Events in Venezuela appear to be reaching a critical point now, with a botched coup attempt by Juan Guaidó apparently easily defeated on Tuesday. Both sides called for mass rallies on May Day, but press photos appear to show a relatively small crowd of a few thousands coming out to support Guaidó while news reports suggest President Nicolás Maduro was considerably more succesful in bringing people to Caracas. But heavy security prevented the opposition holding a rally in the city centre and Guaidó was unable to get to the main rally that did take place.
Of course it is hard to know exactly what is going on in Venezuela, with most if not all of the West’s mass media rallying in support of Guaidó, or at least reflecting the views of an urban middle-class Venezuelan community rather than the great mass of people across the country who have benefitted greatly from the Bolivarian revolution initiated by Hugo Chavez and continued despite crippling US sanctions by Maduro.
And certainly the US are heating up the rhetoric and almost certainly its practical support for the opposition, though much of this is covert. President Trump’s national security advisor has labelled Venezuela, together with its allies Cuba and Nicuaragua as “the troika of tyranny” and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said “military action is possible – if that’s what’s required, that’s what the United States will do.”
President Trump has also clearly been on the warpath.
Back at the end of January, supporters of Maduro, including a number of Venezuelans came to Downing St to demand that the UK should not recognise Juan Guaidó as president, rather than the choice of the people of the country in last year’s elections in which he got 67.8% of the vote, with his nearest rival Henri Falcón at only 20.9%, a thumping mandate that it seems impossible to beleive could have been prejudiced by the relatively minor irregularities his opponents allege – and that one of them called for the election to be re-held without Maduro seems a clear admission that he would be impossible to beat even in the most scrupulously fair of elections.
They also called for an end to the unfair sanctions against the country and in particular for the Bank of England to immediately hand back the 14 tonnes of Venezuelan gold it is withholding form the Venezuelan authorities as a part of these.
More pictures at No imperialist coup in Venezuela
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