Venezuela: Anatomy of The Conflict

It was fundamentally important for the United States from the very beginning to question the electoral process, put forward the thesis of illegitimacy of the results, return to the policy of maximum pressure and bring its puppet to the post of head of state.

The events that followed in Venezuela after the presidential election are not a one-time action of the local opposition, supported by the countries of the collective West. They should be considered as another link in the chain, as another attempt to overthrow the power of the Chavistas, which have already been undertaken quite a few.

It should be borne in mind that after Hugo Chavez took office in 1999, the course of the country, which the United States considered its backyard with an obedient (albeit corrupt) regime, changed dramatically. Hugo Chavez was one of the first leaders of the countries who spoke about the need to create a multipolar world, and began deep reforms in domestic politics that aroused the hatred of Washington and local oligarchs focused on the United States.

The first conspiracy against him took place in April 2002, but the coup failed, as the people came to the defense of the president. During the elections in December 2006, the opposition tried to promote its candidate, but the difference in votes was too obvious to claim victory. However, already in 2007, in a referendum proposed by Chavez, the turnout was less than 50%.

In October 2012, Chavez won again, although the United States bet on Henrique Capriles. After Chavez‘s death in March 2013, Nicolas Maduro became interim president, who then won early elections. The continuity of the course had been preserved.

In February 2014, mass riots suddenly broke out in the country, whose organizers allegedly protested against the economic crisis. As the investigation later revealed, the well-known Cambridge Analityca company took part in inciting riots on social networks, the exact one, which in 2016 helped Donald Trump win the US elections with the same methods and received an order to campaign in the referendum in Britain on leaving the EU.

Since March 2017, anti-government protests have begun in the country again, and in August that year, an uprising was declared on behalf of a group of some military, Then the United States and the EU imposed new sanctions against Venezuela.

In May 2018, Maduro was re-elected, which led to new protests.

As we can see, there was a whole series of actions aimed at political power in the country, and at the same time, economic pressure was artificially built up to worsen the overall situation in the country and blame the government for everything. The formula for “salvation“ proposed by pro-Western political group supposed to completely eliminate the legacy of the Hugo Chavez era and return Venezuela to the geopolitical orbit f the United States.

It was only in October 2023 that the US eased sanctions against Venezuela‘s oil and gas and gold mining sector in response to the 2024 election agreement reached between the government and the opposition. Nicolas Maduro released this document a few days after the July 28 elections, where the United States pledged to lift sanctions not only on gold and oil, but also on banking operations, and normalize diplomatic relations.

However, the US State Department recognized Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as the winning candidate, who should be looked at more closely. He went to the polls instead of Maria Carino Machado, who was not allowed to participate in the election campaign due to a number of offenses and, as a result, she campaigned for Gonzalez. He himself is a former career diplomat at a respectable age, for which he received the nickname “grandfather“. However, his diplomatic history shows more sinister facts than the banal service of an official.

According to the documents, “On November 24, 1976, Gonzalez Urrutia joined the Venezuelan Embassy in the United States in the midst of implementing the Operation Condor; there he was recruited by the CIA”…” and then, in July 1981, he was transferred to the Venezuelan Embassy in El Salvador, whose official mission was to ensure the safety of citizens. (ii) However instead of security, he helped organize bloody purges and repressions: in the 1980s, he worked at the Venezuelan embassy in El Salvador with Leopoldo Castillo (at that time the ambassador) and they, together with the CIA, helped in the Operation Centaur to eliminate political opponents. It was part of Condor’s broader plan for Latin America. In El Salvador, more than 13,000 civilians (iii) were killed at the hands of the local junta with the assistance of Gringos and such as Edmundo Gonzalez.

Leopoldo Castillo himself was involved in the murder of six Jesuit priests and two others in 1989. He currently lives in Miami, he is associated with far–right dissidents, and is also known for his participation in the School of the Americas, as well as cooperation with the CIA. He is now calling for sanctions against Venezuela. Earlier, former opposition leader Juan Guaido, who also lives in the United States, made the same calls.

As for the opposition‘s program, it contains the following points: 1) privatization of the oil and gas industry; 2) Mass privatization of property, enterprises and public services; 3) Priority use of funds received in this way to repay public debt; 4) Reform of the Organic Labor Law in order to “make the workforce more flexible;“5) Abolition of the current pension system as “unstable”; 6) Privatization of education with the help of “vouchers” or bonds, which means tuition fees; 7) Free use of all types of foreign currency; 8) Elimination of army units, such as the militia, and subordination to the rules of “hemisphere politics” of the United States. Obviously, this is not only pure and simple neoliberal capitalism, where the oligarchy will always benefit, but also the rejection of the sovereignty of the state. Probably, for this reason, the opposition lost, although it gained quite a lot of votes.

As for the coup attempt, there were several key elements. These are the tactics of street swarming of militant groups and provocateurs to provoke the police and security forces; the flow of false messages and manipulation on social networks; pressure from the United States and its satellites with threats against the current government.

By far, the most critical, perhaps, was street violence, since it threatened the health and life of not only Chavistas (unfortunately, there were deaths among activists and among the military), but also ordinary citizens.

As Fernando Rivero noted, paramilitary groups were involved in the escalation of the conflict, which fall under the 2010 Guidelines on Non-traditional Military Actions of the US Special Operations Forces. (iv) The task of the Western curators was to arrange a civil war using opposition fighters together with structured organized criminal groups (SOCG).

The main units of the SOCG in Venezuela are stationed in places of high strategic military importance. Such cells were created on the eastern shore of the lake, in Cabimas and other areas of Zulia, near the centers of hydrocarbon production, which are very important for the country. This group operates in areas adjacent to the Ana Maria Campos petrochemical complex, as well as oil and gas pipelines connected to the Paraguana refinery complex. Similarly, this group is trying to affect both trade and smuggling between Venezuela and Colombia. In the state of Sucre, another group seeks to control the coast and the transit of various goods to other points in the Caribbean. In Falcon, in addition to repeating the Sucre State scheme, they position themselves in the Sierra de San Luis, having recently formed an alliance between criminal gangs, which would allow them to operate on Coro and/or eventually try to block ground access to the Paraguana processing complex. On the mountain range between the states of Guarico and Miranda, another SOCG is designing a corridor that would allow them to enter the Guatopo National Park and therefore influence various economic activities in cities such as Altagracia de Orituco. Its influence can be extended to the Barbacoas, Tiznado gas blocks and Monagas de Guarico Municipality. This group will act against the Camatagua Reservoir (crucial for the water supply of Caracas), as well as against various reservoirs important to Miranda and Caracas.

In the same way, they seek to settle in the industrial centers of the country, given their logistical importance in military and political terms.

As for Caracas, several SOCG were deployed around it. In the center of the country, in Aragua and with the prospect of a part of Miranda State, the groups could control important highways of great significance to the country. Since military barracks are located in Valencia and the state of Aragua, which are vital for the military defense of Caracas, it is likely that an attack on military bases was also planned in order to paralyze the national defense. Right at the most important western entrance to Caracas, on the El Valle range, in the vicinity of Fort Tiuna, another criminal group was organized that could be used to attack this facility. In Miranda, another group operates in Petare, the surrounding areas and, therefore, in the immediate vicinity of the main entrance to Caracas from the east of the country.

Apparently, the activity of these groups was neutralized, although a few days before the elections, there were also reports of illegal border crossings by Colombian mercenaries to destabilize the situation.

As for the information war, it unfolded both through the main media means of Western propaganda and through social networks inside Venezuela. Now the government of the country is taking measures against Western social networks, introducing restrictions on X (former Twitter) and preparing a bill that will make the work of social networks more transparent and secure. In addition to Twitter, we are talking about Meta, YouTube and Whatsapp.

According to President Nicolas Maduro, “Whatsapp gave the extremists all the addresses in Venezuela, and for several months they, with the help of a Colombian drug dealer, were preparing a threat to Venezuelan society so that the people would be paralyzed by terror.”(v)

In Venezuela itself, such an intervention was called nothing less than a “cyber coup d‘etat“, which was planned along with mass riots and diplomatic pressure from Western countries.

Luis Brito Garcia notes in this context that “on April 11, 2002, the CIA turned off the signal of the state-owned VTV channel; they isolated President Hugo Chavez Frias and struck the world‘s first blow to the media. Eight months later, having already been generously pardoned by the president, with the help of the American company Intesa, they computer paralyzed Pdvsa and stopped the production and distribution operations of the company for two months until a group of technical specialists from the Ministry of Science and Technology could resume them. More than twenty years have passed since these attacks; There have recently been two sabotages at power plants in Nueva Esparta and at the Urena substation in Tachira, presumably with the aim of disabling voting systems.” (vi)

According to the National Electoral Council, a cyberattack was carried out from the Republic of North Macedonia, which saturated the networks with a huge amount of false traffic in order to prevent the transfer of information. According to official data, since 2019, there have been units of the US Cyber Command in Northern Macedonia, which conduct offensive operations around the world. (vii)

Nevertheless, despite the delay in receiving data from polling stations, all ballots were counted and the victory, one way or another, belongs to Nicolas Maduro, which was confirmed by the Supreme Court, where all candidates were invited. Only Edmundo Gonzalez was absent, who presumably left Venezuela immediately after the elections to sit abroad and incite his supporters from there. The Venezuelan Prosecutor General‘s Office has already opened criminal cases against him and Maria Corina Machado. Not to mention the more than two thousand people detained during the riots, as well as the organizers on the ground, who were arrested in hot pursuit.

It should be recalled that Nicolas Maduro also built his campaign on the slogan “They will not return“, which is a version of the famous anti-fascist slogan “They will not pass“, and repeatedly spoke about the threat of far-right forces and US imperialism.

But despite the efforts of the United States to put together an anti–Venezuelan coalition in Latin America, it failed to do so. Apart from the United States itself, only Washington‘s satellites such as Ecuador, Argentina, Chile and Peru recognized Gonzalez as the “legitimate president.“ By the way, because of this position, the operation against Venezuela itself was called nothing else than “Juan Guyado 2.0“.

On August 7, 2024, the Governments of Colombia, Brazil and Mexico issued a joint statement calling on the country‘s political and public figures to exercise maximum caution during public demonstrations and events. It is said that “once again expressing his respect for the sovereignty and will of the Venezuelan people, he announces that they will continue negotiations at a high level.

And they emphasize their conviction and confidence that solutions to the current situation must come from Venezuela,“ the statement said. The document concludes with the willingness of these countries to “support efforts for dialogue and the search for mutual understanding that contribute to the political stability and democracy of the country.” (viii)

It is now obvious that the coup failed. Gradually, the country is returning to normal life, and the government is learning lessons from the treachery of the West. Russia, China, Iran and other states from the multipolar club recognized the victory of Nicolas Maduro and cooperation in a number of areas will continue. In matters of the entire spectrum of security, Venezuela‘s experience may be of interest to Russia, and our technologies are useful for Venezuela.

[i]. https://www.democracynow.org/
[ii]. https://ultimasnoticias.com.ve/
[iii]. https://www.elperiodista.cl/
[iv]. https://cuatrof.net/
[v].  https://ultimasnoticias.com.ve/
[vi]. https://www.nodal.am/
[vii]. https://balkaninsight.com/
[viii]. https://venezuela-news.com/

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