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
1
Before
the fateful day of January 22, fewer than one in five Venezuelans had
heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an
obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely
associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own
party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the
opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under
contempt according to Venezuela’s constitution.
But
after a single phone call from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó
proclaimed himself as president of Venezuela. Anointed as the leader
of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political bottom
dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected
leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves.
Echoing
the Washington consensus, the New York Times editorial board
hailed Guaidó as a “credible rival” to Maduro with a
“refreshing style and vision of taking the country forward.”
The Bloomberg News editorial board applauded him for seeking
“restoration of democracy” and the Wall Street Journal
declared him “a new democratic leader.” Meanwhile, Canada,
numerous European nations, Israel, and the bloc of right-wing Latin
American governments known as the Lima Group recognized Guaidó as
the legitimate leader of Venezuela.
While
Guaidó seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, he was, in fact,
the product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US
government’s elite regime change factories. Alongside a cadre of
right-wing student activists, Guaidó was cultivated to undermine
Venezuela’s socialist-oriented government, destabilize the country,
and one day seize power. Though he has been a minor figure in
Venezuelan politics, he had spent years quietly demonstrated his
worthiness in Washington’s halls of power.
“Juan
Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance,”
Marco Teruggi, an Argentinian sociologist and leading chronicler of
Venezuelan politics, told the Grayzone. “It’s the logic
of a laboratory – Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements
that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between
laughable and worrying.”
Diego
Sequera, a Venezuelan journalist and writer for the investigative
outlet, Mision Verdad, agreed: “Guaidó is more popular
outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and
Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to the Grayzone, “He’s
a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered
loyal to the program.”
While
Guaidó is today sold as the face of democratic restoration, he spent
his career in the most violent faction of Venezuela’s most radical
opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one
destabilization campaign after another. His party has been widely
discredited inside Venezuela, and is held partly responsible for
fragmenting a badly weakened opposition.
“‘These
radical leaders have no more than 20 percent in opinion polls,”
wrote Luis Vicente León, Venezuela’s leading pollster. According
to Leon, Guaidó’s party remains isolated because the majority of
the population “does not want war. ‘What they want is a
solution.’”
But this
is precisely why he Guaidó was selected by Washington: he is not
expected to lead Venezuela towards to democracy, but to collapse a
country that for the past two decades has been a bulwark of
resistance to US hegemony. His unlikely rise signals the culmination
of a two decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist
experiment.
Source,
links:
https://grayzoneproject.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
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