? And how would Democrats have reacted if Trump had contracted
foreign mercenaries to capture or kill Biden?
Anyone troubled by these hypothetical scenarios should be equally
disturbed that Carlos Vecchio, a veteran coup leader allied with
seditious forces in his home country, will be present at Biden’s
inauguration on January 20.
*Sen. Durbin lobbies for Venezuelan coup leaders hours after
condemning Trumpist “insurrection”*
In the lead up to the House vote on President Trump’s impeachment, on
January 11, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin tweeted
<https://twitter.com/SenatorDurbin/status/1348679317623099392>, “The
President and his Republican enablers incited a violent mob into
storming the Capitol… This was an assault on our democracy, our national
security, and our Constitution. There must be accountability, including
impeachment.”
Hours later Durbin took to Twitter again to boast
<https://twitter.com/SenatorDurbin/status/1348747727853727748> of his
meeting with incoming Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, saying the two
discussed “his plan for the State Department in the Biden Administration.”
According to the senator’s office, Durbin explicitly advocated the Biden
administration preserve support for Juan Guaidó, whom he described as
Venezuela’s “Interim-President.”
“We thank you Senator Durbin for addressing with the nominee for U.S.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken the critical situation of Venezuela,
the actions to restoring democracy hijacked by Nicolas Maduro’s
dictatorship, and the necessary support to the Venezuelan people,”
Vecchio tweeted in response to news of the conversation.
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