Juan
Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by
Washington’s elite regime change trainers. While posing as a
champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a
violent campaign of destabilization.
by
Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal
Part
7 - Guaidó heads to the barricades
That
February, student demonstrators acting as shock troops for the exiled
oligarchy erected violent barricades across the country, turning
opposition-controlled quarters into violent fortresses known as
guarimbas. While international media portrayed the upheaval as a
spontaneous protest against Maduro’s iron-fisted rule, there was
ample evidence that Popular Will was orchestrating the show.
“None
of the protesters at the universities wore their university t-shirts,
they all wore Popular Will or Justice First t-shirts,” a
guarimba participant said at the time. “They might have been
student groups, but the student councils are affiliated to the
political opposition parties and they are accountable to them.”
Asked
who the ringleaders were, the guarimba participant said, “Well
if I am totally honest, those guys are legislators now.”
Around
43 were killed during the 2014 guarimbas. Three years later, they
erupted again, causing mass destruction of public infrastructure, the
murder of government supporters, and the deaths of 126 people, many
of whom were Chavistas. In several cases, supporters of the
government were burned alive by armed gangs.
Guaidó
was directly involved in the 2014 guarimbas. In fact, he tweeted
video showing himself clad in a helmet and gas mask, surrounded by
masked and armed elements that had shut down a highway that were
engaging in a violent clash with the police. Alluding to his
participation in Generation 2007, he proclaimed, “I remember in
2007, we proclaimed, ‘Students!’ Now, we shout, ‘Resistance!
Resistance!'”
Guaidó
has deleted the tweet, demonstrating apparent concern for his image
as a champion of democracy.
On
February 12, 2014, during the height of that year’s guarimbas,
Guaidó joined Lopez on stage at a rally of Popular Will and Justice
First. During a lengthy diatribe against the government, Lopez urged
the crowd to march to the office of Attorney General Luisa Ortega
Diaz. Soon after, Diaz’s office came under attack by armed gangs
who attempted to burn it to the ground. She denounced what she called
“planned and premeditated violence.”
In
an televised appearance in 2016, Guaidó dismissed deaths resulting
from guayas – a guarimba tactic involving stretching steel wire
across a roadway in order to injure or kill motorcyclists – as a
“myth.” His comments whitewashed a deadly tactic that had killed
unarmed civilians like Santiago Pedroza and decapitated a man named
Elvis Durán, among many others.
This
callous disregard for human life would define his Popular Will party
in the eyes of much of the public, including many opponents of
Maduro.
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