Roberto de la Madrid: West Expects Guaidó to Serve its Corporations’ Interests

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TEHRAN (FNA)- Roberto de la Madrid, an award-wining journalist and political commentator, says the support of the West for the Venezuelan opposition leader “has nothing to do with democracy”; but serving the commercial, military, political and geopolitical interests of the Western corporations.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with FNA, Roberto de la Madrid related Washington’s intervention in Venezuela’s affairs to the US historical regime change policy which allows it to control the natural resources of other countries through their puppet regimes.

Roberto de la Madrd is a Mexican journalist with extensive career in international media. He has won several important journalism prizes, including Mexican National Communication Prize (2011), National Journalism Prize awarded by the Journalists Club and UNAM National Service Award.

Below is the full text of the interview:

Q: Why is Guaidó more supported outside Venezuela than inside?

A: Guaidó is well known both at home and abroad. He probably has more support abroad because the Venezuelan right-wing is supported by the US government and, therefore, by many Western commercial media, and many governments that are aligned with Washington. The media plays a crucial role in presenting news in such a way that Guaidó is portrayed as the savior and Maduro as the bad guy. However, a very accurate study should be done within Venezuela to see what percentage of the people really support Maduro and what percentage Guiadó. It should be remembered that in the last elections for the National Assembly, people supported the opposition and the right-wing won over the Chavistas. Afterwards, Maduro called for general elections where the majority of the opposition parties did not participate. The Chavistas won. Therefore, the percentage of real support to each side remains unknown. Meanwhile, the US sanctions have suffocated Venezuela's economy; we cannot deny that there are people who are unhappy because the average salary of a professional who works with a lot of energy is $6 a month, which means he has to work for a whole month to be able to buy only 2 kilograms of meat and nothing more.

Q: Why does the US see itself entitled to declare an unknown unelected person as the President of Venezuela, as it has done with Guaidó? 

A: There is no law, neither in local legislation nor in International Laws which allows the United States or any other countries to recognize or impose a president who has proclaimed himself on the streets of another country. The most logical thing and the most lawful way to do it is to have the United Nations Security Council to evaluate the situation. In this case, the UNSC can declare an intervention and call for elections to restore democracy. However, this has not taken place; so, any coalition of nations would be illegal as they have no approval of the UNSC or the International Law.

Q: Does the West expect Guaidó to lead Venezuela toward democracy, or to collapse a country that has been resisting US hegemony for the past two decades?

A: What the United States expects Guaidó is to lead Venezuela to the point where the interests of the big corporations that govern the West are met. What the international coalition that supports Guaidó expects has nothing to do with democracy, but with the acceptance of certain values and rules and the alignment with the commercial, military, political and geopolitical interests established by the big Western corporations.

Q: The footprint of the US can be seen in many major crises in oil-rich countries such as Iran (1953) and Iraq (2003). Do you think “Venezuela (2019)” is on the same list?

A: In a way, it explains the behavior and the voracity of the United States for seizing or controlling the points that it believes are vital for its commercial, military and political spirit. Indeed, the coups it has supported, organized, orchestrated and committed throughout history, are part of a strategy to use democracy or internal politics as a perfect makeup to control the masses and in some way satisfy this guideline: it is necessary for the Stars and Stripes to be waved on the flagpole of this or that country. By imposing a government and controlling it, they can control the natural resources or geographical ports that empower their production and their transit around the world.

Direct from Caracas: Media fiction cannot make humanitarian aid magically materialize

Arturo Rosales

Arturo Rosales from Caracas writes on the media-hype about the so-called "humanitarian aid" that the US regime is claiming to send to Venezuela, which is indeed a tool for fueling chaos and set the ground for regime change in Venezuela.

After the “battle of the concerts” on Friday, finally the crucial day arrived. Saturday February 23 - the day that “President Guiadó” guaranteed “humanitarian aid” would be delivered to Venezuelans from Colombia - whether they wanted it or not, and be damned permission from the ruling government in Caracas.
It soon became clear that the Guaidó strategy was to cause mayhem and violence on the Colombo-Venezuelan border with hired thugs throwing rocks and Molotovs, attacking the National Guard posted on the Venezuelan side of the Simón Bolívar International Bridge.
In effect, it was the violent street protests of 2004, 2014 and 2017, or “guarimbas”, transposed from Eastern Caracas to the border. This is not a very efficient way to distribute food and medicine to the population.
The “highlight of the day” was when the Guaidó thugs burned a bus and then an “aid truck” on the bridge after the gasoline arrived and tried to say that tear gas canisters lobbed by the Venezuelan National Guard had caused the fire. They are not even capable of making up convincing lies, so how are these people ever going to govern a country?
In fact, according to one of the coordinators from the US on the Colombian side of the border, Mark Green, 190 tons of aid had been stationed to cross the border and it was up to Guaidó’s volunteers to deliver it to the Venezuelan people.
To get this into perspective – 190 tons of aid means nothing. Last year, Venezuelan government food programs delivered between 1–1.5 million tons of food - PER MONTH - to the population being hit by US sanctions behind the economic war.
Since this alleged "aid" arrived on C17 US military transports from Miami earlier in the week, there was more than a whiff of suspicion that this aid could contain weapons and would open the door to US Special Forces entering Venezuela to continue the Trump-Bolton-Pence-Pompeo-Rubio coup plans. So, the aid was not authorized to enter and the access bridges between Colombia and Venezuela were blocked.
In fact, the Maduro government accepted aid from Russia, China, India and even Cuba earlier in the week but is refusing to accept US sponsored aid that is even not rubber stamped by the UN or International Red cross as it has been “politicized” and not checked by health authorities anywhere.
Foreign Minister Arreaza at the UN has agreed to accept aid from the UN and International Red Cross which should materialize sometime in the future.
In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, then President Comandante Hugo Chávez offered to send aid to New Orleans and this was roundly rejected by the Bush government. Chávez did not try to force this aid on the US as he was never a warmonger like the Trump-Bolton-Pence-Pompeo-Rubio axis of neocolonial ambition.
“Fake News” and outright lies was the order of the day from the corporate media. From fiction such as “aid entered over the Brazilian border” to “80% of the Venezuelan National Guard are against the Maduro government”. Hmm… if that is the case, then how can this media fiction from a Chilean source explain that there were only 3 deserters from the National Guard, all nicely filmed and greeted as heroes by the Colombians?
In summary let’s ask a few questions about yesterday’s completely unnecessary confrontations played out live for corporate media's entertainment:
Did "humanitarian aid" enter Venezuela? No

Was there a military rebellion in Venezuela? No

Did any ships dock with "aid" in Venezuela? No                                                       

Did the Dutch islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao send aid? No

Did Guaidó, now a fugitive, remain in Colombia? Yes

Did the "fake news" create an international outcry? No

Did opposition leaders abandon their followers facing the National Guard? Yes 

Did the opposition fulfill any of its objectives? No

So 23 February came and went and who actually left the country?
Answer: The Colombian ambassador and his diplomatic staff as President Maduro announced at a huge rally in Caracas that he was severing all political and diplomatic ties with the US puppet regime of Iván Duque and expelling its representatives, giving them 24 hours to leave.

Readers can draw their own conclusions from this pathetic farce organized by the US, Colombia, Brazil and, to a lesser extent, the Venezuelan opposition.
And to make this humiliation event more complete, the Presidents of Chile, Colombia as well as OAS Secretary General Almagro and US Senator Marco Rubio were on the Colombian side of the border with Guaidó “supervising the invasion”. The only person missing was Richard Branson!
What´s next? More sanctions. More media lies. More pressure from abroad.
All this is obvious but what could in fact happen is that the US will set up Guaidó with a “government in exile” based in Colombia.
Besides military aggression, what else can they do?