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<h1 class="reader-title">Another Failed Coup in Venezuela?</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">By George Ciccariello-Maher
- March 7, 2019<br>
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<p>If you repeat your own lies enough—so goes the
apocryphal Goebbels quote—you start to believe them
yourself. For two decades, the Venezuelan opposition
and its supporters in Washington have smeared Hugo
Chávez and now his successor, Nicolás Maduro, as
despotic strongmen kept in power solely through
military force and paltry payouts to the poor. So it’s
no surprise that they are once again underestimating
both Chavismo and the resilience of its supporters
today.</p>
<p><strong>Underestimating the People</strong></p>
<p>We’ve seen this all before: On April 11 of 2002, the
Venezuelan opposition—according to the most credible
accounts—unleashed snipers on its own supporters and
used the ensuing deaths to justify a coup against Hugo
Chávez. But the opposition dramatically overplayed its
hand and underestimated the Chavista grassroots, who
it routinely smeared as the blind followers of a
populist strongman. When coup leaders abolished all
branches of government and scrapped the constitution,
hundreds of thousands of poor Venezuelans poured into
the streets demanding, and eventually forcing,
Chávez’s return to power.</p>
<p>Much has changed since 2002. A perfect storm of
Chávez’s death, collapsing global oil prices, a
mismanaged system of currency controls, ferocious
aggression from the opposition and—more recently—U.S.
sanctions, has thrown the Venezuelan economy into a
tailspin. Many of the impressive accomplishments of
the Bolivarian Revolution—in health care, education
and poverty reduction—have quickly evaporated,
producing frustration, confusion and desperation among
even Chavismo’s most hardline supporters.</p>
<p>So when opposition backbencher Juan Guaidó declared
himself interim president of Venezuela on January 23,
he and his co-conspirators thought the military would
quickly fragment before eventually falling in line
behind the self-proclaimed president. Things didn’t
work that way: Aside from a <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/they-are-authorized-to-shoot-us-stories-from-5-soldiers-who-broke-from-maduro-and-venezuelas-armed-forces/2019/02/24/16f6cce2-3884-11e9-b10b-f05a22e75865_story.html">handful
of soldiers</a> and the U.S. military attaché, the
Venezuelan armed forces remained solidly behind
Nicolás Maduro. And despite large demonstrations both
for and against the government, there have been no
signs of sustained, mass resistance in the streets in
favor of the coup either.</p>
<p>Why? In part because the frustration many poor
Venezuelans feel today is just that: <em>frustration</em>.
They are fed up with the economic crisis, and many
place at least a share of the blame on Maduro. But as
in the past, most don’t see frustration as justifying
undemocratic regime change, much less foreign
intervention—which <a
href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-01-08/venezuelans-want-president-maduro-out-most-would-oppose-foreign-military">the
majority of Venezuelans oppose</a>. What’s more,
wanting the economy to improve has not led many to
identify with opposition parties that still represent
the most elite sectors of Venezuelan society and have
offered no credible solutions to the economic crisis.</p>
<p><strong>The Trojan Horse of Humanitarian Aid</strong></p>
<p>But if much has changed, much has also stayed the
same: Unable to believe that the poor might hold such
a nuanced position, the opposition has again
overplayed its hand and bet it all on yet another
failed coup. February 23 marked one month since
Guaidó’s self-coronation, and also the expiration of
the 30-day period during which any interim president
must hold new elections. According to even the
opposition’s contrived reading of the Venezuelan
Constitution, since Guaidó never called those
elections, he has no remaining claim to the
presidency. And so it was that on February 23, Guaidó
resorted to increasingly desperate measures,
attempting to provoke a crisis by forcing deliveries
of US-provided “humanitarian aid” across the border.</p>
<p>It’s not difficult to debunk this false
humanitarianism. The United Nations refused to
participate in what it deemed “politicized” aid
shipments, and the <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14316">Red
Cross denounced</a> the border charade as “not
humanitarian aid”—and rebuked the <a
href="https://twitter.com/ifrc/status/1099374815394308102">unauthorized
use</a> of Red Cross insignia by opposition forces.
Given that Contra <a
href="http://inthesetimes.com/article/21758/war-criminal-elliott-abrams-nicaragua-venezuela-maduro-trump-ilhan-omar">war
criminal Elliott Abrams</a> is now in charge of U.S.
policy in Venezuela, it’s worth recalling that <a
href="https://chomsky.info/unclesam08/">U.S.-backed
Contras</a> used the Red Cross insignia toward
similar ends in Nicaragua.</p>
<p>And then there’s also basic math: While the
opposition mounted a spectacle to deliver a few
million dollars in aid, U.S. sanctions have already
cost Venezuela <em>billions</em>, and will cost <a
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-citgo-exclusive/venezuelas-guaido-aims-at-control-of-pdvsa-citgo-as-u-s-imposes-sanctions-idUSKCN1PM2B6">billions
more</a>. Economist <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14360">Mark
Weisbrot estimates</a> the death toll of the
sanctions to be “in the thousands or tens of thousands
so far,” with more deaths from Trump’s draconian
tightening of the sanctions almost guaranteed.</p>
<p>In contrast, the Trump government essentially handed
over the keys of Citgo’s bank accounts and
assets—worth around $7 billion—to Guaidó, who has also
demanded control of more than a billion dollars’ worth
of Venezuelan gold held by the Bank of England. And if
we harbored any illusions about the humanitarian
credentials of the Venezuelan opposition, it’s worth
noting that it routinely attacks a social welfare
infrastructure it associates with Chavismo—most
recently <a
href="http://www.eluniversal.com/sucesos/34301/incendio-se-consumio-galpones-de-empaquetadora-del-clap-en-el-puerto-de-la-guaira">burning
a warehouse</a> where subsidized food bundles known
as CLAPs were packaged and distributed.</p>
<p><strong>Provocation on the Border</strong></p>
<p>On February 23, as in 2002, the opposition sought to
sow blood and chaos to justify its coup, but this time
it was unsuccessful. Any objective analysis of video
footage from the Colombian border makes this clear: On
the Venezuelan side, Venezuelan troops were standing
in a single line behind riot shields. On the Colombian
side, masked opposition protesters hurled molotov
cocktails toward them. When two “aid” trucks suddenly
burst into flames, Guaidó and most of the media
immediately blamed the fire on Maduro. So overwhelming
was this media narrative that few observers seemed to
notice that the trucks never reached the Venezuelan
side, and were <a
href="https://twitter.com/graffitiborrao/status/1099540683575185408">almost
certainly ignited</a> by those same molotovs.</p>
<p>Desperate for any pretext to justify foreign
intervention, Senator <a
href="https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1099512202799779841">Marco
Rubio (R-Fla.) even blamed</a> Maduro when an
opposition lawmaker and his aide were “poisoned” on
the Colombian side of the border. Despite an utter
lack of any evidence, the international press <a
href="https://www.businessinsider.com/freddy-superlano-poisoned-marco-rubio-venezuela-opposition-lawmaker-per">ran
with the story</a>. But it turned out the
assemblyman was apparently <a
href="https://www.laopinion.com.co/judicial/diputado-venezolano-grave-y-su-primo-muerto-por-burundanga-172004">drugged
and robbed by sex workers</a> he had brought back to
his room after a night of partying. And when
long-simmering tensions between the Venezuelan
military and indigenous Pemones on the southern border
with Brazil led to violent clashes and several deaths,
their longstanding concerns were opportunistically <a
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-aid-indigenous/indigenous-pemon-on-venezuelas-border-with-brazil-vow-to-let-aid-in-idUSKCN1PY0MO">folded
into the opposition narrative</a> about aid
deliveries. Opposition parties had been stoking
dissent among indigenous groups for years, and many of
those involved in clashes were less concerned with aid
shipments than with what they perceived as years of
corrupt military activity in the region.</p>
<p>The opposition has been oddly silent about its own
violence, however. When three defecting Venezuelan
soldiers hijacked armored personnel carriers, driving
them at full speed into the border barriers in order
to defect to the Colombian side, they struck a crowd
of civilians that included Nicole Kramm, a Chilean
photojournalist. Kramm, who was nearly killed in the
attack—and whose <a
href="https://twitter.com/redfishstream/status/1099716919815491586">camera
was running</a> the entire time—later <a
href="https://www.rt.com/news/452317-journalist-hurt-defectors-venezuela/">described
the scene</a>: “This was an attack on civilians. I
can’t believe they are being treated as heroes. If I
didn’t run, and was 15 centimeters closer, I would not
be here to tell you this.”</p>
<p><strong>The Danger Isn’t Over</strong></p>
<p>“Plan A” failed on January 23rd and “Plan B”
similarly failed a month later, leaving Guaidó in dire
straits and without a clear path forward. When he
attempted to reach out to disaffected Chavistas by <a
href="https://twitter.com/jguaido/status/1099511994263261184">tweeting
that</a> Hugo Chávez would not approve of Maduro’s
actions, Guaidó was attacked by his own supporters on
Twitter, revealing old tensions simmering within the
opposition coalition. And with all other options
exhausted, Guaidó and U.S. vice president Mike Pence <a
href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/09/lima-group-rejects-military-intervention-venezuela-180917061724188.html">failed
to convince</a> the Lima Group—a regional coalition
of mostly right-wing governments and Canada—to support
military intervention. With the threat of U.S.
intervention <a
href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/severinomotta/brazil-generals-no-military-intervention-venezuela">stirring
dissension</a> even within the cabinet of far-right
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, Guaidó’s coup
appears to be on its last legs.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean that the danger is over, however.
On Monday, Guaidó made a less-than-triumphant return
to Venezuela and, despite his violation of a travel
ban, the government has opted not to arrest him for
now. If anything, Maduro will protect him at all
costs: Amid threats on Guaidó’s life, the <a
href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article226745184.html">Lima
Group has warned</a> of dire consequences should
anything happen to him. If Guaidó were to be killed,
however, it would almost certainly be at the hands of
a Venezuelan right-wing eager to provoke military
intervention (the government has <a
href="https://www.telesurtv.net/news/Esposa-de-Leopoldo-Lopez-admite-que-Gobierno-venezolano-lo-protege-20140219-0037.html">dismantled
similar plots</a> in the past).</p>
<p>In the coming months, U.S. sanctions will continue to
tighten the economic screws, heaping suffering on
those who always suffer most—the poorest
Venezuelans—while waiting out defections from the
military and the population as a whole. In 1990,
Nicaraguans voted the Sandinistas out of power,
knowing full well that if they didn’t, both U.S.
sanctions and the Contra War would continue. With many
of the same people once again in charge of U.S. policy
today, the strategy remains the same: to “make the
economy scream,” in Nixon’s words. This coup may be
failing, but Washington will fail and try again.
Venezuela can’t afford to fail even once.</p>
<p><em>The views expressed in this article are the
author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of
the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.</em></p>
<p><em>George Ciccariello-Maher is a Visiting Scholar at
the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and
Politics, and the author of We Created Chávez: A
People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution (Duke,
2013); Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in
Venezuela (Verso, 2016); and Decolonizing Dialectics
(Duke, 2017).</em></p>
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