US Threatens Regime Change in Venezuela

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has threatened regime change measures against the democratically elected government of Venezuela. The threat by Tillerson has come barely two weeks after CIA Director Mike Pompeo made similar threats against the Bolivarian Republic.

“We are evaluating all of our policy options as to what can we do to create a change of conditions where either Maduro decides he doesn’t have a future and wants to leave of his own accord or we can return the government processes back to their constitution”, Tillerson told the press on Tuesday, 1 August.

More than 8 million Venezuelans participated in the historic election on Sunday, 30 July, to elect members of the National Constituent Assembly (NCA). The election was called by President Nicolas Maduro as per provisions in the Venezuelan Constitution, which allows elections to the NCA to be initiated by the President and the Cabinet of Ministers, the National Assembly, the Municipal Councils, or 15% of registered voters.

The Constituent Assembly is tasked with discussing measures to resolve the political and economic crisis that has engulfed the Latin American country in the recent years. The right-wing opposition boycotted the elections and resorted to violent protests hoping to reduce people’s participation in the democratic process.

The right-wing opposition in Venezuela is lavishly funded by the US, which has funneled millions of dollars to these groups through agencies such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The radical reforms set in motion in Venezuela ever since Hugo Chavez became the President in 1999 have drastically reduced poverty, brought down inequality, and immensely improved access to healthcare, education and public services in the country.

Venezuela nationalised its oil industry as part of the effort to assert control over its own natural resources and to use them to fund welfare programmes. The threat by Tillerson, a former CEO of corporate oil giant ExxonMobil, is seen as part of the US attempt to win back control over the Venezuelan economy on behalf of US corporations.

The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on President Maduro on Monday. The assets that Maduro holds in the US, if any, have been frozen, and US firms and individuals have been banned from doing business with him.

Maduro hit back saying, "Impose whatever sanctions you like but I am the leader of the free people."

"Why are they sanctioning me? Because I called democratic elections so that people can freely vote for the National Constituent Assembly," he said in a public address. "I feel proud to be sanctioned Mr. Imperialist Donald Trump.”

“Venezuela will not be silenced, nothing and nobody will stop the National Constituent Assembly," Maduro said.

Mike Pompeo, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), had hinted at an event on 20 July, that the US is working on, with Mexico and Colombia, to push regime change in Venezuela.

“We are very hopeful that there can be a transition in Venezuela. We the CIA is doing its best to understand the dynamic there so that we can communicate to our State Department and to others, the Colombians... I was just down in Mexico City and in Bogota week before last talking about this very issue, trying to help them understand the things that they might do so that they can get a better outcome for their part of the world. And our part of the world”, Pompeo had said.

An earlier attempt at regime change in Venezuela, by means of a US-backed military coup in 2002, had ended in failure. Massive protests by people from the poorest neighbourhoods of the capital city of Caracas returned Chavez to power, two days after unelected right-wing businessman Pedro Carmona was installed as President by the coup-plotters.

The most recent attempt by the US at regime change – in Syria – is currently lying in shambles as the US-backed “rebels”, dominated by religious fundamentalist and terrorist groups, have suffered heavy defeats at the hands of the Syrian government forces.

The statements by the State Secretary and the CIA Director seem to signal the US government’s eagerness to return Venezuela into its orbit through the violent methods that Washington has perfected over the last several decades.

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Thumbnail Image Courtesy: TeleSUR