FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Venezuelan Crisis Part of British Coup against President Trump

Jan. 31, 2019 (EIRNS)—The sequence of events leading up to the U.S. Jan. 23 recognition of Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaidó as that country’s interim President, make clear that this orchestrated crisis is a key element of the British-directed coup against President Donald Trump to remove him from office.

The Wall Street Journal put it blatantly today: “U.S. Push To Oust Venezuela’s Maduro Marks First Shot in Plan To Reshape Latin America.” The “reshaping” will include not only Venezuela, but also Cuba and Nicaragua—John Bolton’s “Troika of Tyranny.” The Trump Administration,” the Journal says,

“is stocked with officials who have long believed Cuba to be the more serious national security threat.... The goal, the administration thinking goes, is to sever ties that bind Venezuela to Cuba and sink regimes in both countries.”

As the Journal documents, U.S. policy on Venezuela is the work of the gaggle of London-directed neo-cons inhabiting the administration—Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Advisor John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Iran-Contra felon Elliott Abrams, and National Security Council Western Hemisphere Affairs Director Mauricio Claver-Carone, among others. They coordinate with Republican Florida legislators, including Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, “who have a large number of constituents with connections to Venezuela,” and to the fanatical, intelligence-linked wing of the Cuban exile community.

On Jan. 22, one day before Guaidó declared himself president, and the U.S. recognized him, Rubio, Scott, and Diaz-Balart met at the White House with Trump, Pence and others. The month prior to Guaidó’s Jan. 23 declaration saw a density of planning meetings, in Washington and overseas, to coordinate with key U.S. allies (Colombia and Brazil) and with Venezuela’s Project Democracy-run opposition. Canada’s neo-con Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland was key in the planning stages.

As soon as Nicolas Maduro was sworn in on Jan. 10, Pompeo spoke with Guaidó, promising to “work closely on a path to a democratic future for Venezuela.” That day, the State Department officially backed the National Assembly as the only legitimate and democratically elected entity in Venezuela.