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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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<h1 class="reader-title">US State Department publishes, then
deletes sadistic Venezuela hit list boasting of economic ruin</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Anya Parampil - May 6, 2019<br>
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<h4>The Grayzone has obtained a list of “key outcomes” on
Venezuela deleted out of apparent embarrassment by the
State Department. It boasts of wrecking the nation’s
economy, destabilizing its military, and puppeteering
its political opposition.</h4>
<h4>By Anya Parampil</h4>
<p><span>On April 24, six days before self-proclaimed
Venezuelan “interim president” Juan Guaido’s attempt
to violently overthrow Venezuela’s democratically
elected government alongside a handful of military
defectors, the U.S. State Department published a fact
sheet that boasted of Washington’s central role in the
ongoing coup attempt. After realizing the
incriminating nature of its error, the State
Department quickly acted to remove the page. </span></p>
<p><span>The Grayzone has obtained <a
href="https://thegrayzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/US-Department-of-State-Venezuela-actions.pdf">a
full copy of the expunged report</a>. The deleted
page puts to bed any claims of Guaido’s independence
from Washington, as the State Department emphasizes
the fact that he “announced his interim presidency… in
January” at the the top of a section dedicated to
breaking down “key outcomes” of U.S. efforts with
regard to Venezuela.</span></p>
<p><span>U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western
Hemisphere Affairs <a
href="https://twitter.com/WHAAsstSecty/status/1123692018780262401">Kimberly
Breier recently took to Twitter</a> to claim that
“since he became acting president, Juan Guaido has
given tangible results to the people of Venezuela.”
Her tweet was accompanied with an infographic
detailing alleged accomplishments of the powerless
coup administration based on data compiled by the
legally defunct National Assembly, the only governing
body actually controlled by Guaido. </span></p>
<p><span>But the Venezuela fact sheet posted and then
deleted days earlier by the State Department told a
dramatically different story.</span></p>
<p><em>Read the entire expunged fact sheet <a
href="https://thegrayzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/US-Department-of-State-Venezuela-actions.pdf">here</a>
[PDF] and at the end of this article.</em></p>
<h3>The State Department’s economic hit list</h3>
<p><span> Entitled “U.S. Actions on Venezuela,” the
document boasted that U.S. policy had effectively
prevented the Venezuelan government from participating
in the international market and has led to the
freezing of its overseas assets. It read like a
sadistic celebration of Washington’s retribution
against the Venezuelan population as a whole, the kind
of collective punishment which is illegal according to
Article 33 of the Geneva Conventions.</span></p>
<p><span>The State Department gloated in the deleted fact
sheet that its policy had ensured that the Maduro
government “cannot rely on the U.S. financial system”
to conduct business, noting “key outcomes” of U.S.
actions include the fact that “roughly $3.2 billion of
Venezuela’s overseas are frozen.” It went on to boast
that “Venezuela’s oil production fell to 736,000
barrels per day in March… substantially reducing”
government revenue.</span></p>
<p><span>“If I were the State Department I wouldn’t brag
about causing a cut in oil production to 763,000
barrels per day — which is a 36 percent drop, in just
the two months of February and March this year,” Mark
Weisbrot, Co-Director at the Center For Economic and
Policy Research, told The Grayzone. “This means even
more premature deaths than the tens of thousands that
resulted from sanctions last year.” </span></p>
<p><span>Weisbrot recently co-authored a <a
href="http://cepr.net/publications/reports/economic-sanctions-as-collective-punishment-the-case-of-venezuela">bracing
report</a> which found that 40,000 Venezuelans died
between 2017 and 2018 as a direct result of U.S.
sanctions. The State Department patted itself on the
back for announcing its preparedness “to provide an
additional $20 million in initial humanitarian
assistance” to Venezuela, however, the CEPR report
concluded that Trump Administration sanctions
implemented in August 2017 resulted in “a loss of $6
billion in oil revenue over the ensuing year” alone. </span></p>
<p><span>While the State Department praised the opposition
for “providing medical and hygiene attention to over
6,000” Venezuelans, those numbers dwarf in comparison
to the 300,000 people CEPR “estimated to be at risk
because of lack of access to medicines or treatment…
[including] 80,000 people with HIV who have not had
antiretroviral treatment since 2017, 16,000 people who
need dialysis, 16,000 people with cancer, and 4
million with diabetes and hypertension.” </span></p>
<p><span>In other words, the supposed “Venezuela Crisis
Response Assistance” touted by the State Department is
not even a band-aid over the gaping wound that US
unilateral coercive measures have inflicted on the
country. </span></p>
<p><span>In Weisbrot’s view, the “policy” and “outcomes”
promoted by the State Department in the disappeared
document will merely lead to “more cuts in imports of
medicine, food, medical equipment, and inputs
necessary to maintain water, health, and sanitation
infrastructure.” </span></p>
<p><span>Having denied the Venezuelan government the
ability to provide for its own population, the U.S.
has essentially promised that thousands more deaths
will occur.</span></p>
<p><span>The State Department did not respond to The
Grayzone’s request for a comment on the fact sheet it
deleted.</span></p>
<h3>“A list of confessions”</h3>
<p><span>In a <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxGPEhfkzKM">recent
interview with The Grayzone</a>, Venezuela’s
ambassador to the United Nations Samuel Moncada
characterized the deleted State Department fact sheet
as “a list of confessions.”</span></p>
<p><span>“Imagine if any other country says… it’s proud of
saying that we are destroying the economy of our
neighbor; we are proud that we destroyed the political
system of our neighbor; we are proud that they are
suffering. They are saying we are waging war against
Venezuela,” Moncada emphasized.</span></p>
<p><span>The ambassador went on to accuse the U.S. of
engaging in “bullying” rather than international
diplomacy. </span></p>
<p><span>The State Department’s own fact sheet appears to
support this accusation, as it asserts “diplomatic
pressure resulted in fewer markets for Venezuelan
gold.” </span><span>The document further highlighted
U.S. actions that have supposedly led “more than 1,000
members of the military [to recognize] Juan Guaido as
interim President” and defect to Colombia, as well as
stranding “an estimated 25 crude oil tankers with 12
million barrels” off Venezuela’s coast. </span></p>
<p><span>“They [say] it’s our ‘key’ achievements,” Moncada
commented. “They are saying that they are causing
trouble in our military and inducing a military coup,
[which] so far they haven’t achieved, but they are
working towards.”</span></p>
<p><span>“If any other person says that themselves,” the
ambassador concluded, “and you take that confession to
court, they would be in prison.”</span></p>
<p><span>The State Department’s fact sheet even frames
recent decisions by the Organization of American
States, Lima Group, Inter-American Development Bank,
and European Union to either recognize or support
Guaido’s shadow administration as a U.S. achievement,
highlighting Washington’s outsized influence within
each of these supposedly international governing
bodies. The decision to mention the E.U. and Lima
Group is particularly noteworthy considering the
United States is not a member of either organization.</span></p>
<p><span>“They are so far out of any normal parameters of
decency, morality, legality, reason, that really they
are dangerous,” Moncada said of the Trump
administration. “They are a real threat to
international peace, and they are a real threat to my
people.” </span></p>
<p><a title="View US Department of State Deleted Venezuela
Hit List on Scribd"
href="https://www.scribd.com/document/408821784/US-Department-of-State-Deleted-Venezuela-Hit-List#from_embed">US
Department of State Deleted Venezuela Hit List</a> by
<a title="View Max Blumenthal's profile on Scribd"
href="https://www.scribd.com/user/31516247/Max-Blumenthal#from_embed">Max
Blumenthal</a> on Scribd</p>
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itemprop="author">
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<p>Anya Parampil is a Washington, DC based journalist.
She previously hosted a daily progressive afternoon
news program called In Question on RT America. She
has produced and reported several documentaries,
including on the ground reports from the Korean
peninsula and Palestine.</p>
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