Washington, D.C. — Bolivarian Venezuela soundly defeated the Feb. 23 U.S.-set deadline for regime change. The corporate media-enhanced, openly provocative plans to violate Venezuela’s import and border control laws were solidly rebuffed. United human barriers of Venezuelan police, military and Chavista masses firmly stopped the weaponized aid.
In frustration at the political defeat, on the Colombian side of the border trucks alleged to be carrying humanitarian aid were torched in the vicinity of gangs filling gasoline bottle-bombs called molotov cocktails.
The Feb. 21 delivery of 7.5 tons of medicine proves that claims that President Nicolás Maduro Moro refuses “humanitarian aid” are a lie. These weekly shipments are purchased by Venezuela, circumventing the U.S. blockade sanctions which prohibit and punish such sales through the dollar dominated market. The Pan American Health Organization, World Health Organization and other United Nations affiliated entities continue to work with the Bolivarian Venezuelan government. The Red Cross and other international relief agencies have condemned politicization of humanitarian aid. They did not participate in the events in Cúcuta, Colombia, although their red cross symbol was falsely used there.
The U.S.-backed pretender, Juan Guaidó, has increased his call for U.S. military intervention, supported by dangerous statements by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has scheduled a meeting Feb. 25 with Juan Guaidó and right-wing Colombian President Iván Duque in Bogotá to plot further aggression.
What leader would call down that disaster on their own people? Observers need only to remember the invasion of Iraq, of Libya, remember the U.S. aggression against Syria and the U.S.-armed devastation of Yemen. As Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza pointed out in an hourlong interview on Democracy Now, the U.S. bombs do not discriminate between the families of pro-Chavistas and the opposition.
The Bolivarian Revolution’s united, calm and firm support for President Maduro and resistance to border provocations has already produced cracks in the pro-U.S. alliance. On Feb. 25, both Spain and the European Union distanced themselves from the U.S.-Guaidó call for war, announcing they will not support military intervention.
Corporate media still complicit in U.S. imperial regime change
The international corporate media in the U.S. and Britain continue to orient their coverage to legitimize the Guaidó-U.S. coup plot. That 150 cities around the world demonstrated against the U.S. war on Venezuela is somehow not newsworthy. Where are the interviews that show that workers and poor people in the U.S. remember the baldfaced lies leading to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the destruction of Libya?
Why wasn’t the disruption of the press conference attempted by the U.S. replacement government to normalize the coup plotters on Feb. 21 covered on the 6 o’clock news when Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold took over the microphone to speak truth to power?
Some headway has been made with National Public Radio. Demonstrations like the ones in Detroit have called out their biased reporting.
These voices and more continue to mobilize and educate broad sectors of the U.S. poor and working class, who will gain nothing from another U.S. war to line the pockets of the banks and international fossil fuel monopolies like Exxon Mobil Corp.
A national demonstration will be held in Washington, D.C., on March 16 and another two Saturdays later on March 30, before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization meets on April 4, insulting the anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King’s assassination. Support the protest demonstrations, build them, attend them. In Los Angeles on March 16, be at McArthur Park at 11 a.m. for a multiorganizational effort, and later in the day with the Answer Coalition.
TeleSUR and other international media outlets are resources that counter the imperialist shaped narrative. TeleSUR itself may disappear from the internet and airwaves if a coup or military takeover succeeds. Some independent U.S. media are available online, including radio stations like WPFW-FM in Washington, D.C., media that oppose U.S. wars against Black and Brown people and against the working class inside the U.S. and abroad.
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